Episode 393: The Horrors Persist But I Have My Little Crafts with Elinor Cleghorn

Summary

Forever35 – Episode 393: The Horrors Persist But I Have My Little Crafts (with Elinor Cleghorn)
Release Date: March 16, 2026
Hosts: Doree Shafrir & Elise Hu
Guest: Elinor Cleghorn (historian, author of Unwell Women and A Woman’s Work: Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering)

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Episode Overview

This episode welcomes feminist historian Elinor Cleghorn to discuss her new book, A Woman’s Work: Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering. The conversation dives deeply into how the roles, expectations, and realities of mothering have been shaped and controlled by patriarchal systems for centuries, and how women’s voices and experiences have persisted, resisted, and reimagined what it means to mother. The episode is a blend of humor, modern self-care reflections, and thoughtful historical analysis.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Opening Chat: Illness, Self-Care & “The Horrors Persist” Meme

• The hosts start by sharing recent personal challenges: sleep disruptions, illness, and the little things that help (03:09).
• Doree and Effy reflect on the impact of circadian rhythm disruptions, and Elise recounts a stressful bout with asthma due to a viral respiratory infection (04:10).
• Memorable description:
  • "When I lay my head down to my pillow at night, it triggers coughing so severe that I wind up having a full on asthma attack and like, cannot breathe. It’s very scary." – Effy (04:22)
• Doree and Elise also touch on the importance of taking dog bites seriously, rounding out a segment focused on the ways small daily challenges can accumulate yet be partially managed by “little crafts”—a theme picked up by the guest later.

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Interview with Elinor Cleghorn

Start of Interview: 09:05

Self-Care During Book Launches & “Little Crafts”

• Elinor shares her approach to self-care during the stressful run-up to a book launch: engaging in low-stakes, analog creativity like baking and especially crochet (09:21).
  • “I have my little crafts. So anything I can do at the moment that’s like making a little thing that’s kind of low stakes... The thing that I really like to do is crochet ... it’s just for the love of making, rather than because my career depends on it.” – Elinor (09:31)
• The crew jokes about the catharsis of “stabbing” while needle-felting (10:33).

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Origins and Scope of A Woman’s Work

• Elinor’s new book emerges from research for Unwell Women, which chronicled centuries of medical misogyny tying women’s health to their reproductive roles (13:06).

• A Woman’s Work traces the history of mothering from the 9th century BCE to the present, exploring how motherhood has been weaponized to limit women’s societal roles, but also how women have shaped culture through caregiving (13:06-15:35).

  • “Motherhood is this sort of ... organizing principle in women’s lives ... it’s so often been seen as the state that exempts women from the world … What has maternity contributed to culture, to politics, to society?” – Elinor (15:11)

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Research Challenges: Finding Women’s Voices in History

• Elinor discusses the difficulty of reconstructing women’s history due to illiteracy, lack of agency, and the filtering of historical records through men’s perspectives (16:27).
  • “Men, for many centuries, have had access to literacy and education ... Men are the ones who’ve had the privilege of being able to write about their lives and record what’s important about what’s going on in the world.” – Elinor (16:27)
• She shares striking archaeological finds, like a 9th-century BCE clay model from Crete that pictured female figures and a fetus in a boat—illustrating early cultural artifacts that honor motherhood (18:12).
• For more recent centuries, she highlights court records from the Old Bailey and how even fleeting references to “unwed mothers” provide glimpses into women’s lived experiences (19:03).

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Motherhood: Shaped by Law, Religion, and Norms

• The group discusses how laws, religious strictures, and cultural customs have all combined to police and define motherhood, especially upholding male supremacy (21:55).

  • “The law, religion, societal norms and customs, and culture as well ... all of those systems have sort of reinforced this idea that women exist to give birth ... but they have to do that under certain conditions.” – Elinor (22:06)

• Despite carrying the responsibilities for pregnancy and child-rearing, women have historically been denied agency, especially outside of traditional marriage or heteronormative frameworks (23:39).

  • “It’s been really difficult to mother ... outside of those conditions of marriage and nuclear family.” – Elinor (24:35)

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The Precarity of Women’s Rights & Persistent Struggles

• The conversation shifts to modern times, examining the resurgence of traditional family rhetoric and rollback of rights, emphasizing the need for continual vigilance and activism (25:17).
  • “As women, our rights ... are always precarious and we have to kind of keep fighting for them. It’s such hard work and it’s exhausting.” – Elinor (25:20)
• Yet, Elinor highlights history’s lessons of resilience and community:
  • “Even in the biggest ways and the smallest everyday ways, women and people who care for children ... have found ways to survive and live their lives really beautifully and ... create change.” – Elinor (27:15)

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Choice, Non-Motherhood, and Kinship Networks

• Elise wonders about women’s right not to mother at all (30:52).

