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Conclusion: Interrogating Motherhood, Transforming Gender
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115 Conclusion: Interrogating Motherhood, Transforming Gender Certainly it is possible to theorize women’s situations and experiences , or to theorize gender, in ways that minimize the issue of mothering, or do not address it at all. But assumptions about women’s mothering are so deeply embedded in U.S. society and culture and are so complexly intertwined with other fundamental beliefs and values that these assumptions are likely to be implicit in accounts of women’s situations and experiences and in theories of gender that do not explicitly address mothering. —Patrice DiQuinzio, The Impossibility of Motherhood Those who study women but ignore motherhood do so at some peril, for, as Patrice DiQuinzio observes, it permeates culture, society, and politics. Although motherhood is both powerful and pervasive, its construction and implications for women have been little studied within rhetoric to this point. Rhetorics of Motherhood represents my effort to encourage scholarly conversation on the topic as well as the integration of women and women’s issues into disciplinary histories, theories, and traditions. I have assumed that socially constructed “categories have meaning and consequences,” fostering both hierarchies and inequities (Crenshaw 1297), and have argued that the god-term Mother and devil-term Woman operate as poles on a continuum that affords rhetors means for praising or blaming women, practices, and policies. I employed this continuum in three case studies, exploring motherhood’s Janus -like capacity not only to position women advantageously but also to constrain them. I also examined motherhood’s versatility as a rhetorical resource, one that generates persuasive means useful for advocating feminist, resistant, and conservative agendas. Margaret Sanger’s appropriation of motherhood to repair damaged ethos, appeal to diverse audiences, develop a large-scale movement for Conclusion 116 birth control, and, ultimately, increase women’s reproductive self-determination illustrated a feminist application.1 Meanwhile, Diane Nash employed maternal appeals to critique southern justice and exhort civil -rights cohorts to embrace jail-no-bail policy, thereby resisting racist power structures and promoting desegregation through nonviolent means. Finally, as congressional deliberation over The Unborn Victims of Violence Act (UVVA) revealed, maternal rhetorics proved central in advancing regressive politics and policies. UVVA speakers’ two-person construct of pregnancy and invocation of the god term ensured passage of conservative legislation that, ironically, undermined women’s control over when and whether to become mothers. These studies illuminated rhetors’ use of motherhood to oppose, modify, or preserve the status quo, in each case drawing upon the Woman/ Mother continuum and shaping women’s legal, social, political, and professional standing. In these closing pages, I offer some final reflections on motherhood and public discourse, gleaned from bringing the Sanger, Nash, and UVVA chapters into relationship with one another. Specifically, I consider motherhood’s cultural entrenchment and the emotional consequences of that placement; its ethical promise and peril for women; its influence on their rhetorical practices and careers; its usefulness for praising and/or blaming women; and its contingency and ever evolving meaning. Culture, Code, and Emotion Motherhood’s persuasive force stems from its place in the cultural matrix . Embedded within an overarching system of gender, motherhood reflects prevailing beliefs about sex and sexuality, femininity and masculinity , reproduction and children. These beliefs permeate the code of motherhood, a mélange of the precepts, values, expectations, and conventions about maternity that support the gendered status quo. The code, in turn, is part of the comprehensive body of scripts, norms, and roles learned by subjects during the process of acculturation, so it is instantly recognizable to cultural insiders. The code of motherhood, therefore, provides rhetors with invaluable opportunities to bond “with audiences by deploying what everyone knows” (Miller 67). This positioning also accounts for motherhood’s ability to stir strong emotion. Mention the code, and a series of mandates comes immediately to mind (say, the imperatives to protect pregnant women or to concede authority over home and children to mothers). Honoring or violating these mandates, in turn, evokes inculcated emotional responses: Those who harm, rather [3.230.76.153] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 13:27 GMT) Conclusion 117 than protect, mothers and children, for instance, inspire outrage. The code’s well-known standards and affiliated emotions imbue motherhood with enormous force and significance. The god-term Mother is a rhetorical expression of the code of motherhood . Rhetors who invoke the god term slot audience members into familiar subject positions and encourage established emotional responses, ranging from respect and allegiance to anger and fear. The audience’s immediate recognition...