Mireia Castells March
In this paper we have investigated the textual testimony of a mother posted on the forum Mumsnet.com in which, through a Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, we look at how common traits of heterosexual experiences of motherhood permeate into female homosexual ones, such as the unbalanced division of domestic labour.
Introduction
In this essay, we will analyse a thread posted in the forum of the website Mumsnet.com within a critical discursive framework. This website is broadly dedicated to the discussion of motherhood. There are different sections on the website like the forum, which is the most prominent one. The wide accessibility of the website “means that it provides relatively open access to a space in which different perspectives and versions of motherhood may be expressed and explored in everyday interactions” (Mackenzie, 2018, p.120). In this forum, the Mumsnet users gather to exchange experiences about parenting, pregnancy, and birth, along with many other subjects that can be more or less serious matters. It is relevant to consider the fact that the users are anonymous, and consequently, they are able to express their thoughts with more freedom and without having to save face, as “online affordances such as the potential for anonymity can liberate internet users, to some extent, from social constraints” (Mackenzie, 2018, p.119). Furthermore, this anonymity even encourages controversy. Mumsnet has gained some notoriety in the past few years predominantly because a significant portion of its users have bought into the “trans issue” moral panic and, consequently, Mumsnet briefly became a meeting point for transphobic discourses. The British media has played a big part in broadcasting these bigoted views especially to middle-aged, middle-class women, which is the broad demographic of the website.
Furthermore, a general linguistic analysis would confirm that this demographic consists of “female, heterosexual, middle-class parents” (Mackenzie, 2018, p.120). Nevertheless, the original poster (henceforth referred to as OP) of the chosen thread, which was posted in a subsection of the forum tagged “LGBT parents”, does not completely fall into all the categories suggested by Mackenzie, she is a lesbian woman who is not the birth mother of her son.
In short, the woman in question expresses her frustration and dislike being a parent; she resents the position of “primary carer” she has unwillingly fallen into on account of her wife having a full-time job and being evasive when the OP expresses her position. In this paper, we want to take a close look at the linguistic choices of the poster to understand what different roles are constructed, knowingly or by inertia, in homosexual, especially lesbian, couples in which there is one birthing parent, along with how these roles reproduce, appropriate or resist the societal discourses regarding the identities of the mother and father that we see in heterosexual couples. Most specifically, we also intend to grasp how the sense of individuality and personhood crumbles when one is faced with a situation of an unbalanced division of labour in a household, in a context of complete social isolation.
The methodology used for this analysis will be based on the feminist critical discourse analysis principles in conjunction with Butler’s performativity of gender theory and Foucauldian critical discourse analysis. We will take a close look at the different themes involved in the text, such as motherhood as a blissful experience and the guilt that is often associated with this conviction, and the theme of inequality within the parenting unit, which refers to more abstract, recurrent perceptions or ideas that do not centre on the actors in question. However, most importantly, the focus of the study will be on the distinct, tangible discourses that the subject in question conveys textually. Firstly, we will expand on the theoretical framework the paper is based on; subsequently, all the data will be illustrated, and the methodology of the study explained; and finally, the discourses and results found will be synthesised.
Theoretical Framework
The theoretical concepts of this paper will be established upon Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis as it includes a gender perspective making the analysis of discourse more accurate and comprehensive. A big part of this theoretical approach is settled in Michel Foucault’s poststructuralist understanding of language within discourses, which focuses the attention on intertextuality. Foucault observes that statements must be analysed in conjunction with internal and external context; in other words, every statement exists in an ideological, political, economic, social, etc., reality and this leaves “oneself free to describe the interplay of relations” within the textual analysis and outside it (Foucault, 1972, p.29). Namely, discourses are built upon the inherent power structures within all areas of society, such as the patriarchy and its relation to the family structure and parenthood, which will be considered in the analysis of the text at hand.
In the line of poststructuralism and alongside feminist theory, this critical analysis will be contrasted with Judith Butler’s thesis on Gender Performativity. This idea is based on the experience of gender identity and how it develops through a series of performative acts binarily and socially constructed to be feminine or masculine. The text’s general discourse is on the identity of motherhood, which can also be directly linked to Butler’s theory as it is formed in the same way as gender identity, namely, through the repetition of performative actions. However, primarily, the discourses in the text will be explored through a subsection of Butler’s theory, which is agency in the experience of motherhood. The concept of agency falls into the dichotomy of determinism as opposed to voluntarism: determinism is what makes us understand the main discourse in the text in the sense that motherhood, or in other words, the role of the main carer, has been imposed on, or determined upon, the OP. The determinism of parenting roles is linked to the performativity of gender because in reproducing the patriarchal gender roles associated with femininity, one inevitably falls under the main carer, motherly, position. Nevertheless, the analysed text differs from the reproduction of gender roles as established parental roles because both parents are women. This will be explored further in the following sections.
