How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir

How to Lose Your Mother operates within the broader cultural framework of generational shifts in feminist thought, offering a unique perspective on the legacy and limitations of second-wave feminism through the lens of a daughter examining her famous feminist mother’s life and decline.

Second-wave feminism emerged in the 1960s and reached its peak in the 1970s, building upon the first wave’s focus on legal rights to address broader issues of social equality, workplace discrimination, reproductive rights, and sexual liberation. Exemplified by works like Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963) and organizations like the National Organization for Women (NOW), second-wave feminism challenged the post-World War II domestic ideology that confined women to roles as wives and mothers. Second-wave feminists advocated for equal pay, access to contraception and abortion, childcare support, and the dismantling of legal and social barriers that prevented women from entering professions and pursuing careers. The movement emphasized consciousness-raising groups, where women shared personal experiences to understand how individual problems reflected systemic oppression. This wave of feminism was also characterized by its focus on sexual liberation as a form of empowerment, challenging traditional notions of female sexuality and advocating for women’s right to express their desires freely. 

However, the movement has been criticized for primarily representing the concerns of white, middle-class, heterosexual women, often overlooking the experiences of women of color, working-class women, and LGBTQ+ individuals. The movement’s emphasis on breaking free from traditional constraints sometimes created tension between professional achievement and family responsibilities. Jong-Fast’s memoir explores this tension through her mother’s choices and their consequences.

Erica Jong’s 1973 novel Fear of Flying emerged as a defining text of second-wave feminism, selling millions of copies worldwide and establishing Jong as a prominent voice in the movement that emphasized women’s sexual liberation, professional equality, and personal autonomy. The book’s frank treatment of female sexuality challenged societal taboos and provided a literary foundation for women’s liberation discourse. Jong achieved celebrity status during the height of second-wave feminism, appearing on television, gracing magazine covers, and becoming a cultural icon whose work shaped conversations about women’s rights and sexual freedom. 

However, Jong-Fast’s memoir reveals the personal costs of this fame. Her childhood was characterized by emotional unavailability from a mother whose public advocacy for women’s freedom coexisted with private dysfunction, alcohol addiction, and an inability to maintain stable relationships or provide consistent maternal care. Jong-Fast describes growing up in an environment where her mother’s literary career and public persona consistently took precedence over family obligations. The memoir also captures the decline of second-wave feminism’s cultural prominence. Jong-Fast observes that her mother’s work, once groundbreaking in its treatment of female sexuality, seems less relevant in contemporary discussions of feminism and social justice that prioritize issues of race, class, sexuality, and gender identity beyond the primarily white, middle-class concerns that dominated second-wave discourse.

Jong-Fast’s perspective represents a third-wave and contemporary feminist sensibility that questions some of the assumptions and priorities of her mother’s generation. While acknowledging the groundbreaking importance of works like Fear of Flying in expanding women’s possibilities, she critiques her mother’s tendency to prioritize theoretical liberation over practical family stability. The generational tension in the memoir reflects broader cultural shifts between second-wave feminism’s emphasis on individual freedom and later feminist waves’ attention to intersectionality, family structures, and the complexity of women’s roles. Jong-Fast’s recovery from addiction and her commitment to her own children represent an attempt to synthesize feminist ideals with stable family life, suggesting an evolution rather than rejection of feminist principles.