Books : Of Woman Born: Motherhood As Experience and Institution
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by: Adrienne Cecile Rich
List Price: $16.95Amazon.com's Price: $11.53 You Save: $5.42 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.8743
EAN: 9780393312843
ISBN: 0393312844
Label: W. W. Norton & Company
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 322
Publication Date: 1995-04
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Sales Rank: 99158
Studio: W. W. Norton & Company
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Time for a Shift from Victim to Victor Consciousness
I am troubled by the deep levels of victim consciousness in this book. How sad that Adrienne Rich, given the gift of three children, could remember little of the experience "except anxiety, physical weariness, anger, self blame, boredom and divisions within myself." I feel pity not only for Rich but for the millions of women who suffer similar experiences and see no options other than checking out with depression or acting out through rage, both of which are counterproductive and generally treated ... Read More
Rating:  - Life Changing Book
When I first read OF WOMAN BORN, in the mid-seventies, it was a Godsend. Rich's feminist critique of the institution of motherhood elucidates the source of so many of the world's problems. When women, the source of life, the life givers, the ones who bear each one of us into the world, whether man or woman, are denigrated, oppressed, abused, imprisoned, and exploited by governments, religions, and cultures - everything is off-kilter. Rich accurately describes the state of motherhood in the mid-20th century ... Read More
Rating:  - An important book
Those who have criticized this book thus far here are women who derive their sole identity and sense of importance, sadly, from their role as mothers. I know women who thoroughly enjoy being mothers, but they are few and their circumstances are unique. And even some of them still have a clear need to have another identity and a life of the mind they aren't permitted within the "institution" of motherhood. I myself, and most other mothers I know, struggle with the impossible expectations placed upon us to ... Read More
Rating: - Right subject, wrong author
Adrienne Rich's experience as a mother is what propelled her to write this depressing look at motherhood as an institution and at the the patriarchial society that imposes its restrictions and encourages its oppression. It is her own negative experience as a mother that compells her to condemn the entire history of womanhood and its accomplishments. Did Adrienne Rich ever think that perhaps she is projecting her own experiences onto the lives of the general public? A selfish, unloving mother who felt "depressed" ... Read More
Rating:  - A Sad Book And Sad Comment on Modernity
I was forced to read this book in a class recently by the usual suspect, my feminist professor, and was very sad to see that this piece of lesbian hatred of the family was being pushed upon young women in my class at a vulnerable time of their lives. The usual atmosphere in universities now, in which young women are asked either to agree with feminist diatribes of this sort or be labelled weak and a tool of men, was so plainly at work here. I'm older than the others in my class, and a father and husband, and the book was so plainly ... Read More
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