Mothering Rhetorics
Mothering Rhetorics

Author: Lynn O'Brien Hallstein

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-03-03

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 0429895216

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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

Author: Lindal Buchanan

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2013-04-08

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 0809332213

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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.

Refiguring Motherhood Beyond Biology
Refiguring Motherhood Beyond Biology

Author: Valerie Renegar

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-01-31

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 1000822591

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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.

The Case for Single Motherhood
The Case for Single Motherhood

Author: Katherine Elizabeth Mack

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2023-12-05

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 081736112X

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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.

Utopian Genderscapes
Utopian Genderscapes

Author: Michelle C. Smith

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2021-10-04

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 0809338351

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"This innovative feminist rhetorical history advances valuable lessons for contemporary discussions in the discipline about teleological rhetorics, rhetorics of exceptionalism, and rhetorics of choice"--

Dreamer Nation
Dreamer Nation

Author: Ana Milena Ribero

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2023-09-21

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 0817360956

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""Dreamer Nation" tells the rhetorical story of how Dreamers during the Obama era creatively confronted a complex sociopolitical landscape to advocate for immigrant rights and empower undocumented youth to proudly represent their lives and identities, all while under the ever-present threat of detention and deportation. By examining the activist rhetorics of the Dreamer movement, "Dreamer Nation" illustrates how the Dreamer community was created rhetorically-in the discourse, messages, actions, and visual representations of undocumented youth. Contributing to rhetorical studies of social movements, immigration, and minoritized rhetorics, Ana Milena Ribero argues that even though Dreamer rhetorics were reflective of the discursive limits of the neoliberal milieu, they also worked to disrupt neoliberal constraints through activism that troubled the primacy of the nation-state and citizenship, refused to adhere to respectability politics, forwarded embodied identity and transnational belonging, and looked for liberation in community-not solely in legislative action. Both of and beyond neoliberalism, Dreamer rhetorics evidenced a rhetorical flexibility-a "both/and" sensibility-that allowed Dreamers to vacillate between neoliberal tropes and radical arguments. Ribero's theoretical model for this "both/and" approach derives from Gloria Anzaldúa's concept of nepantla, "the overlapping space between different perceptions and belief systems." In their ambivalent positionality, Dreamers were able to see through the limitations of neoliberal discourse and the promises of the nation-state, and to produce rhetoric that dared to imagine a world without borders, detention, or deportation. Each chapter in "Dreamer Nation" presents a different rhetorical situation within the US "crisis" of migration and the rhetoric that Dreamers used to respond to it. Organized chronologically, the chapters chronicle Dreamer activism during the Obama presidency, from the 2010 hunger strikes advocating for the DREAM Act to undocuqueer "artivism" in response to Trump's presidential campaign. The author draws not only on the methods and theories of rhetorical studies, but also on women of color feminisms, ethnic studies, critical theory, and queer theory. In this way, this book looks across disciplines to illustrates the rhetorical savvy of one of the most important US social movements of our time"--

The Rhetoric of White Slavery and the Making of National Identity
The Rhetoric of White Slavery and the Making of National Identity

Author: Leslie J Harris

Publisher: MSU Press

Published: 2023-07-01

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 1609177339

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At the turn of the twentieth century, the white slavery panic pervaded American politics, influencing the creation of the FBI, the enactment of immigration law, and the content of international treaties. At the core of this controversy was the maintenance of white national space. In this comprehensive account of the Progressive Era’s sex trafficking rhetoric, Leslie Harris demonstrates the centrality of white womanhood, as a symbolic construct, to the structure of national space and belonging. Introducing the framework of the mobile imagination to read across different scales of the controversy—ranging from local to transnational—she establishes how the imaginative possibilities of mobility within public controversy work to constitute belonging in national space.

The Mother of All Questions
The Mother of All Questions

Author: Rebecca Solnit

Publisher: Haymarket Books

Published: 2017-02-12

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 1608467201

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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

The Rhetoric of Social Movements
The Rhetoric of Social Movements

Author: Nathan Crick

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-09-22

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 042979052X

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This collection provides an accessible yet rigorous survey of the rhetorical study of historical and contemporary social movements and promotes the study of relations between strategy, symbolic action, and social assemblage. Offering a comprehensive collection of the latest research in the field, The Rhetoric of Social Movements: Networks, Power, and New Media suggests a framework for the study of social movements grounded in a methodology of "slow inquiry" and the interconnectedness of these imminent phenomena. Chapters address the rhetorical tactics that social movements use to gain attention and challenge power; the centrality of traditional and new media in social movements; the operations of power in movement organization, leadership, and local and global networking; and emerging contents and environments for social movements in the twenty-first century. Each chapter is framed by case studies (drawn from movements across the world, ranging from Black Lives Matter and Occupy to Greek anarchism and indigenous land protests) that ground conceptual characteristics of social movements in their continuously unfolding reality, furnishing readers with both practical and theoretical insights. The Rhetoric of Social Movements will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of rhetoric, communication, media studies, cultural studies, social protest and activism, and political science.

Militarized Maternity
Militarized Maternity

Author: Megan D. McFarlane

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2021-04-08

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 0520975626

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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.