  • “I’m really interested equally in not just women’s fight to be able to mother in the ways they want, but also women’s fight for the right to not be mothers.” – Elinor (31:13)

• The group discusses how the “naturalness” of motherhood has been socially constructed and how 20th-century activism for contraception, abortion, and reproductive choice must be framed as one part of broader bodily autonomy (32:03).

  • “Women’s rights ... has always been about women striving for the right to be recognized as people first. And that means having the agency to choose what they do with their bodies and lives.” – Elinor (33:06)

• Elinor encourages pluralism in caregiving—noting that “mothering” can take many forms, including communal and queer kinships, and friendship-based support. She advocates envisioning a future where mothering is separated from restrictive norms (34:22).

  • “Mothering as a practice is not something that’s confined just to a primary biological parent ... the more we can think about how mothering can be possible for more people, the more we can imagine a positive and hopeful future.” – Elinor (34:22 & 35:25)

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Radical Visions of Motherhood

• Elinor critiques the persistent myth of the self-sacrificing, saintly mother and the cultural systems that benefit from that myth (36:07).
  • “There is no—mothering is not monolithic—and the more we can just consign all this idealized ‘mother’ to the past, the more we can move forward.” – Elinor (37:11)
  • Effy: “My feminism is one in which I can parent like Don Draper. I want the freedom and the license.” (37:00)

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Notable Quotes

• “The horrors persist. But I have my little crafts.” – Elinor Cleghorn (09:30)
• “What women were expected to do every day, raising the children of men, bearing the children of men, was not of interest in traditional history telling.” – Elinor Cleghorn (17:00)
• “Our rights ... are always precarious and we have to kind of keep fighting for them. It’s such hard work and it’s exhausting.” – Elinor Cleghorn (25:20)
• “Mothering is not monolithic ... there are many ways to mother.” – Elinor Cleghorn (36:07)
• “Women’s rights ... has always been about women striving for the right to be recognized as people first. And that means having the agency to choose what they do with their bodies and lives.” – Elinor Cleghorn (33:06)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00-01:43 – Ads (skipped/non-content)
• 01:43-09:05 – Hosts’ check-in: recent personal challenges, sleep, illness, and crafts for self-care
• 09:05-10:55 – Elinor shares self-care strategy during book launch: “the little crafts” (crochet, baking)
• 12:55-16:04 – Origins and goals of A Woman’s Work
• 16:04-19:03 – Challenges of finding women’s voices in historical sources; example of 9th-century BCE Crete artifact
• 19:03-21:23 – Court records and glimpses into unwed mothers’ lives in 17th-century London
• 21:23-24:47 – How law, religion, and culture have limited and defined motherhood
• 25:17-28:03 – The precariousness of women’s rights and finding hope through history
• 30:52-34:04 – Motherhood as a choice; history of resistance to compulsory motherhood
• 34:04-37:11 – Redefining and radicalizing the idea of “mothering,” moving beyond restrictive norms
• 38:13-end – Closing, thanks, intentions for the week (begin cleaning office, healing from illness), lighthearted wrap-up

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Final Reflections

This episode offers a rich, nuanced exploration into the history and future of mothering, moving beyond idealized cultural narratives to center women’s agency, diversity of experience, and the persistent need for advocacy. Elinor Cleghorn’s scholarship and perspective provide both a sobering reminder of the obstacles women have faced and an inspiring roadmap for imagining more expansive, supportive ways to care and be cared for.

Connect with Elinor Cleghorn:
Instagram: @elinorcleghorn

Find Forever35:
Website: forever35podcast.com
Instagram: @forever35podcast
Patreon: patreon.com/forever35
Listener emails: [e-mail]

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Memorable Closing Moment:
Effy: “My feminism is one in which I can parent like Don Draper. I want the freedom and the license.” (37:00)

Summary prepared for listeners who want a thorough yet accessible overview of this important, engaging episode.

Transcript

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[Dory Shafrier]

Hello and welcome to Forever 35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Dory Shafrier.

