Rhetorics of motherhood /Lindal Buchanan.
- Carbondale, IL : Southern Illinois University Press, (c)2013.
- 1 online resource (xxi, 170 pages) : illustrations
- Studies in rhetorics and feminisms .
Includes bibliographies and index.
Theorizing motherhood in public discourse -- From "wild woman writer" to "mother of two": Margaret Sanger, birth control, and ethos repair -- Motherhood, civil rights, and remembrance: recuperating Diane Nash -- Changing constructs of motherhood: pregnancy and personhood in Laci and Conner's law.
Becoming a mother profoundly alters one's perception of the world, as Lindal Buchanan learned firsthand when she gave birth. Suddenly attentive to representations of mothers and mothering in advertisements, fiction, film, art, education, and politics, she became intrigued by the persuasive force of the concept of motherhood, an interest that unleashed a host of questions: How is the construct defined? How are maternal appeals crafted, presented, and performed? What do they communicate about gender and power? How do they affect women? Her quest for answers has produced Rhetori.