Out on October 21, 2025!
Seven mothers, one daughter.
A chronicle of gender, sexuality, and feminism, My Seven Mothers is an eye-opening account of the challenges and possibilities connected with liberation and radical social change during the 1970s.
In this time of fierce struggles over family, sexuality, and child-rearing, it reminds us that new worlds are always possible.
Praise for My Seven Mothers
"This book is a treasure, especially for a second-wave American feminist who was thrilled to learn of the boldness and courage of our Danish sisters at the very start of the 1970s women’s movement. I can’t recommend it highly enough."
—Vivian Gornick, author of Fierce Attachments
"This memoir reads like a novel. It’s about many things—feminism, collective living, family, and especially mothering, as well as the extraordinary optimism of Denmark in the 1970s. My Seven Mothers certainly is not all happiness and light, but that makes it even more moving, and as an American feminist I felt a sense of recognition infused with my own memories."
—Linda Gordon, author of Seven Social Movements That Changed America
"Pernille Ipsen weaves together a beautifully written account of the lives and choices of the seven women who became her mothers in a time of profound social upheaval. Compulsively readable and historically insightful, My Seven Mothers reveals the spirit, courage, and tenacity required of the women who paved the way for second-wave feminist organizing in Denmark."
—Birgitte Søland, author of Becoming Modern: Young Women and the Reconstruction of Womanhood in the 1920s
Pernille Ipsen
I am a historian and full time writer, who divides her time between Madison, Wisconsin and Copenhagen Denmark. From 2009 to 2024 I was a professor of gender and women’s studies and history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
The Danish-language version of My Seven Mothers, Et åbent øjeblik (An open moment), was published in 2020 and was awarded the Montana Prize for literature, one of Denmark’s top literary prizes.