Reviewed by Sally J. Scholz
Villanova University

The Impossibility of Motherhood, by Patrice DiQuinzio, undertakes a thorough critique of theoretical accounts of motherhood or mothering in feminist theory and practice. DiQuinzio analyzes feminism’s reliance on the ideology of individualism and shows how that reliance has undermined attempts at a theoretical account of mothering.

DiQuinzio argues that "essential motherhood" contradicts the ideology of individualism that she claims is necessary for the success of feminist activism. Individualism is based on a subjectivity that is contrary to the activities of mothering, according to DiQuinzio, and thus mothers do not have claim to individualist subjectivity. "Essential motherhood is an ideological formation that specifies the essential attributes of motherhood and articulates femininity in terms of motherhood so understood" (xiii). Essential motherhood claims that women’s motherhood is natural, that mothers offer selfless attention to children, that mothers have natural capacities for empathy, that women’s desires are aimed at motherhood, that the goal of sexuality is motherhood, and that mothers are heterosexual. "Essential motherhood dictates that all women want to be and should be mothers and clearly implies that women who do not manifest the qualities required by mothering and/or refuse mothering are deviant or deficient as women" (xiii). But even more damning for women is that essential motherhood, according to DiQuinzio, sets the standard for femininity; that is, women’s subjectivity is a subjectivity as mothers/maternal. This subjectivity, she further argues, contrasts with the subjectivity of individualism, and yet individualism is a component of feminism in this country; that is, it is through the demands of feminism based on the ideology of individualism that feminism has advanced its goals. Simply stated, DiQuinzio calls this the "double bind" facing women: "essential motherhood requires mothering of women, but it represents motherhood in a way that denies mothers’ and women’s individualist subjectivity" (xiii, see also 11).

Feminism has also remade individualist subjectivity. DiQuinzio calls the feminist challenges to individualism "difference feminism." Conceiving subjectivity in terms of difference rather than the identity-based subjectivity of individualism allows for greater input into theory because it specifically addresses the way in which experience shapes how we conceive of ourselves as subjects. However, DiQuinzio asserts that identity and difference cannot be separated and this leads to the "Dilemma of Difference." "This dilemma refers to the way in which feminism and feminist theory must deny or disavow women’s difference, and differences among women, in order to argue for women’s equality and to mobilize women as a group, but must also rely on the concept of difference to analyze the specificity of women’s situations and experiences and to theorize differences among women" (xv).

DiQuinzio uses three paradoxes to illustrate further the dilemma of difference. First, the paradox of embodiment is described as "the difficulty of explaining both women’s experience of (human) embodiment and the specificity of women’s embodied subjectivity in individualist terms" (44). Next is the paradox of gender, or "the simultaneous detaching and reconnecting of sex, gender, and embodiment" (56). Finally, DiQuinzio describes the paradox of representation as an attempt "to represent women’s social and political interests while also representing women’s specific situations and experiences" (16). This requires not only forums for voicing women’s unique experiences, but also critical analyses of those experiences to avoid the over-determining effects of sexism and other forms of oppression.

Mothering, according to DiQuinzio, is perhaps the most difficult activity to theorize precisely because of how it confronts these paradoxes. She analyzes a wide array of feminist theoretical accounts of mothering to show how each attempts to redress the paradoxes. DiQuinzio claims that all these accounts ultimately fail and she concludes with a suggestion for rethinking mothering within feminism.

