Marc Pozuelo & Miriam Otero
We set out from a theoretical framework based on post-structural feminism and critical discourse analysis to find out what discourses of parenting are constructed within the Mumsnet Talk thread “I wish my partner was more helpful“.
1. Introduction
The purpose of this research essay is to explore a single thread that was posted to the online discussion in the open-access forum Mumsnet Talk in May 2023. This website offers a parenting forum to discuss everything related to being a parent and raising children and teenagers. Most of the users of the site are from the UK and identify themselves as female parents. The predominance of sexist thinking and the incapability of equal parenting when it comes to child care and household chores is a reality that is happening now, as evidenced by the number of threads available in Mumsnet Talk concerning this issue.
From a discursive analysis of parenthood and gender, the following research questions emerged:
-How does the text construct and deal with parenting roles and categories? In its negotiation of sexist assumptions, does the text conform to or resist them?
-What discourses of parenting are constructed in this text? Are these discourses supported by the community or criticised? Are they dominant?
Firstly, we establish the theoretical framework. The approach adopted in this essay is post-structural feminism combined with some notions from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Afterwards, we focus on the data and methods. We delve into the analysis of linguistic choices, their meaning beyond the referential one, and the repercussions that they may have in a social context. We draw on previous works from both scholars who carried out studies within Mumsnet Talk such as Mackenzie (2016) or Pedersen and Smithson (2013) and academics who discuss feminism such as hooks (2000) and Weedon (1987) or mothering, namely, Glenn et al. (1994). The main post is analysed and then the analysis moves to the comments considering the whole thread. In the last section, we present the results, and we identify the dominant and marginalised discourses.
2. Theoretical framework
Poststructuralist theory highlights the importance of language in the analysis of social organisation, social meaning, power and individual consciousness (Weedon, 1987, p. 355). Feminist poststructuralists put forth that the meaning of gender is both socially produced and variable between different forms of discourse. Discourses can be understood as the different ways of giving meaning to social reality, and they can be described as ‘dominant’ or ‘marginalised’. Discourses are not fixed, they are rather shifting, unstable and difficult to pinpoint (Mackenzie, 2016, p. 121). Through the analysis of language and the range of subject positions which it offers, feminist poststructuralists explore how individuals experience power and thus, how the relations of power are constructed, maintained or negotiated.
Mackenzie (2016) analyses the discourses in a thread posted also in Mumsnet Talk through scrutiny of language and taking into consideration the key aspects of discourses: that is, “their central nexus of knowledge, power and subjectivity” (p. 118). The author pinpoints the diverse linguistic mechanisms that contributors to the ‘Your identity as a mother’ thread employed. She goes on to identify and name three different discourses as “gendered parenthood”, “child-centric motherhood” and “mother as a main parent”. Mackenzie suggests that online spaces may well be “fruitful sites for the resistance and subversion of dominant cultural norms” (p. 131). However, the persistence of dominant discourses depicted in these online spaces can be problematic and frustrating for many female parents in the view of the fact that some Mumsnet users are unable to escape gendered subject positions such as the ‘child-centric mother’ (p. 131). These findings reveal the disparities in the roles of mothers and fathers are positioned in relation to children and their needs. Weedon (1987, p. 360) also discusses the discourses of motherhood in which they are exposed to “childcare demands structured by the social relations of the patriarchal nuclear family”. She considers the inadequacies felt by the new mother who “as [a] mother […] is supposed to meet all the child’s needs single-handed, to care for and stimulate the child’s physical [,] emotional and mental development and to feel fulfilled in doing so” (p. 360). The author concludes that the organisation of childcare is not a result of nature, but rather of social and historical development related to the organisation of work and reproduction (p. 360).
In the same fashion, Glenn et al. (1994) put emphasis on how mothering is conceived, organised and carried out, which is not simply determined by the specific social contexts where it occurs that can vary in terms of material and cultural resources and constraints. Mothering is constructed through the actions of men and women within specific historical circumstances. Therefore, agency is central to an understanding of mothering as a social, rather than biological, construct (p. 3).
