The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines The Status Of Wome, The - Hardcover

Badinter, Elisabeth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1443407208 ISBN 13: 9781443407205

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 2012

Synopsis

For decades Elisabeth Badinter has been at the forefront of the fight for women’s equality. Now, in an explosive new book, she points her finger at an unlikely and unexpected danger that’s undermining the status of women: liberal motherhood in conflict with all that is “natural.” Attachment parenting, co-sleeping, natural childbirth, homemade baby food, baby-wearing, stay-at-home mothers and especially breastfeeding—these 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 and anything that distracts a mother’s attention from her offspring have turned child-rearing 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 North America has pioneered. She reserves special ire for the fanaticism of the La Leche League—an offshoot of conservative evangelicalism—showing how on-demand breastfeeding, with all its limitations, curtails women’s choices. Moreover, the pressure to provide children with 24/7 availability, empathy and wisdom has produced a generation of overwhelmed and guilt-laden mothers—one cause of the West’s alarming declining birth rate.

A bestseller in Europe, The Conflict is a scathing indictment of a stealthy zealotry that cheats women of their full potential.

About this title

About the Author

ELISABETH BADINTER is the acclaimed author of three seminal works on feminism (The Myth of Motherhood, Dead End Feminism and XY: On Masculine Identity), which have been translated into fifteen languages. She lives in Paris, where she teaches philosophy at the prestigious École Polytechnique.

Review

“Impressively researched, elegantly argued and forcefully written... Badinter’s warnings about the dangers of excessive child­centeredness are in many ways well founded.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“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.... This is a cry for freedom.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Badinter’s arguments are 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.”
—Slate

“Badinter highlights some alarming trends that are rarely questioned, thanks to current attitudes about the supremacy of the maternal role... She delivers sharp insights about the regressive turn of modern attitudes about motherhood.”
—Bookforum

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1443407208
• ISBN 13: 9781443407205
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224