Gonsalvez, Louise

English

Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI - York University)

book reviews246             volume 4,  number 1If anything, O’Malley Halley leaves the reader wanting more. Tantaliz-ing tidbits from her interviews beg for more exposure as powerful teachers about the painful contradictions in mother’s lives. Second, direct engagement with Bordo and Foucault is all but absent from the author’s extensive case studies of adult-child touch. This leaves the reader wondering about their explicit connection outside of O’Malley Halley’s use of “ideology,” a term Foucault himself did not use as it implies that somewhere outside of ideol-ogy lies “truth.” Further, while O’Malley Halley brilliantly exposes how the seemingly mundane choices mothers make are replete with complex histories and lived realities, it is only in her conclusion that she touches on the large questions cited above. O’Malley Halley advocates mothering as a contingent and uncertain ven-ture, one that involves complicated histories of power and difference and dif-ficult choices that disrupt any truth or certainty about being human offered through the clarity of science. Boundaries of Touch gives mothers, activists, and scholars a stunning and thoroughly researched must-read that contributes to key political questions of the day around power/knowledge, embodiment, and the social control of mothering. Urgent Message for Mother: Gather the Women, Save the WorldJean Shinoda Bolen. San Francisco: Conari Press, 2005.Reviewed by Louise Gonsalvez“Tell me the weight of a snowflake,” a sparrow asked of a wild dove. “Nothing more than nothing,” was the answer.“In that case I must tell you a story, the sparrow said. “I sat on the branch of a fir, close to its trunk, when it began to snow. Since I did not have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was 3,741,952. When the 3,741,953rd snowflake dropped onto the branch, nothing more than nothing, as you say, the branch broke off.” Having said that, the sparrow flew away.The dove, since Noah’s time an authority on the matter, thought about the story for a while, and finally said to herself, “Perhaps there is only one person’s voice lacking for peace to come to the world.” (Bolen 142)book reviews journal of the motherhood initiative             247 In Urgent Message for Mother, author Jean Shinoda Bolen calls for a solidar-ity movement that unites women to rise against the patriarchal-machine that is leading us towards environmental collapse, social chaos, and mass conflict. She believes the patriarchal model is fraught with false assumptions that hu-mankind is founded on principles of hierarchy, domination, and subordina-tion.Like Malcolm Gladwell, Bolen notes that there are tipping points in the raising of human consciousness that can alter the course of history. She also reminds us that the human spirit is full of creative genius and the Sacred Feminine can offer us humane solutions to political, social, economic, and environmental entanglements. Bolen references numerous instances where courageous women leaders and bold women’s movements have led to over-whelming social, economic, and/or environmental change.Bolen argues convincingly for the advantages of a feminist perspective, praxis, and political leadership. She notes the gendered nature of many so-cio-economic and environmental issues (including domestic violence, political leadership, and poverty) and identifies the strengths of feminist approaches to real world problems (including collaboration, dialogue, and talking circles). She invokes the first day the people of the world saw the beautiful blue planet earth from space, and how that event catalyzed a paradigm shift: once again, Mother Earth was recognized as a living borderless entity.Although Bolen’s book lacks a strong theoretical framework, empirical ta-bles, and comprehensive referencing, it is a compassionate and compelling call for peace, sustainability, and the resolution of the socio-economic issues that continue to choke and overheat our planet.

Urgent Message for Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World

https://jarm.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/jarm/article/download/36864/33503

Urgent Message for Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World

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Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI - York University)