[Elise Hu]

And I'm Elise Hu.

[Effy]

And we're just two friends who like

[Elise Hu]

to talk a lot about serums.

[Dory Shafrier]

And today we have Eleanor Cleghorn on the show, a historian, a British historian.

[Elise Hu]

Yes.

[Effy]

And we go like thousands of years back with her. We'll have to like speed it along so that we have enough time for the show because we can't talk about thousands of years of history.

[Dory Shafrier]

But it's true. I mean, you know, as someone who went to grad school for history, I do appreciate a long, a long historical view.

[Effy]

But you won't be getting that today. Well, yes, you will get like the wide lens.

[Dory Shafrier]

Well, like I, I mean, I just mean in her book. Yes, yes, she goes way back, which is like very interesting I thought. And also I talked about, we talked about this a little bit in the interview. But how she sort of got sources for, yeah, her chapters on like, you know, stuff that happened thousand, like 2,000 years ago about women there, there Weren't a ton of sources lying around.

[Effy]

Exactly. They just didn't keep track of us because we didn't matter. There just weren't sources on women, you know, because it was like, what? These people are incidental.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

They just.

[Dory Shafrier]

Right.

[Effy]

You know, bear the babies, whatever, whatever.

[Dory Shafrier]

If they die in childbirth, no big deal.

[Effy]

There will be another one. It's a fungible. Yeah, fungible asset. Anyway. How are you doing? How are you feeling?

[Elise Hu]

How are you?

[Effy]

Are you taking care of yourself?

[Dory Shafrier]

You know, I was feeling like kind of off the last few days and then I was like, oh, was this from the time change?

[Effy]

Could it be?

[Dory Shafrier]

Maybe that's the only thing I could think of. Like, I was just like, I don't know, I just felt sort of off. Like my, my. It did feel like my circadian rhythm was off.

[Effy]

It could affect you. I mean, they say it affects kids.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Right.

[Effy]

Like, it really messes up kids, sometimes little kids. So I don't know. Yeah, I mean, if, if so hopefully you'll be back to normal just in a couple of days or you will have adjusted in a couple days, right?

[Dory Shafrier]

I am feeling more normal today.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Dory Shafrier]

So I think that that is like, you know, I'm getting over the hump. But do you want to talk about how you've been feeling?

[Effy]

Oh, I'm feeling bad. I'm feeling so bad because I reliably get like a 90 plus on my sleep scores and sleep a good, you know, seven and a half to eight and a half hours a night. I'm like, great sleeper. And for the last four nights I've gotten like 60% sleep scores and five hours at best. Because when I lay my head down to my pillow at night, it triggers coughing so severe that I wind up having a full on asthma attack and like, cannot breathe. It's very scary.

[Dory Shafrier]

Like, that is really scary.

[Effy]

Yeah. And like, I can it. I, if, if I had food in my stomach at that hour, I would be vomiting. You know, it's really intense and scary. And Rob, I think two nights ago was like, I'm not doing this. I'm not sleeping in the same bed as you because you're ruining my sleep. And I'm like, I'm ruining my sleep. My sleep is also ruined. And so I finally went to see the doctor this week and she was like, yeah, ruled, ruled everything out. She's like, this isn't whooping cough. So you don't have a bacterial infection. It's not pertussis, you know, which is whooping cough. It's not flu. It's not Covid. Um, it doesn't sound like bronchitis because it's not a productive cough.

[Dory Shafrier]

So there's not like a bunch of dry cough stuff.

[Effy]

Yeah. Which is worse actually, because I'm just wheezing. And so she's like, you have some

[Elise Hu]

sort of viral respiratory infection. Just some sort of one fun.

[Effy]

And it's triggering your asthma, which I have aller allergy related asthma, so occasionally I need to use my inhaler. She's like, you're gonna have to use that every like four hours or so just to breathe. Because it was really funny. Because when she was like having me take deep breaths, you know, and she had the stethoscope on me, she was like, no, take deep breaths. And I was like, I am. She's like, no. Oh, breathe.

[Dory Shafrier]

Oh, it was that bad.

[Effy]

I'm breathing. She's like, you're taking such shallow breaths. And I was like, I'm doing my best here. Yeah. So anyway, I don't. I'm not getting enough sleep and then I'm not getting enough oxygen, I think. So I'm kind of just dizzy.

[Elise Hu]

But.

