The Conflict How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women

by Badinter, Elisabeth

• ISBN13: 9780805094145
• ISBN10: 0805094148
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-04-24
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Summary

In the pathbreaking tradition of Backlashand The Time Bind, The Conflict, a #1 European bestseller, identifies a surprising setback to women's freedom: progressive modern motherhood Elisabeth Badinter has for decades been in the vanguard of the European fight for women's equality. Now, in an explosive new book, she points her finger at a most unlikely force undermining the status of women: liberal motherhood, in thrall to all that is "natural." Attachment parenting, co-sleeping, baby-wearing, and especially breast-feedingthese hallmarks of contemporary motherhood have succeeded in tethering women to the home and family to an extent not seen since the 1950s. Badinter argues that the taboos now surrounding epidurals, formula, disposable diapers, cribsand anything that distracts a mother's attention from her offspringhave turned childrearing into a singularly regressive force. In sharp, engaging prose, Badinter names a reactionary shift that is intensely felt but has not been clearly articulated until now, a shift that America has pioneered. She reserves special ire for the orthodoxy of the La Leche Leaguean offshoot of conservative Evangelicalismshowing how on-demand breastfeeding, with all its limitations, curtails women's choices. Moreover, the pressure to provide children with 24/7 availability and empathy has produced a generation of overwhelmed and guilt-laden mothersone cause of the West's alarming decline in birthrate. A bestseller in Europe, The Conflictis a scathing indictment of a stealthy zealotry that cheats women of their full potential.

Author Biography

Elisabeth Badinter is the acclaimed author of three seminal works on feminism—The Myth of Motherhood, Wrong Turn, and Masculine Identity—which have been translated into fifteen languages. Badinter teaches philosophy at the école Polytechnique in Paris, where she lives.

Table of Contents

"The Conflict" was first published in France, but its message is most pressing in the Anglophone world, where a vast industry peddling organic baby foods and anxiety is sucking the joy out of motherhood. Ms. Badinter's polemic is sardonic, urgent and gripping. Sometimes it may sound as if she is advising mothers not even to consider breast-feeding, or encouraging pregnant women to smoke and drink. But she is only trying to redress the balance: This is a cry for freedom." --The Wall Street Journal

 

"Provocative and rigorous...Badinter’s impressive imperative to own one’s own life, to take rigorous and energetic responsibility, to cast off the silly or cowardly or frivolously domestic ways, seems very appealing, and refreshing and brisk." --Katie Roiphe, Slate