Abstract

This chapter introduces Beauvoir's conception of motherhood in The Second Sex. Beauvoir sets out to demystify motherhood by presenting women's experiences of pregnancy and mothering in all their difficulty, complexity, and ambivalence. However, Beauvoir works with a contrast between transcendence and immanence which inclines her to interpret pregnancy and maternity in terms of immanence (i.e. unfreedom). This chapter identifies alternative lines of thought in Beauvoir's work which portray maternity more positively: as disclosing our fundamental ambiguity, the bodily roots of free human agency, and the constitutive role of relationships with others in human existence.