This essay has been heavily influenced by another Critical Discursive Analysis of a series of texts also extracted from Mumsnet by Jai Mackenzie (2018), in which they explore the primary discourses on the identity of motherhood expressed by several users of the website.
Data and Methods
One reason this testimony on the identity of motherhood has been selected is due to Mumsnet being a website where users express themselves in informal language and discuss the topic of maternity from a very personal perspective which allows for a unique analysis on the linguistic construction of gender that differs from more academic discourses. This specific post stood out because it was posted in a subsection reserved for LGBT parents. It was noticeably different from the rest but, simultaneously, discursively similar to the ones in the main forum where usually mothers in heterosexual relationships express frustration about their position as main carers for the family in opposition to their partners, who often avoid domestic responsibilities. Critical Discourse Analysis has been used to analyse power inequalities in mainstream discourses about parenthood such as the development of the mother as the main caretaker.
This text tackles parental identity from the perspective of a woman in a lesbian relationship where she is not the biological mother and she has been put, against her will, in the role of primary carer. The analysis will be divided by the three main discourses found, identity as a woman, personal agency, and lack of social support. The most recurrent theme is that of determinism and how the full experience of motherhood can be isolating. The dominant, more general, discourse found is how parenting is related to structural power, which is, in the same way, related to gender. Namely, the woman does not participate in the labour market and cares for the household, and the man brings a salary to cover all expenses. With the analysis of the text, we have learned that even in a non-heterosexual family unit the patriarchal paradigm remains regardless of the gender identity of the participants, as well as the concept of mother as the biological gestating one in the pairing.
Results
The most prominent theme in the text tackles the inequality in the relationship when it comes to caring for the child, as well as every other domestic chore. The author expresses that she is the one who is supposed to deal with all domestic labour. This theme is very common in the discourses from female Mumsnet users whose partners are male. Nevertheless, this specific case highlights an issue that might come to be class-bound but genderless. Thus, it occurs in a capitalist and patriarchal mass structure which pushes individuals to form the microstructure of the limiting nuclear family.
The objective of this textual analysis is to extract these themes and discourses critically through a linguistic approach. The first discourse seen throughout the post is the issue of individualism and the sense of unattached personal identity, which goes hand in hand with Foucault’s concept of identity and how it is bound to ourselves as much as it is bound to the existing powers in society. The second discourse we will go into is the affectation of the subject in an existence without agency over their destiny (while ensuring the well-being of the child), and finally, how a lack of social support and the absence of a financial safety net plays into the imposed role of a main carer in a nuclear family. Those three discourses correlate with each other naturally, as they usually occur together, if we look at them through a Marxist lens it becomes clear that the true main culprit of the circumstance is the capitalist system which shackles the family unit to a condition of selling the labour of the secondary carer (with what that entails, i.e. the loss of the surplus value), and using the primary carer as an unpaid working unit. Silvia Federici adds a feminist layer to Marx’s analysis of the reproduction of labour power and points out that for capitalist economy to survive, it must rely on the non-remunerated and gendered exploitation of, usually, working class women. In other words, Marxist discourses on labour ignore “the strategic importance of domestic work in the process of capitalist accumulation, and that it flattens gender-based differences into a disembodied conception of labor” (Federici, 2021, p.2).
- Identity as a woman.
This discourse regarding individuality and identity is the primary one found in the textual unit and it correlates tightly with the idea that “motherhood” solely exists as a socially constructed concept instead of a biological one, as Irene Oh puts it: “motherhood as performative emphasizes mothers’ agency by focusing upon what mothers self-consciously do rather than what mothers biologically are. The concept of performativity thus offers a robust account of maternal identity” (Oh, 2009, p.4). Namely, the personal identification as a mother has little to do with the biological meaning of mother.
To start, in the sentence “She wanted to go back to work full time and pursue her career, which she did” (lines 13-14), the OP shares that her partner had a wish and followed it, in the words “which she did” we see the dichotomy existing in the relationship at hand in which one, the biological mother, is allowed to follow the steps she desires. Those decisions come at the cost of the author’s autonomy and, primarily, her sense of identity outside of being a mother. This specific conflict develops, and she tells us:
“Meanwhile I was to become the primary career, it wasn’t really discussed, it was just decided that my job was less important because I have a chronic pain condition so it made more sense. It was never in my plan to be a full time mum and I was always the one who had reservations about my ability to parent” (lines 14-18).
