A Woman's Work

Mothers make history. Yet for centuries, patriarchal control of motherhood has relegated acts of growing, birthing, nurturing and loving children to the sidelines, deeming the work of mothering to be unworthy of historical enquiry.

In A Woman’s Work, Elinor Cleghorn retells the story of motherhood, showcasing the mothers, othermothers, midwives, activists, and community leaders who have shaped the course of history. These inspiring figures include Hildegard of Bingen, the medieval nun and mystic with pioneering views about the maternal body; Mary Wollstonecraft, who laid the intellectual groundwork to release motherhood from male control; and Sojourner Truth, who drew attention to the abhorrent treatment of mothers under chattel slavery.

Beginning in the ancient world, we learn how each era constructed its own idealised notion of motherhood – from the misogynistic dogma of the early church and the stigmatisation of single mothers in 17th century England, all the way through to the post-war myth of the perfectly contented housewife. But we also learn how mothers of all classes and circumstances fought back, and lobbied to be valued, respected and supported – not as reproductive vessels, but as people.

From the author of Unwell Women, A Woman’s Work is a bold and radical new history of mothering, and a timely reminder that the fight for reproductive justice is far from over.

Author Biography

Elinor Cleghorn is a feminist cultural historian, writer and researcher living in Sussex, UK. After receiving her PhD in humanities and cultural studies in 2012, she worked for three years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford on an interdisciplinary arts and medical humanities project. Her writing on women’s health and its histories has been published in Wall Street Journal, BBC History Magazine, BBC Science Focus, New Scientist, and Vogue, and she has discussed her research on BBC Woman’s Hour, NPR, and numerous podcasts. Elinor is the author of Unwell Women, which was published in 2021 in the UK and US, and has been translated across the world.