Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI - York University)

Wheeler, Lesley

 journal of the motherhood initiative            185 
Cells All Ringing
lesley wheeler
It was not the sick shudder of a small plane, windshield
scratched, scenery blurred, or the snarl of a finger sliding
beneath an envelope flap. It was more like waking up
after a doze on a plastic raft, noticing the shore is far off
and the sky deep plum—not  terrifying yet, just enough time 
to paddle in, pack up blankets and slowly rusting chairs,
children who are no longer small. Or it was like not
hearing a toddler babble about toy sharks beyond
a half-closed door, realizing you’ve been not hearing her
for a few minutes now. She suddenly became fourteen
and it’s dinner and she’s describing the pregnant girl in Earth 
Science as she doesn’t eat her page of cod, scribbled with herbs 
and strips of wine-poached pepper. I sort of admire
her, she says. She’s getting really fat now. You correct her, 
unwarily: Not fat. A seven-month-belly is hard and full 
of baby. And then rising tones behind her fully-closed
door. Daughter and friend emerge to ask, How far along
until you start to show? It turns out to be another 
teenager, not your sensible girl whose slender left hip buzzes
with texts until stars vibrate in a perfectly dark,
dry night sky like messages, like fish in deep
water or the unnecessarily frightened passengers 
lesley wheeler
186            volume 5, number 2
on a small plane about to land. A shell’s secretive 
murmur reminds you of the sea but is really your own
blood echoing through nearby coils. Sound reflected,
not by a mirror. By the whorls of your daughter,
loaded with mysterious cargo and about to launch.


English

Cells All Ringing

Kapur, Kirun

 journal of the motherhood initiative            185 
Meat and Marry
kirun kapur
A nun and a swami walk into a bar. o.k., not a bar, exactly—unless you
count the salad bar—but, she is a nun and in the cafeteria of International
House she walks in on her life, part joy, part joke. The room bustles—
Asians, Africans, Scandinavians—a un with plastic knives. It’s 1965. She’s 
spent several years in a convent, so even white Americans look stunningly 
foreign. A guide is talking, rearranging the pleats of a peacock silk sari. 
My mother tries to focus on her voice—high, tipping suddenly, like a flute 
played on a roller coaster: no pork at this table, here no beef, Kosher, chopsticks, 
here no meat. She can’t identify the food. Nine kinds of turban are within 
reach. People course by—black, blonde, red, yellow—they carry flimsy trays, 
but speak so earnestly. Out of this Technicolor glory, the world’s every 
possible character—my father. Out of the whole universe of words, he’ll 
speak just one, in English. He is the same hue as her first, brown leather 
Bible; his eyes flash like the buckles on a young nun’s shoe. She’ll learn he 
isn’t a swami, he speaks five languages, quotes Frost as easily as Ghalib. She 
turns in a confused circle. He doesn’t touch her, just inclines his head polite-
ly toward his own plate. His voice is low, like a rocking boat, Eat.


Meat and Marry

184            volume 5, numbe 2
Adolescence Is a Disorder of the Mouth
lesley wheeler
Your necklines are too low, she says, and scowls
at the cloud-tops of my cleavage, as she does now
all through every dinner. Her dad inhales
the minestrone through his nose; I blush
in its steam. Like a tourist straining through veils
of haze, I gawk as her breasts erupt beneath
a succession of clingy tees—today in B cups
but bursting through the alphabet. It’s sweet,
maybe, how we stare, but the air becomes hypoxic
when she pronounces on my lipstick, the key
of my lullabies, the trash I watch. I agree.
I am low-brow. My pitch is catastrophic.
But it’s better when I say so. She is too
perfect. A voice from a peak. No fear. No rue.


Adolescence Is a Disorder of the Mouth

 ,  

Contributor Notes

 journal of the motherhood initiative            179 
Heathen
lesley wheeler
My son fits his ear to my ear 
so the god in your head can talk 
to the god in mine. I hear a forest
creak like the binding of a book.
It is full of red wings, bogs,
and ravenous beasts, yet he treads
safely in his own wildness.
Me, I’m afraid. The god in my head 
is a bear and not the talking kind.  
He rears up, slavering, unsheathes
his nails, famished for sacrifice.
His prison is a vast cold heath.
I hope the bear is asleep. At the edge
of his cave, flowers breathe. Scent blows
from me and the she-wolf in my son
catches it, pushes her snout to the rose
canal and snuffles. He likes to leash 
her in vines. She likes to snap them. Gods 
abhor quiet, the skull-bone closing.
Walls that mount clod by clod. 


