Motherhood on ice? A media framing analysis of older mothers in the UK news

Changing gender roles and increased sexual and economic freedom have created opportunities for women to give birth relatively late in life. However, stigma and misplaced fears about physical capacity are often reported as sources of anxiety among older, and in vitro fertilisation-induced mothers. In this study, we apply a specially adapted method for analysing news media content to a week's selection of material in the British media following the dissemination of research at an international medical conference. Our findings suggest, despite some positive commentaries, that much negative discourse is circulated by the media about older mothers, from implied claims of selfishness (older mothers as 'delaying' conception) to violations of the 'natural order'. These latter claims reflect the long-standing ambivalence by the media generally towards scientific advancement, but they also reveal continuing resistance towards unorthodox lifestyles.

Altruism and sacrifice:Anglican priests managing ‘intensive’ priesthood and motherhood

Motherhood and Priesthood are two roles that carry with them particular expectations and demands; both are premised on the notion of altruism and sacrifice, constant availability, and putting the needs of others before one’s own (Carroll et al. 1983; Hayes 1996; Peyton and Gatrell 2013; Thorne 2000). This has also been gendered; sacrifice and altruism have traditionally been connected with women (Hays 1996). This article will examine what happens when clergy mothers simultaneously enact the roles of priesthood and motherhood, and how this is managed in the context of ‘intensive’ motherhood and priesthood. Based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 17 clergy mothers in the Anglican Church, it will highlight the contradictions, negotiations and interweaving which occurs for both roles to be concurrently enacted, offering a contextual insight into the management of motherhood vis-à-vis professional life.

Mujer y escritura:construcción de una subjetividad dinámica en cóncava mujer y del dolor y las alas

The title of Juana Castro’s poetry book publshed in 1978, Cóncava mujer — Concave woman — expresses the hollow nature of the social female subject. From Juana Castro’s point of view, this female social concavity is only allowed to transformed itself into its opposite, the convex women which clearly represents the reproductive role of the female body. These two extreme roles assigned to women, hollowness or maternity, are the poetic paradigms for Juana Castro’s two poetry books analised in this article. As if we were presented with the two sides of a coin, Cóncava mujer and Del dolor y las alas – On anguish and wings--(1982) reflect the author´s concious realisation of the above-mentioned female duality as a defined and percieved subject by male society. Each poetry book, however, respond to two different personal moments, and each result in two different ways of conceiving poetic language. On one hand, the poetic subject of Cóncava mujer emerges with all its force as a feminist voice whose goal is the attack of all aspects of the patriarchal society as the cause of the female concavity. On the other hand, in Del dolor y las alas the poetic voice unfolds her motherhood as both loss and creation: the death of Juana Castro’s son makes the poetic subject incomplete, and therefore a concave one; whereas the poetic discourse appears as the perfect way to occupy the empty space left by the son’s death.

Pregnancy loss in lesbian and bisexual women: An online survey of experiences

Background: Although pregnancy loss is a distressing health event for many women, research typically equates women’s experiences of pregnancy loss to ‘married heterosexual women’s experiences of pregnancy loss’. The objective of this study was to explore lesbian and bisexual women’s experiences of miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death. Methods: This study analysed predominantly qualitative online survey data from 60 non-heterosexual, mostly lesbian, women from the UK, USA, Canada and Australia. All but one of the pregnancies was planned. Most respondents had physically experienced one early miscarriage during their first pregnancy, although a third had experienced multiple losses. Results: The analysis highlights three themes: processes and practices for conception; amplification of loss; and health care and heterosexism. Of the respondents, 84% conceived using donor sperm; most used various resources to plan conception and engaged in preconception health care. The experience of loss was amplified due to contextual factors and the investment respondents reported making in impending motherhood. Most felt that their loss(es) had made a ‘significant’/‘very significant’ impact on their lives. Many respondents experienced health care during their loss. Although the majority rated the overall standard of care as ‘good’/‘very good’/‘outstanding’, a minority reported experiencing heterosexism from health professionals. Conclusions: The implications for policy and practice are outlined. The main limitation was that the inflexibility of the methodology did not allow the specificities of women’s experiences to be probed further. It is suggested that both coupled and single non-heterosexual women should be made more visible in reproductive health and pregnancy loss research.

