Motherhood as a Gendered Entitlement: Intentionality, "Othering," and Homosociality in the Online Infertility Community.

Abstract

Motherhood is one of the most enduring rites of passage to adult femininity for women. However, not all women have access to motherhood. In this paper, I explore the online infertility community wherein women blog to process their exclusion, expressing incredulity about the prospect of never having a biological child of their own. Women understand their infertility as an injustice, leading them to lay claim to motherhood. I argue that how women lay claim to motherhood changes our understanding of motherhood as a gendered norm. Motherhood is more than a pursuit of a gender identity; it is also a gendered entitlement. This research pushes analytic conceptualizations of motherhood forward, while also empirically enriching our knowledge about women's homosociality.