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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
With Misconceptions, Naomi Wolf again demonstrates her considerable gift for taking familiar themes and working them into contemporary, accessible forms. Having debunked the beauty industry in her highly successful debut, The Beauty Myth, her latest offering deals with the childbirth "industry"--for industry indeed it is. The horrific experiences of her own pregnancies brought home the shocking reality that childbirth is treated as a production line, with mothers being shunted along as quickly as possible. Worse, as in any other industry, expediency equals good productivity. In terms of insurance and litigation concerns, though not necessarily the interests of mothers and babies, surgical intervention is "good business sense"--the thinking behind the progressive rise in Caesareans and episiotomies in both US and British hospitals. Wolf also makes the link between the rise of Obstetrics and the parallel undermining of midwifery: the new practice having to justify itself through a disproportionate emphasis on the risks of childbirth and then offering hi-tech solutions to counter them. Charting her own personal journey, she explores society's attitudes to birth and motherhood, and how these are reflected by social and medical policy. Higher-brow peers may accuse her of pandering to populism but her combination of intimate confessional and feminist agenda makes for compelling and easily digestible reading, and as Wolf points out, Misconceptions contains a significant amount of new, in-depth research. Read it and wake up to some uncomfortable truths. --Rebecca Johnson
Product Description
A critical look at the powerful vested interests in the pregnancy "business" and at the social message coming at women: an amalgam of sentimentality, psychologically dangerous half-truths and conflicting ideologies. It discusses the physical and emotional effects of childbirth.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have read a variety of pregnancy books, but this is the only one which focuses on the emotional changes women go through during pregnancy. It is an honest account of the author's experiences during her pregnancy which takes the reader through all nine months and discusses both the physical and emotional changes she is undergoing.
What struck a chord with me is that she does not negate the existence of conflicting emotions. They are explained by the fact that first-time mothers have to say "good-bye" to their former selves and construct a new self as mothers, which can be a painful process. Apart from a personal account, it is also a sociological study of motherhood in the industrialised word which is characterised by partriarchial and profit-orientated institutions which do not cater for the female and non-profit making experience of child-bearing and rearing. Some aspects of the book are not particularly relevant for British readers, since the author's experiences reflect the particularities of US society and especially of US medical institutions. The only flaw of the book is the epilogue which is full of the kind of feminist utopia familiar to readers of "The Women's Room" by Marilyn French. I wholeheartedly recommend the book as complementary reading to all the pregnancy books dealing with the physical aspects of pregnancy.
What struck a chord with me is that she does not negate the existence of conflicting emotions. They are explained by the fact that first-time mothers have to say "good-bye" to their former selves and construct a new self as mothers, which can be a painful process. Apart from a personal account, it is also a sociological study of motherhood in the industrialised word which is characterised by partriarchial and profit-orientated institutions which do not cater for the female and non-profit making experience of child-bearing and rearing. Some aspects of the book are not particularly relevant for British readers, since the author's experiences reflect the particularities of US society and especially of US medical institutions. The only flaw of the book is the epilogue which is full of the kind of feminist utopia familiar to readers of "The Women's Room" by Marilyn French. I wholeheartedly recommend the book as complementary reading to all the pregnancy books dealing with the physical aspects of pregnancy.
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I went to a bookshop and bought about 5 books. I wanted to know as much as I could in order to make informed decisions. Naomi Wolf's 'Misconceptions' beated all of the other 4 glossy books with detailed illustrations. Although focusing on the American Health Care system, she brings pregnancy into the political sphere with the most honest account of her own experience: 'Where are the roles models for pregnant women?, she questions while exposing the treatment of mothers to be as insane and children as commodities. Every pregnant woman should read this book before reaching the shelves for patronising, out of date publications that treat expectant mothers as if they had the same mentality as their babies. The book is a humane account that if taken seriously might be able to ignate positive changes in the society.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found this book interesting and readable, although it's clearly describing the experiences of American women, and I like to think that in England women giving birth are treated much more humanely (partly because midwives in this country have more clout than they apparently do in America)! Perhaps the book will make women think twice about asking for an epidural, since it can lead to many more forms of intervention. It's rather a pity that Naomi Wolf is so prejudiced against "natural childbirth" - which she fails to investigate in any detail.
The most significant aspect for me is Naomi's articulation of the change in the relationship (or balance of power) between wife and husband which follows a child's birth. Women and men, who have been equals up to this point, are suddenly faced with all the old stereotypes kicking in, and it's very hard to fight against them. She describes this dilemma well, although she offers few solutions.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
This book gave me a sinking feeling
I am a feminist myself and The Beauty Myth was a crucial text in developing my views. I'm now planning a family and my (very enlightened) husband bought Misconceptions, read it and... Read more
Published on 14 May 2002
Valuable for mums-to-be and future historians ...
... but bordering on infuriating for mothers who've already been there.
Wolfe tells the emotional story of her own pregnancy in such agonising detail it does feel at times as... Read more
Published on 23 Oct 2001 by M Hill
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