The first accounts of motherhood she examines are from the socialist feminism of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Ellen Key. Their attempts to socially reconstruct mothering focus on domestic activities but fail to adequately look at the persons of mothers. For instance, DiQuinzio examines Gilman’s and Key’s positions with regard to the prostitute, the consuming non-productive woman, and the lesbian. She concludes that when looked at from these hard cases, Gilman’s and Key’s positions maintain compulsory heterosexuality and the identity of femininity and mothering. Next, the author critiques Shulamith Firestone, Mary Daly, and Betty Friedan, all of whom present mothering in individualist terms and thus perceive it as an obstacle to women’s equal subjectivity rather than a tool in obtaining or exercising that subjectivity. Similarly, Jean Bethke Elshtain’s communitarianism locates women as mothers in the family and the family in opposition to the public or political sphere and thus endorses elements of DiQuinzio’s essential motherhood. Simone de Beauvoir advances theoretical accounts of mothering with her rejection of essentialism and thus moves us beyond "motherhood." However, according to DiQuinzio, Beauvoir’s concept of embodied subjectivity relies on individualism in her use of immanence/transcendence and the Hegelian dialectic of consciousnesses. Next, DiQuinzio argues that Sara Ruddick’s maternal thinking comes the closest to avoiding essential motherhood on one hand and individualism on the other. Ruddick’s theory addresses two of the troubling paradoxes in the dilemma of difference but its weakness is in its account of the paradox of representation. The penultimate theoretical accounts of mothering by Julia Kristeva and Nancy Chodorow rely on psychoanalysis. These accounts problematize essential motherhood while also affirming certain elements of it. Specifically, DiQuinzio cites psychoanalytic accounts as upholding compulsory heterosexuality through the attempt to "pathologize lesbianism" (200). Finally, DiQuinzio takes up the experiential accounts of mothering offered by Adrienne Rich and Patricia Hill Collins. Her worry here is the extent to which those accounts are overdetermined by oppressive systems.

While DiQuinzio has compiled an impressive variety of theory and offered some interesting criticisms, a certain amount of skepticism might be beneficial in reading her critiques. Simply because a theory appears to support an element of essential motherhood does not mean that the theory supports essential motherhood. Nor is it necessarily the case that all aspects of individualism identified by DiQuinzio are necessarily oppressive to all women in all spheres of social existence. It might, for instance, be possible to identify oneself as a mother in a particular context and identify oneself as an autonomous agent in quite another context. Certainly there are times when these two identities may overlap, for example, when a person votes for welfare reform, state supported childcare, and abortion rights; but it does not follow that the two identities are essentialist or mutually exclusive.

In addition, DiQuinzio herself assumes that mothering is an activity performed by women; yet, with her analysis of Ruddick and the development of her paradoxical politics of mothering, it becomes clear that she thinks this ought not to be the case. Indeed, her conclusion calls for mothering to be a non-gendered practice. Further, DiQuinzio seems to slip from talking about feminist theoretical accounts of mothering to talking about grounding feminist theory on accounts of mothering, thereby confusing the aim of the book. One might also question her claim regarding the reliance of feminist activism on the ideology of individualism, since one of the most significant contributions of feminist theory is to call into question traditional Enlightenment individualism.

Ultimately DiQuinzio concludes, as her title tells us, that motherhood is impossible precisely because individualism does not allow for that type of essentialist conception of subjectivity. But the dilemma of difference, as the alternative to individualism, poses an almost equally hazardous route according to DiQuinzio. Stuck with these two options, she favors the latter though warns that our theorizing may, at times, lead us down a slippery slope to essential motherhood.

Saying that "feminist theory will have to abandon the goal of developing a unitary and totalizing account of motherhood" (243), DiQuinzio suggests instead a focus on the particularity of mothering within concrete social and ideological contexts. In the end, DiQuinzio calls for a "paradoxical politics of mothering." Although she does not develop it here, this interesting proposal would:

…recognize the great variety of ways in which people can take responsibility and care for children. It would recognize different kinds of families and theorize the specificities, for instance of single parenting, step-parenting, and gay and lesbian parenting, without delegitimizing these kinds of families and parents. It would also recognize that some kinds of care are required by all children, but also that all children require some kinds of care that are specific to them and/or their circumstances…. It would also consider a wide variety of outcomes as acceptable results of child rearing. Such a politics of mothering would strive to destabilize the distinctions of mothers, fathers, and people who are "childless" so as to create even more variety of ways that all persons can participate in caring for children… But a paradoxical politics of mothering would also recognize that some persons, including some women, will have little or nothing to offer in caring for children, and some persons, including some women, will want little or nothing to do with it, and support this position in relationship to mothering as well (248-249).