The creation of ‘motherhood’ and Women's responses in Britain and France, 1750–1914

Abstract

This article argues that an ideology of privatised motherhood became increasingly important in the master public narratives of Western history and that motherhood became a highly contested concept both in Britain and France as a result. It shows how women were prioritised in their capacity as mothers, particularly in nation-state building with its focus on population politics, and in middle-class formation. Then it explores how groups of women, who presented themselves as moral mothers, militant mothers, virgin mothers and citizen mothers, extended and subverted this domestic identity precisely to authorise their energetic activity in the public sphere