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Misconceptions: truth, lies, and the unexpected on the journey to motherhood

Abstract:

Rhonda Shaw comments on Naomi Wolf's book 'Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood' (2001): I recently returned home to New Zealand to live. As I was about to depart from Melbourne, Pru Goward, who was the Australian Federal sex discrimination commissioner at the time, came out with the following advice to aspiring young women in the paid work force. In Goward’s opinion women should do the following: “Freeze your eggs in your 20s, when they are the best they will ever be, and then accept you won’t have children until you’re in your late 30s or early 40s …” (Jerums, 2001, p. 16). Despite Luce Irigaray’s (1993, p. 133) recent observation that; “motherhood is back in fashion … especially because of artificial methods of fertilization”, Goward suggests otherwise. In her view, women are ‘voting with their wombs’ not to have children.

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idealogies of pregnant embodiment, motherhood, reproductive politics