Overall, this section can be linked back to the concept of agency that Butler introduces in the idea on the Performativity of Gender. The OP says that “(the division of labour) wasn’t really discussed”, which reinforces her case of role determination that she finds herself entrapped in.
Furthermore, we can find two other material circumstances that exacerbate the power structure within the family: the author’s disability and the capitalist hierarchical value of labour that puts her in a disadvantaged position. On another note, I feel it is necessary to mention that there is a history of devaluation, within capitalism of jobs dedicated to care, which are widely done by women. Next, we arrive at the crumbling of the self, induced by determinism, the process in which a specific role, in this case, of the main carer, is thrust upon the person because of various circumstances like gender inequality, ableism or the disdain for the poorer: “I however feel like my life is over, I have no aspirations, I don’t know who I am anymore, I’m lonely and feel completely trapped by my circumstance” (lines 19-21). The word “however” creates a separation between herself and her partner and puts them on opposite sides of the struggle.
Moreover, the following lines where she expresses guilt give us a lot of insight into the fact that the main issue in this situation is the unbalanced domestic work instead of the OP’s hatred for her motherhood experience. It is the partner’s detachment that plays into the dissolution of the author’s sense of self. In the next excerpt, the clash of identities is made clear: “Everyday feels like ground hog day and it makes me hate being a parent, then I feel guilty for thinking that” (lines 29-30). Her mother persona has taken over her whole identity and consequently, her inherent identity as a human has been moved in order to fully care for the child, which must be prioritised for their sake. With the utterance “I feel guilty for thinking that” we can extract meaning linked to the discourse Mackenzie analyses in her paper on Good Mums in which “women’s positioning as child-centred mothers is imperative” (Mackenzie, 2018, p.124) and, therefore, it “inscribes unequal power relations, whereby women’s indissoluble relation to children limits the subject positions available to them: who it is possible to ‘be’ as female parents.” (Mackenzie, 2018, p.124). In other words, in a patriarchal society, it is expected for women to love being mothers and if one does not adhere to this feeling they are threatened with rejection or being tagged as “bad mothers”. This phenomenon follows Butler’s understanding of womanhood as a socially constructed concept, and it adds another layer by exposing maternal performativity on top of gender performativity.
Furthermore, Rachel Maher (2020) proposes, following the line of Lindal Buchanan in the book Rethorics of Motherhood (2013), that “mothers are expected to be the moral compass for their children and families, to assume a completely selfless disposition in response to the needs of their loved ones, and implicitly, to lose themselves in the role” (p.1), which reiterates the identity discourse seen in the text.
There is one more aspect to analyse in the author’s internalised guilt for her hatred of parenting which is related to Foucault’s idea of self-policing seen in modernity. Mark Bevir (1999), paraphrasing Foucault, defines this as conveying that “in modern society, people govern themselves by scrutinizing their own behaviour for signs of sin or abnormality as they are defined by apparatuses of power. Today we guiltily confess to ourselves our bad thoughts, desires, and actions” (p. 350). That is, the patriarchal power structures are not only external but have become interiorised to the point where the actors living within the system have their own integrated means of oppression.
- Agency
The discursive thread regarding agency is widely based on the financial freedom of the subject in question: “The plan was we would manage our son between us and both work part time.” (lines 8-9) With this sentence, we see again that the previously established contract based on equal partnership has been broken and so, another characteristic of unbalanced power brings the OP to a position of fiscal submission and subsequently she mentions that her wife has gotten “promotion after promotion” making it clear that she has been left with no money while the partner has been consistently earning more. This instance exacerbates the inescapabilty of the OP’s situation:
“this issue leads us (…) to the idea of voluntarism, in a sense the opposite of such determinism. Butler’s deployment of the psychoanalytic concept of “identifications” offers suggestions as to how an ethics of care and responsibility might be theorized in terms that avoid simplistic forms both of voluntarism and of determinism” (Jeremiah, 2006, p.28).
In other words, the author has inadvertently fallen into the determined role of primary carer structurally and historically designed to be imposed on women, or in this case, the one that does not work. There are a series of factors like a physical disability, lack of financial autonomy or even submissiveness that might have been determining in the absence of voluntarism.
