-PDF Download- Rhetorics Of Motherhood EBOOK

Rhetorics of Motherhood

Author: Lindal Buchanan

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2013-04-08

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 0809332213

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.

Mothering Rhetorics

Author: Lynn O'Brien Hallstein

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-03-03

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 0429895216

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

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.

The Mask of Motherhood

Author: Susan Maushart

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2000-05-01

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0140291784

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Becoming a mother is filled with the extremes of emotion --the highest highs and the lowest lows. But women are often reluctant to talk honestly about the experience for fear they'll be seen as bad mothers. With wit and candor, The Mask of Motherhood takes on the myths and the misinformation, helping women to prepare and deal with the depth of feeling that comes with the experience and perhaps most important, it lets them know that many, if not most, new mothers are feeling the same way.Susan Maushart, sociologist and mother of three, explores how motherhood affects our marriages and friendships, our relationships with parents, our sex lives, and our self-esteem. In The Mask of Motherhood, mothers will find the comfort and reassurance they are looking for, and confirmation that, indeed, motherhood is the toughest job in the world, but can also be the most rewarding.

Mommy Queerest

Author: Julie Marie Thompson

Publisher: Univ of Massachusetts Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Thompson (communication, Southwestern U.) looks at 30 years of public debate, analyzing the role that rhetoric plays in the formation of negative attitudes about lesbian motherhood. She considers the differences in how lesbian mothers are portrayed in mainstream and alternative publications. An analysis of child custody disputes reveals the ambivalence of the courts towards lesbian mothers. Finally, Thompson addresses contemporary issues in feminist psychology. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Rhetorica in Motion

Author: Eileen E. Schell

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre

Published: 2010-01-31

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 0822973677

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Rhetorica in Motion is the first collected work to investigate feminist rhetorical research methods in both contemporary and historical contexts. The contributors analyze the decision-making processes and methodologies employed in deciphering the origins, meanings, theories, workings, and manifestations of feminist rhetoric.The volume examines familiar themes, such as archival, literary, and online research, but also looks to other areas of rhetoric, such as disability studies; gerontology/aging studies; Latina/o, queer, and transgender studies; performance studies; and transnational feminisms in both the United States and larger geopolitical spaces. Rhetorica in Motion incorporates previous views of feminist research, outlines a set of principles that guides current methods, and develops models for undertaking future inquiry, including working as individuals or balancing the dynamics of group research. The text explores how feminist research embodies what has come before and reflects what researchers, institutions, and instructors bring to it and what it brings to them. Underlying the discovery of this volume is the understanding that feminist rhetoric is in constant motion in a dynamic that resists definition.

Embodying the Problem

Author: Jenna Vinson

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2017-12-11

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0813591023

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

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)

Rethinking Ethos

Author: Kathleen J. Ryan

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2016-06-03

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0809334941

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book redefines ethos--classically thought of as character or credibility--as ecological and feminist, negotiated and renegotiated, and implicated in shifting power dynamics. Building on previous feminist and rhetorical scholarship, it discusses the unique methods by which women's ethos is constructed and transformed.

Childfree and Happy

Author: Courtney Adams Wooten

Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Published: 2023-06-15

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1646424395

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Childfree and Happy examines how millennia of reproductive beliefs (or doxa) have positioned women who choose not to have children as deviant or outside the norm. Considering affect and emotion alongside the lived experiences of women who have chosen not to have children, Courtney Adams Wooten offers a new theoretical lens to feminist rhetorical scholars’ examinations of reproductive rhetorics and how they circulate through women’s lives by paying attention not just to spoken or written beliefs but also to affectual circulations of reproductive doxa. Through interviews with thirty-four childfree women and analysis of childfree rhetorics circulating in historical and contemporary texts and events, this book demonstrates how childfree women individually and collectively try to speak back to common beliefs about their reproductive experiences, even as they struggle to make their identities legible in a sociocultural context that centers motherhood. Childfree and Happy theorizes how affect and rhetoric work together to circulate reproductive doxa by using Sara Ahmed’s theories of gendered happiness scripts to analyze what reproductive doxa is embedded in those scripts and how they influence rhetoric by, about, and around childfree women. Delving into how childfree women position their decision not to have children and the different types of interactions they have with others about this choice, including family members, friends, colleagues, and medical professionals, Childfree and Happy also explores how communities that make space for alternative happiness scripts form between childfree women and those who support them. It will be of interest to scholars in the fields of the rhetoric of motherhood/mothering, as well as feminist rhetorical studies.