Dating, love and relationships in Mamamia

Abstract

This article examines how 'Mamamia', an online Australian women's site, produces contradictory narratives about contemporary heterosexual dating and relationships. Reading 'Mamamia' as an updated digital women's magazine, it shows that instead of constructing love and relationship around pleasing men, it instead produces an image of heterosexual love that problematises male behaviour. While the focus of their content centres around men's bad behaviour this never develops into a critique of gender relations or heterosexual norms. Rather, these complaints appear to be offered as a strategy to create a sense of shared experience among the female readers. In line with critiques of postfeminist culture (Gill, 'Gender'; McRobbie, 'Aftermath'; Tasker and Negra) 'Mamamia' gestures towards a feminist orientation, yet remains invested in the traditional gender norms that structure heterosexual relationships.