Every year, millions of women have their lives turned inside out by the experience of pregnancy. A contemporary woman finds herself caught in an absurd paradox: while in the grip of one of the most primal, lonely, sensual and, in some ways, psychologically debilitating and physically dangerous experience, she is overwhelmed by invasive, trivialising and infantilising cultural messages about what is happening to her - and who really owns the experience. Wolf takes a critical look at the powerful vested interests in the pregnancy business and at the social message coming at women: an amalgam of sentimentality, psychologically dangerous half-truths and conflicting ideologies. She discusses with devastating honesty her own two pregnancies and those of other women, from the physical and emotional effects of having your body taken over, through the elation and the fear, to the choice of delivery method (where mother-friendly childbirth is often in conflict with hospital-friendly practice) and the effects of post-partum depression. "Despite thirty years of fierce feminist writing about the myths of motherhood, "Misconceptions" reminds us that pregnancy and birth are still swaddled in layers of illusion, that our society remains criminally hypocritical toward mothers and babies and that the transformation from woman to mother remains one of the most complex odysseys we ever take. Naomi Wolf goes much deeper here than she ever has before. She strips bare the mind of the pregnant woman and new mother with dazzling courage. She dares to explore the paradox of being a good mother while remaining an independent human being." - Erica Jong.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not the most positive spin...,
By Megami (Darwin, Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Misconceptions (Paperback)
I read this book when about five months pregnant. Admittedly, with Naomi Wolf you know that you are not going to get the most positive spin on the situation at hand, but I found this to be a really odd book. What I was looking forward to was a well written account of both the positives and negatives of the motherhood experience. What I got was a very negative take on a situation familiar to many women. It is almost that Wolf went looking for every negative aspect of pregnancy and found it. Admittedly, having nine months of morning sickness is not great. But I feel that she over exaggerates in so many areas. For example, she goes on about how pregnancy and birth is always presented as a positive experience, with no warning of the not-so-great bits. I am not sure what she has been reading or who she has been speaking to - there is a lot of information out there about the not-so-great things that happen to your body, and your mental state. She acts as though she is a passive, put upon participant in her pregnancy, which just doesn't ring true - as a highly educated woman who has spent her professional life as an advocate, why can't she take control of her situation like so many other women seem to manage? The final loss of credibility is the complaining about her impersonal obstetrics experiences, compared to the more `natural' way of doing things. Two points - she is wealthy enough to have made a choice here, why didn't she? And secondly, it is the modern, impersonal medical care which potentially saved her and her baby's life. Being a mother can be hard. But we all have choices. Admittedly, I am not going through the American system, so perhaps things are a little different. But I did not find this book helpful at all - it seemed the author had already made her mind up what the results would be and skewed everything to fit a certain viewpoint that I could not relate to. Of interest to women's studies scholars perhaps, but for the expectant mother, this book doesn't really have much to add.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
OPEN YOUR EYES,
This review is from: Misconceptions (Paperback)
If you're pregnant and don't care if your ob/gyn pumps you full of meds and performs an episiotomy on you and/or a c-section in order to better fit your baby's birth into his busy schedule, then don't read this book. My wife is probably as far from being a rabid feminist as a person can be. But she does happen to have this wacky idea that giving birth ought to be something a woman can do without a whole lot of unnecessary medical interventions, if she wants to. My wife has given birth naturally to all 3 of our kids -- no problems whatsoever for either mom or babies. And every time she's had to fight off the ob/gyn's suggested interventions. Interventions she might not have been able to argue against had she not read Naomi's book and other resources and educated herself about the American medical establishment's typical ob/gyn practices. To blow off this book as a lot of feminist hooey is akin to plugging your ears, covering your eyes and ranting NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA...I CAN'T HEAR YOU! Read this book, get informed and then make up your own mind as to how you want to approach your own berthing experience.
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