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Reading List May 10, 2020

Trans Mothers. Marxist Mothers. Robot Mothers.

—and those who wish they could be mothers. A reading list for Mother’s Day.

From mail-order robot moms, to trans moms, to poet moms, the archival picks below put the varied lives of mothers front and center, asking whether chestfeeding is “exhausting servitude” (as Simone de Beauvoir put it) and if stay-at-home moms should be given wages.

Today’s reading list also recognizes those women who wish they could be mothers but who have reproductive health issues that prevent them from conceiving. In the lead essay from our summer 2018 forum Once and Future Feminist, Merve Emre traces the history of assisted reproduction from the first artificial womb to contemporary IVF treatments, asking whether everyone with a uterus could be emancipated by such technologies and critiquing our obsession with the “natural.”

Gina Schouten

Balancing work-life pressures is often considered the holy grail, but men can still opt out of these policies. To move the needle on gender inequality, the state needs to take more coercive action. 

Fiction
JR Fenn
When bees around the world exhibit a frightening new behavior, a researcher takes comfort in a familiar hive. Short Story
JR Fenn
Once I learned of the existence of mothers, I decided to order one for myself.
Silvia Federici, Jill Richards

Silvia Federici interviewed by Jill Richards.

Sarah Bruni
A mother is a mother, regardless of the latest information regarding her children.
Fiction
Sabrina Helen Li
Winner of the Fall 2019 Aura Estrada Short Story Contest.
Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow

Elisabether Badinter blames "naturalism" for all-consuming motherhood, but she leaves the real culprits off the hook.

Fiction
Domenica Ruta
Motherhood can be a crushing disappointment.
Judith Levine

When your father is trans, memoir is both personal and political.

Merve Emre
Feminism needs better reproductive strategies.
Nancy J. Hirschmann

Stay-at-home mothering is bad for mothers, their kids, and women’s equality.

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