Mothering Rhetorics

Mothering Rhetorics PDF Author: Lynn O'Brien Hallstein
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429895216
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
Once only a topic among women in the private sphere, motherhood and mothering have become important intellectual topics across academic disciplines. Even so, no book has yet devoted a sustained look at how exploring mothering rhetorics – the rhetorics of reproduction (rhetorics about the reproductive function of women/mothers) and reproducing rhetorics (the rhetorical reproduction of ideological systems and logics of contemporary culture) expand our understanding of mothering, motherhood, communication, and gender. Mothering Rhetorics begins to fill this gap for scholars and teachers interested in the study of mothering rhetorics in their historical and contemporary permutations. The contributions explore the racialized rhetorical contexts of maternity; how fixing food is thought to fix families, while also regulating maternal activities and identity; how Black female breastfeeding activists resisted the exploitation of African-American mothers in Detroit; how women in pink-collar occupations both adhere to and challenge maternity leave discourses by rhetorically positioning their leaves as time off and (dis)ability; identifying verbal and nonverbal shaming practices related to unwed motherhood during the mid-twentieth century; and redefining alternative postpartum placenta practices. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women’s Studies in Communication.

Mothering Rhetorics

Mothering Rhetorics PDF Author: Lynn O'Brien Hallstein
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429895216
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 153

Get Book Here

Book Description
Once only a topic among women in the private sphere, motherhood and mothering have become important intellectual topics across academic disciplines. Even so, no book has yet devoted a sustained look at how exploring mothering rhetorics – the rhetorics of reproduction (rhetorics about the reproductive function of women/mothers) and reproducing rhetorics (the rhetorical reproduction of ideological systems and logics of contemporary culture) expand our understanding of mothering, motherhood, communication, and gender. Mothering Rhetorics begins to fill this gap for scholars and teachers interested in the study of mothering rhetorics in their historical and contemporary permutations. The contributions explore the racialized rhetorical contexts of maternity; how fixing food is thought to fix families, while also regulating maternal activities and identity; how Black female breastfeeding activists resisted the exploitation of African-American mothers in Detroit; how women in pink-collar occupations both adhere to and challenge maternity leave discourses by rhetorically positioning their leaves as time off and (dis)ability; identifying verbal and nonverbal shaming practices related to unwed motherhood during the mid-twentieth century; and redefining alternative postpartum placenta practices. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women’s Studies in Communication.

Rhetorics of Motherhood

Rhetorics of Motherhood PDF Author: Lindal Buchanan
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809332213
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
Becoming a mother profoundly alters one’s perception of the world, as Lindal Buchanan learned firsthand when she gave birth. Suddenly attentive to representations of mothers and mothering in advertisements, fiction, film, art, education, and politics, she became intrigued by the persuasive force of the concept of motherhood, an interest that unleashed a host of questions: How is the construct defined? How are maternal appeals crafted, presented, and performed? What do they communicate about gender and power? How do they affect women? Her quest for answers has produced Rhetorics of Motherhood, the first book-length consideration of the topic through a feminist rhetorical lens. Although both male and female rhetors employ motherhood to promote themselves and their agendas, Buchanan argues it is particularly slippery terrain for women—on the one hand, affording them authority and credibility but, on the other, positioning them disadvantageously within the gendered status quo. Rhetorics of Motherhood investigates that paradox by detailing the cultural construction and performance of the Mother in American public discourse, tracing its use and impact in three case studies, and by theorizing how, when, and why maternal discourses work to women’s benefit or detriment. In the process, the reader encounters a fascinating array of issues—including birth control, civil rights, and abortion—and rhetors, ranging from Diane Nash and Margaret Sanger to Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama. As Buchanan makes clear, motherhood is a rich site for investigating the interrelationships among gender, power, and public discourse. Her latest book contributes to the discipline of rhetoric by attending to and making a convincing case for the significance of this understudied subject. With its examination of timely controversies, contemporary and historical figures, and powerful women, Rhetorics of Motherhood will appeal to a wide array of readers in rhetoric, communications, American studies, women’s studies, and beyond.

