New Momism

     The phenomenon New Momism is referred to infiltration of expectations by which women parent (Henderson et al,2010). In today’s society, the media sets the standards of "perfect" and is quick to scrutinize mothers of their parenting towards their new child. Having said that, New Momism is also perpetuated amongst modern mothers in the way they surveil and infiltrate pressure of perfection on new mothers around them who then internalize this on an individual level. At the same time that mothers surveil other mothers, they also use these interactions to surveil themselves and their own decisions about parenting.

     In his book, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Foucault stated that punishment has become post-structuralist in the 20^th century, meaning individuals no longer needed certain social institutions to implement social control over our behavior but instead we surveil ourselves and each other. In relation to New Momism, an example of this post-structuralist view is the way that mothers monitor or “surveil” other mothers around them through observation and interactions. Examples of both are observing a mother’s way of disciplining her child as well as conversations with another mother about what she gives her child to eat and so on. Mothers are constantly under a watchful eye as they are monitored at daycares, parks, malls, restaurants and other public places where other mothers and their children are present. 

     Foucault wrote about retributive punishment in 18^th and 19^th century France where people who were committed of a crime and found guilty received punishment in front of crowd of witnesses, in some cases this punishment included execution. Another type of punishment which has been the main theme in my blog is Foucault’s panoptic view of punishment based off of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon prison. This type of disciplinary punishment was made attainable by the supervisors central tower in which prisoners could see but were never able to verify wether they were being surveilled at all times, however they must always think so in order to discipline themselves to not deviate. 

Any individual, taken almost at random, can operate the machine: in the absence of the director, his family, his friends, his visitors, even his servants” (Foucault 1975,p. 202).

 As in Foucault’s discussion of prisoners, where they were to internalize the gaze of the supervisor (Foucault, 1975, p.203), so too do mothers.

     Within the phenomenon New Momism, mothers surveil themselves as well as other mothers around them without the presence of a social institution enforcing social control over their behaviors toward parenting which in kind is an example of Foucault’s view of punishment within post-structuralism. 

References

Foucault , M. (1975). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison

Henderson, Houser, Harmon. (2010). A New State of Surveillance? Applying Michel Foucault to Modern Mothers