Heathen

Muñoz, Elizabeth Cummins

book reviews
 journal of the motherhood initiative             209 
In Modern Motherhood: An American History, historian Jodi Vandenberg-Daves 
lays out a broad story of motherhood in America from pre-revolutionary 
Puritan mingling of reproductive and productive labor, to early twenty-first 
century work-life balance and attachment parenting. The volume draws on 
myriad historical studies and surveys related to motherhood, women, the 
family, and children in American history in order to present a chronological 
narrative that situates motherhood as an institution and a practice within 
the larger ideological forces of citizenship, gender, race, class, science, and 
progress. Though its ambitious scope leads to some inevitable imbalances, the 
volume’s greatest strength lies in its successful contextualization of the idea 
and practice of motherhood within the complicated discursive intersects of 
American history.
The book is presented in three chronological sections, each of which is or-
ganized thematically by chapters. Part i covers the “roots” of modern mother-
hood in America from the pre-modern world of the English colonies through 
most of the nineteenth century. In this section, Vandenberg-Daves clearly lays 
out the origins and development of the ideology of moral motherhood and its 
conflicting coexistence with the experience of mothers in slavery and insti-
tutionalized racism, while also addressing the emerging medical profession’s 
engagement with the maternal body. Part ii examines the rise of “modern” 
motherhood from 1890 to 1940, during which the ideal of scientific moth-
erhood took center stage before the modern altar of science and progress. 
This section examines the paternalism of expert mothering advice and public 
policy that distinguished between the “fit” and “unfit” mother, and the various 
strategies for adaptation and survival generated within the lived experience of 
these mothers. In Part iii, which examines these ideas from World War ii to 
the present, Vandenberg-Daves traces mainstream narratives of motherhood 
from the submissive and psychologically problematic suburban housewife of 
the fifties, to the harried and guilt-ridden working mother of today. 
Within each chapter Vandenberg-Daves seeks to balance the white middle 
class motherhood ideal with a presentation of historical research into the 
lived experiences of all American women. As she examines the shaping of the 
institution of motherhood through its discursive interaction with religion, 
the state, the patriarchal family, science, race, and class, she also strives to 
Modern Motherhood: An American History
Jodi Vandenberg-Daves.
New Brunswick, nj: Rutgers University Press, 2014.
reviewed by elizabeth cummins muñoz
book reviews
210             volume 5,  number 2
represent the dialectical influence of historical women’s adaptive and often 
resistant practices of motherhood. Unfortunately, the volume is not able to 
overcome the historical dearth of archival access to the lived experiences of 
poor women and women of color, and in many cases, the treatment of the 
mainstream ideal of motherhood overshadows the silence of real women’s 
voices. In recognition of this problem, Vandenberg-Daves calls for increased 
awareness of cultural diversity and focused historiographic attention to the 
mothering practices of women of color.
Within the broad scope of this review, three principal themes emerge: the 
consistent tendency of American women and culture in general to privat-
ize the experience of motherhood and its often excruciating “choices”; the 
struggle to control women’s reproduction and assign meaning to the maternal 
body; and the rhythmic resurgence of maternalist activism in women’s at-
tempts to influence public policy. Each of these themes is shown to play out 
in different ways in the changing ideals of model motherhood, as the national 
imaginary moved from reverence for the moral mother, through deference to 
experts and the ideal of scientific mothering, to the twenty-first century pri-
vate struggle of intensive mothering. Within all of these models, mainstream 
attitudes distinguish the “good” mothers from the “bad,” and distribute public 
resources accordingly. 
In this ambitious volume’s contextualized story of these tensions and the 
nature of their interplay with other historical forces, Modern Motherhood fills 
a significant gap in motherhood studies and is an important addition to the 
bookshelves and course syllabi of historians, sociologists, and cultural critics 
alike.
Fresh Hell: Motherhood in Pieces
Carellin Brooks.
Bradford, on: Demeter Press, 2013.
reviewed by faith galliano desai
Carellin Brooks holds a doctorate from Oxford University and is a moth-
er of two children. Her book, Fresh Hell: Motherhood in Pieces, is a bluntly 
honest and darkly humorous exploration of the realities of being a mother. 
It is a compelling memoir enhanced by its conversational style, and delves 
into the complex and chaotic world of mothering. Through 52 short rumi-
nations, Brooks reflects on a variety of pertinent topics from sleepless nights 
to baby poop. The book is organized chronologically during the baby’s first 


