Refiguring Motherhood Beyond Biology

Valerie Renegar is a Professor of Communication Studies at Southwestern University, and the holder of the Herman Brown Chair. Her research focuses on feminist rhetoric as well as the role of rhetoric in social change. Her work appears in several outlets including Hypatia, Women’s Studies in Communication, Communication Studies, Howard Journal of Communications, and the Western Journal of Communication as well as chapters in a number of edited collections. Kirsti Cole is a Professor of Rhetoric, Composition, and Literature at Minnesota State University. She is the faculty chair of the Teaching Writing Graduate Certificate and Master’s of Communication and Composition programs. She has published articles in Women’s Studies in Communication, TCQ, Feminist Media Studies, College English, harlot, and thirdspace, as well as a number of chapters in edited collections. Her collection Feminist Challenges or Feminist Rhetorics was published in 2014. She has also edited the following collections with Holly Hassel: Surviving Sexism in the Academy: Feminist Strategies for Leadership (2017), Academic Labor beyond the College Classroom: Working for Our Values (2020), and Transformations: Change Work Across Writing Programs, Pedagogies, and Practices (2021).

List of Contributors

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Resisting Rhetorics of Mothering, Intensive Mothering, and Biological Determinism

VALERIE RENEGAR AND KIRSTI COLE

PART I

Intersections of Motherhood Figures Beyond Biology

1 Muslim Mothering and Divesting from Whiteness

LAMIYAH BAHRAINWALA

2 SBF Seeking Motherhood: An Autoethnographic Journey Toward Pregnancy

NATASHA R. HOWARD

3 Re-Imagining Queer Black Motherhood

ELIZABETH Y. WHITTINGTON

4 Rhetorically Constructing Motherhood in Pregnancy Loss

SARAH STEIMEL

5 Comadrisma, Mamás, and Tías: An Intersectional Chicana Feminist Approach to Comunidad and Reproductive Justice

SARAH DE LOS SANTOS UPTON AND LEANDRA H. HERNANDEZ

PART II

Refiguring Media Representations of Motherhood Beyond Biology

6 Donors and Disclosures: Rhetorical Explanations of Assisted Reproductive Technology and Parenthood in Children’s Literature

RAE LYNN SCHWARTZ-DUPRE AND STACEY K. SOWARDS

7 Las No-Madres: The Commercialization and Medicalization of Infertility in Quién quiere ser madre

CATHERINE BOURLAND ROSS AND BAILEY BARLOW

8 The Limitations of (Privileged) Maternal Appeals: Sandra Steingraber’s Constructions of Mothering in a Toxic Environment

MOLLIE K. MURPHY

9 Ableism and Motherhood: Invisible Illness and Moral Implications of “Good” Mothering

ELIZABETH L. SPRADLEY

10 “‘But This is Supposed to be the Happiest Time of my Life!’: The Neoliberal Turn in Women’s Discourses of Postpartum in Our Bodies, Ourselves”

JENNIFER ROME KRUSE

11 Spiritual Mothers: Evangelical Practices of Mothering in the 21st Century

SARAH KORNFIELD

PART III

Refiguring the Rhetoric of Motherhood Beyond Biology

12 Reconceptualizing “Maternity” to Recognize Men: Images of Pregnant Trans Men as Visual Argument

ERIKA M. THOMAS

13 A Visual Definition of Caregiving: Caring About, Caring for, and the Feminization of Care

RACHEL D. DAVIDSON AND LARA C. STACHE

14 #MotherofExiles: Gender and Race in Motherhood Appeals to Protest Family Separation Policies

HEIDI HAMILTON

15 “Good” Mothering and the Question of Migrant Mothers at the Border

KATHERINE J. HAMPSTEN

16 Challenges to Neoliberal Parenting and the Rise of the Ideal Stepmother

VALERIE RENEGAR AND KIRSTI COLE

Afterword

SARA HAYDEN AND JENNIFER L. BORDA

Index