Introduction

Maternity has often been proclaimed as a source of sameness and identification between women – we are all born of mothers, and although some of us cannot or do not become mothers, our being in a woman's body is often identified with its procreative potential. The identification of woman with the maternal has been implicated in many Western theories which purport to explain woman's essential condition – either our alleged universal subordination (Chodorow 1978; de Beauvoir 1972 (1949); Ortner 1974; Rosaldo and Lamphere 1974) or to explain and celebrate our difference from men (Gilligan 1982; Irigaray 1985; Kristeva 1980; Trebilcotl983).

Although maternity will, I imagine, continue to be a powerful factor in and a potent metaphor of women's identity and unity, what I consider here is rather how maternity has divided women – how class, race and nation have constituted us as ‘other mothers’.