Modern Motherhood: An American History

 journal of the motherhood initiative            181 
Inside the Bright
lesley wheeler
wall 
of the stalled
 wave, two children float, ambered insects:
 the little’s one’s knees flexed,
  eyes goggled, cheeks inflated, a
monk’s
pose, unsunk
 by meditation; the taller one
 gathering all the sun
  to herself, holding on to her
wee
bikini
 top and lungfuls of pent laughter; both
 unburnt for now, afloat
  and unchastened, before a rogue
surge
comes to turn
 them around, followed by another,
 another, another,
  till they can’t remember where air
lesley wheeler
182            volume 5, number 2
is.
Then she’ll fizz
 up the beach, refusing the ocean’s
 unending assault, since
  she has more worries than hands. That’s
her
way to surf.
 It’s over once it hurts. Not the boy.
 It’s fine, I’m fine, he’ll say,
  and dive back into the churning
grit,
resolute. 
 The future bears down but it feels good
 to concentrate seaward. 
  One beautiful threat at a time.


Inside the Bright

Palko, Abigail L.

book reviews
218             volume 5,  number 2
Denied the emotional relationship she desires from her mother, Olivia 
also faces the “emotional labor” demanded by the Smiths. In college, and 
for once living independently from the Smith household, Olivia nonetheless 
feels pressured by the Smiths to perform her gratitude for their seeming lar-
gesse. But, as Romero points out, “The limits of the Smiths’ ‘generosity’ and 
real acceptance of Olivia as ‘one of the family’ were starkly drawn when it 
came to Olivia’s needs for the same benefits as their own children—college 
tuition, down payment on a house, or other privileges granted to upper-class 
children” (159). In later chapters, we see Olivia grappling with her painful 
memories of class inequality while also acknowledging the cultural capital 
she gained growing up in an upper-class household. These seemingly contra-
dictory identities create friction between her and other Chicano/a students in 
college. However, as an adult professional working for the Mexican American 
Legal Defense and Educational Fund and later as a consultant for non-profit 
organizations and corporations, Olivia’s abilities to negotiate multiple cultur-
al and linguistic spaces enable her success.
The Maid’s Daughter makes a valuable contribution to the studies of moth-
erhood, gender, class, and immigrant experience. Romero’s compassionate 
and astute study brings a much-needed analysis of the class-based differences 
in mothering practices and ideologies of motherhood.
Borrowed Body
Valerie Mason-John.
Bradford, on: Demeter Press, 2013.
reviewed by abigail l. palko
Valerie Mason-John’s Borrowed Body immediately plunges its readers into 
Pauline’s world at the moment she spies her chance at reincarnation. An im-
patience that she only recognizes but cannot understand, however, has im-
pelled her spirit to misread the violent coupling as that of lovers, and as she 
ruefully explains, “my impatience got me into trouble, and I’ve been paying 
for it ever since.” Pauline narrates her life story from this disastrous moment 
of conception until her release two months before her seventeenth birthday 
from prison; home for her is always a precarious situation as she trades life in 
fosterage in one of Dr Barnardo’s Villages for abuse at the hands of her birth 
mother, Wunmi, and then unsuccessfully tries to reintegrate into the Village. 
book reviews
 journal of the motherhood initiative             219 
The novel begins with the immature, uneven tone and frenetic pacing ap-
propriate to a child narrator, and as Pauline ages, her voice matures as well; 
Pauline keeps no secrets from her readers, even when they might welcome 
her reticence. The reader keeps unquestioning company with the spirits who 
are Pauline’s traveling companions: Annabel, Sparky, Bobby, the cat, Snake; 
entry into Pauline’s mind quickly disarms the reader of any sense that ratio-
nal Western explanations are always possible, or even appropriate, desirable, 
or helpful. This powerful novel thus initiates the reader into the world that 
Pauline must inhabit, making her/him feel as if s/he is on Pauline’s other 