3. Data and methods
In this research essay, the analysis is based on the Mumsnet Talk thread ‘I wish my partner was more helpful’. We have chosen this text because it is a clear instance where it is conceivable to spot how the author falls into sexist assumptions or role representations, albeit simultaneously contemplating feminist and supportive feminine notions. Thus, we considered it an interesting fragment to analyse and observe possible parenthood constructions and categories. This thread consists of 668 words divided into six paragraphs and twenty-six comments by other users. The author of this thread, LinaMuse, expresses her emotional instability regarding the challenges she is encountering as a mother. She feels ‘lonely and scared’ (line 3), ‘tired and lonely’ (line 49) and describes her situation as ‘really having a hard time’ (line 36). She also feels extremely ‘homesick’ (lines 7 and 50). Even though she went to her home country three times to visit her family, she feels grief and discomfort because she misses a familiar environment, her partner ‘never comes to [her] home country’ (line 24) and he is not ‘supportive’ at all (line 13). She decides to resort to this online forum to get advice on this uncertain situation and to ‘rant [it] somewhere’ (lines 52 and 53).
At first, we found this thread hard to swallow due to the fact that there was a real person behind the screen whose existence seemed to be trapped within certain socially built constraints of gender and motherhood. This mother’s thread seemed to present both an intertwining of doubt and subversion. The sexist notions of marriage regarding e.g. childcare were not really defined; they presented hesitancy. But at the heart of it, there was a mother that through the revelation of her story shed light on the sexist assumptions she had to experience. Nevertheless, the challenge of this essay is to be capable of analysing and identifying discourses that at first glance may be difficult to put into words.
According to Pedersen and Smithson (2013), the users of the Mumsnet site are individuals who identify as female parents (p. 100). According to the authors, most Mumsnet users are “working mothers [with] high levels of education and income” (p. 104). Mackenzie (2016) conducted a larger qualitative study of the discursive construction of motherhood and suggested according to the Mumsnet participants’ linguistic choices that they could be positioned as “female, heterosexual [and] middle-class parents” (p. 120). She also highlights the importance of considering that it is a British site and hence, many themes are particular to a British context. LinaMuse, however, describes herself as not being “originally from [the] UK” (line 3).
The aspects that we are going to analyse are the different linguistic features chosen by the writer in order to convey her message, namely, the wording chosen for the title, the representation of social actors, and the influence of specific discourses on reality. Therefore, we are going to examine their use from a gender perspective in order to provide a thorough consideration of how these details contribute to stereotypes and parenting roles.
4. Results
4.1. Restrictive gender stereotypes
Firstly, we would like to consider the title of the fragment due to the presence of a sexist background by the words chosen, which discursively construct a vision of restrictive gender stereotypes. The author summarises the aim of the text by defining it as ‘I wish my partner was more helpful’. The wording chosen and used portrays a negotiation rather than a resistance to sexist presumptions. Considering the adjective ‘helpful’ as well as the comparative used to enhance the lack of involvement, we can observe a traditional perspective of a father’s role. The choice of these words reflects how the responsibility of parenting is supposed to fall on the mother. Although the writer makes a further reference to equal education and raising, the term ‘helpful’ supported by the presence of the adverb ‘more’ used to refer to her partner is an example of certain unconscious ingrained gender roles.
4.2. Women’s parenting expectations
The first two fragments of the text portray the author’s concerns regarding parenting and the position of the father when facing and overcoming these expectations. Generally, there is a main generalisation and categorisation of men as individuals who demonstrate passiveness regarding the responsibility as a caregiver. In this sense, we can also observe how women are represented as the ‘doers’. Therefore, we can state there is a common division when it comes to parenting where women are considered to be the ‘agents’ and men are seen as ‘patients’. hooks (2000) also discusses this gendered division of housework and childcare and states that “the reality is that men doing an equal share of household chores and child care has never become the norm, that for the most part women still do most of the housework and childcare” (p. 81).
