Care and capitalist crisis in anglophone digital landscapes: the case of the mompreneur

Abstract

The term “mompreneur” has fallen into heavy usage in anglophone media since 2008. A mesh of two ideologically-loaded words, “mom” and “entrepreneur,” the mompreneur is frequently defined by the functional meaning of these two words, but in this thesis I develop a more specific definition and study her as a discursive figure located at a particular intersection of identities. I argue that the mompreneur is a normative ideal in anglophone techno-utopian discourses who structures emergent political-economic relations. I find that she is overwhelmingly constructed as a high-achieving, flexible, creative, multi-tasking “supermom” who makes use of digital information and communication technologies to run a business from home while maximizing quality time with her (biological) children. I ask, what does the mompreneur’s idealized lifestyle and its complementary narratives tell us about the reproduction of white supremacy, heteropatriarchy and capitalism in a colorblind, postfeminist techno-optimist context? What can she tell us about the governance of care amidst economic relations increasingly mediated through digital technology? I take the discourse of mompreneurship as a case study by which to analyze the production of gendered and entrepreneurial subjectivities in relation to capitalist crisis. I find that the figure of the “mompreneur” emerges in her particular, anglophone political-economic context to reinforce the privatization and feminization of care work, to help construct a social consensus around technological advance and to absorb and appease surplus population.