I Am Beautiful: A Celebration of Women in Their Own Words

ooks& filmsThe battle between feminism andmotherhood: Is it fruitful to multiply, ordo the intense needs of children limitthe growth of the women who love them?FRUITFUL: A Real Mother inthe Modern Worldby Anne Roiphe(Boston: Houghton Mifflin,$22.95)REPRODUCING PERSONS:Issues in Feminist Bioethicsby Laura M. Purdy(New York: Cornell UniversityPress, $42.50; $16.95, paper)THE GOOD(AND NOT SO GOOD)MOTHERREVIEWED BY ROBIN BROMLEYnism, which to her "was always to givewomen fuller, better lives, a chance for equalitywith men, and an opportunity to use all ofThe notion of motherhood, never simple orparticularly stable, is again under pressure— their human potential" and the needs of children,which in our culture has limited suchthis time on several fronts. While advances inreproductive technology and changes in familystructures stir debate about where, when agony of wrenching herself away from a cry-personal growth. For Roiphe, this includes theand why women want children, the sharp increasein working mothers heightens the ten-as ambivalence about the movement itself. Imingchild to pursue her own ambitions, as wellsion between self-fulfillment and the demands ages of Roiphe herself going into labor aloneof family, and provokes anxiety about who in a snow bank; of her mother sipping Scotchtakes care of the children.in a bathtub, longing for divorce; and of beingTwo recent books: Fruitful: A Real Mother inencouraged to leave her playwright husbandthe Modern World, by the novelist and columnistAnne Roiphe, and Reproducing Persons: Is-grateful the author is for the fuller, better lifeand find her own voice, make it clear howsues in Feminist Bioethics, by philosophy pro-feminisfessor Laura M. Purdy, reveal just how urgent way feminists have belittled motherhood,gave her. But she is also angry at thethese questions have become. In widely differentcontexts and from different points of view, more recently, attacked women's motives forabandoned the demand for child care and,these two books define the major issues in the having children in the first place. In fact, thecurrent debate about reproductive choices and book's title was inspired by one of the movement'searly swipes at mothers: Betty Rollin'stheir political ramifications. They also revealhow divisive the debate can be.1970 command in an issue of Life magazine,Fruitful, Anne Roiphe's 11th book, is a personalreflection on her experience as a mother, we could understand," she said, "even he"If God were speaking to us today in a voiceas well as feminism's impact on her and the would say 'Be fruitful! Don't multiply.' "culture—at least the middle-class part of it. Itwas prompted by The Morning After, her ROIPHE IS OUT TO PROVE HOW WRONGdaughter Kate Roiphe's critique of feminism's Rollin was; real mothers can do both, shefocus on date rape and sexual harassment. argues.The book is also a plea for a more realisticassessment of what mothering is: "It's allProud of her daughter's work and also awareof the irony of having "a critic of the revolution very well in the abstract to speak of thein which I was a foot soldier and she a beneficiary,"Roiphe says, "I am a mother feminist. I thick of it, we have to consider, is it worth it,virtues of motherhood. . . but up close, in theask myself is that a contradiction, and this what does it do to us, how exactly does itbook begins." It's Roiphe's chance to address make us feel. Because the emotions, good andher own doubts about the women's movement,as well as its goals and achievements. blocks of our next political direction." Roiphebad, of the common mother are the buildingThe chief contradiction Roiphe addresses is takes a significant step toward redefiningthe personal conflict between the goal of femi-motherhood in the second section of her book,ROBINBROMLEY is a writer, editor and mother living in New York City,S p r i n g 1 9 9 7 • O N T H E I S S U E S 47