No Excuses: How Motherhood Discourses Legitimate and Reproduce Individualism and Meritocracy

• In Event: 078 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 14. Cultural Dimensions of Gender, Love, and Work

Abstract

Research demonstrates how structural barriers are responsible for the continuation of poverty within families. Yet, the public and political discourses in dominant US culture continue to focus blame and intervention efforts on the behaviors of low-income and young mothers. Even low-income mothers tend to ascribe to this belief. Why has this focus on the characters of low-income women remained unchanged despite empirical evidence and lived experiences? This study uses Foucault’s understanding of power to analyze how dominant cultural discourses of motherhood combine with the discourse of individualism to create a “complex strategical situation” that makes it impossible for low-income mothers in the US, and those who surveil them, to fully account for the role of structural obstacles in their life chances. Analysis of mothers’ narratives demonstrate that cultural discourses of motherhood and individualism promise rewards to marginalized mothers while inducing interpretations and narratives about their lives that further perpetuate individualism and deny the role of structure in the continuation of poverty.

Author

• Lynn M. Verduzco-Baker, Albion College