Feminism and Motherhood: O'Brien vs Beauvoir
- 1 January 1986
- journal article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Hypatia
- Vol. 1 (2) , 87-102
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1986.tb00839.x
Abstract
I argue that both Mary O'Brien's celebratory analysis of motherhood and Simone de Beauvoir's critical one fail, due to biologism and a lack of historical sense. Both approaches, I claim, are complementary: motherhood need be analysed both as alienating—Beauvoir—and as a potential ground for feminism—O'Brien. I conclude by suggesting that feminism can only reappropriate the female reproductive experience in a critical way.Keywords
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