No abstract

Collective actors typically attempt to bring about a change in law or policy by employing discursive tactics designed to convince key political decision-makers to alter policy, yet few systematic studies of the effects of social movement framing on political outcomes exist. We theorize that the cultural context in which framing takes place moderates the success of movement framing in winning changes in policy. We examine the efforts of organized women, during roughly the first half of the twentieth century, to convince lawmakers to broaden jury laws to give women the opportunity to sit on juries. To examine the combined effect of framing and the discursive opportunities provided by hegemonic legal principles, traditional gender beliefs, gendered political opportunities, opposition framing, and wartime, we use logistic regression. The findings provide substantial evidence that framing's influence is moderated by discursive elements in the broader context. Our results suggest that investigations of how citizen groups influence law and policy must take into account framing's important role and the ways in which the cultural context conditions framing's influence.

This study examines the means by which privileged mothers comply to the dominant expectations of intensive mothering. As women struggle with the complicated, and often contradictory, experience of meeting the demands of the dominant ideology, we examine the mediating role of an institution, in this case the most popular maternal support organization in the United States—Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS). Organizations such as MOPS create an ideal cultural site for reinforcing ideologies that promulgate unattainable standards of perfection. Data were collected from observations of two MOPS groups, in‐depth interviews, and ethnographic content analysis of organizational materials. This dominant organization supports mothers by discouraging them from questioning the expectations of intensive mothering or considering alternative methods of parenting, which reinforces intensive mothering as the gold standard of parenting.

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“Wine mom” discourse encourages American women to self‐deprecatingly bond over the stressors of parenting and touts alcohol use as necessary means for coping and escapism. Before the added stress of the COVID‐19 pandemic, whereby alcohol sales and consumption increased in the United States, rates of heavy drinking and alcohol‐related illnesses among US women have been steadily increasing. Exceeding the clinical markers of responsible alcohol use, “wine mom” discourse normalizes an inextricable link between alcohol misuse and expectations of (White, middle‐class) motherhood. Online communities and businesses emphasize “wine mom” discourse for self‐acceptance and bonding in response to the impossible demands of hegemonic motherhood. In this critique of “wine mom” discourse, we argue that although alcohol consumption is commonly touted as self‐care, this messaging operates in toxic ways that harms women and reinforces patriarchy. Applying Merton's strain theory, we argue that “wine mom” trends and related discourse encompass a harmful form of conformity, if not false resistance, to the strain of flawed cultural goals and lacking institutionalized supports for American mothers. We call for true rebellion, emphasizing positive discourse as well as structural changes and policy reforms to dismantle patriarchal barriers and hegemonic motherhood constraints to better support American families.