Now in paperback, the provocative book that has ignited fiery debate and created a dialogue among women about the state of motherhood today. In THE MOMMY MYTH, Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels turn their 'sharp, funny, and fed-up prose' (San Diego Union Tribune) toward the cult of the new momism, a trend in Western culture that suggests that women can only achieve contentment through the perfection of mothering. Even so, the standards of this ideal remain out of reach, no matter how hard women try to 'have it all'. THE MOMMY MYTH skilfully maps the distance travelled from the days when THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE demanded more for women than keeping house and raising children, to today's not-so-subtle pressure to reverse this trend. A must-read for every woman.
Author Biography
Susan J. Douglas is the Catherine Neafie Kellogg Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media, and Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899-1922. Her journalistic articles have appeared in The Nation, Ms., In These Times, TV Guide, and The Progressive.
Meredith W. Michaels is a writer who doubles as a philosophy professor at Smith College. Her research and writing focus on the way that cultural changes affect our understanding of reproduction, parenthood, and childhood.
