Mother State

Aprovocative 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 Stateblows 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 *
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 *
With ease and precision, Charman examines all the waged and unwaged labour that creates mothers as well as the political processes that produce their vexed relationship to the British state. Mother State is at once a sorely needed politicised history of motherhood – sharp and critical – and a tender love letter to her own mother’s knees * Lola Olufemi *