MOTHERING AND GOVERNING

Abstract

Media discourse scrutinized Massachusetts' Governor Jane Swift when she bore twins but Governor Sarah Palin's pregnancy garnered different reactions. From a feminist perspective, this research uses articulation theory to examine discursive links and frames in news coverage of Swift and Palin as governors and mothers—both of whom were members of the Republican Party and proponents of heterosexual marriage. Articulations vilified Swift's parenting and governing because she strayed from a dominant mothering ideology and her husband, a stay-at-home father, disrupted hegemonic white masculinity. News stories about Palin, in contrast, present her circumstances favorably, we argue, because she identified herself foremost as a mother and more closely fitted familial gender roles.