by Amanda Montei
Beacon Press
9/24/2024, paperback
SKU: 9780807016473
In this stunning blend of memoir, theory, and cultural criticism, a new mother examines the intersection between misogyny and motherhood, considering how caregivers can take back their bodies and pass on a language of consent to their children
Motherhood and the culture of misogyny in America are not often explored in tandem. The connection is women's bodies.
When Amanda Montei became a parent, she struggled with the physicality of caring for children, but even more with the growing lack of autonomy she felt in her personal and professional life. The conditions of modern American parenthood--the lack of paid leave and affordable childcare, the isolation and alienation, the distribution of labor in her home, and the implicit demands of marriage--were not what she had expected.
After #MeToo, however, she began to see a connection between how women were feeling in motherhood and the larger culture of assault in which she had grown up. In American society, women are expected to prioritize their children, often by pushing their bodies to the limit and ignoring their own desires and needs. As she struggled to adjust to the new demands on her body, this stirred memories of being used, violated, and seen by men. She had the desperate urge to finally say no, though she didn't know how, or to whom she might say it.
Written with the intellectual and emotional precision of writers like Roxane Gay and Leslie Jamison, and drawing on classic feminist thinkers such as bell hooks, Silvia Federici, and Adrienne Rich, as well as on popular culture from The Bachelor to Look Who's Talking, Montei draws connections between caregiving, consent, reproductive control, and the sacrifices women are expected to make throughout their lives. Exploring the stories we tell about psychology, childbirth, sexuality, the family, the overwhelm mothers feel trying to be "good," and the tender bonds that form between parent and child, Touched Out delivers a powerful critique of American rape culture and its continuation in the institution of motherhood, and considers what it really means to care in America.
Reviews:
"A brilliant and timely meditation that is an absolute must-read for any woman who has ever felt her body is not her own anymore--pawed at, pressed into service, treated possessively, or even impregnated against her will. In America today, this may just include all of us." --Kate Manne, author of Down Girl and Entitled
"Few desires or pleasures escape the devastating forces of patriarchy and profit, and Montei deftly and unflinchingly traces the scars left by these forces in her own life and the lives of others. Never betraying love's possibilities in her critique of love's economic and social perils, Montei's meditation on motherhood is a new classic." --Anne Boyer, author of The Undying
"Trenchant and revelatory...The central achievement of Touched Out -- the one that makes me want to press this book into the hands of every parent and expectant parent I know -- is how artfully Montei connects the dots between her private shame and this collective assault, opening the door for her readers to do the same." -- The Boston Globe
"... Touched Out is a rallying cry against the normalization of a mother's suffering...Reading the book is like the opposite of being gaslit: it lights up everything at once." -- Los Angeles Review of Books
About the Author:
Amanda Montei has a PhD in English literature from SUNY at Buffalo and an MFA in Writing from California Institute of the Arts. She is also the author of Two Memoirs (Jaded Ibis). Her essays and criticism have appeared at Slate, Mother Tongue, Vox, HuffPost, Electric Literature, The Believer, The Rumpus, Ms. Magazine blog, American Book Review, and others. She teaches writing and lives in California with her husband and 2 children.