shoulder, sharing the view with the cat who so persistently tries to borrow 
her body. As Pauline struggles to endure maternal abandonment, physical 
abuse, and the impact of racism, her belief in the permanence of her spirit 
and the temporality of her body as merely borrowed for this lifetime serve as 
a bedrock of strength for her – not that she understands this, as a young girl/
teenager. A recurring dream of an African chief, however, has the potential to 
bring her close to comprehension by the end of the novel of just how her im-
patience has been getting her into trouble, the price she has been paying for 
it, and a possible way forward. Borrowed Body hurtles the reader along with 
Pauline on her journey through a childhood marked by multiple experiences 
of trauma; so intense is its power to affect its audience that the reader wants 
to dare to hope that Pauline will find peace and happiness ahead.
Mason-John draws deftly on her own experiences as a Barnardo child 
in 1970s Britain, and the resulting fictionalized memoir opens a window 
through which we can catch a glimpse of what life was like for children living 
in a Dr. Barnardo Village. On her website, Mason-John explains why she 
chose to base her first novel on her childhood: “I wanted to tell an untold 
story. What I experienced—violence in the home—isn’t unique. It’s far more 
prevalent than people will admit.” Guided by her adult training in conflict 
resolution, Mason-John skillfully integrates Pauline’s story with objective ob-
servations about the strengths and weaknesses of the people in Pauline’s life, 
as well as the socially-created barriers that impact their efforts to help her, 
thereby drawing out the universal in Pauline’s experience. 
This edition is a reissue by Demeter Press of the 2005 edition, originally 
published by Serpent’s Tail. Its haunting first person narrative offers powerful 
testimony to the realities endured by the black children like Pauline who 
grew up in 1970s Britain as foster children, their experiences complicated 
by racism and the unhoming of immigration. Borrowed Body, in the tradi-
tion of important novels like Buchi Emecheta’s Kehinde (with its examination 
of Nigerian women’s experiences of immigration) and Merle Hodge’s Crick 
Crack Monkey (with its child narrator’s exploration of growing up motherless), 
documents the harsh reality of the aftereffects of colonialism and their detri-
book reviews
220             volume 5,  number 2
mental influence on women’s ability to mother with authenticity and tenacity. 
Given the novel’s structure, Pauline’s relationship with her mother Wunmi 
exists mostly in the background, but it still provides complex and troubling 
insights into the immigrant mother’s experience, and would richly reward 
class discussions. Borrowed Body demands a prominent place on reading lists 
devoted to the child’s experience, black British fiction, and explorations of 
women’s mothering practices under the pressures of immigration, postcolo-
nialism, and racism. Pauline’s voice envelops the reader who enters her world, 
richly rewarding her/his sojourn in her borrowed body.
References
Emecheta, Buchi. Kehinde. 1994. Long Grove, il: Waveland Press, 2005. 
Print.
Hodge, Merle. Crick Crack Monkey. 1970. Long Grove, il: Waveland Press, 
2013. Print.
Mason-John, Valerie. “Profile.” Dr. Valerie Mason-John. n.p., n.d. Web. 11 
Aug. 2014.
Unearthing Venus: My Search for the Woman Within
Cate Montana.
London: Watkins Publ., 2013.
reviewed by yvonne rb-banks
Montana’s Unearthing Venus delivers an insightful rendering of what is re-
vealed along a journey that allowed her to look deeply into what shaped her 
as woman. She shares stories about barriers she faced as a female in building 
relationships. Each of the eleven chapters highlights a specific time span and 
allows readers to consider Montana’s stage of development at the time of 
certain events. This book is an excellent resource for teaching in the academy 
as it offers readers a chance to see what Montana learned about her social 
development over a span of 47 years from 1957-2010. The work provides a 
foundation for discussing how gender in some societies may impact decision 
making, power distribution, or influence. 


