Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI - York University)
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Motherhood’s Opening Chapter: Birth Stories as Performance and Counter Performance Across Dueling Media Platforms
Get PDFWomen in our culture are heavily exposed to both social media and reality television shows, tending to regard each as potential sources of information about birth. In this paper I examine the ways that birth stories are transmitted across these dueling media platforms asking what these vastly divergent portrayals of childbirth communicate to women about their birthing bodies. Extending Della Pollack’s theory of performance and counter performance as a theoretical framework for my discussion, I argue that mother-authored birth stories shared on pregnancy message boards can be understood as a collective textual performance revealing much about the ways in which women experience childbirth under our current maternity care system. In contrast, I identify the genre of childbirth reality television as a destructive counter performance of women’s lived experiences. These in turn inform public discourse about pregnancy and birth with broad implications in a range of ongoing debates over matters such as: Where should women be legally permitted to give birth? How should decisions be made during labor? And to what extent should institutions and governments be granted authority to regulate women’s choices during pregnancy and labor
Branding the Bump: Mediating Motherhood and Celebrity Culture in Popular Media
Get PDFConsumer capitalism has created new demands for celebrity culture. Celebrities are expected to develop a brand identity to help maintain relevancy in a tabloid culture that privileges novelty. Such industry changes have resulted in numerous celebrity mothers commodifying their maternal identity into profitable lifestyle brands. This process, however, is not viable for all celebrity mothers who already possess distinctive personas in popular culture. Following the success of the Sex and the City franchise, Sarah Jessica Parker transformed her celebrity into a fashion lifestyle brand through partnerships with various clothing retailers and designers. Her brand does not possess symbolic or commercial value without the association to Carrie Bradshaw, yet Parker’s role as a mother is in contrast to the traits that define her iconic Sex and the City character. Through an analysis of cultural discourses, trends, and texts, this paper interrogates how Parker has attempted to modulate her identity as a mother in order to maintain the association to Bradshaw. Specific attention is directed towards Parker’s adaptation of I Don’t Know How She Does It by examining how the film’s narrative structure reinforces the legacy of Bradshaw despite its content matter illuminating the tensions of contemporary motherhood
Reproducing Fat-Phobia: Reproductive Technologies and Fat Women’s Right to Mother
Get PDFIn September 2011, doctors from the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society met todiscuss the need for a clear policy denying ivf and other forms of assisted reproductivetechnology to women who have a bmi in the “obese” category (Abraham). While thedebate did not result in a final policy for the Society, the dialogue stemmed from thefact that many Canadian clinics have already instituted such policies independently.Likewise, many other jurisdictions continue to institute similar policies of denyingreproductive technologies to women who are viewed as overly large. This paperaims to discuss the specific challenges faced by fat people attempting to build familyin non-normative ways. Specifically, by looking at the implications for fat bodiesrequiring reproductive assistance as well as fat people looking to build family throughadoption, I aim to unpack some of the ways that fat people are intrinsically viewedas unworthy of parenting. This is especially true for fat women with intersectingidentities such as race and class that immediately position them outside of the realmof “good motherhood.” This article aims to critically respond to the growing trend ofdiscrimination and explores the underlying messages about maternity, reproduction,and fat that underpin attempts to stem fat women’s paths to family
Director of Operations Meets Gangster from the Mother-hood: Consumer Culture and the Marketing of Maternal Identities
No full textRepresentations of the maternal in consumer culture reinscribe the interests of the dominant culture through a mechanism of repression and wish fulfillment, whereby maternal anxiety is assuaged with promises of empowerment and adulation. In a world with few existential bearings, in which community has been degraded through the disembedding and sequestering of personal experience, individuals acquiesce to mediated representations and consumable identities to protect against cognitive dissonance and ontological insecurity. However, mothers are particularly vulnerable to the cultural forces of mediation and commodification, given their struggle to negotiate the disjuncture between the institutional demands of motherhood and their personal knowledge of mothering. By deconstructing maternal identity as represented in the “World’s Toughest Job” and “The Mother-hood” YouTube commercials, this article explores the power of consumer culture to sell images of motherhood that women can neither achieve nor abandon, because they effectively quell anxiety regarding the oppressive conditions of maternal labour, by offering utopian visions of elevated social status and collectivity. In both cases, buying into a prescribed identity bestows the benefits of membership; however, careful scrutiny reveals that cultural reproductions advance a fantasy of collectivity that is a poor substitute for individual agency. Ultimately, authenticity, as it relates to motherhood, is only possible when the personal meaning of experience is restored as the primary referent or ‘expert text’ in the practice of mothering