The author follows up by saying: “I ended up having to give up my job and we lived off my savings as I couldn’t leave her alone.” (lines 10-11). Here “her” refers to her wife who she also cared for and supported with no retribution. Additionally, in line 24 she confesses to having paid for couple’s counselling out of her own pocket and subsequently she declares that she has no savings now. The diminishing of autonomy is incremental and, nevertheless, the OP is still the most present actor within the couple as she takes the reigns to care for the child, makes efforts to save the marriage and sacrifices her savings for the family unit. The loss of agency is not only through economic means but there is a social aspect to it too, for example, the author states that she misses “having adult conversations with other people” (line 22).
- Lack of social support.
As introduced in the previous section, the third discourse overlooks how the primary carer becomes alienated from society as she must spend most of her time attending to the child. In addition, the text sees two different sides of the alienated experience, one is from her own social group (friends), which she shares with her wife and the other is the parents-in-law who do not acknowledge her as the parent of their (biological) grandchild and are homophobic. She starts the post by writing:
“I hate being a parent! It’s taken my ages to pluck up the courage to post, as no one I speak to takes me seriously and friends have just fobbed me off with it will get better and I’d love to be in your shoes! But I hate parenting, don’t get me wrong I love my little boy, he’s my world.” (lines 1-4).
The lack of understanding from her friends enlightens the reason why it has been hard to open up to another audience as she has had no external support or understanding of her situation.
The wife’s family disapproval of the homosexual nature of the relationship (lines 6-8) increases the tension and, especially, exacerbates the power inequality as the author stands alone in front of unmitigated bigotry. For example: “What makes it worse is that my wifes parents refuse to see me as our sons mum so every wedding or occasion I have to deal with that and my wife never puts them right.” (lines 33-35). Thus, it is seen that even the wife is unsupportive in front of demeaning behaviour perpetrated against her partner. In the negation by the parents-in-law of the subject’s performance and identity as a mother, they are in turn, negating the societal understanding of motherhood, because “according to Butler, mothers are defined not primarily by biological function but by their culturally encoded lived realities” (Oh, 2009, p.5). There is an interesting clash between what the parents-in-law think the embodiment of motherhood is and what Butler states. The in-laws follow a uniquely biological approach to the meaning of mother while Butler thinks that motherhood is reproduced through performative acts.
Conclusion
In conclusion, from the results of the textual analysis, it can be reported that patriarchal structure of familial roles can impregnate and, consequently, become reproduced in “subversive”, i.e. non-heteronormative, families like the one in question. Unexpectedly, it was not the biological mother who embodied the disadvantaged, submissive role when it comes to parenthood. The question of identity has also adhered to Judith Butler’s poststructuralist feminist theories. For example, in their book Gender Trouble (2006) they affirm that “the very injunction to be a given gender takes place through discursive routes: to be a good mother, to be a heterosexually desirable object, to be a fit worker, in sum, to signify a multiplicity of guarantees in response to a variety of different demands all at once” (p. 145). This statement is partly reflected in our study of the subject in her textual context where her sense of self, such as her former identity as an autonomous member of the workforce, disappears in order to embody the “good mother” role, which, in turn, has to be “reiterated” because the performative process of mothering is never complete (Jeremiah, 2006, p.28). Epitomising of the mother role in a context of power inequality within the nuclear family, as we have seen in the text, can bring one to complete alienation and isolation.
There is an awareness that this study is very limited as there is solely one narrative that has been examined and in future research, we hope to be able to discover more diverse cases to analyse in order to have a wider grasp on how gender and patriarchal power structures play into mainstream discourses on parental and gender identity.
References
Primary source
LBGT parents. (2022, October 24). Mumsnet. Retrieved January 10, 2024, from https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/lgbt_parents/4662304-i-hate-being-a-parent
Secondary sources
Bevir, M. (1999). Foucault, Power, and Institutions. Political Studies, 47(2), 345–359. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.00204
Butler, J. (2006). Gender trouble. Routledge.
Federici, S. (2021). Patriarchy of the wage: Notes on Marx, gender, and feminism. PM Press.
Foucault, M. (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge. Pantheon.
Mazer, R. (2020). Redefining Parenthood: A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of Identity Curation on Instagram by Mothers and Gender Non-Conforming Parents [Master’s thesis, University of Calgary].
Mackenzie, J. (2018). ‘Good mums don’t, apparently, wear make-up’: Negotiating discourses of gendered parenthood in Mumsnet Talk. Gender and Language, 12(1), 114–135. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.31062
Oh, I. (2009). The Performativity of Motherhood: Embodying Theology and Political Agency. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, 29(2), 3–17. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23562795
Jeremiah, E. (2006). Motherhood to mothering and beyond: Maternity in recent feminist thought. Journal of the motherhood initiative for research and community involvement, 8 (1, 2), 21-33.