Mother: WSQ: Fall/Winter 2009 (Women's Studies Quarterly, 37 3-4) - Softcover

The media flurry over the recent birth of octuplets, the obsession with celebrity moms and baby bump sightings, LGBT moms and men as moms—fascination with motherhood is at an all-time high. But what does it mean to be a mother in this moment? Televised debates pit stay-at-home moms against working moms, but the majority of mothers pursue both family and paid employment. Why is so much of the discussion around mothering about choice and agency, when women's reproductive rights are vulnerable and the pro-choice movement is on the defensive? Mother addresses these cultural contradictions in personal essays, analysis, fiction, and artwork.

Nicole Cooley, an award-winning poet and author of The Afflicted Girls,Resurrection, and Judy Garland, Ginger Love, is a professor at Queens College, CUNY.

Pamela Stone, author of Opting Out?: Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home, is a sociology professor at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center.