Mothers and Daughters: Connection, Empowerment, and Transformation

In 1976, Adrienne Rich wrote in Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution that the cathexis between mother and daughter-essential, distorted, misused-is the great unwritten story. In the quarter century since Rich wrote those words, the topic of mothers and daughters has emerged as a salient issue in feminist scholarship. Using women’s writing, film, feminist theory, and personal experience, contributors to Mothers and Daughters explore how the mother/daughter relationship is represented and experienced as a site of empowerment. This volume will offer readers an important and welcome chapter in the story of the complex relationship that is a part of nearly every woman’s life.