[Effy]

Oh, man, you know, besides that, everything's great. My nanny had a dog bite. You know, my ex husband is sick also.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

She.

[Effy]

It got swollen, it swelled a little bit. So we insisted on taking her to the urgent care. And I'm so glad we did because the doctor there was like, this is in the early stages of infection, so we can knock that out real quick with amoxicillin or some sort of antibiotic. And I'm so glad. And then the guy. Thankfully the dog owner did pay for it.

[Dory Shafrier]

Good. Because there was expenses.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Effy]

And we were like, I don't know, do we go over there?

[Sean Linda]

Ah.

[Effy]

And Rob's like, I'm just gonna text him. And then this morning he was like, okay, I got reimbursed. It was just nothing. And then I had stressed out about it, like, I don't wanna ask anybody for money.

[Dory Shafrier]

As someone who has been bitten by a dog twice, different dogs, years apart, you. You. You just. You just wanna. You just wanna see a doctor about that. It's just. Yeah, it's not something to. It seems kind of deep.

[Effy]

Yeah.

[Dory Shafrier]

So.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Effy]

Yeah, we're glad that she's all fixed up.

[Dory Shafrier]

I'm glad she is fixed up. And I hope she feels totally better soon. All right, well, let's get to our guest, Eleanor Cleghorn, who is a feminist, cultural historian, writer and researcher living in Sussex. She got her PhD in humanities and cultural studies in 2012. And her writing on women's health and its histories has been published in the Wall Street Journal, BBC History, BBC Science, Focus, et cetera, et cetera. Her first book was Unwell Women and her new book is A Woman's Work Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering. And just quickly, before we get to Eleanor, just a reminder that Our website is forever35podcast.com. We have links there to everything we mentioned on the show. Our Instagram is Forever35 podcast. You can join our [e-mail] Forever35 for bonus content, including video, casual chats, ad free episodes, monthly pop culture recommendation episodes, our newsletter and so much more. And that's at patreon.com forever35. Call or text us at 781-591-0390 and email us at forever35podcastmail.com. And here is Eleanor. Eleanor, welcome to Forever35. We are so excited to have you on the show.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

[Dory Shafrier]

You are about to launch a book which is not a period of time historically known for people's self care. So I'm wondering what you are doing right now to take care of yourself.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Okay. So I don't know if you guys have seen this meme that does the rounds that's like a little creature and it says the horrors persist. But I have my little crafts.

[Effy]

Yes, I have.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

I am the little creature and I have my little crafts. So anything I can do at the moment that's like making a little thing that's kind of low stakes. Be that like a biscuit, a pie, a little bit. The thing that I really like to do is crochet. And I kind of come back to this at points in my life because it's just got this beautiful kind of repetition to it and anything analog, you know that where you've got like a lovely little thing at the end of it or you're in the process towards making something lovely like a little scarf or a beautiful salad. I don't know. It's just for the love of making or doing it or having it, rather than because my career depends on it. Which is the kind of antidote, I think, to the anxiety that can come with a press cycle and a publication, imminent publication or a book. Yeah.

[Effy]

I don't want to go too far

[Elise Hu]

down a rabbit hole, but have you tried needle felting?

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

I've tried it once or twice. I did it a couple.

[Dory Shafrier]

It's so fun.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Because of the stabbing. The stabbing? Yeah. Yeah. It's like the fact that what you end up with is so unbelievably cute, but then you're kind of stood in order to make it.

[Elise Hu]

You've stabbed your way there.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

You've stabbed your way there. Yeah. It's amazing. I feel like maybe I need to add to the repertoire of little crafts, get back into needle felting for sure.

[Effy]

Love that.

[Dory Shafrier]

So we're just going to take a short break and we will be right back.

[Elise Hu]

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[Effy]

We are here to talk about your

[Elise Hu]

new book, A Woman's Work Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering. Tell us about the origin of this project.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

