I Am Murphy Brown: Race and Class in the Rhetorics of Single Mothers by Choice

Katherine Mack University of Colorado Colorado Springs

Abstract

In the 1990s, “Murphy Brown” mothers—often unwed, older, white, and professional—could embrace their alliance with stigmatized single mothers or mark their difference from them, while simultaneously demonstrating their alignment with the dominant discourse of “family values.” Many opted for the latter, gathering under the label “Single Mothers by Choice” (SMC). Using an intersectional cultural rhetorical methodology, this article identifies the axioms of “family values” and demonstrates how they shaped SMC’s efforts to legitimize themselves through an analysis of Jane Mattes’s 1994 guidebook, Single Mothers by Choice: A Guidebook for Single Women Who Are Considering or Have Chosen Motherhood.

Journal
Rhetoric Review
Published
2020-07-02
DOI
10.1080/07350198.2020.1764763
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