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2006:13 The Representation of Parenthood and Childlessness in Selected Women’s and Men’s Magazines

Hana Hašková (ed.), Jana Pomahačová

This study examines whether and in what way parenthood and childlessness are reflected in the gender-specific media targeting men and women in Czech society. The study presents the results of a qualitative and a quantitative analysis of selected women’s magazines and a qualitative study of selected men’s lifestyle magazines published in the Czech Republic after 1989, that is, during a period when important changes in reproductive behaviour have been under way in the population. The analysis identified similarities and differences in the content and style in which the issues of childlessness and parenthood are addressed in media aimed at women and media aimed at men. The selected magazines studied were similar mainly in terms of their use of biological frameworks to explain the reproductive behaviour of men and women and in terms of the implicit expectation that men and women will become parents sometime in their lives. However, while in the world of women’s magazines a woman’s identity is tightly linked to her role as a mother, in men’s magazines the link made between a man’s identity and fatherhood is not that strong. The world of women’s magazines stresses the value of motherhood for the point of motherhood itself, both in the sense of becoming a mother and in the sense of being a mother in practice; but in the world of men’s magazines if fatherhood is emphasised at all it is as part of a man’s relationship with a woman, and it is more the decision to become a father and the biological aspects of doing so (conception, transmitting genetic information) that are stressed than the actual experience of being a father. Paradoxically (or for this very reason) the question of deciding to remain childless is marginalised in women’s magazines, but in men’s magazines is absent altogether.