Borrowed Body

Hennessy, Anna

194              volume 5,  number 2
Book Reviews
Philosophical Inquiries into Pregnancy, Childbirth and 
Mothering
Sheila Lintott and Maureen Sander-Staudt, eds. 
New York: Routledge, 2012.
reviewed by anna hennessey
The past two years mark an impressive moment in the history of philosoph-
ical scholarship on childbirth, pregnancy, and mothering. The almost simul-
taneous publication of Philosophical Inquiries into Pregnancy, Childbirth, and 
Mothering, part of Routledge’s series on Contemporary Philosophy, and Ford-
ham University Press’ 2013 volume, Coming to Life: Philosophies of Pregnancy, 
Childbirth, and Mothering (edited by Sarah LaChance Adams and Caroline 
R. Lundquist) demonstrates the growing academic interest in the philosoph-
ical import of maternal subjects. The University of Oregon’s 2009 conference, 
Philosophical Inquiry into Pregnancy, Childbirth and Mothering Conference cat-
alyzed the compilation and publication of both works. These works help fill 
the longstanding intellectual void that revolves around topics of pregnancy, 
childbirth, and mothering within the field of philosophy and the humanities. 
In this review, I examine the material of Routledge’s publication alone. 
In their introduction, editors Sheila Lintott and Maureen Sander-Staudt 
join with the volume’s authors to question canonical male understandings of 
pregnancy, birth and mothering in philosophy, as found for example in works 
by Plato, who categorizes pregnancy and childbirth as mere bodily functions 
and motherhood as a sub-rational activity; Aristotle, who diminishes and ig-
nores motherhood’s import beyond its connection to biology; and Immanuel 
Kant and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who naturalize motherhood and describe 
it as a romantic or naturalistic endeavor as opposed to a philosophical one 
(3). The editors explain that although philosophers have historically focused 
book reviews
 journal of the motherhood initiative             195 
on universals in the human experience, such as death, they have given little 
attention to the biological maternal relation (2). As the chapters show, preg-
nancy, childbirth, and mothering often involve complex queries that branch 
into all areas of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, 
ethics, and political philosophy. 
Lintott, Sander-Staudt, and the contributors pay special attention to the 
subjective maternal point of view, which has traditionally been marginalized 
in philosophy. The fifteen essays collected in this volume span a wide range 
of topics such as the phenomenology of pregnant embodiment, the ethics of 
breastfeeding, and the sublime in gestation and birth, yet are still not limited 
to normative understandings of pregnancy childbirth, or mothering. 
Section One, “Maternal Norms, Practices, and Insights”, opens with Jean 
Keller’s discussion of transracial adoptive maternal practice. Referring to the 
goals constitutive of maternal practice as found in Sara Ruddick’s Maternal 
Thinking (1989), Keller maps out how these practices are inadequate in the 
case of actual adoptive maternal practice, which involves an ethical dimension 
of parenting that lies beyond that required of normative parenting. “Kinning,” 
or the work of creating family, and true integration across racial-ethnic lines, 
comprise the two goals of Keller’s model of parenting for transracially adop-
tive parents. Jennifer Benson and Allison Wolf ’s chapter on the postpartum 
period next looks at how the postpartum body is often ignored in lay litera-
ture and culture. The “fourth trimester” of a pregnancy is a critical time for 
the woman, and the lack of societal focus on the postpartum experience con-
tributes to a psychological oppression of the postpartum woman. Benson and 
Wolf call for increased societal affirmation of the postpartum woman’s exis-
tence, an affirmation that should make its presence clear through literature 
and culture. Two chapters on breastfeeding follow the work of Benson and 
Wolf, providing the reader with two opposing yet complementary arguments 
on the ethical and political dimensions of breastfeeding. First, Christine 
Overall and Tabitha Bernard argue for the moral responsibility to breastfeed. 
Lissa Skitolsky’s essay then offers a woman’s suffering in the course of breast-
feeding as a moral objection to the act. All three authors agree, however, that 
an overarching ethical and political problem exists in assessing the dilemma 
of whether to breastfeed or not: society does not acknowledge the work it 
