Why does writing about motherhood provoke so much rage?

The subject is guaranteed to attract a tsunami of bile, stemming from resentment, sexism and disgust

My friend E has written a book. It's not as though it hasn't all been said before," she said. I suppose the most interesting thing about it is how many times it can be said without anything changing."

I can't work out whether I've forgotten what my friends are like, or forgotten how to have a conversation, but this doesn't sound like E at all. It sounds sheepish, like she has stepped on a toe, or overshared, or fallen in some way beneath her standards (which are, granted, as complicated and precise as the laser alarm system in Mission: Impossible). But I've never heard that tone in her voice. Politically, she is a radical. Personally, she is more radical. You can't get a sheepish radical - it's a philosophical impossibility. It would be chased straight back into its pen by the dogs of convention.