Mother of Invention: How Our Mothers Influenced Us As Feminist Academics and Activists is an interdisciplinary collection that combines feminist theory with life writing to explore the diverse ways that mothers, whether or not they themselves identity as “feminist,” inspire feminist consciousness in their daughters and sons. It features creative and scholarly contributions from feminist academics, activists, writers and artists from different educational backgrounds, places and walks of life. While not an exclusive celebration of maternal relations, this collection provides an antidote to matrophobia and mother-blaming by critically exploring and affirming the myriad of challenges and complexities that constitute motherwork. It explores how the mothering of feminist daughters and sons intersects with issues of gender, sexuality, dis- ability, ethnicity, racialization, citizenship, religion, economic class, education, and socio-historical location. Collectively these essays explore the centrality of intergenerational matrilineal narratives in shaping feminist consciousness, they deconstruct dominant ideologies of patriarchal motherhood and womanhood, and they challenge the notion that there is a formulaic way to raise feminist daughters and sons, or a singular “correct” way to engage in feminist maternal practice.

Vanessa Reimer is a PhD candidate in York University’s Graduate Program in Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies. She is the co-editor of Mother of Invention: How Our Mothers Influenced us as Feminist Academics and Activists (Reimer and Sahagian 2013). Her research interests include feminist studies in religion, girlhood, and mothering.

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Sarah Sahagian earned her undergraduate degree in history and gender studies from Ontario’s Queen’s University. She then went on to complete her MSc in gender from the London School of Economics. Sarah is currently a PhD candidate in gender, feminist and women’s studies at York University and feels fortunate to be able to call Dr. Andrea O’Reilly her supervisor. Sarah was born and raised in Toronto, the same city she resides in today. She also has one of the coolest mothers in the world, who will even watch teen movies with you if you ask her and looks a good ten years younger than her actual age.

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