Introduction
Communication scholars and rhetoricians have worked in the past several decades to understand and expand how motherhood is rhetorically constructed. A rich space for feminist rhetorical inquiry, motherhood rhetorics construct, resist, judge, challenge, and perpetuate a wide variety of care-giving relationships. However, rhetorics of motherhood rarely move into spaces of mainstream rhetorical scholarship--they are published, discussed, and publicized in places reserved largely for women and feminist discourse--and in some cases, not taken seriously as scholarship at all. We seek to investigate the way that new rhetorics of mothering can expand the realm of maternal care-givers beyond the biological definitions of motherhood. We see this collection at the cutting-edge of rhetoric and feminism, and as uniquely relevant to current issues that impact opportunities for women, and are impacted by diversity largely rendered unseen in dominant discourses of mothering.
As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, the need to think beyond biological primacy is a key component of the continued inquiry into mothering, parenting, and child-rearing. For this collection, we seek chapters that challenge the confines of biological parenting as heteronormative within the nuclear family structure. We seek work that challenges the scripts that privilege biological primacy and value mothering and parenting work beyond the social and cultural scripts that crowd out other kinds of parenting. We argue that the rhetorics that reinscribe and reify the importance of biology are a product of patriarchal culture which does not and cannot reflect real lived parenting experiences. Instead of framing mothering rhetorics according to these scripts, our collection will highlight parenting that moves beyond a patriarchal script that dictates motherhood as the ultimate accomplishment for people with a uterus. “Fulfillment” and “mothering” are terms that circulate each other but are also diametrically opposed. The rhetoric of mothering, particularly intensive mothering, would have parents believe that the biological mother is the only figure in a child’s life that can truly raise them well. Intensive mothering is implicated in social, cultural, economic, religious, and pseudo-scientific arguments that reinforce the notion of a woman “having it all” by creating her entire identity around motherhood. Having it all is framed as an individual venture, one which dictates that only white, heterosexual, middle- to upper-class women can be “good mothers”. We recognize and seek to interrogate the neoliberal intersections of economy, patriarchy, and motherhood. Instead of being fixed in place by the rhetorics of mothering, this collection will focus on parenting that challenges the script of the “good mother”, and can include but are not limited to:
A key aspect of this work is to amplify the intersections of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality, and class--we seek chapters that interrogate racialized scripts of mothering, LGBTQIA+ parenting, parenting in poverty, as a refugee, as a survivor, and as a parent who simply does not fit dominant discursive constructs of motherhood.
Dynamic work is being done at these intersections, so the goal of our collection is to put these often diverse foci in one place to fill out a more complete picture of mothering in the 21st Century.
Guiding Questions
Authors are encouraged to consider but think beyond the following questions:
Formatting/Style Guidelines
Deadlines