Mothers and Daughters Connection, Empowerment, and Transformation

by O'Reilly, Andrea; Abbey, Sharon; Baker, Christina; Burstein, Janet; Caplan, Paula; Doucet, Andrea; Dunne, Gillian; Gamez-Fuentes, Maria Jose; Harris, Charlotte; Henry, Astrid; Huh, Joonuk; Johnson, Elizabeth Bourkue; Liss, Andrea; Lowinsky, Naomi; MacCall

• ISBN13: 9780847694877
• ISBN10: 0847694879
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-29
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

Using women's writing, film, feminist theory, and personal experience, contributors to Mothers and Daughters explore how the mother/daughter relationship is represented and experienced as a site of empowerment. This volume will offer readers an important and welcome chapter in the story of the complex relationship that is a part of nearly every woman's life.

Author Biography

Andrea O'Reilly is assistant professor in the School of Women's Studies at York University. Sharon Abbey is assistant professor of education at Brock University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	1	(20)
Andrea O'Reilly
Sharon Abbey
Part I: Mothers Telling Their Stories
Mothers at Work: Representations of Maternal Practice in Literature	21	(16)
Elizabeth Bourque Johnson
Restorying Jewish Mothers	37	(10)
Janet Burstein
Never One without the Other: Empowering Readings of the Mother-Daughter Relationship in Contemporary Spain	47	(14)
Maria-Jose Gamez-Fuentes
Journeying Back to Mother: Pilgrimages of Maternal Redemption in the Fiction of Michele Roberts	61	(16)
Cath Stowers
Part II: Dismantling Patriarchal Motherhood
Bitches with Broomsticks: The Bad Mother in American Maternity Poetry	77	(14)
Susan MacCallum-Whitcomb
Rewriting ``Cinderella'': Envisioning the Empowering Mother-Daughter Romance	91	(12)
Jeanne Wiley
Heterosexual and Lesbian Mothers Challenging ``Feminine'' and ``Masculine'' Concepts of Mothering	103	(18)
Andrea Doucet
Gillian Dunne
The Mammy and the Mummy: Cultural Imaginary and Interracial Coalition	121	(22)
Ivy Schweitzer
Part III: Empowering Daughters
``I come from a long line of Uppity Irate Black Women'': African-American Feminist Thought on Motherhood, the Motherline, and the Mother-Daughter Relationship	143	(18)
Andrea O'Reilly
Mothers as Moral Educators: Teaching Language and Nurturing Souls	161	(14)
Deborah Orr
The Global Self-Esteem of an African-American Adolescent Female and Her Relationship with Her Mother	175	(14)
Barbara Turnage
Educated Mothers as a Tool for Change: Possibilities and Constraints	189	(14)
Sue Marie Wright
Telling Our Stories: Feminist Mothers and Daughters	203	(10)
Christina Baker
Biting the Hand That Feeds You: Feminism as the ``Bad Mother''	213	(14)
Astrid Henry
Part IV: Connecting/Disrupting the Motherline
Mother of Mothers, Daughter of Daughters: Reflections on the Motherline	227	(10)
Naomi Lowinsky
Don't Blame Mother: Then and Now	237	(10)
Paula Caplan
Motherline Connections across Cultures and Generations	247	(20)
Sharon Abbey
Charlotte Harris
Constantly Negotiating: Between My Mother and My Daughter	267	(10)
Joonok Huh
Revisioning the Maternal Body: Loving in Difference in Ngozi Onwurah's Film The Body Beautiful	277	(12)
Andrea Liss
Index	289	(8)
About the Contributors	297