Join us for a discussion with Amanda Montei on Touched Out: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent, and Control (Penguin Random House, 2023), in which Montei examines the intersection between misogyny and motherhood, and how caregivers can reclaim their bodies and pass on a language of consent to their children. For the second part of our TC Fall Book Talk series looking at the reproductive lifespan trajectory, we will bring in the developmental lens of "matrescence" or the process of becoming a mother to explore what has led mothers to experience this collective phenomenon.
"When Amanda Montei became a parent, she struggled with the physicality of caring for children, but even more with the growing lack of autonomy she felt in her personal and professional life. The conditions of modern American parenthood—the lack of paid leave and affordable childcare, the isolation and alienation, the distribution of labor in her home, and the implicit demands of marriage—were not what she had expected.
After #MeToo, however, she began to see a connection between how women were feeling in motherhood and the larger culture of assault in which she had grown up. In American society, women are expected to prioritize their children, often by pushing their bodies to the limit and ignoring their own desires and needs. As she struggled to adjust to the new demands on her body, this stirred memories of being used, violated, and seen by men. She had the desperate urge to finally say no, though she didn’t know how, or to whom she might say it.
Written with the intellectual and emotional precision of writers like Roxane Gay and Leslie Jamison, and drawing on classic feminist thinkers such as bell hooks, Silvia Federici, and Adrienne Rich, as well as on popular culture from The Bachelor to Look Who’s Talking, Montei draws connections between caregiving, consent, reproductive control, and the sacrifices women are expected to make throughout their lives. Exploring the stories we tell about psychology, childbirth, sexuality, the family, the overwhelm mothers feel trying to be “good,” and the tender bonds that form between parent and child, Touched Out delivers a powerful critique of American rape culture and its continuation in the institution of motherhood, and considers what it really means to care in America."
-- publisher's description
Amanda Montei is also the author of the memoir Two Memoirs (Jaded Ibis Press), and a collection of prose, The Failure Age (Bloof Books), as well as co-author of Dinner Poems (Bon Aire Projects). She has an MFA from California Institute of the Arts and a PhD from the Poetics Program at SUNY Buffalo. Her writing and criticism explore literary and cultural representations of gender, work, care, sexuality, feminism, creativity, and the body, and she is widely published in magazines, literary journals, contests, and art exhibitions. She is currently a lecturer at California State University, East Bay. She also teaches creative writing at organizations such as Catapult, Corporeal Writing, Hugo House, Writing Workshops, and Write or Die. She lives in California, where she grew up, with her partner and two children.
Moderating discussion is Dr. Aurelia Athan, a clinical psychologist and Research Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Athan's research interests embrace Maternal Psychology: Matrescence & Maternal Mental Health, Perinatal Risk & Resilience, and Reproductive Psychology: Reproductive Identity Formation and
Reproductive Life Planning & Decision-Making. The author of numerous articles, her Ph'D is entitled, Postpartum Flourishing: Motherhood as Opportunity for Positive Growth and Self-Development (Columbia University, 2011). Dr. Athan is the founder of the Maternal and Reproductive Psychology Lab at Teachers College.
Where: 306 Russell / Online
This book talk is co-sponsored by KHORA; the Teachers College Maternal and Reproductive Psychology Lab, and Gottesman Libraries.
Persons interested in attending in person may use the Register button at the bottom of this page. Persons wishing to attend online may register here for Zoom details.
Upcoming:
Mom Rage: The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood, with Minna Dubin, Monday, 10/2, 5-6pm
To request disability-related accommodations, contact OASID at oasid@tc.edu, (212) 678-3689, as early as possible.