So this book is my second book. My first was called Unwell Women and it was A history really of medical misogyny. So a history 2000 history of the ways that women have been oppressed, mistreated, misdiagnosed, mystified by the male dominated medical establishment. Now while I was writing, researching that book, so often women's illnesses, women's health conditions, just their kind of states and conditions of life tend to be always like indexed back to their reproductive function, like our assumed basic function as reproducers, as mothers. So while I was working on this book, Unwell Women, I was also really interested in all these kind of messages and narratives around women's reproductive bodies around, but also around women's reproductive function in society. I really thought I want to go back to the history of women like I did with Unwell Women. So big sweeping look at our history and women's place in history. But look at it this time through the experiences of mothers and through these sort of overarching narratives around motherhood that have evolved, you know, over the course of the centuries. So like Unwell Women, I begin quite early. So this book, women's work begins in the 9th century BCE and then kind of a journey all the way to the present. And what I'm really interested in in this book is showing that motherhood is this sort of, it's been this kind of organizing principle in women's lives. And it's so often been seen as the state that exempts women from the world. Like women and mothers first, therefore they can't work. Women and mothers have to be mothers, therefore they can't be political agents, they can't participate in their societies. What else has that meant? So as well as looking a bit like I did in Unwell Women, at kind of some patriarchal, like the construction of patriarchal ideas about women's bodies and social roles. I also wanted to look again at what mothering and motherhood has meant over the centuries. So what have men who've been in power told women to do by virtue of their mothering status? But also what have women and people who mothered achieved within those roles? What's caregiving, what's mothering? What has maternity contributed to culture, to politics, to society? So yeah, it's a kind of journey through motherhood as a practice that's made the world. You know, mothers make the history. And without mothers there wouldn't be any history. And yet mothering is seen as this just commonplace, everyday, ordinary activity that just gets done.

[Dory Shafrier]

As you point out, history has generally been written by men. And so I'd love for you to talk a little bit about what the research process for this book was like, I mean, how. How did you go back to the 9th century BC and explore mothering then? And, you know, through the. Through the centuries.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

It's a great question because you're right, history has been written by men. Men, for many centuries have been. Have had, you know, access to literacy and education, where women have very often been denied that. Men are the ones who've had the privilege of being able to write about their lives and also to record what is important about what's going on in the world. Right.

[Elise Hu]

So.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Yeah, right. Perception of history as being the wars, the invasion about wars.

[Effy]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Battles, the kings, the great dynasties of men. You know, what women were expected to do every day, raising the children of men, bearing the children of men, was not of interest in, like, traditional kind of history telling. You have this kind of lack of evidence, as you said, Dory, because women weren't able to write their stories and write about their experiences in the way that men were. And then the question of what gets preserved, you know, what material is even important and what gets archived, what gets saved in libraries, what stories get told again and again? So it's always really important to me to, as far as I can tell women's history through women's own voices.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Effy]

So how'd you do it?

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Well, I mean, I went back. The reason I started in the 9th century BC was because I was reading this museum. What do you even call it, Like, a catalog of an exhibition that was in the Herakleon Museum of Archaeology in Crete. And it was about this cave in southern Crete where archaeologists in the 70s had kind of done this huge dig, and they'd found all these incredible objects, like jewelry, axe heads, but also kind of handmade votive, little beautiful objects. And there are a number of objects found in this cave that represented childbirth or pregnancy or things to do with child care. Like little tiny clay swaddled babies, beautiful things like this that were thought to be handmade many, many, many centuries ago. And this site was known to be a part of Crete where an ancient goddess of childbirth was honored. And there was this little model they found in that dig that was a boat, tiny little boat. And it had a clay model that resembles a little tiny fetus inside the boat.

[Elise Hu]

Wow.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

And these little sailors that were female. So, like, one has got one of her breasts fed and, like, her arm up, really kind of defiant and powerful and. But it's just this tiny handmade object. And I just became really obsessed with this because, you know, we don't Know its purpose, its intended purpose can't be known for sure, but we can tell that, you know, there's a kind of culture around this. You know, women in the 9th century BC on Crete are making these little models because they want to protect themselves in childbirth or because they want to give thanks if they've survived and their. Their baby is healthy. And it just was extraordinary to me. Such a strange thing, a little ship with a growing baby inside. And then from that you think, well, this object is going to tell me a story. Yeah, yeah. This one was sort of poignant enough that it felt like it held a story that was somewhere to begin. So I kind of worked on that principle. Like, I found the stories that are available to me that through which kind of wider stories could be told. So, for example, going forward in time a bit, I've got a chapter in the book about the treatment of unmarried mothers in London in the 17th century. So the way that these women who got pregnant out of wedlock was stigmatized the way they were treated by their societies and by the law. So for that, I found the stories through the Old Bailey, which was the courts of law, through the archives of the court testimonies, like the hearings. And you would get these little snap, little snapshots, tiny, tiny glimpses into who a woman was and what her situation might have been. So you might hear that she, you know, had. Had a baby or that she'd, like, abandoned them. Like, you know, you get these kind of harrowing stories, but from that you begin to think, well, what were. What was her life like? What were her circumstances like? And even though that's not a woman's own voice, it was a really kind of crucial insight into how. Into what the kind of real life experiences, like many, many thousands of women were.