Under the influence? The construction of foetal alcohol syndrome in UK newspapers

Today, alongside many other proscriptions, women are expected to abstain or at least limit their alcohol consumption during pregnancy. This advice is reinforced through warning labels on bottles and cans of alcoholic drinks. In most (but not all) official policies, this is linked to a risk of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) or one of its associated conditions. However, given that there is little medical evidence that low levels of alcohol consumption have an adverse impact on the foetus, we need to examine broader societal ideas to explain why this has now become a policy concern. This paper presents a quantitative and qualitative assessment of analysis of the media in this context. By analysing the frames over time, this paper will trace the emergence of concerns about alcohol consumption during pregnancy. It will argue that contemporary concerns about FAS are framed around a number of pre-existing discourses including alcohol consumption as a social problem, heightened concerns about children at risk and shifts in ideas about the responsibility of motherhood including during the pre-conception and pregnancy periods. Whilst the newspapers regularly carried critiques of the abstinence position now advocated, these challenges focused did little to refute current parenting cultures.

Advocating alcohol abstinence to pregnant women: some observations about British policy

In 2007, the English Department of Health (DH) issued advice stating 'pregnant woman' and 'those trying to conceive' should abstain from drinking alcohol. As others have noted, this advice was issued despite their being no new evidence about the deleterious effects of low levels of alcohol consumption. In this paper, we argue this development is significant for the social construction of 'risk', since in advocating abstinence without an evidence base for this advice, policy makers formalise a connection between uncertainty and danger. We suggest this development has important implications, most obviously for pregnant women, certainly impacting on the nature of the advice they will now receive and likely more generally on their experience of the transition to motherhood. We suggest it has wider implications for individuals' experience also, as policy makers appear to be advocating the same approach to risk to non-pregnant people. Further, it suggests a noteworthy formalisation of a new definition of risk, which should be debated far more extensively, as it matters for the future development of health policy.

Women's experiential journey toward voluntary childlessness

Voluntary childlessness is a relatively novel yet growing phenomenon. This idiographic study explored three women's experiential journeys toward voluntary childlessness. Semi-structured interviews were carried out and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Themes identified were: Owning the choice to be childless, social expectations, and models of mothering. Despite defining ‘voluntary childlessness’ as an unequivocal decision, the women's experiential accounts revealed an intrinsic fluidity in their journeys toward childlessness. Factors including beliefs in equality, independence and career aspirations competed with constructs of mothering/motherhood, partnership and choice to create a complex tapestry of contributory factors in these women's childlessness. The findings question the notion of choice and particularly women's ownership of that choice. The journeys toward childlessness these women shared reveal a synthesis of agentic decision-making, personal histories and challenging lifestyle choices bound up within an existential need to be a woman. More research is needed to determine the place of voluntary childlessness within society. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Organisational cognitive neuroscience drives theoretical progress, or: the curious case of the straw man murder

In this critical essay, we respond to Lindebaum’s (2016) argument that neuroscientific methodologies and data have been accepted prematurely in proposing novel management theory. We acknowledge that building new management theories requires firm foundations. We also find his distinction between demand and supply side forces helpful as an analytical framework identifying the momentum for the contemporary production of management theory. Nevertheless, some of the arguments Lindebaum (2016) puts forward, on closer inspection, can be contested, especially those related to the supply side of organizational cognitive neuroscience (OCN) research: fMRI data, motherhood statements and ethical concerns. We put forward a more positive case for OCN methodologies and data, as well as clarifying exactly what OCN really means, and its consequences for the development of strong management theory.