Foster2023
| Foster2023 | |
|---|---|
| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Foster2023 |
| Author(s) | Emily Foster, Laura Kilby |
| Title | “Speaking as a mother”: A membership categorisation analysis of child-centric talk in a UK daytime television talk show |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, Feminism, MCA, Membership Categorization Analysis, Motherhood, Postfeminism |
| Publisher | |
| Year | 2023 |
| Language | English |
| City | |
| Month | |
| Journal | Feminism & Psychology |
| Volume | |
| Number | |
| Pages | |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1177/09593535231173232 |
| ISBN | |
| Organization | |
| Institution | |
| School | |
| Type | |
| Edition | |
| Series | |
| Howpublished | |
| Book title | |
| Chapter | |
Abstract
In this study, we explore motherhood as an interactionally emergent identity category that speakers construct and lay claim to in talk, and as a category that is imbued with moral expectations of how incumbents should behave. We analyse 18 child-focussed debates from British daytime television talk show, This Morning. Engaging a postfeminist framework, we use membership categorisation analysis to explore how, and to what effect, women deploy claims to motherhood. We report three main findings: (a) Speakers routinely quantify their motherhood credentials in the development of a “mother-cum-expert” identity; (b) speakers who construct motherhood in accordance with neoliberal norms of “good motherhood” habitually trump the arguments offered by other speakers, including those with professional expertise; (c) any challenge to essentialist norms of womanhood and/or motherhood become accountable matters. We conclude that whilst there is power in motherhood insomuch as it vests some women with expertise and elevates their rights to be heard on child-focussed matters, the speakers in our study nevertheless construct motherhood in a manner that (re)produces and elevates essentialised notions of gender and narrow versions of motherhood.
Notes