[Elise Hu]

We're talking about this wide expanse of time. And you mentioned, obviously, these Testimonies in the 17th century coming from being these women being in trouble. Right. Being in trouble with the law because they were unwed. And so I'm curious, what you feel in your research has really defined what motherhood should mean. Has it been governments and legal systems? Has it been norms? Has it been religion? And if there's anything overarching there that you found in the sweep of time.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Yeah, I think it's been a real combination of all those factors, those kind of systems of power that over centuries have conspired to control people's lives and especially women's lives. So if you think we've lived, at least in our Western part of the world, Our global North under patriarchy for centuries. And the patriarchy is upheld. It's not just an ideology, you know, Male supremacy that underpins it is upheld by, as you say, at least by the law, by all those systems that are still dominated by male power. So the law, religion, societal norms and customs and you know, culture as well. So writing or they all of all of those systems have sort of reinforced this idea that women exist to give birth, they exist to raise children, but they have to do that under certain conditions. So being married to a man who is. Who has power over them, raising their children within a marital family, these are all also kind of ideas and laws, you know, ideas that have turned into sort of laws that have really issued this kind of set of controlling circumstances around what the best way is to mother or the right way is to be a mother. And one of the things that has struck me that I think is really consistent still today is that women bear all the responsibility for pregnancy and birth like it happens to us, and yet so much of it has been out of our control.

[Elise Hu]

What do you mean by that?

[Dory Shafrier]

Which parts?

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

What I mean is, you know, for example, it's been really difficult for women to mother historically, not so much now, but historically to mother as on their own to mothering queer partnerships, to mother in different kind of kinship networks and families that aren't this kind of traditional marital nuclear family. If women kind of have in the past transgressed like sexual codes, like for example, getting pregnant out of wedlock, you know, as they used to call it, or women who haven't got this, the kind of economic security of like a male partner or from their own, you know, women who are in kind of emotion, economically precarious situations as well. So it's. Unless, I think what I'm trying to say is unless women have conformed to these kind of male patriarch fully dictated sets of circumstances around reproduction and mothering, it's been really difficult to mother in a way that is right or safe or, you know, secure outside of those kind of conditions of marriage and nuclear family. Effy.

[Effy]

Oh boy.

[Elise Hu]

Well, it's only, I mean, and I

[Effy]

say that, I guess the, the natural follow up question is like, what do we do about it?

[Elise Hu]

Because we are in this time, especially in the United States, where there's a real re. Emphasis on traditional marriage and traditional nuclear families, even after women had made gains in the 70s and 80s and in getting to be able to buy our own homes, for example.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Yeah, absolutely. And this is one of the things I think that I'm Always interested in trying to communicate. And that's that as women, our rights, if our rights have been hard won, they're always precarious and we have to kind of keep fighting for them. It's such hard work and it keeps us working and it keeps us. And it's exhausting, right, to. To keep. When we've made gains, to keep return knowing that all this stuff is still so present. You know, this old stuff, these old ideas, these old fallacies about what women are and what men are and what our bodies are for are still with us. And it does seem like when you suddenly do like, oh, boy. Yeah, it does feel like that. And when we look at the way that rights around mothering and around reproduction are eroded and think really about what it is that is important to say, like the current administration in the US and like the encroaching far right stuff that's happening over here in the UK as well, it's exactly the same rhetoric. It's like very. Hold my beer, you know.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah. Like all of women's body.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Yeah. And I look and I think, you know, this is, this is from. From where I serve, from what I do as a. As a historian or like a communicator of history. I always think it's really important to visit, revisit our history. Not just because it tells us where all this stuff comes from, but it also tells us that we have resisted and made it through and created new worlds for ourselves. And I think when things feel bleak and things feel really difficult and the fight feels too much to look back at history and say, even in the biggest ways and the smallest everyday ways, women and people who care for children, I think, have found ways to survive and live their lives really beautifully and to, from their sort of vantage point of mothering, even under really extreme states of oppression, have made change for themselves in their own lives and for others. And that's the kind of other part of the story that I wanted to tell too, was that mothering and reproduction, while it's definitely been a root of women's oppression over the centuries, and there are people working very hard to try and make that the case again, that mothering is, I think, a source of incredible power and incredible strength and also of community and connection, I think a lot of what we see happening politically is about isolation and, you know, the isolation of, like, don't speak to each other, don't share. Like, it's about isolating and silencing. That's a lot of that at work.