4.3. Categorisation of ‘mother’ and ‘father’
Regarding the first paragraph, we may observe how the mother supports the creation of a category for the role of the father, who seems to not accomplish the objectives and struggles when behaving as a ‘good partner’. On the one hand, when focusing on line 6, ‘Men are expected to help and be 50/50’, we may consider the sentence as a contrast. While defending and supporting the need for equitable reproductive labour, LinaMuse promotes simultaneously and unconsciously the image of men as helpers. The term ‘help’ is used again as a manner of protecting equal child-rearing, although it creates the opposite effect. On the other hand, lines 8 to 10 make reference to being a mother and having a job:
‘Everyone keeps asking if I’m going back to work. MIL is shocked that I am, shocked that I have to put son in nursery to go back to work, talks to me like I’m just giving him up to strangers rather than taking care of him myself’ (lines 8 to 10).
Even though LinaMuse’s partner ‘never had the option of parental leave’ (line 39), the possibility of him quitting the job and devoting his time to childcare and domestic needs is never envisaged by any of the social actors given voice in this text. The fact that no one talks about men leaving work to be full-time parents shows the extent to which sexist thinking about roles prevails. Most people in our society still believe women are better at raising children than men (hooks, 2000, p. 83).
According to hooks (2000), many women in relationships with males often find that having a newborn baby plummets their relationship back into more sexist-defined roles (p. 82). For LinaMuse that seems to be precisely the case. She makes a reference to the 1950s when women were expected to centre their existence around home and descendants by being in charge of domestic responsibilities, raising their children, and conforming to traditional social roles. We can see the aforementioned in the following extract, in which her loneliness is also expressed:
‘I’ve been thrown into the 1950s and i have no one to talk to about it’ (line 51).
In the light of the thread’s answers, this research essay argues that Mumsnet users support the discourse suggested by LinaMuse: being a ‘good partner’ means, among other things, to ‘help and be 50/50’. They use very derogatory adjectives to talk about LinaMuse’s partner, perhaps to broaden her perspective about the issue (see in bold emphasis):
He’s a shit partner and a shit dad. It’s clearly not just you being emotional. (Tangerino)
[…] your husband is just being a run of the mill lazy, thoughtless ass.
(Spotty)
Your partner sounds incredibly selfish. (Retroflux)
Oh come on op, he’s a useless dad and crap partner, in any culture. […] He’s pointless. (Snappy)
He is a crap parent and partner. (ResideRevise)
Spotty employs run-of-the-mill as if these traits were common or ordinary among dads in this forum. Solostyle also refers to the frequency of this phenomenon, it is indicated in bold:
Said every wife always.
When you marry outside of your familiar culture there are always even more challenges than ever.
He sounds a bit rubbish, but not unusually so. You will have to have a serious talk and see if he can step up to the mark. If not….. well only you can decide which you want more. You can try to get him to change but no guarantees.
Nevertheless, the users try to counter the argument—that husbands act in a way which is not helpful in housework and childcare—by defining it as ‘poor advice’ since it goes against the discourse that this is not a cultural issue but rather a personal one. This discourse can be seen in the singled out extracts which put emphasis on the personality of the partner rather than the nationality or culture to account for the non-supportive characteristics of her partner:
The biggest problem here is your partner. I’m not from the UK and we don’t have help here. But! My husband is an amazing dad and a loving husband so the UK system, lack of help and being far from my family does not bother that much. (TInfinity)
This is not a ‘British’ thing. […] Not a cultural issue, a husband issue. (FundFocus)
His behaviour is nothing to do with being British. It’s to do with him being a lazy, useless, selfish shit (ColorfulBeauty)
It’s not the UK, or culture. It’s him. He’s just crap […] (Gladiator)
You keep talking about culture but it’s about what works for you and clearly this set up isn’t (BerryPicking)
It is worth mentioning that the results obtained through linguistic and gender analysis of discourses are limited to the scope of the research essay, that is, with the methodology and data presented, with the established theoretical framework, with the described information about the context and without having contacted any of the users. The first feature we analysed were categories. They can include some people and exclude others, e.g. men/women. We organise and give meaning to our experiences through stories, and the interpretation of the world is both a meaning-making process and a tool through which people construct a sense of identity (Piekut, 2017, p. 379). This thread helped evaluate existing stereotypes assigned to gender through the experience of a mother whose expectations regarding housework and childcare come across as being that ‘men [should] help and be 50/50’, but whose reality distances itself from it. Secondly, given the position of the author and what she stands for, we believe it not to be a marginalised situation but rather the dominant discourse in the Mumsnet community. In fact, the comments added by other users and their reactions were clear evidence to reinforce this idea. Finally, the author states the possibility and belief of constantly facing ‘cultural differences’. When reading, we may observe a clash between the mother’s and the father’s backgrounds. The former comprehends parenting roles as equal, having similar obligations, whereas the latter seems to consider the position of a primary caregiver, the mother. The mother’s comment and the father’s behaviour suggest the common and traditional position of the mother as the main responsible participant, as a necessity and, therefore, the figure of the father as a secondary caregiver. This is interlinked with what Mackenzie (2016) describes as –the imposition of the– “mother as [the] main parent” (p. 124).
