Of Women Born by Adrienne Rich

Student’s Name
Course
Institution
Date
Adrienne Rich Of Woman Born
Adrienne Rich Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution concentrates on feminist issues especially the real-life situations that women face as mothers. She talks on the oppressive nature of the institutionalized rules of motherhood and the nuclear family structure. Adrienne’s book clearly talks of motherhood as an institution in the society.
Adrienne argues that motherhood is quite difficult to touch and see since it is not made of a concrete structure; bricks, buildings or dome (Rich). It has been portrayed as something silent such that many people don’t view it as an institution but as a prison. As a patriarchal mechanism designed for restricting people’s cultural and moral standards, motherhood is viewed as an imprisonment. However, it is still a women institution, since women who aren’t mothers don’t see themselves as valuable in society. Without children, they are not considered to be real women since they go against their feminist gender roles.
Under this institution, the role of a mother has become weakened. Of Women Born shows how women suffer in silence under the oppressive motherhood laws. Mothers are people whose cultural and moral standards that cannot be acquired without the well-being of children and the personal wellbeing. Regardless of their veneration and responsibility as mothers, their role is still devalued and exploited by men and at the same time praising the role that men play as parents.

Marriage and motherhood in the institutions were designed to alleviate men’s fears and to secure their desires. Women were given the most important roles of taking care of their children’s emotional and moral conduct (Rich). Of Women Born says that women should enforce changes in their own homes by asserting her children, and mothering.
References
Rich, Adrienne. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. Virago, 1997.