[Effy]

Okay, let's take a break and we

[Elise Hu]

will be right back.

[Dory Shafrier]

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[Elise Hu]

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[Effy]

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[Elise Hu]

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[Effy]

Varies by plan. I would love to see a world,

[Elise Hu]

you know, in which it was not an imperative to bear children or to be a mother at all. Right. And so I'm curious what your deep study of mothering and how it was defined and its history, how that connects with a world in which women are free to not mother at all if

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

we don't want to. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm really, like, really interested equally in not just women's fight to be able to mother in the ways they want, but also women's fight. Fight for the right to not be mothers.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

And that's when, you know, over history, women are told from every, you know, conceivable mouthpiece that wanting. That being a mother and having children is normal and healthy, and that if you don't want it, you're. You know, there's something fundamentally wrong with you. Or if that you can't. If you face fertility challenges and struggles, that you're broken or a failure, when this is so drummed in by, you know, medicine, by culture, by law,

[Effy]

to

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

actually stand up and say, that's not what I want, or to explore, like, all the ambivalence and all the questioning that comes with it that it isn't. This kind of just this sort of sacred, amazing thing that, you know, is natural is, like, written into us by virtue of our biology somehow, like, challenging that narrative is. Is an important part of the history that I write as well. And we see a lot of this coming through in the 20th century with activists who were campaigning for things like birth control, sex education, reproductive health care, abortion services. You know, like, activists who are really, like, really campaigning for the kind of rights that we're still like, or choice defending today. Choice, exactly. That's the point. Choice was so important to this because women's rights, I think, since kind of the beginnings of the sort of organized women's rights movement in the 19th century, has always been about women striving for the right to be recognized as people first. And that means having the agency to choose what they do with their bodies and lives. And if that means not wanting it, that means changing your mind. If that means having no, you know, identifying as having no maternal feeling that was just having. Like, just giving women the kind of permission to have those kind of thoughts, to express them and own them, is such an important part, I think, of the history of. Of women's rights. So while on the one hand, I want to, like, look again, you know, revisit what mothering is like. Mothering is really important part of kind of social, cultural, political history. It's also is not just about, like, women don't just come into their power by having children and mothering them. They also do it by rejecting that in other ways, by having lives that are the lives that they want.

[Elise Hu]

Of course. And you mentioned kinship networks as well. Right. So there's plenty of ways to be a parent, you know, or be an adult that matters to a child or the next generation without having given birth to them, you know, completely. I think that's really.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

And I think the more we recognize that mothering as a practice is not something that's, like, confined just to, like, a primary biological parent or parents. Right. The more we can think about how mothering can be possible for more people, because it kind of opens up the ways in which it can be done. Right. Like, is it something that you share with friends? Can we. Like, I'm always often thinking about these kind of, like, what would it really look like, you know, if we could make this sort of future? If we could imagine a future in which, like, mothering was this kind of practice that could be done, really done and supported outside of the kind of traditional nuclear family. And, like, I often think, like, mothering with friends or like, having different kinds of caregiving, like, reimagining a family is really integral to that as well. Because so much of the. We still have so much stigma around, like, who gets to parent in the first place and what that looks like, you know. So I think, yeah, that being able to opt out of biological parenting of the traditional kind of parent child form of mothering and reimagine, like, expanding out, what mothering is a means and like, how significant it is to how we live and who we are is. Is, like, part of how I can, like, kind of imagine a positive and, like, hopeful future. It's, like, really integral to that, I think. Okay.

[Elise Hu]

All right.

[Effy]

I was gonna ask you.

[Elise Hu]

You wrote the radical history of mothering. I'd love for you to share sort of your radical vision. And it sounds like you kind of did it. You painted that picture a world in which there are many ways to mother.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Yeah, I think so. And I think that, you know, mothering is. I say it in the introduction. Like, our culture for many, many centuries has tried to kind of create this one norm of, like, idealized motherhood. Like, who's a good mother? There's this really consistent idea. A good mother is a good wife, is a good domestic. She's puts her own. Like, she puts her own needs away. We See it now. We see this kind of thing really glorified, like, in. On our Mother's Day in the uk, there's still a lot of cars that are, like, you know, celebrating mum for all the, like, sacrifices she makes behind the scenes. I think this whole thing that mothers, like, toil away in the background and never ask for anything, and, you know, they're the sort of unsung angels. I think this is still with us very much.

