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A Woman's Work: Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering

by Elinor Cleghorn

  

€ 21.25 

ISBN: 9781399605434

Mothers make history. For centuries, motherhood has sparked social and political change. Yet the acts of growing, birthing and nurturing children - and the power they hold - have been pushed to the margins, overlooked in our narratives of the past.

In A Woman's Work, Elinor Cleghorn reveals the mothers, othermothers, midwives, activists, and community leaders who have shaped this extraordinary history. They include Hildegard of Bingen, the medieval nun and mystic with pioneering views about the maternal body; Mary Wollstonecraft, who laid the intellectual groundwork to release motherhood from male control; and Sojourner Truth, who drew attention to the abhorrent treatment of mothers under chattel slavery.

Beginning in the ancient world, we learn how in each era, the patriarchy constructed its own idealised notion of motherhood - from the misogynistic dogma of the early church and the stigmatisation of single mothers in 17th century England all the way through to the post-war myth of the perfectly contented housewife. But we also learn how mothers of all classes and circumstances fought back, and lobbied to be valued, respected and supported - not as reproductive vessels, but as people.

A Woman's Work is a radical and inspiring new history of mothering, and a timely reminder that the fight for reproductive freedom is far from over.

416 pages.

Available from 12/03/26.

Usually despatched in 2-5 working days.

Date of Publication: 12/03/2026

Cover of A Woman's Work: Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering - Elinor Cleghorn - 9781399605434Trade Paperback

A Woman's Work: Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering also appears in these Categories:

History & Politics

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