“But we still try”: affective labor in the corporate mommy blog

This article studies three “mommy blogs,” online platforms catering to (in these cases) American mothers of various sub-demographics, through an affective labor framework. Using digital labor and Althusserian subject formation to inform my reading of the common rhetorical gestures made in these blogs, I ask how they conceive of their readership and contributors. I argue that mommy blogs should be understood as sites of digital labor because of the ways in which their publishing conditions and rhetorics establish labored expectations of the “mommy” subject. Contestations of the nature of affective labor in motherhood are reflected by anxieties around digital labor, which play out via ideological conflicts that manifest rhetorically in the blogs under discussion. This analysis is informed by affect theory, Althusser and Butler’s work on subject formation, and the existing feminist literature on digital labor and the mommy blog.     

“Renewed” “Older” Motherhood/Mothering: A Qualitative Exploration

This UK-based qualitative study explored multiparous women’s experiences of being “older” mothers. Respondents were “renewed mothers” who had a child/children relatively early in their reproductive careers and then again after 35 years of age. Key themes arising from the empirical data were: instrumental role of male partners in post-35 mothering, purported “renewal” of self in the face of menopause/diminution of mothering, caring for teenagers and babies/toddlers simultaneously, and subjection to criticisms of “wrong-aged” motherhood. Experiences of “renewed” “older” mothers suggest significant hard work is necessitated both in terms of mothering and presentation of self as an appropriate mother.     

Incongruous encounters: media representations and lived experiences of stay-at-home mothers

This article juxtaposes mediated representations of stay-at-home mothers (SAHMs) with accounts of twenty-two UK -educated middle-class SAHMs. It exposes a fundamental chasm between media constructions of women’s “opting out” of the workplace as a personal choice, and the factors shaping women’s decisions to leave a career, and their complex, often painful consequences. The juxtaposition highlights three aspects largely rendered invisible in current representations of SAHMs: (1) the influence of husbands’ demanding careers and work cultures on their wives’ “choices” to not return to paid employment; (2) the issue of childcare; and (3) women’s immense unpaid domestic and maternal labour. Although media representations often fail to correspond to middle-class SAHMs’ lives, they shape their thinking and feelings and reconstruct their deepest yearnings and sense of self. In particular, SAHMs speak of feeling invisible, lacking confidence, and being silent and silenced. I conclude by discussing how the disconnect between media representation and SAHMs’ experience may be enhancing and sustaining their silence, which supports and re-secures a patriarchal capitalist system, and by reflecting on the role of feminist media research to voice the lived experience of gender inequality.     

Toward Authenticity

Scholars suggest we construct stories or narratives to help us create order and rationalize events that are difficult to explain. In contemporary society, journalists serve as mediated storytellers, and one story journalists have told from the perspective of sense-making is that of mothers who kill their children, a crime that can defy understanding. This qualitative textual analysis examines ten cases of maternal infanticide to determine the collective narrative told by journalists, exploring the dialectical and rhetorical functions of narrative. The analysis reveals that the news narrative offers moral lessons about the consequences of maternal incompetence and “inappropriate” feminine sexual behavior. The author questions whether the journalistic paradigm of detachment—traditionally associated with a masculine narrative style—is the best way to tell stories of women's lives and suggests feminist research practices can be used to capture the complexities of mothering work, as well as other complicated situations in women's and men's lives.     

“Granny” au pairs in online French news media: a crueller shade of optimism?

This article examines the French media representation of low-cost live-in “granny” au pairing services available to French families in France and abroad. It argues that the French news broadcast media repackage “granny” au pairing as positive ageing while underplaying its status as work. The media not only gloss over the low (or no) payment these older single women receive, but also sidestep the precarious economic conditions which motivate them to undertake this work. Instead of portraying au pairs as underpaid workers, it promotes au pairing as “good-life fantasies” and au pairs as active agers. “Granny” au pairs are framed as glamorous, adventurous tourists, or as devoted super grannies. Following Lauren Berlant’s notion of “cruel optimism,” I argue that the media promote these fantasies despite the lack of evidence of reciprocity in the au pairs’ surrogate family relations and working arrangements. There is a sense of cruel optimism in the way these fantasies deny the reality of au pairing as work, assume that older citizens should find private solutions for inadequate pensions, and reinforce the idea that constant activity is what is required of older single women.     

