In 1976, Adrienne Rich wrote in Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution that “the cathexis between mother and daughter—essential, distorted, misused—is the great unwritten story.” In the quarter century since Rich wrote those words, the topic of mothers and daughters has emerged as a salient issue in feminist scholarship. Using women’s writing, film, feminist theory, and personal experience, contributors to Mothers and Daughters explore how the mother/daughter relationship is represented and experienced as a site of empowerment. This volume will offer readers an important and welcome chapter in the story of the complex relationship that is a part of nearly every woman’s life.
