Naomi Wolf is the author of the best-selling
The Beauty
Myth, which helped to launch a new wave of
feminism in the early 1990s and was named one of the most
significant books of the twentieth century by
The New York
Times. More recently she has authored
Fire with
Fire and
Promiscuities.
She lives in New York City with her family.
1. Our nation has the highest postpartum depression rate in the
developed world. Some people might argue that the rate is a direct
result of our equally high rate of C-sections, while others might
wonder if the rate stems from better reporting, or from doctors
being more willing to make the diagnosis. On the other hand, many
doctors are perhaps too willing to lump postpartum
symptoms, whatever their cause or most appropriate treatment, under
one convenient (and conveniently dismissable) umbrella. Discuss
this and other instances you might know about, examining how a
diagnosis of postpartum depression, or the condition itself,
affected you or people you know. Why do you suppose the incidence
is so high in this country, and so much lower in others?
2. "It was one thing to experience a loss of self in a
prefeminist culture that at least assigned a positive status to
motherhood… it is very different to lose a part of one's very sense
of self to motherhood in a world that often seems to have little
time, patience, or appreciation for motherhood." (page 8) Discuss
this assertion in light of Wolf's claim that motherhood has been
sentimentalized in our culture. Explore the ways in which a
charming, rosy picture of pregnancy and parenthood might trivialize
this challenging experience. End your discussion with a quick look
at maternity clothes.
3. Wolf writes touchingly and persuasively of the loss of self
experienced by women who bear children. Considering that the notion
of "self" is itself culturally flexible, try to define "self" as
Wolf might define it, and take a look at how the author's own
definition of the term shifted over the course of her pregnancy and
new motherhood.
4. Part of what makes this book so worthwhile is the author's
keen insight into aspects of her readers' lives, aspects that
readers themselves might overlook or take for granted. One such
insight has to do with the "fatalism" Wolf felt upon purchasing a
pregnancy test, fatalism being "something that people in my cohort
scarcely ever feel--a sense of events moving beyond one's control."
(page 15) While some readers might be of similar cohort, others
might be more accustomed to the spin of the unexpected, the
unalterable press of forces outside their control. Describe what
you feel must mark the biggest difference between the two sets of
people. What is it that most assures that one person's life might
be free of fatalism while another person's life seems to depend on
it?
5. Discuss the "will and longing" that Wolf feels played a role
in her conception
while on birth control, and on the conceptions of other women, many
hitherto infertile, whose stories are included in this book. (page
16) Would you be more inclined to ascribe such events to the
"dark," "medieval" undertow marking Wolf's appreciation for the
mysterious aspects of our being, or to physiological, scientific
phenomena not yet entirely understood? Clearly, Wolf herself
entertains both views, holding the light of folklore to the light
of the scientific, and vice versa. Where do you stand? How do you
choose to make sense of the things that spook you?
6. Describing the "absent-faced, white-coated" staff in the
"bowels" of the "vast, squat" facility where she went for her
sonogram, Wolf indulges any writer's instinct to select a
vocabulary that will advance her messages and themes (for starters,
decode the "blond concoction" worn by the technician.) (page 27)
Now find other passages in MISCONCEPTIONS where such skills are
most apparent, and take a minute to assess the influence on
you.
7. "Something irrational happened," Wolf writes, "a lifetime's
orientation toward maternal...over fetal rights lurched out of
kilter." (page 28) Discuss the several shifts in her political
thinking that accompanied Wolf's pregnancy, and describe similar
shifts that may have accompanied yours if you have ever been
pregnant. Do you consider such shifts to constitute a loss of self?
Why? Why not?
8. Wolf is one of our most articulate and philosophical thinkers
on issues concerning women. Yet not until she herself was pregnant
did she begin to feel that it was "brutal to be content with a
feminism that was content to fit into [a] traditionally masculine
definition of accomplishment." And as she readily attests, only
then did she realize that "true revolution would come about only
when we demanded that the world conform to our needs as women."
(page 121) What does this tell us about the prospects for the child
care system in America?
9. Pregnancy, birth, motherhood--not only are such topics
lightning rods of controversy and debate, but they are conceived of
differently by members of various cultures. What's more, an
individual is likely to have conflicting, sometimes contradictory
feelings about these subjects at various times in her or his life.
Therefore it is to be expected that any book or work of art about
pregnancy and motherhood might contain ambiguities, placing one
sentiment in unlikely juxtaposition with another, or entertaining
what might look like mutually exclusive ideas. Do you find such
ambiguities at play in Misconceptions? If so, did
they increase or decrease the author's credibility? In what way do
they serve the integrity of her work?
10. Test your memory of the facts and theories presented in
Misconceptions:
-Name two labor practices that Wolf feels increase the likelihood
of a C-section.
-Why do hospitals insist on the use of fetal monitors even when
such monitors have been shown to have no conclusive benefit?
-What's the difference between "arrested labor" in the eyes of a
hospital and in those of a midwife?
-Exactly what is an epidural and what does it accomplish?
-Describe a typical hospital labor as it occurs in the U.K.
-What is an episiotomy and why do hospitals encourage them?
-Some C-sections save women's and babies' lives, but some are
medically unnecessary. What are the risks presented by
C-sections?
-According to the proponents of natural childbirth, what causes the
pain of childbirth?
11. Even prior to labor, some women actively elect to have
C-sections. For what reasons do you imagine a woman might make such
a decision?
12. In Wolf's estimation many forces, chief among them the
medical establishment, the insurance industry, and the legal
industry, unite in urging women to go through labor quickly and
"efficiently." What are some of the other institutions that you
feel exercise significant influence, undue or otherwise, on women
in labor?
13. American doctors have "medicalized" normal delivery
processes while labor classes have prepared women for what
hospitals promote as "routine intervention," Wolf convincingly
observes. Might it be said that American medicine treats death in a
similar fashion, applying uncalled-for technology to that phase of
our lives as well? Have we been conditioned to expect "routine
intervention" whenever we find ourselves in a hospital? How does
this differ from what you know of medical practices in other
cultures?
14. "Most birthing and postnatal care settings...leave out the
womanliness in the woman." (page 196) Discuss.
15. Wolf's insight into the inadequacies of most playgrounds is
an eye-opener for those of us who take for granted such
inadequacies without bothering to question or challenge them. What
should the ideal playground include? Now imagine a gift shop for
babies and new mothers stocked by Naomi Wolf. List some of the
merchandise, keeping in mind the quote from above.
16. How do you suppose your grandmother would react to this
book?
17. How might things be different if men were the ones to bear
children?
18. After she and her husband became parents, "a shocking
gentleness engulfed us," Wolf writes, describing how it felt to
become a member of the cult of unconditional love. (page 142) Note
that gentleness is not often called "shocking," nor is it
considered to "engulf." Wolf's use of phrases like these helps us
all to understand the nature of a feeling that might otherwise go
unnamed. Discuss the "shocking gentleness" of parenthood as you
know it.