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)

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.

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.

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).

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)

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).

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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

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: forever35podcast@gmail.com

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.