Keywords

Childlessness, motherhood, fatherhood, media, women’s magazines, men’s magazines

Summary

In this volume of Sociological Studies the authors present the results of a qualitative and a quantitative analysis of selected women’s magazines and a qualitative study of selected men’s lifestyle magazines, dating from the very first date of their publication in the Czech Republic up to the year 2005. The objective of the analysis was to examine whether and in what way childlessness and parenthood are presented in gender-specific media targeting women and men in the Czech Republic, namely in the magazines Katka, Cosmopolitan, Překvapení (Surprise), Zdraví (Health), Men´s Health, Esquire, and Maxim (Quo), during a period when significant changes have been occurring in the population’s reproductive behaviour.
The most important indicators of these changes include the decrease in various fertility indicators, the postponement of parenthood to a later age, the rise in the proportion of (thus far) childless adults in the population, the increasing proportion of children born to partners in consensual unions or to single mothers out of the total number of children born, and the increasing proportion of single-parent families headed by the mother out of all families with children. Sociological data moreover point to a significantly higher proportion of young men than young women who are not (yet) too certain about their reproductive preferences.
The media reflect and shape social reality in a specific way. The study of media content is thus a useful tool for analysing and understanding social changes. In the context of current discussions on the changes to (the timing and value of) parenthood the authors set out to examine the issues connected with parenthood and childlessness that are raised in the world of selected women’s and men’s magazines, what sub-topics surface, how they are addressed, which levels and aspects of motherhood/fatherhood/childlessness are uncovered, and which, conversely, remain absent from the media studied. In this study the authors posed the following basic research questions: How is motherhood/fatherhood/childlessness perceived by men and women in the world of men’s and women’s magazines – what does it mean to them? How do these media construct relationships between motherhood and femininity/femininities or fatherhood and masculinity/masculinities? How do they define the benefits or losses that motherhood/fatherhood/childlessness brings? What role is played in the world of women’s/men’s magazines by emotional, economic, social, or other factors? How are the potential barriers to starting a family articulated in women’s/men’s magazines? In what kind of explanatory frameworks do magazine editors and their solicited experts situate these socio-demographic trends?
The authors note that in women’s magazines motherhood is still accorded a very high value; its significance has not been weakening even as the significance of other values, competing with motherhood, has been increasing. The portrayal of this conflict usually leads to the postponement of motherhood until a woman is older (even though the postponement of parenthood is in these magazines often linked to barriers to becoming parents), but never to the decision to remain childless for life. In the world of women’s magazines motherhood is an expected occurrence in women’s lives. It is depicted as a ‘natural’ part of being a woman, or, more accurately, is associated with concepts that draw on notions of what is ‘natural’ and ‘normal’, such as a woman’s ‘biological clock’ or ‘maternal instinct’. Women who reject motherhood appear in the pages of women’s magazines as socially stigmatised, continuously forced to defend their decision. Conversely, in the case of unwanted pregnancy, the climate of opinion in women’s magazines is fully in favour of a woman’s free will to choose whether she wishes to become a mother or not. The opinion of the man in this regard is seen to be of little importance, and any pressure from his side is viewed in a negative light. In women’s magazines motherhood is something that women want, expect, and that they associate (despite the many problems it may involve) with positive feelings of life fulfilment. It is not however a given. Many women presented in the pages of women’s magazines are dealing with difficulties in their personal relationship or with infertility. Their life stories are filled with substantial personal investment aimed at a single purpose – becoming a mother.
And what is the story of fatherhood, postponed fatherhood, infertility, or the decision for lifelong childlessness portrayed in men’s lifestyle magazines selling in the Czech market? A comparison of articles from these media with the articles collected from women’s magazines suggests that (unsurprisingly) men’s magazines do not address these subjects as individual topics in their own right as often as women’s magazines do. On the contrary, they are marginal topics in men’s magazines. While in women’s magazines the power of personal stories figures prominently – whether it is the stories of mothers, women who have postponed childhood, or women who are trying to become mothers, – the dominant stylistic features of the way these themes are addressed in men’s magazines are irony and hyperbole, which in these media is also present in many other (but not all other) articles. Using these style tools the editorial boards look at (or come to terms with) the explicitly mentioned standard of ‘active fatherhood’. But the subject of starting a family (becoming a father) is addressed much more often than the subject of being a father in practice. Here becoming a parent is often linked to getting married. In men’s magazines getting married and becoming a parent are portrayed as something that men tend to avoid. In men’s magazines it is women, often described as ‘thirty-somethings’, who lead (‘pressure’) men into parenthood. The ideal age for a man to become a parent is not usually discussed, or it is mentioned in relation to the biological age of his partner.
The articles tend to use biological frameworks to explain the approaches of men and women to parenthood, wherein women are the ones with the ‘maternal instinct’ for raising and caring for children, while the ‘instincts’ of men are defined not in terms of raising and caring for children but only in terms of the biological aspect of parenthood – conceiving a child. Biological explanatory frameworks appear in both men’s and women’s magazines. Although the ‘stories’ that biological concepts work with in men’s and women’s magazines are not identical, the explanatory frameworks they use suggest that these ‘narratives’ are essentially two sides of the same coin.
In men’s magazines (like in women’s magazines) the articles discussing these issues maintain the assumption that in the future their readers will get married and become parents. The image of men as domineering, sexually hyperactive, and valiant super-studs who pass time in pursuit of sex with multiple beautiful women and abandon their partners the moment mention is made of marriage or children is often (though not always) accompanied by ironic comments and objections, and is discussed in a hyperbolic tone, making it possible (though not necessary) to interpret the presented images of masculinity in various different ways.
The subject of unplanned pregnancy is not touched on at all in men’s magazines. The absence of this topic in men’s magazines, and the way in which it is dealt with in women’s magazines, so that the position of men in the process of deciding on whether to have the child or not is marginalised, are mutually consistent and create an image of unplanned parenthood as ‘her problem’.
Similarly, while in women’s magazines we can find texts with an emotional tone on the topic of the value of motherhood for women, the value of fatherhood for men is not treated as a separate subject in men’s magazines. While in women’s magazines motherhood is something expected, desired, highly valued, but not necessarily a sure thing, because there are various obstacles that can stand in the way of becoming a mother, some of which can be anticipated (e.g. age), prevented, or by mean’s of various sacrifices overcome, in men’s magazines, though fatherhood is something that is again expected in the future, its value for men is nowhere explicitly stressed, and potential barriers to becoming a father are not discussed; not even the potential case of infertility. Men’s magazines only discuss male infertility, which in all the articles is declared to have been permanently solved through assisted reproduction. But the costs (psychological, emotional, and financial) of participating in assisted reproduction programmes are not discussed in men’s magazines, unlike women’s (which are filled with the personal stories of women experiencing the cycles of expectation and medical interventions in their bodies).
While in the world of women’s magazines a woman’s identity is firmly tied to the role of being a mother, in men’s magazines this link between fatherhood and a man’s identity is not made. The world of women’s magazines emphasises the value of motherhood in itself, both in terms of becoming a mother and in terms of being a mother in practice, while the world of men’s magazines stresses (if at all) parenthood as part of a relationship with a woman and fatherhood more in the sense of the decision to become a father and the biological aspect of that (conception, transmitting genetic information), rather than in the sense of actually being a father.