Elinor Cleghorn
Who gets to Define Motherhood?
In Conversation with Elinor Cleghorn
Improving Me, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside women’s health and maternity programme and Liverpool Library Service are delighted to present Elinor Cleghorn in conversation at Liverpool Central Library on Thursday 19th November 2026 from 5.30pm - 7.30pm in the Discover Room.
Liverpool is delighted to welcome back the acclaimed feminist cultural historian Elinor Cleghorn for an evening of conversation, history and radical rethinking.
In her latest book, A Woman’s Work, Elinor Cleghorn uncovers the radical history of mothering and asks what happens when society treats women’s bodies as public property.
From the politics of falling birth rates to the enduring pressures of pronatalism, this is a conversation about who controls motherhood, whose work is valued, and whose voices have been written out of history.
Elinor brings mothers, othermothers, midwives, activists and community leaders back to the centre of the story — reclaiming the acts of growing, birthing, nurturing and loving as skilled, powerful and profoundly important work.
And we couldn’t possibly let her leave without returning to the book that started so many conversations about women’s health-Unwell Women.
In Unwell Women, Elinor exposed centuries of medical myths, dismissed pain and the ways women’s experiences have been misunderstood and overlooked by healthcare systems. Together, these two books invite us to ask some uncomfortable — and urgent — questions about women’s bodies, health, motherhood and power.
Come for the history. Stay for the conversation.
Closing the Gap Together
As we celebrate a decade of Improving Me, Baby Week 2026 is an opportunity to reflect on how far we have come and the work still to do. This year's theme, Closing the Gap, encourages us all to listen to women and families, recognise health inequalities and support healthcare systems that put prevention, wellbeing and equity at their heart.
For more information:
Contact the Baby Week team:
Email: jo@jowardchangemaker.org.uk