Citation

Mariskind C. Womens Stud. Int. Forum 2017; 61: 14-19.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.wsif.2017.01.003

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Debates about parental leave and the negotiation of work and childrearing are shaped by the discursive production of caregiver and worker subjectivities. This paper analyses online comments that support extending paid parental leave in New Zealand to 26 weeks. Treating these comments as texts, a feminist poststructural lens is employed to investigate how they produce 'good mother' and 'responsible citizen' subject positions, and how they allocate responsibility for the care of infants. It finds that the comments are framed by gendered discourses that valorise motherhood and economic discourses that construct the primary role of citizens as engagement in paid work, and they construct a version of the social contract that both enables and resists dominant citizen-worker subjectivities. The comments do not substantially contest existing gender relations, and this paper argues that a gender equity discourse is needed to address this inequality.

Language: en