Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-1-2013

Department

Mass Communication and Journalism

School

Communication

Abstract

This article argues that although the act of mommy blogging may be empowering, the term itself reinforces women's hegemonic normative roles as nurturers, thrusting women who blog about their children into a form of digital domesticity in the blogosphere. Drawing on 29 blogs posts women wrote debating the term mommy blogger and 649 comments posted on these blogs, the author uses Judith Butler's concept of performativity to rhetorically analyze the term, using a techno-feminist lens and cyber-ethnographic approach. The author asserts that the use of the term mommy blogger continues the culturally ingrained performance of motherhood women learned since childhood, and, in so doing, holds women captive in this subjective norm that may not fit them. The use of mommy, versus mother, highlights the nurturing aspect of motherhood and conjures a prototype of the ideal mother, further marginalizing women by focusing on one attribute that does not apply to all women or even all mothers.

Publication Title

Mass Communication and Society

Volume

16

Issue

4

First Page

510

Last Page

532

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