The Mother of All Questions

The Mother of All Questions PDF Author: Rebecca Solnit
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1608467201
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 141

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Book Description
A collection of feminist essays steeped in “Solnit’s unapologetically observant and truth-speaking voice on toxic, violent masculinity” (The Los Angeles Review). In a timely and incisive follow-up to her national bestseller Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit offers sharp commentary on women who refuse to be silenced, misogynistic violence, the fragile masculinity of the literary canon, the gender binary, the recent history of rape jokes, and much more. In characteristic style, “Solnit draw[s] anecdotes of female indignity or male aggression from history, social media, literature, popular culture, and the news . . . The main essay in the book is about the various ways that women are silenced, and Solnit focuses upon the power of storytelling—the way that who gets to speak, and about what, shapes how a society understands itself and what it expects from its members. The Mother of All Questions poses the thesis that telling women’s stories to the world will change the way that the world treats women, and it sets out to tell as many of those stories as possible” (The New Yorker). “There’s a new feminist revolution—open to people of all genders—brewing right now and Rebecca Solnit is one of its most powerful, not to mention beguiling, voices.”—Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times–bestselling author of Natural Causes “Short, incisive essays that pack a powerful punch.” —Publishers Weekly “A keen and timely commentary on gender and feminism. Solnit’s voice is calm, clear, and unapologetic; each essay balances a warm wit with confident, thoughtful analysis, resulting in a collection that is as enjoyable and accessible as it is incisive.” —Booklist

Refiguring Motherhood Beyond Biology

Refiguring Motherhood Beyond Biology PDF Author: Valerie Renegar
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000822591
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
This book unpacks and interrogates dominant constructions of mothering, making use of interdisciplinary, ideological and theoretical perspectives to investigate how new rhetorics of mothering can expand the realm of maternal care-givers beyond the biological definitions of motherhood. This diverse collection is at the cutting-edge of rhetoric, feminism, and motherhood studies, and the chapters challenge the confines of biological parenting as heteronormative within the neo-liberal nuclear family. The contributors examine, how despite the diversity of parental relationships, many are excluded by the understanding of mothers biologically tied to their children. The volume seeks to expose the underpinnings of biological primacy and argues that 21st-century families and familial circumstances are ill-served by biological ideology. Topics include Re-Imagining Queer Black Motherhood, Chicana Feminist approaches to reproductive justice, the commercialization and medicalization of infertility, and ableism and motherhood. This is a unique and fascinating book suitable for students and scholars in gender studies, sexuality studies, communication studies, sociology, and cultural studies.

Mother Trouble

Mother Trouble PDF Author: Miranda J. Brady
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487556950
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
Mother Trouble traces white maternal angst in popular culture across a span of more than fifty years, from the iconic Rosemary’s Baby to anti-vaxx mom memes and HGTV shows. The book narrows in on popular media to think about white maternal angst as a manifestation of feminism’s unrealized possibilities and continued omissions since the second wave. It interrogates intersecting systems of power which make mothers and their children the most impoverished people in the world and urges a greater appreciation in academic and popular thinking of the work that mothers do. The book calls for an analytical expansion beyond gender to better address the erasure of reproductive labour, and especially that performed by migrants and people of colour. It illustrates the continued marginalization of racialized mothers and the disproportionate amount of labour performed by all mothers in a society where their work is devalued. Ultimately, Mother Trouble reveals how the unease around white motherhood in the media has become a proxy for the troubles faced by all mothers.

Utopian Genderscapes

Utopian Genderscapes PDF Author: Michelle C. Smith
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 080933836X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
A necessary rhetorical history of women’s work in utopian communities Utopian Genderscapes focuses on three prominent yet understudied intentional communities—Brook Farm, Harmony Society, and the Oneida Community—who in response to industrialization experimented with radical social reform in the antebellum United States. Foremost among the avenues of reform was the place and substance of women’s work. Author Michelle C. Smith seeks in the communities’ rhetorics of teleology, choice, and exceptionalism the lived consequences of the communities' lofty goals for women members. This feminist history captures the utopian reconfiguration of women’s bodies, spaces, objects, and discourses and delivers a needed intervention into how rhetorical gendering interacts with other race and class identities. The attention to each community’s material practices reveals a gendered ecology, which in many ways squared unevenly with utopian claims. Nevertheless, this volume argues that this utopian moment inaugurated many of the norms and practices of labor that continue to structure women’s lives and opportunities today: the rise of the factory, the shift of labor from home spaces to workplaces, the invention of housework, the role of birth control and childcare, the question of wages, and the feminization of particular kinds of labor. An impressive and diverse array of archival and material research grounds each chapter’s examination of women’s professional, domestic, or reproductive labor in a particular community. Fleeting though they may seem, the practices and lives of those intentional women, Smith argues, pattern contemporary divisions of work along the vibrant and contentious lines of gender, race, and class and stage the continued search for what is possible.

