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JEWISH BOOK ANNUAL
But none o f these insights prevent Beatrix from continuing to
perpe tua te the patriarchal model o f mo thering her daugh ter,
Lena.
Her Mothers
tells the patriarchal story o f women from the po
sition o f a woman who is aware o f the need for change. One
change B roner makes is to provide details o f women’s bodies.
Her Mothers
relishes in details o f women’s bodies that masculine
discourse refrains from disclosing. Beatrix catalogues body
parts that give discomfort by not conform ing to patriarchal
standards o f beauty, and provokes masculine discomfort with
details about menstruation and birthing, female masturbation,
and lesbian sexuality. She claims she learned more about passion
from Emily Dickinson’s veiled references to self-pleasure than
she learned from male lovers who were interested in their plea
sure alone. And she seems to have received most sexual sat
isfaction from Israeli Naomi. But because these rep resen t im
portan t but fleeting moments, they make the book’s ending ap
pear little more than a hope, with its promise o f “no more as
sassinations” between Beatrix and her daugh te r Lena, and its
closing invocation to mothers and daugh ters to give b irth to
each o ther as a community o f women.
COMMON DESTINY
The achievement o f B roner’s
A Weave of Women,
however,
is precisely that it does presen t that community o f women trying
to give b irth to and heal each other, and that it emphasizes
the richness o f the multiplicity o f d ifferen t voices that constitute
womanhood. But the single mutually pleasant relationship be
tween a mo ther and daugh te r in this book is seen in the shared
cooking and embraces in Hepzibah’s weekly meetings with her
aged mo ther. Beyond this, m o th e r-d augh te r conflict and
mother-blame persist; in fact, their effect is one o f the aspects
o f patriarchy from which women try to help each o ther heal.
For instead o f helping their daugh ters deal with their sexuality,
mothers pass on patriarchal attitudes. Hepzibah’s own daugh te r
sides with he r father against her mother. Moreover, mothers
protect their sons, not their daughters. By depicting such mo th
ers as Gentile as well as Jewish, B roner points to their behavior
as patriarchal ra th e r than specifically ethnic.
Both Shula and Rina, wayward girls who end up on the street,