Embodiment of political femininity: The symbolic representation of mothers in parliament

In this paper, we focus on the symbolic representation of mothers in democratic parliaments and ask whether the media judges them negatively or positively. With this question we seek to contribute to the debate about the gendered role of parenthood on women’s descriptive political representation. While previously motherhood and the associated care responsibilities were seen as a barrier to a political career, thus most women entering parliaments were childless due to prevailing gender roles and the unfavourable working conditions in parliaments, this seems to be changing. More recent research suggests increasing public demand for politicians who are parents, irrespective of gender. However, the extent to which a ‘motherhood penalty’ in politics still exists is contested. Those suggesting it has lost significance rely primarily on survey experiments thereby limiting our understanding of the role of ‘real-world’ discourse in challenging or (re)producing gender narratives which govern what women are and should be within the political realm. Based on a discursive media analysis, we use four case studies of women politicians in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States whose motherhood was politicised during their term in office to analyse and compare how the media portrayed them. Drawing on the sociological literature on embodiment, we explore how women are publicly perceived by the media when their motherhood becomes visible within the parliamentary realm, for example, through pregnancy, breast feeding, their absence due to maternity leave or the presence of their children. We argue that this is important because their public representation may either deter other women who are, or soon want to become, parents of young children from running for office, or it signals to them that a political career is possible for them as well, thus promoting women’s political careers, irrespective of parental status, in a sphere still dominated by men.