"The Domestication of Motherhood" / 212

Adrienne Rich is a major figure in poetry as well as political activism and feminism. She has written on topics ranging from motherhood and social revolution to the relationship between poetry and politics. You can read an online biography (http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rich/rich.htm) to learn more about her influence. Rich's definition of a revolutionary poet, a "relayer of possibility," perhaps best characterizes her own work: This kind of poet "loves people, rivers, other creatures, stones, trees inseparably from art, is not ashamed of any of these loves, and for them conjures a language that is public, intimate, inviting, terrifying, and beloved." This definition comes from What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (1993).

Using psychology and history and religion and Marxism and anthropology, she explains many of the disadvantages women experience in "The Domestication of Motherhood" (1976): "In the creation of the patriarchal family, violence is done to [the mother-child] fundamental human unit. It is not simply that woman in her full meaning and capacity is domesticated and confined within strictly defined limits" (225). She makes connections between men's and women's roles in society. In particular, in her work, Rich suggests that a "Feminist Renaissance" is underway, questioning both the past and the present, demanding aid to the underprivileged.

In an interview with Ruth Prince of the Radcliffe Quarterly in 1998, called "The possibilities of an Engaged Art," Rich spoke about the politics and poetry and the role of the arts in social change. She pointed out that "in a time of frontal assaults both on language and on human solidarity poetry can remind us of all we are in danger of losing--disturb us, embolden us out of resignation" (http://www.radcliffe.edu/quarterly/199803/page36.html).
Keep this in mind as you read "The Domestication of Motherhood" as well as the companion critical readings.