Mother State
A Political History of Motherhood
Published on 28. August 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
512 pages
978-0-14-199659-2 (ISBN)
Description
'Charman writes with intelligence and generosity, and sprinkles her history with details that are enraging, provocative and, frequently, amusing' New Statesman
Motherhood is a political state. Helen Charman makes a radical case for what liberated mothering could be, and tells the story of what motherhood has been, from the 1970s to the 2010s.
When we talk about motherhood and politics together, we usually talk about isolated moments - the policing of breastfeeding, or the cost of childcare. But this is not enough: we need to understand motherhood itself as an inherently political state, one that has the potential to pose a serious challenge to the status quo.
In Mother State, Helen Charman uses this provocative insight to write a new history of Britain and Northern Ireland. Beginning with Women's Liberation and ending with austerity, the book follows mothers' fights for an alternative future. Alongside the mother figures that loom large in British culture, from Margaret Thatcher to Kat Slater, we meet communities of lesbian squatters, anti-nuclear campaigners, the wives of striking miners and teenage mothers protesting housing cuts: groups who believed that if you want to nourish your children, you have to nourish the world around them, too.
Here we see a world where motherhood is not a restrictive identity but a state of possibility. 'Mother' ceases to be an individual responsibility, and becomes an expansive collective term to organise under, for people of any gender, with or without children of their own. It begins with an understanding: that to mother is a political act.
Motherhood is a political state. Helen Charman makes a radical case for what liberated mothering could be, and tells the story of what motherhood has been, from the 1970s to the 2010s.
When we talk about motherhood and politics together, we usually talk about isolated moments - the policing of breastfeeding, or the cost of childcare. But this is not enough: we need to understand motherhood itself as an inherently political state, one that has the potential to pose a serious challenge to the status quo.
In Mother State, Helen Charman uses this provocative insight to write a new history of Britain and Northern Ireland. Beginning with Women's Liberation and ending with austerity, the book follows mothers' fights for an alternative future. Alongside the mother figures that loom large in British culture, from Margaret Thatcher to Kat Slater, we meet communities of lesbian squatters, anti-nuclear campaigners, the wives of striking miners and teenage mothers protesting housing cuts: groups who believed that if you want to nourish your children, you have to nourish the world around them, too.
Here we see a world where motherhood is not a restrictive identity but a state of possibility. 'Mother' ceases to be an individual responsibility, and becomes an expansive collective term to organise under, for people of any gender, with or without children of their own. It begins with an understanding: that to mother is a political act.
Reviews / Votes
A provocative and wide-ranging study of "motherhood" in all its iterations... Mother State is a lively, engaging and significant overview of recent history, scholarly in tone, though not forbiddingly so (Charman references Buffy the Vampire Slayer alongside Judith Butler) -- Stephanie Merritt * The Guardian * A likely breakthrough work for one of the Left's most eloquent new voices, this is a remarkable debut... Mother State is a wise, funny, carefully researched, and emotionally powerful book to treasure, learn from, and share with as many people as possible -- Alex Niven * Tribune * [Charman] writes with intelligence and generosity, and sprinkles her history with details that are enraging, provocative and, frequently, amusing -- Megan Gibson * The New Statesman * Mother State blows open the dominant view of mothering ... instead Charman's history from below situates a radical collective conception of motherhood and care as central to all our lives... meticulously researched... Mother State is both a prodigious historical analysis and a sobering one -- Ruth Gilbert * New Internationalist * Charman brings to her task a commitment to making sense of our wishes and fantasies... and an essayist's verve... small details are illuminating... Fifty years of British and Northern Irish history, as told by a daughter of the welfare state generation, might point us towards reimagining solidarity and a renovated state. -- Sarah Knott * TLS * Mother State is ambitious and impressive in its breadth and depth. Part cultural, critical and psychoanalytical study, part social and political history, it weaves together analyses of an expansive range of sources... Charman, the poet and academic, is making a political intervention -- Anna Coatman * Frieze * Mother State weaves together overlapping stories that are normally told separately and turns away from nothing... as with many landmark feminist texts, interwoven in a sharp, analytical prose are elements of memoir... Mother State is characterized by a longing to capture experiences with new narrative forms of storytelling... she rejects the familiar and powerful dichotomies that regard mothers as good or bad, peace-loving or cruel, and deserving or undeserving of support -- Sarah Stoller * Parapraxis * Helen Charman is 'one of Britain's most important emerging radical writers' * The Crack * This monumental book will inform the future of action and thinking on the politics of motherhood for generations to come. The stunning level of study undergone by Charman draws out crucial new perspectives on the institutions of the UK that have classified motherhood as morally and socially fertile for both symbolic rendering and systematic economic construction. As the state continues to contrive damaging figures of motherhood, this book tirelessly evidences contrary models and resists bad mythologies. All of the narratives, documents, testimonies and policies reviewed here are articulated in brilliantly readable prose with expert understanding, while methodologically ensuring the personal-as-political ethical contract that drives feminist writing. I hope everyone reads this book. It feels like we are in a new golden age of political, cultural and critical writing, with Helen Charman at the forefront * Holly Pester * Totemic and graceful. A necessary study and intervention into contemporary thinking around care, love and the multifarious ideas of the 'mother'. Helen Charman writes with such intellectual command, open generosity and nuance: she is a genius * Rachael Allen *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
354 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-14-199659-2 (9780141996592)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
08/2024
Penguin Books Ltd
€11.99
Available for download
Person
Helen Charman is a Fellow and College Teaching Officer in English at Clare College, University of Cambridge. Her critical writing has been published in the Guardian, The White Review, Another Gaze, and The Stinging Fly among others. As a poet, Charman was shortlisted for the White Review Poet's Prize in 2017 and for the 2019 Ivan Juritz Prize for Creative Experiment, and has published four poetry pamphlets, most recently In the Pleasure Dairy. Charman volunteers as a birth companion in Glasgow.