Review - My Seven Mothers by Pernille Ipsen

Title: My Seven Mothers: Making a Family in the Danish Women's Movement*

Author: Pernille Ipsen

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Rating: n/a (I don’t normally rate memoirs, but I totally recommend this book!)

Favorite Quote: “It was much easier for my mothers to do new things because they didn’t have to negotiate about it with men.” Ipsen, Pernille. My Seven Mothers: Making a Family in the Danish Women’s Movement. University of Minnesota Press, 2025. Pg. 77. 

Review: Thanks to the NetGalley platform and the University of Minnesota Press for the free e-ARC I received in exchange for an honest review. 

My Seven Mothers is a number of stories tied into one: the story of a woman’s movement who changed the course of history for women in Copenhagen and beyond, the story of different women whose relationships with one another ranged from platonic to romantic, but is uniquely powerful regardless, and finally, the story of Pernille Ipsen, whose life began with seven mothers, all of whom 

This book is my favorite kind of nonfiction - one that shares a story of a historical event (or other non-fictiony topic), interwoven with a personal narrative. I like to learn something, but I also love to hear how the author, or someone else, exists within that story. 

Ipsen focuses much of the book on the various movements her mothers participated in - primarily the Redstocking Movement and the women’s island retreat that they participated in and/or founded as they developed in their lives as activated.

But she also keeps herself entwined in the narrative, often referencing conversations she had with her mothers as she interviewed them for this book. 

The book focuses on so many of the successes and the struggles of being a woman and an activist in Copenhagen during this era. One moment that stood out to me as particularly impressive (and a bit amusing) is when they led a group of women to build a makeshift stroller ramp at the train station because the station was so inaccessible to people with children. While the ramp itself didn’t last long, a new, more longstanding solution was soon found.

The book is also an exploration of gender and sexuality and how those two things are often fluid and have no clear boundaries. It looks at religion and culture and everything that built the women who built the movements explored throughout the book. 

The one criticism of this book is that I think it could be structured a bit more cohesively. Except for the first section, I often found myself confused about where in time the particular chapter was located within the span of the greater narrative. 

About that Quote: This book is by no means a book about hating men. Many of Pernille’s mothers had meaningful, loving relationships with men. But I think a critical part of this book is that it explores how women could reimagine relationships and reimagine their lives without the constructs placed on them throughout their lives. And so they could make decisions…without needing men to take part.