TY  - BOOK
AU  - Natalie Edwards
PY  - 2015
CY  - Oxford, United Kingdom
PB  - Peter Lang Verlag
SN  - 2235-4123
SN  - 9783035307955
TI  - Voicing Voluntary Childlessness
T2  - Narratives of Non-Mothering in French
DO  - 10.3726/978-3-0353-0795-5
UR  - https://www.peterlang.com/document/1053362
N2  - The decision to reject motherhood is the subject of several key works of literature in French since the new millennium. This book looks at first-person accounts of voluntary childlessness by women writing in French. The book explores how women narrate their decision not to mother, the issues that they face in doing so and the narrative techniques that they employ to justify their stories. It asks how these authors challenge stereotypes of the childless woman by claiming their own identity in narrative, publicly proclaiming their right to choose and writing a femininity that is not connected to motherhood.  Using feminist, sociological and psychoanalytic theories to interrogate non-mothering, this work is the first book-length study of narratives that counter this long-standing taboo. It brings together authors who stake out a new terrain, creating a textual space in which to take ownership of their childlessness and call for new understandings of female identity beyond maternity.
KW  - life writing and autobiography, contemporary French literature, voluntary childlessness
LA  - English
ER  -