Some Gendered Discourses Identified to Date

Abstract

Though relatively few are documented, gendered discourses abound. As an example, I offer a motherhood discourse which we might call ‘Good mums stay at home with their children’. While I am not aware of this discourse being named as such, it is a familiar discourse frequently voiced in relation to family and professional life. It is exemplified in an ‘essay’ in the Sunday Sun of 21 May 2000, in which the writer expresses the opinion, in no uncertain terms, that Cherie Booth, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, should stay at home with new baby Leo (i.e. not continue to work as a barrister). Entitled, ‘Cherie, try some Leo-natal care’, the ‘essay’ concludes ‘What the soap [i.e. Downing Street life as a soap opera] needs now is a slice of real life … a new mum who puts her career on ice for a while and gives baby her all.’ (For more on Leo Blair, but in relation to his father, see Chapter 6.) It is possible to see this discourse as maintaining a wider, conservative, discourse of motherhood.