takes for a woman to breastfeed. Bernard and Overall emphasize society’s 
responsibility in supporting breastfeeding, and Skitolsky ultimately argues 
that all children deserve breast milk, but that maternal cross-nursing and 
milk banking should be developed so as to remove the lactational suffering 
that some women experience. In the last essay in this section, Sherri Irvin 
quite effectively merges a discussion of the phenomenology of disgust with 
the ethics of raising babies and small children. 
book reviews
196             volume 5,  number 2
Section Two, “Maternal Roles and Relations,” begins with Maeve O’Don-
ovan’s thesis that the employment of feminist standpoint theory method-
ology when researching mothering with disabilities will lead to an increase 
in research conducted by mothers with disabilities. Such research may ac-
tually produce results that indicate advantages of mothering with disabil-
ity, including the normalization of disability for children who may or may 
not be disabled themselves. Christine A. James then takes a close look at 
how Catholic mothers of children with disabilities provide potent narratives 
that act doubly: they reframe traditionally passive virtues of motherhood by 
demonstrating the sacred and the profane as equally constitutive components 
in the formation of successful parenting, and they offer a female empowered 
postmodern model for contemporary church leadership. Alison Stone’s essay 
studies the psychoanalytic connection between mothers and daughters, while 
focusing on mothers’ lived experiences of their relations with their daugh-
ters. Looking at Freudian approaches to mother-daughter relations, as well as 
those of numerous feminist thinkers, Stone addresses the topic of psychical 
mergence. Influenced by the work of Daniel Stern (1985), she finds that an 
infant’s world is better described as one of relationality than of mergence, and 
that infants live with their mothers as real others, as opposed to as fused exis-
tential counterparts (134). Stone agrees there is a difficulty in mother-daugh-
ter relations not present in mother-son relations, but that this difficulty can 
be creative, as opposed to paralyzing. In his essay, Joshua Shaw responds to 
claims that the void in philosophical literature on childbirth, pregnancy, and 
motherhood relates to the fact that these issues do not revolve around the 
interests of men (140). Shaw thinks that a man’s interests may actually re-
late closely to these issues but that the social institutions in which topics are 
discussed are highly gendered and mostly inaccessible to men. Shaw desires 
a change in the structuring of these social institutions such that male philos-
ophers might have access not only to the stories mothers have to tell, but also 
to the contexts in which they tell them. Beckey Sukovaty rounds out Section 
Two with a discussion of developing feminist care ethics through an analysis 
of stepmothering. The stepmother, contends Sukovaty, acts both as mother 
and “other,” embracing a dual nature that allows her to penetrate the Good 
Mother-Bad Mother dichotomy and provide for a new feminist model of 
ethical caring. 
Section Three, “Maternal Phenomena, Phenomenology, and Aesthetics” 
introduces Brooke Schueneman’s theories on how a woman’s experience of 
the phenomenology of pregnancy involves significant social, psychological, 
and physical metamorphosis, and has the capacity to transform her fears of 
death. Importantly, Schueneman addresses the distinction that Sara Ruddick 
makes between “birth-giver” and mother, in which Ruddick explains how a 
book reviews
 journal of the motherhood initiative             197 
mother need be neither the birth-giver nor a woman (167). While Schuene-
man agrees with this point, she also wants to carve out space for philosophical 
discussion of what it is to experience embodiment as a birth-giver, or what 
she terms the becoming-mother. In the next essay, Julie Piering discusses the 
spatial interrelationship of the public and the private that meet at the place 
of the pregnant body. This body contains a corporeal collective, embodying 
the interests of the woman, the unborn child, and the society. Sally Fischer’s 
study on “Becoming Bovine” acts in a twofold manner. The essay’s first half 
presents a woman’s pregnant and birthing self as having an intercorporeal 
significance through which the woman realizes that her lived body is actu-
ally related to others from the inside (193). Fischer explains how the nature 
of this intercorporeal significance puts into question Cartesian ontology and 