Women in community radio: a framework of gendered participation

Women’s participation in community radio is examined through a case study of Ireland, with data gathered by survey, interviews and a focus group. Key findings note that women are under-represented as participants in community radio, but there is little activity within the sector to address this imbalance. Similarly, women’s voices are absent from community airwaves but this is framed through a limited understanding women lacking on-air confidence. Solutions to the problem were limited to individual stations rather than approached in a collective manner. There was no sense of women’s voices on air being a priority issue for stations, for the sector, nor for the national regulatory body. With regard to content, stations largely tended to produce “islands” of specialist women’s programmes but there was a sense that women produced content in ways that were not normative and were explicitly linked to gender. Gendered social structures, as well as organisational structures within community radio, constituted further barriers to women’s equal participation in community radio in Ireland. Finally, the presence of women as role models, sponsors, and managers, who were relational in their approach, was key gendered benefits that women derived from their participation in community radio.     

Global concerns,local negotiations and moral selves:

Parents are contradictorily positioned within the “sexualisation of childhood” debate. They (“we”) are assumed to be concerned about sexualisation, and are urged to challenge it through campaigning, “saying no,” discussing “media messages” with children, and so on. Yet “irresponsible” consumption practices, particularly by mothers, are also held responsible for sexualisation. We argue that parental concern may be overstated: participants in our qualitative research into “sexualised goods” tended not to perceive their own children as “sexualised,” did not accept that products are inherently sexualised, and subscribed to ideas about child development and “good” parenting that entailed letting children make their own decisions about such items. Nonetheless, mothers are increasingly compelled to participate in the “sexualisation debate,” and doing so appears to encourage perpetual self-scrutiny and surveillance of others to maintain boundaries between “acceptable,” peer-group-appropriate and “inappropriate” practices and choices. In this sense sexualisation can be seen as a site for the formation of ethical, responsibilised parent subjectivities. We argue that it has costs for (working-class) women and girls in particular: it naturalises social inequalities by obscuring the constraints on individual choice, converges with older discourses that make women responsible for male sexual violence, and reinforces narrow and conventional moral agendas.     

Mother’s home time and the production of child quality

This paper deals with the effect of mother’s time spent out of the labor force, and presumably in the home, on the “production” of child quality, where child quality is measured by intelligence (IQ), level of schooling attained, and market earning power. The results indicate that mother’s home time is most effective in producing (male) child quality for mothers who have attained relatively high levels of schooling. The results suggest that education programs which devote equal school resources to all (male) children do not necessarily provide equal educational opportunity and that the influence of family background on economic success is indirect, operating through home investments in children.     

Experience,perceptions and attitudes of parents who planned home birth in Spain: A qualitative study

BackgroundA woman’s home birth and postpartum experience can have a major impact on her baby’s, partner’s and family’s well being. It is a life-altering event that can help improve or worsen women’s self-esteem and self-confidence.AimThe aim of this study was to describe and understand the experiences, perceptions and attitudes of parents who planned a home birth in Spain.MethodsA qualitative study was conducted based on Gadamer’s hermeneutic phenomenology. Two main methods were used for data collection; narratives and individual in-depth interviews with 14 mothers and 8 fathers who had planned a home birth in the last year. Inductive analysis was used to find themes based on the data obtained.FindingsSix main themes emerged from the data analysis: (1) in search of a natural and personalised birth, (2) breaking with social pressures, (3) experience of home birth for the mother, (4) role of the father in home birth, (5) how does the father experience home birth?, (6) home birth is not available to all mothers and fathers.ConclusionFor the mothers and fathers in this study the home birth experience fulfilled their previous expectations of an intimate and natural moment, making it a highly satisfying experience for both. However, parents expressed experiencing negative feelings such as fear and worry about complications and labor pain. According to our research society in general and public health professionals in particular issue numerous criticisms and value judgments towards mothers and fathers who opt for a home birth in our country. In addition, the study shows the economic and cultural inequalities in access to home birth in Spain.     