[Elise Hu]

My feminism is one in which I

[Effy]

can parent, like John Draper. I want to be like Don Draper, not Betty. I want the freedom and the license.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Yeah, come on, Mom Draper. But no, this is. Right, but it's like mothering is. Is also an incredibly complex experience for everyone who chooses to do it and however they do. And to be kind of laboring under all these illusions that it should be fulfilling, it should be automatically fulfilling, that it should be all you kind of need. Right. As a woman, I think this kind of stuff is still with us. It's really pervasive. These myths really, they really get in. They really stick. And there is no. Mothering is not monolithic. And the more we can just consign all this, like, idealized mother to the past, the more we can move forward. But it's not easy to do because these myths, these kind of old hat ideas, they serve. They serve people. They serve the kind of men in the kinds of power that want to control our lives in a certain way. Right?

[Dory Shafrier]

Yeah.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Yeah.

[Dory Shafrier]

Well, Eleanor, it was really, really great to get to talk to you about your fascinating new book. Yeah, congratulations. It really is quite an achievement, and I think will be really make it make a real impact on the way people think about the history of motherhood. So thank you.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Well, thank you so much for having me. And thanks for your brilliant questions.

[Dory Shafrier]

And where can our listeners find you?

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

I am currently on Instagram far too much, so come and find me over there. I'm Leanor Cleghorn.

[Elise Hu]

Okay, Fantastic, Eleanor. Thank you.

[Dory Shafrier]

Thank you.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Oh, thank you.

[Dory Shafrier]

I do always love talking to our British guests because they often have very soothing voices.

[Effy]

Yes, yes, Eleanor, you can teach me stuff anytime.

[Dory Shafrier]

Yeah, exactly. Well, let's go into the intention zone. Last week, my intention was just to have a good parental visit, and I'm happy to report that I did.

[Elise Hu]

Oh, good, good.

[Dory Shafrier]

And this week, I want to keep cleaning the office zones.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Yes.

[Effy]

Zone by zone.

[Dory Shafrier]

Yeah. I can't remember if it was on a casual chat or mini app where I mentioned this, but Matt came up with a plan to clean my office that involves Dividing it into six zones. And we did the first zone. The. I sent a picture to Elise. It's very satisfying.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Yeah, it's impressive.

[Dory Shafrier]

Just keep keeping that up. Elise, what about you?

[Elise Hu]

My intention was to foam roll because

[Effy]

I was exercising so much more after my tennis trip, my tennis retreat to the sensei. But then I stopped exercising because I fell ill. So I haven't really been foam rolling my body so much because I haven't doing. Haven't been doing much with my body due to just being proned out most of the time trying to sleep. So my intention this week will be healing. I haven't been sick in a long time, knock on wood. Until now. And so, gosh, you really take your health for granted because when I'm not feeling well, I'm like, wow, I am not operating anywhere close to even 80 to 90%, so. And I need to.

[Eleanor Cleghorn]

Right.

[Effy]

Man, I got too many kids and animals and jobs in order to be at sub 80. So just hoping for some more oxygen and healing. So send good vibes.

[Dory Shafrier]

Okay? I'm sending all the good vibes.

[Effy]

Thank you.

[Dory Shafrier]

All right, everyone. Forever 35 is hosted and produced by me, Dori Shafrier and Elise Hu, and produced and edited by Sam Junio. Sammy Reed is our project manager and our network partner is Acast. Thanks everyone for listening and we will talk to you soon.

[Effy]

Talk to you next time.

[Dory Shafrier]

All right, bye.

[Hayden]

Howdy, howdy ho, and welcome to Fantasy Fan. Fellas, I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson.

[Stephen]

And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball, but you can call me the Smash Daddy.

[Hayden]

And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Stephen here has not read Mistborn before.

[Stephen]

That's right.

[Grow Therapy Announcer]

Hey.

[Hayden]

Hey.

[Stephen]

So each week, you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every. Every single chapter.

[Hayden]

And along the way, we'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong.

[Stephen]

News flash, I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find Fantasy fan fellows wherever you get your podcasts.

[Hayden]

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