epistemology, especially Cartesian dichotomies of subject/object, mind/body, 
human/animal, etc. (192). The second half extends this discussion to explain 
that a phenomenology of pregnant embodiment cannot be reduced to a cul-
tural or discursive construct (194); she asserts that real social, legal, and polit-
ical support of women during pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood begins 
with a recognition of sexual difference and a better understanding of the phe-
nomenology of early motherhood. In the volume’s penultimate chapter, Peg 
Brand and Paula Granger explore the aesthetics of childbirth, grappling in 
part with the question of why representations of actual childbirth are so hard 
to find in our visual culture. They provide a brief history of the taboo of birth 
in art and then examine cultural trends that are challenging this taboo. While 
some view images of birth as too gruesome or explicit, Brand and Granger 
point to how images of pain, blood, and body are acceptable in the case of 
war reporting and war movies (233). Brand and Granger find that public 
childbirth videos are breaking new ground in countering this taboo, provid-
ing women and people within the birth community with footage of birth 
and crowning. However, these images are still lacking in the visual arts more 
broadly. In the final essay of the book, Sheila Lintott lays the groundwork 
for a feminist conception of the sublime as based on gestation and the giving 
of birth. She references masculinist conceptions of the sublime, which are 
typically described in terms of mental, emotional, and psychological strength 
resulting in a merging of negative and positive emotions. These conceptions 
are found in the works of male philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and 
Edmund Burke. Lintott explains how in the case of the birthing woman, 
the feminist conception of the sublime is embodied, located in an experience 
that is visceral, and involves bodily strength and physical sensations, as well 
as psychological fears. 
Dedicated to feminist philosopher Sara Ruddick, the book highlights 
Ruddick’s analysis of motherhood as a gender-free enterprise, sensitive in its 
book reviews
198             volume 5,  number 2
Pregnancy in Practice: Expectation and Experience 
in the Contemporary U.S.
Sallie Han.
New York: Berghahn Books, 2013.
reviewed by rachel epp buller
Sallie Han examines “ordinary” pregnancy in the United States. While at 
first a bit off-putting, the terminology of “ordinary” here means medically 
unremarkable, and is opposed to the much more frequent popular and schol-
arly focus on “extraordinary” pregnancies that includes surrogacy, multiples, 
and IVF treatment. Avoiding these relative extremes of pregnancy, Han seeks 
insights into more common, if less publicized, experiences. In a voice that 
alternates between scholarly and narrative, drawing vignettes not only from 
the lives of her research subjects but from her own experiences as well, Han 
suggests that “pregnancy, like birth, ought to be recognized as both biological 
and social… [P]regnancy is a period of social gestation during which both 
babies and mothers become constructed through everyday experience” (5).
Making clear her background of cultural anthropology, Han first surveys 
existing literature surrounding expectations of pregnancy and motherhood 
in a range of related fields. She draws from the work of not only other an-
thropologists but also philosophers, medical historians, and a variety of other 
feminist scholars, including Sharon Hays’ sociological work on advice litera-
ture for expectant mothers as well research by historians Molly Ladd-Taylor 
and Lauri Umansky on the labeling of “good” and “bad” mothers. In building 
on this diversity of sources during her 15 months of ethnographic research, 
Han seeks to move past American discourses on reproduction that have be-
come increasingly contentious in recent years.
attempts at covering a wide range of maternal experiences, and not married 
to any all-encompassing or essential understanding of pregnancy, childbirth, 
and motherhood. The editors are successful in these attempts at representing 
the diversity of maternal experience, yet they also acknowledge the volume’s 
inability at representing the experiences of all women (5). Inclusive of nor-
mative and non-normative aspects of maternal subjectivity, the work of this 
important volume should not be underestimated and will open up new ave-
nues of research in philosophy, as well as in the humanities. 