Women who experience feelings of aversion while breastfeeding: A meta-ethnographic review

ProblemLimited literature is available about women who wish to breastfeed but experience unexpected feelings of aversion in reaction to their infant suckling at the breast while breastfeeding.BackgroundBreastfeeding benefits mothers, infants and society yet breastfeeding rates continue to fall below recommendations in part due to inadequate tailored support after hospital discharge. Influences on breastfeeding are complex and include many physiological, psychosocial and cultural factors.AimTo better understand the experience of women who have feelings of aversion during breastfeeding by synthesising the existing literature.MethodsMEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Maternity and Infant Care databases were searched for relevant literature published between 2000 to 2019. Using Covidence software, five qualitative research studies were identified. Studies were then analysed using meta-ethnographic qualitative synthesis.FindingsFeelings of aversion during breastfeeding were described as visceral and overwhelming; leading to feelings of shame and inadequacy. This synthesis identified five findings; a central conceptual category of “it’s such a strong feeling of get away from me” with four key metaphors translated from this central conceptual category: “I do it because I feel it is best for my baby”, “I can’t control those feelings”, “I should be able to breastfeed my son and enjoy it”, and “I’m glad I did it”. This phenomenon may negatively affect a women’s sense of self and impact on the mother-infant relationship.ConclusionSome women who want to breastfeed can experience feelings of aversion while breastfeeding. The feelings of ‘aversion’ while breastfeeding can inhibit women from achieving their personal breastfeeding goals.     

Family size and maternal health: evidence from the One-Child policy in China

In this paper, we examine the impact of family size on maternal health outcomes by exploiting the tremendous change in family size under the One-Child policy in China. Using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey 1993–2006, we find that mothers with fewer children have a higher calorie intake and a lower probability of being underweight and having low blood pressure; meanwhile, they have a higher probability of being overweight. This would occur if a smaller family size increases the food consumption of mothers, leading underweight women to attain a normal weight and normal weight women becoming overweight. Robust tests are performed to provide evidence on the hypothesis that the tradeoff between children’s quantity and mother’s “quality” is through a budget constraint mechanism, that is, having more children decreases the resource allocated to mothers and affects their health outcomes.     

“We’re a movement”: crowdfunding,journalism, and feminism

As media organizations struggle to remain financially viable, and layoffs become more common, crowdfunding has been championed as one way for journalists to finance new ventures and create work outside of mainstream media. There is a growing body of research that is starting to critically examine the relationship between journalism and crowdfunding. This research, however, has tended to look at journalism as a whole, rather than specific genres. The purpose of this paper is to look at how crowdfunding is being used to create feminist online magazines, online spaces, and freelance journalism to tell stories about women, or aimed at a female-identified audience. It argues that beyond simply wanting to write and produce content the hope is to create change and often the crowdfunding campaigns are positioned as trying to create a “community” and/or a “movement.” This article uses a political economic framework, drawing on the concept of structuration, to analyze how these crowdfunding campaigns are being used to push back against, and open up, mainstream dialogues of what it means to be a woman or female-identified, as well as create safe and open spaces for these conversations.     

Why the silence on population?

The tripling of the world’s population growth since 1960 has received little public attention the past decade. Six reasons for the silence around this subject constitute a “perfect storm”. The first five are: visibility of actual fertility decline in the developed countries as well as a number of the developing ones; well justified attention to the impact of high levels of consumption on the environment; an implicit welcome by conservative political and religious forces to reduced needs for family planning; the tragedy of AIDS dominating international health concerns; and the 1994 Cairo conference’s focus on examples of coercive family planning while nearly ignoring the coercion of women forced into unwanted childbearing. These five relatively new developments have been supported by standard demographic theory containing an assumption that couples naturally want many children, making it difficult to see the many barriers blocking women’s options to manage their own childbearing.     

