Rich, Adrienne

Institution versus Experience

Of Woman Born was published at a time when many feminists viewed motherhood as a threat to women's liberation. Leading feminist Simone de Beauvoir had rejected motherhood, and Shulamith Firestone proposed that biological childbirth be replaced by reproductive technology. In contrast, Of Woman Born argues that the “motherhood” feared by early 1970s feminists is a construction of patriarchy designed to serve male interests, not an inevitable product of maternal and family life. Rich's distinction between “motherhood as institution” and “motherhood as experience” was intended to illuminate a repressive patriarchal institution while allowing space for readers to imagine a potentially empowering maternal experience. Of Woman Born helped make possible a feminist recuperation of maternity.

Rich analyzes “motherhood as institution” as shaped through patriarchy's multiple sites: monotheistic religion, modern gynecological and obstetrical practices, relationships between mothers and children, and responses to maternal violence. Of Woman Born critically engages works by Robert Briffault and Elizabeth Gould Davis to consider the idea of ancient human cultures that worshipped a Great Mother and revered women's ability to give birth. Later chapters draw parallels between the destructive forces of misogyny in Judeo-Christian tradition and in 20th-century obstetrics and gynecology. Drawing from historical and medical literature and in concert with the women's health movement, Rich discusses how childbirth in the 20th century changed from a woman-centered event led by midwives to an isolating one directed by male doctors. Next, she examines how mother-child relationships under patriarchy encourage children to feel ambivalent about mothers. Rich explicates negative stereotypes of mothers in the 20th-century literary canon and investigates women's literature that better reflects the complexity of maternal experience. The chapter “Motherhood and Daughter-hood” draws attention to an absence of literature about mother-daughter relationships. A controversial concluding chapter on maternal violence challenges what Rich considers a myth: that mothers are essentially peaceful and loving. Here, Rich speculates on the sources of infanticide in motherhood without choice or relief. Yet despite its gravity, Of Woman Born ends with a vision of a liberated maternal experience in which women in control of their reproductive capacities bear and raise children without losing their own identities.

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