Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Mediated Maternity: Contemporary American Portrayals of Bad Mothers in Literature and Popular Culture

Mediated Maternity: Contemporary American Portrayals of Bad Mothers in Literature and Popular Culture

Seidel, Linda

Paperback

Literary CriticismFiction AnthologiesGeneral Parenting

ISBN10: 1498516475
ISBN13: 9781498516471
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: Mar 30 2015
Pages: 146
Weight: 0.90
Height: 0.80 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Mediated Maternity: Contemporary American Portrayals of Bad Mothers in Literature and Popular Culture, by Linda Seidel, explores the cultural construction of the bad mother in books, movies, and TV shows, arguing that these portrayals typically have the effect of cementing dominant assumptions about motherhood in place--or, less often, of disrupting those assumptions, causing us to ask whether motherhood could be constructed differently. Portrayals of bad mothers not only help to establish what the good mother is by depicting her opposite, but also serve to illustrate what the culture fears about women in general and mothers in particular. From the ancient horror of female power symbolized by Medea (or, more recently, by Casey Anthony) to the current worry that drug-addicted pregnant women are harming their fetuses, we see a social desire to monitor the reproductive capabilities of women, resulting in more (formal and informal) surveillance than in material (or even moral) support.

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