Philosophical Inquiries into Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Mothering

Dymond, Justine

book reviews
216             volume 5,  number 2
nist scholarship that has sought to critique models of autonomous subjectivity 
(Mackenzie and Stoljar 11). These models have been challenged for their en-
tanglements with “a larger North American cultural ideal of competitive in-
dividualism” (Sherwin 34). That is, the rugged individual is borne out of, not 
logically prior to, cultural paradigms that cannot capture the inter-corporeal 
and inter-relational aspects to human living. Phillips is contributing to dis-
courses that seek to move feminisms forward, that seek to build nuance into 
our demands for bodily control. For, even when calling for reform, feminist 
scholars and activists may be mired in the paradigms of self-ownership that 
force us into argumentative circles when confronted with scenarios where 
women might choose to rent themselves out. This book pulls us out of these 
argumentative ruts by noting how our language has been leading us astray. 
 
References
The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective. Our Bodies, Ourselves. New 
York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. Print.
Dworkin, Ronald. “Comment on Narveson: In Defence of Equality.” Social 
Philosophy and Policy 1 (1983): 24-40. Web. 31 Jul. 2014.
Mackenzie, Catriona, and Natalie Stoljar. “Introduction: Autonomy Refig-
ured.” Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, 
and the Social Self. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 3-34. Print.
Sherwin, Susan. “A Relational Approach to Autonomy in Health Care.” The 
Politics of Women’s Health: Exploring Agency and Autonomy. Ed. Susan 
Sherwin. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998. 19-47. Print. 
The Maid’s Daughter:
Living Inside and Outside the American Dream
Mary Romero. 
New York: New York University Press, 2011. 
reviewed by justine dymond
In The Maid’s Daughter: Living Inside and Outside the American Dream, Mary 
Romero, Professor of Justice Studies at Arizona University, provides an ex-
tensive study of the life of Olivia, the Chicana daughter of a Mexican woman 
who works as a live-in domestic in an elite, gated community in Los Angeles. 
Based on two decades of interviews with Olivia, Romero’s analysis of Oliv-
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book reviews
 journal of the motherhood initiative             217 
ia’s experiences in two distinct social worlds—the working-class, immigrant 
community of maids and the wealthy country-club milieu of her mother’s 
employers—exposes the fictions of race and class superiority that perpetuate 
systems of inequality in the U.S.
The Maid’s Daughter follows Olivia from early childhood well into her 
adulthood as a public relations consultant and the mother of two children. 
Romero provides long passages of Olivia’s voice directly telling her story, fol-
lowed by Romero’s summaries and interpretive analysis. Early on, we learn 
of the confusing and contradictory position of “the maid’s daughter,” who is 
told she is “one of the family” while she also witnesses the exploitative labor 
conditions of her mother’s work in the household. In Olivia’s recounting of 
her experiences, and her ongoing reflection and interpretation of those ex-
periences, Romero reveals “the themes that frame Olivia’s search for identity 
and belonging, as well as their significance in highlighting the contradictions 
in mainstream notions of social mobility and meritocracy” (19). For exam-
ple, as a child, Olivia watched her mother, Carmen, and her employer, Mrs. 
Smith, chat and gossip while cooking a meal. When Mrs. Smith asked about 
the food they ate in Mexico and Olivia started to answer, her mother cut her 
off abruptly. As Romero explains, “Carmen actively managed the separation 
between social worlds by prohibiting Olivia from talking about their summer 
trips to Mexico and suppressing information about their ‘Mexicanness’” (61). 
As a teenager and adult, Olivia will frequently resist the message that upward 
mobility means erasing her Mexican heritage. 
Though Romero foregrounds Olivia’s experiences as a daughter, she also 
gives us a portrait of Carmen’s mothering, as a parent to Olivia and as a care-
giver and maid for the employers’ children. The different ground rules across 
Carmen’s two “mothering” roles are sometimes confusing to her daughter. 
The mothering roles are further confused by Mr. and Mrs. Smith, who lay 
claim to Olivia as one of their own children without acknowledging that their 
“favors”—funding Olivia’s private school education, for example—are in fact 
earned by Carmen who is paid a low wage without benefits. Through Olivia’s 
perspective, we also see the economic inequalities that enable the kind of 
intensive mothering assumed to be “good” mothering: 
Olivia observed the additional time and energy women employers 
had to nurture their children—time and energy gained by transfer-
ring the less appealing aspects of child care to the maids. She saw 
how maids consoled the employers’ children and provided emotional 
support. She also experienced the lack of time and energy that Car-
men had to mother, because she had to work weekends, holidays, 
and evenings. (94) 
book reviews
218             volume 5,  number 2
Denied the emotional relationship she desires from her mother, Olivia 
also faces the “emotional labor” demanded by the Smiths. In college, and 
for once living independently from the Smith household, Olivia nonetheless 
feels pressured by the Smiths to perform her gratitude for their seeming lar-
gesse. But, as Romero points out, “The limits of the Smiths’ ‘generosity’ and 
real acceptance of Olivia as ‘one of the family’ were starkly drawn when it 
came to Olivia’s needs for the same benefits as their own children—college 
tuition, down payment on a house, or other privileges granted to upper-class 
children” (159). In later chapters, we see Olivia grappling with her painful 
memories of class inequality while also acknowledging the cultural capital 
she gained growing up in an upper-class household. These seemingly contra-
dictory identities create friction between her and other Chicano/a students in 
college. However, as an adult professional working for the Mexican American 
Legal Defense and Educational Fund and later as a consultant for non-profit 
organizations and corporations, Olivia’s abilities to negotiate multiple cultur-
al and linguistic spaces enable her success.
The Maid’s Daughter makes a valuable contribution to the studies of moth-
erhood, gender, class, and immigrant experience. Romero’s compassionate 
and astute study brings a much-needed analysis of the class-based differences 
in mothering practices and ideologies of motherhood.
Borrowed Body
Valerie Mason-John.
Bradford, on: Demeter Press, 2013.
reviewed by abigail l. palko
Valerie Mason-John’s Borrowed Body immediately plunges its readers into 
Pauline’s world at the moment she spies her chance at reincarnation. An im-
patience that she only recognizes but cannot understand, however, has im-
pelled her spirit to misread the violent coupling as that of lovers, and as she 
ruefully explains, “my impatience got me into trouble, and I’ve been paying 
for it ever since.” Pauline narrates her life story from this disastrous moment 
of conception until her release two months before her seventeenth birthday 
from prison; home for her is always a precarious situation as she trades life in 
fosterage in one of Dr Barnardo’s Villages for abuse at the hands of her birth 
mother, Wunmi, and then unsuccessfully tries to reintegrate into the Village. 