Embodying the Problem

Embodying the Problem PDF Author: Jenna Vinson
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813591023
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
The dominant narrative of teen pregnancy persuades many people to believe that a teenage pregnancy always leads to devastating consequences for a young woman, her child, and the nation in which they reside. Jenna Vinson draws on feminist and rhetorical theory to explore how pregnant and mothering teens are represented as problems in U.S. newspapers, political discourses, and teenage pregnancy prevention campaigns since the 1970s. Vinson shows that these representations prevent a focus on the underlying structures of inequality and poverty, perpetuate harmful discourses about women, and sustain racialized gender ideologies that construct women’s bodies as sites of national intervention and control. Embodying the Problem also explores how young mothers resist this narrative. Analyzing fifty narratives written by young mothers, the recent #NoTeenShame social media campaign, and her interviews with thirty-three young women, Vinson argues that while the stigmatization of teenage pregnancy and motherhood does dehumanize young pregnant and mothering women, it is at the same time a means for these women to secure an audience for their own messages. More information on the author's website (https://jennavinson.com)

The Case for Single Motherhood

The Case for Single Motherhood PDF Author: Katherine Elizabeth Mack
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 081736112X
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Delves into the rhetorical work of elective single mothers (ESMs) in the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries as they sought--and continue to seek--to legitimize their maternal identities and family formations Scholars of rhetoric have largely overlooked the inherent rhetoricity of family. In The Case for Single Motherhood, Katherine Mack posits family as a central concern of rhetorical studies by reflecting on how language is used by single mothers who seek to reenvision the personal, social, and political meanings of family. Drawing on intersectional and rhetorical theories, Mack demonstrates how the category of elective single motherhood emerged in response to the historically differential treatment of "unwed mothers" along racial and class lines. Through her readings of a range of self-sponsored ESM texts--guidebooks, memoirs, and interactive digital media written by and primarily for other ESMs--and from her perspective as an elective single mother herself, Mack evaluates the rhetorical power, as well as the exclusions and hierarchies, that the ESM label effects. She analyzes how ESMs envision motherhood, visions that entail their musings about who can and should mother. Ultimately, Mack offers women who are considering nonnormative paths to motherhood a way to affirm their maternal identities and paths without disparaging others'. Scholars in the fields of rhetoric and feminist rhetorical studies will find in this volume an illuminating perspective on the rhetorical power of self-sponsored texts in particular. Crafting a methodology to identify and evaluate the goals and effects of legitimacy work and selecting sources that bring academic attention to varied genres of self-sponsored writings, Mack paves the way for future rhetorical studies of motherhood and family.

Militarized Maternity

Militarized Maternity PDF Author: Megan D. McFarlane
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520975626
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
The rights of pregnant workers as well as (the lack of) paid maternity leave have increasingly become topics of a major policy debate in the United States. Yet, few discussions have focused on the U.S. military, where many of the latest policy changes focus on these very issues. Despite the armed forces' increases to maternity-related benefits, servicewomen continue to be stigmatized for being pregnant and taking advantage of maternity policies. In an effort to understand this disconnect, Megan McFarlane analyzes military documents and conducts interviews with enlisted servicewomen and female officers. She finds a policy/culture disparity within the military that pregnant servicewomen themselves often co-construct, making the policy changes significantly less effective. McFarlane ends by offering suggestions for how these policy changes can have more impact and how they could potentially serve as an example for the broader societal debate.

Rhetoric and Resilience

Rhetoric and Resilience PDF Author: Sara Hillin
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1666928801
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Rhetoric and Resilience explores discourse produced about and by the women involved in the World War II era Women Airforce Service Pilots program. Aviators such as Jacqueline Cochran and Nancy Harkness Love provided the initial rhetorical boost to successfully launch the program, while countless other pilots such as Cornelia Fort and Barbara Poole wrote to define the significance of the work the WASP were doing. Despite a formidable amount of concrete evidence in her favor, Cochran was unsuccessful in having WASP militarized. After the program's disbandment in 1944, the women of WASP settled back into civilian life but maintained strong rhetorical bonds which served them greatly in the 1970s campaign for veteran status. Using the lenses of both feminist rhetorical theory and classical rhetoric, this book seeks to recover these rhetorics. The chapters illustrate how the women employed a spectrum of strategies carefully designed to provide a fitting response to those both supportive of and hostile to their labor in the arena of military aviation.