5. Conclusion
In a nutshell, exploring and analysing from a gender and linguistic perspective the discussion chosen in the online forum Mumsnet Talk has brought to light how the lexical choices made by the author portray meaning beyond the referential one. On the one hand, we could observe how the author’s viewpoint seems to be contemporary when dealing with parenting roles. Nevertheless, by examining from the text level, we can detect how sexist assumptions are still present due to the connotations extracted. In addition, with regard to the absences, also analysed within this lexical perspective, we can argue that these assumptions are connected to the exclusion of social actors from specific events. In this sense, the wording chosen by the mother in specific situations and the message beyond it excludes the father from child care. For instance, the use of the adjective ‘helpful’, as we previously mentioned, transmits a negative sense regarding the figure of the father and his parenting chores. The online post, moreover, illustrates the categorisation of parenthood, that is, we can observe her position as the active, central caregiver. However, the father’s descriptions in the fragment display inaction and a negative vision of the father.
On the other hand, there is a general purpose for conveying a feminist and equal message regarding parenting. According to hooks, “one of the primary difficulties feminist thinkers faced when confronting sexism within families was that more often than not female parents were the transmitters of sexist thinking” (2000, p.72). If we attempt to consider the main objective of the author, we can regard the feminist ideas she wants to convey and the necessity of promoting equal parenting and caregiving. Nevertheless, the messages behind her words also transmit an idea that simultaneously reinforces certain gender stereotypes. For instance, the constant role allocation facilitates and enables a gap between the caregivers. Therefore, we could consider the forum and the comments as supporting in terms of sharing the same beliefs and thoughts.
In general, taking into account the significance of linguistic features in the fragment, we have exposed how social structure is related to linguistic choices when speaking and promoting different ideas. We could remark the manner in which sexism is still at hand by approaching the content and the meaning behind the wording. In addition, the study separated itself from the linguistic content and observed how deep-rooted certain ideas are and how they dangerously remain unnoticed at first sight because they are dominant discourses that circulate widely.
6. References
hooks, b. (2000). Feminism is for everybody: passionate politics. South End Press.
Glenn, E. N., Chang, G., & Forcey, L. R. (1994). Mothering: ideology, experience, and agency. In Glenn, E. N., Chang, G. & Forcey, L. R. (Eds), Social Constructions of mothering: A thematic overview (pp. 1-4). Routledge.
Mackenzie, J. (2016). ‘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 (Accessed: 28/12/2023)
LinaMuse (2023, May 12). I wish my partner was more helpful [Online forum post]. Mumsnet Talk. (Accessed: 18/12/2023) https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/parenting/4804879-i-wish-my-partner-was-more-helpful
Pedersen, S., & Smithson, J. (2013). Mothers with attitude — How the Mumsnet parenting forum offers space for new forms of femininity to emerge online. Women’s Studies International Forum, 38, 97–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2013.03.004 (Accessed: 30/12/2023)
Piekut, A. (2017). Brown eyes are not the same as blue eyes: Educational narratives, identities and positioning in adult education in Denmark. Narrative Inquiry : NI, 27(2), 378–397. https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.27.2.09pie (Accessed: 02/01/2024)
Weedon, C. (1987). Feminist practice & poststructuralist theory. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.