Bred and Born
‘Bred and Born’ features four generations of women in an East London family who talk about their own experiences and close family ties, and a women's group who discuss their roles as mothers and daughters. Moving between these two groups is a fictional storyline: an actress plays two distinct parts – a middle class researcher sent to East London to describe and define the role of the mother within the family, and a 19th century educationalist advocating motherhood as woman's “natural” and primary purpose. Gradually, increasingly conflicting ideas disrupt “truths” which seemed to be solid and unquestionable, as elements of class, race and economics become historically visible.
'Bred and Born' acknowledges the differences between women – differences that we are born into and bred to act out – apparent differences between the language of feminism and the narratives of individual lives expressing the same oppressions but locked off from each other by language and tradition.
– Joanna Davis, Mary Pat Leece
Description Source: Cinenova Catalogue (1994). Edited by Kate Norrish. Editorial committee: Elaine Burrows, Liane Harris, Helen de Witt