AIDS as a US National Security Threat: Media Effects and Geographical Imaginations

This paper is concerned with how Australian print news media journalists, male and female, remember, talk about, experience, acknowledge, condemn, and/or deny sexually harassing behaviour in the newsroom. A total of seventeen in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight male and nine female journalists in late 2003 and early 2004. The interviewees ranged in age from 19 to 56 and differed in levels of industry experience. The interviews were not set up to specifically discuss sexually harassing behaviour in the newsroom; however it was a theme that arose in seven of the interviews about newsroom culture, my broader PhD project. The female interviewees make clear their encounters are constant reminders of how their bodies do not “fit” and/or where and how they do fit in this occupation. This is the case, even though some women do not use the term “sexual harassment” to describe the behaviour that clearly constitutes it under Australian government legislation. The two male journalists interviewed who mentioned harassment talk about it in defence of accepted office behaviour, or in passing about procedural business policy. The use of the term “sexual harassment,” or lack of its use, also tells us about the place of feminism and/or feminist inspired government legislation in journalism's occupational culture.     

Beyond the “digital divide”: the “computer girls” of Seelampur

In the last decade, India’s position as a global information economy has aided its status as the poster child for Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD) initiatives in the global South. Policy discourse emphasizes that crossing of the “digital divide” through access to technology will bring a leveling of economic and social hierarchies. Based on sustained ethnographic observations and interviews in Seelampur in New Delhi, my paper critically examines the promise of inclusion in the information society for low income “Muslim women.” In following the lives of the “computer girls” of Seelampur, I argue that access to computer training contradictorily reproduced and reified interconnected divisions of gender, class, caste, and religion. Ethnographic research reveals the complexities of everyday lived experiences among Seelampur women. The space of the ICT center was rigidly stratified and the center primarily attracted women from relatively higher class and caste positions within Seelampur. However, I argue that the women had contradictory experiences related to their status as India’s “middle-class” that restricted their economic and social mobility outside the ICT center. Their experiences testified to structural disempowerment that disrupted deterministic assumptions about ICT and mobility.     

The experiential knowledge of migrant women about vulnerability during pregnancy: A woman-centred mixed-methods study

ProblemWithin maternity care policies and practice, pregnant migrant women are regarded as a vulnerable population.BackgroundWomen’s experiential knowledge is a key element of woman-centred care but is insufficiently addressed in midwifery practice and research that involves migrant women.AimTo examine if pregnant migrant women’s experiential knowledge of vulnerability corresponds with sets of criteria of vulnerability, and to explore how migrant women make sense of vulnerability during pregnancy.MethodsA sequential two-phased mixed-methods study, conducted in the Netherlands, integrating survey data of 89 pregnant migrant women and focus group data obtained from 25 migrant mothers - living in deprived areas according to the Dutch socio-economic index.ResultsCriteria associated with vulnerability were reported by 65.2% of the participants and 62.9% of the participants reported adverse childhood experiences. On a Visual Analogue Scale, ranging from 0 (not vulnerable) to 10 (very vulnerable), participants self-reported sense of vulnerability showed a mean score of 4.2 (±2.56). Women’s experiential knowledge of vulnerability significantly correlated with the mean sum score of clinical criteria of vulnerability (r .46, p .002) and with the mean sum score of adverse childhood experiences (r .48, p < .001). Five themes emerged from the focus group discussions: “Look beyond who you think I am and see and treat me for who I really am”, “Ownership of truth and knowledge”, “Don’t punish me for being honest”, “Projection of fear” and “Coping with labelling”.ConclusionPregnant migrant women’s experiential knowledge of vulnerability is congruent with the criteria. Calling upon experiential knowledge is an attribute of the humane woman-midwife relationship.     

