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Distributed for Zubaan Books

Motherhood and Choice

Uncommon Mothers, Childfree Women

As both the bedrock of human survival and an unchallenged part of the “normal” female life, motherhood expects and even compels women to be mothers—both symbolic and corporeal. Motherhood—and non-motherhood—is not just physiological. As the pivot to a web of institutions like marriage and family, motherhood bears an overwhelming and decisive influence on women’s lives. In the face of tradition and sociopolitical discourse and policies, Motherhood and Choice explores how women as embodiments of multiple identities can live stigma-free, authentic lives without having to abandon reproductive self-determination.
            Amrita Nandy asks the difficult questions here: How can women live fully? If autonomy is a basic human right, why do many women have little or no choice when it comes to motherhood? Do women know they have a choice? Through remarkable research and searing analysis, Nandy brings an important addition to feminist debates on the conflation of woman and mother, political and personal.
 

320 pages | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 | © 2017

Women's Studies


View all books from Seagull Books

Table of Contents

List of figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Motherhood Rebooted
2. Trajectories and Fault Lines of “Mater-Normativity”
3. Outliers of Motherhood: The Childfree, Fence-Sitters and Other Voluntary Non-Mothers
4. Mirror Images: Biological Non-Mothers and Non-Biological Mothers
5. The “Working Mother”: Employment, Guilt and Atonement
6. Against the Common Sense of “The Family”
7. Theorising from the Field
Questioning the Answers
Bibliography
 

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