A History of the Breast by Marilyn Yalom

In France, Rousseau was so influential in persuading women that they should abandon their wet nurses and nurse their babies themselves, this became a kind of a cult in the 18th century. In an interview at her Palo Alto home, Yalom, who is married to the writer Irvin Yalom and is the mother of four, explains how 'A History of the Breast' can help women rethink their relationship to this fetishized object.Ī: It really grew out of my last book, 'Blood Sisters: The French Revolution in Women's Memory.' As I was researching that, I became very aware of how important the mandate to breast-feed was in the ideology leading up to the French Revolution. Poet and author Diane Middlebrook describes the quiet, witty Yalom as a 'strong right hand rather than the star of the show,' and yet 'an extremely dedicated person who wants to put her imprint on certain subjects.'

Yalom suggests this can be attributed to a combination of genetic predisposition and external pressures, and she also contends that female writers see their work as a substitute for childbirth and have trouble reconciling themselves with society's message that women have not proved themselves until they've reproduced. Today, she is highly regarded for her book, 'Maternity, Mortality and the Literature of Madness' (1985), which explores the link between madness and motherhood in women writers. In the mid-1970s, feminist concerns propelled her from the security of tenured academic life into a position as deputy director and scholar at the institute at Stanford. Yalom began her career as a professor of French and comparative literature. Marilyn Yalom, senior scholar at Stanford University's Institute for Research on Women and Gender, explores this provocative question and its implications for women and men in the latest of four books, 'A History of the Breast.'

A History of the Breast by Marilyn Yalom