It takes a virtual village: Childbearing women's experience of a closed Facebook support group for mothers

BackgroundChildbearing women engage in large public pregnancy and parenting forums, primarily for the purpose of seeking information and advice. There is an absence of research related to women's engagement in closed and private online mothers’ groups.AimThe aim of this study was to explore the experiences of participation and support for members within a closed online mothers’ group.MethodA qualitative study using in-depth interviews. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.FindingsThis study demonstrated that a closed online mothers’ group enabled a group of childbearing women to overcome isolation and form sustained, evolving and supportive friendships within a small, private and trusted group. The technology allowed women to engage and share at a level much deeper than what they would in “real life”. The depth of sharing was enhanced in a closed online mothers’ group due to a smaller, private audience of trusted friends. Virtual support felt safer than face-to-face support as information could not impact one's real world reputation, and communication was able to be controlled. This was particularly helpful to women experiencing social difficulties or isolation.ConclusionThis study has provided a unique and rare insight into the private world of closed online mothers’ groups. As a virtual village, this closed group enabled childbearing women to form a small community with members sharing responsibility and working for the wellbeing and benefit of all. By encouraging, locating and establishing similar groups, maternity health professionals may assist women to access their own ‘virtual village’.     

Local labor markets,children and labor force participation of wives

Most research on married women’s labor force participation relates characteristics of individual women to their probability of labor force participation. Some studies relate characteristics of geographic areas to average labor force participation rates in those areas, although these aggregate level analyses are usually gross tests of ideas about individuallevel processes. Here we take a quintessentially sociological perspective and seek to understand how characteristics of geographic areas structure the relationship between properties of individual women and their probabilities oflabor force participation. Our analysis has two steps. In step one, we fit individual-level probit models of married women’s probability of labor force participation. A separate model is fitted in each of 409 areas using 1970 Census data, and the relationship between individual characteristics and labor force participation is found to vary substantially across areas. In step two, we attempt to explain areal variation in the effects of women’s children on their labor force participation. We hypothesize that the effect of children on their mothers’ labor force participation is a function ofthe cost and availability of childcare, and of the “convenience” of jobs for working mothers in the places where the mothers live. Measures of childcare cost, childcare availability and job convenience are developed. Weighted least squares analyses of probit coefficients from the first stage are, in general, very consistent with our findings, and suggest that the approach taken in this paper is likely to be a fruitful one for future studies.     

When Does Time Matter? Maternal Employment,Children’s Time With Parents,and Child Development

This study tests the two assumptions underlying popularly held notions that maternal employment negatively affects children because it reduces time spent with parents: (1) that maternal employment reduces children’s time with parents, and (2) that time with parents affects child outcomes. We analyze children’s time-diary data from the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and use child fixed-effects and IV estimations to account for unobserved heterogeneity. We find that working mothers trade quantity of time for better “quality” of time. On average, maternal work has no effect on time in activities that positively influence children’s development, but it reduces time in types of activities that may be detrimental to children’s development. Stratification by mothers’ education reveals that although all children, regardless of mother’s education, benefit from spending educational and structured time with their mothers, mothers who are high school graduates have the greatest difficulty balancing work and childcare. We find some evidence that fathers compensate for maternal employment by increasing types of activities that can foster child development as well as types of activities that may be detrimental. Overall, we find that the effects of maternal employment are ambiguous because (1) employment does not necessarily reduce children’s time with parents, and (2) not all types of parental time benefit child development.     

The effects of motherhood timing on career path

This paper estimates the effects of motherhood timing on female career path, using biological fertility shocks to instrument for age at first birth. Motherhood delay leads to a substantial increase in earnings of 9% per year of delay, an increase in wages of 3%, and an increase in work hours of 6%. Supporting a human capital story, the advantage is largest for college-educated women and those in professional and managerial occupations. Panel estimation reveals both fixed wage penalties and lower returns to experience for mothers, suggesting that a “mommy track” is the source of the timing effect.