Maternalism—the elevation of women socially and politically through their role as mothers—has taken many forms historically and geographically. Maternalisms are regularly entrenched in wider political discourses, stereotypes, economics, and nation-state projects. As such, they are used broadly to promote gendered worldviews and (re)define social roles. Crucially in the west, maternalism has been one of the strongest discursive arenas for women’s political voice used by both “traditional” and “progressive” movements. While much scholarly and popular work on motherhood and its effects focuses on how women are impacted by stereotypes and discourses, my work focuses on how women leverage maternalist rhetoric to shore up their role as agentic political actors. This paper explicates the specific adaptations and uses of maternalism in digital cultures of extremism and reaction, what I have previously termed “Alt-Maternalism,” highlighting how such gendered propaganda is circulated and normalized into everyday politics with impacts on daily living and our social understanding of proper mothering roles. I draw on concepts including Angela McRobbie’s notion of post-feminism, Naomi Mezzy and Cornelia Pillard’s notion of new maternalism, as well as histories such as Elizabeth Gillespie McRae’s Mothers of Massive Resistance to show how groups such as Moms for Liberty make extremist, often white supremacist politics normative through their promotion of and participation in reactionary socio-political campaigns focused on schools and education (e.g., Anti-CRT / Anti-Trans) that are expanding through predominantly white networked, digital motherhood cultures.

During the implementation of the project 'Women, get to coding! Mapping educational initiatives in support of women" from 2020 onwards, I accompanied mothers through the process of transitioning to IT-related jobs. In the course of the research, I heard many times about being absolutely exhausted, feeling burnt out and being that "insufficient" woman who, although she loves her children and will do anything for them, "hates motherhood". These words came from the mouths of educated women who, in search of a better life and with no desire to replicate the scenario followed by their mothers, had migrated from small towns to larger conurbations. Thus, motherhood, treated as another project rather than a mission, acquired new 'levels' and 'skills' that one must possess in order not to fall out of this ultra-hard game. These difficulties were spread among the necessity inherent in the IT industry to learn and constantly position oneself as a valuable asset for potential employers, the logistics of everyday life, and the cultural factors that tell one not to duplicate one's mother's mistakes and to build an individualised "career map" corresponding to newly emerging professions. Conclusions from the research show that organisations and women's support networks dedicated to the IT industry, which by their actions build narratives about maternity-friendly workplaces, support the potential for change and women's agency, turned out to be allies in the process of negotiating roles and exchanging experiences in the game for new jobs for the respondents.

In a recent Apple ad, Octavia Spencer takes on the role of 'Mother Nature'. She is fierce and confrontational, questioning the company's leaders on their efforts to be more sustainable. This depiction is a fresh take on the longstanding Mother Nature figure.

This presentation will dig into this modern portrayal, asking a critical question - how has the Mother Nature archetype changed over time, and can it align with the diverse (in terms of gender expression, but also race) and dynamic realities of today’s world? I'll be using Aronofsky’s 2017 "Mother!" as a case study to explore these questions. The film, woven with themes of ecofeminism, portrays Mother Nature in ways that both interrogate and uphold archetypal narratives of motherhood.

I will juxtapose this with del Toro’s “The Murmuring,” a tale of maternal loss and trauma set on a remote island in Canada during the 1950s. The episode brings together motherhood and nature in ways that expand our understanding of both.

In discussing these contemporary portrayals, ecofeminist perspectives become instrumental in decoding the intricate relations between women and nature, providing a lens to understand the transformation of Mother Nature amidst evolving ecological and gender narratives. In light of ecofeminist theory, the presentation seeks to understand how narratives of power, resistance are embedded within contemporary portrayals of the Mother Nature figure. The complex maternal allegories in “Mother!” and the emotive narrative in “The Murmuring” are analyzed as part of an ongoing discourse where nature and femininity are contested, reclaimed, and redefined.

This article explores the experiences of Irish and Lithuanian mothers in creative work who detail challenges they face and the various strategies they develop to sustain creative work and care for their children. The study draws from 24 interviews which were carried out with mothers in both countries at various stages in their careers. Our study stresses the importance of national context in research on European creative workers, since national and localised differences feature little in creative industries literature. By assessing mothers in their national contexts, we argue that mothers may share overall experiences of juggling work and family life, of the requirement to solve childcare issues and of challenges they face while working in creative industries. However, crucially, key differences emerge in how Lithuanian and Irish mothers position their professional and maternal identities. Differences arise in the solutions that Lithuanian and Irish mothers use and in the extent to which challenges may be negated, particularly across generations. We relate each of these differences to the localised contexts in which the creative workers mother.