Johnson &
Quinlan REseaRcH Partnership
Book
You’re Doing it Wrong! Mothering, Media, and Medical Expertise
Published by Rutger’s University Press. More information here.
Reviews:
“Through analyses of historical and contemporary cases, especially the careful study of social media and smart phone apps, Johnson and Quinlan raise important questions about expertise and power relations in defining the good mother.”
--Rima D. Apple, author of Perfect Motherhood: Science and Childbearing in America
"You're Doing It Wrong!: Mothering, Media, and Medical Expertise is a rare mix of historical, sociological, and media analysis that sheds light on the processes by which motherhood gets defined. We get a glimpse of the historical underpinnings of our relationship with medical expertise, and how media outlets create cultural consensus about mothering (if they do)."
-- Julie Des Jardins, author of Women and the Historical Enterprise in America: Gender, Race, and the Politics of Memory
“Combining historical insights and of-the-minute analyses of social media platforms, Johnson and Quinlan persuasively argue for a rethinking of what we “know” about expertise and the often-fraught journey of early motherhood.”
--Kristin Celello, co-editor of Domestic Tensions, National Anxieties: Global Perspectives on Marriage, Crisis, and Nation
“What it means to be a good mother may be less clear in a socially opinionated environment that offers varied levels of expert advice; however, the pressure to be a good mother is quite transparent.”
--A. C. Rosati, Clarion University of Pennsylvania, Choice Review
About You’re Doing it Wrong…
New mothers face a barrage of confounding decisions during the life-cycle of early motherhood. Whatever they “choose,” they will be sure to find plenty of medical expertise from health practitioners to social media “influencers” telling them that they’re making a series of mistakes. As intersectional feminists with two small children each, Bethany L. Johnson and Margaret M. Quinlan draw from their own experiences as well as stories from a range of caretakers throughout.
You’re Doing it Wrong! investigates the storied history of mothering advice in the media, from the newspapers, magazines, doctors’ records and personal papers of the nineteenth-century to today’s websites, Facebook groups, and Instagram feeds. Johnson and Quinlan find surprising parallels between today’s mothering experts and their Victorian counterparts, but they also explore how social media has placed unprecedented pressures on new mothers, even while it may function as social support for some. They further examine the contentious construction of prenatal and baby care expertise itself, as individuals such as everyone from medical professionals to experienced moms have competed to have their expertise acknowledged in the public sphere.
Exploring potential health crises from infertility treatments to “better babies” milestones, You’re Doing it Wrong! provides a provocative look at historical and contemporary medical expertise during conception, pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, and infant care stages.
Medical Humanities
Scholarly Publications
“Smoothies, Bone Broth, and Fitspo:The Historicity of Postpartum Bounce-back Culture” Listen to paper blurb at the bottom of the page
(Johnson, Quinlan, Curry, 2024)
DooR to DooR’s acoustics of care: Interrupting and transforming the biomedical landscapes of western hospitals. Health Communication, 35, 1113-1122.
(Quinlan, Harter, Johnson, 2019)
“Sticky Baby Dust” and Emoji: Social Support on Instagram during In Vitro Fertilization
(Johnson, Quinlan, & Pope, 2019)
#ttc on Instagram A multimodal discourse analysis of the treatment experience of patients pursuing in vitro fertilization. Qualitative Research in Medicine and Healthcare, 3, 1-14. [Lead Article]
(Johnson, Quinlan, & Pope, 2019)
#motherhoodishard Narrating our research and mothering in the postpartum stage through texting and social media. Health Communication, 35, 782-786. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2019.1587694
(Quinlan, & Johnson, 2019)
Telenursing and Nurse-Patient Communication within Fertility, Inc.
(Johnson, Quinlan, & Marsh, 2018)
Commerce, Industry, and Security: Biomedicalization Theory and the Use of Metaphor to Describe Practitioner-Patient Communication within Fertility, Inc.
(Johnson, Quinlan, & Myers, 2017)
Insiders and Outsiders and Insider(s) Again in the (In)fertility World
(Johnson & Quinlan, 2017)
For Her Own Good: The Expert-Woman Dynamic and the Body Politics of REI Treatment
(Johnson & Quinlan, 2016)
Twilight Sleep
Scholarly Publications
Technical vs. Public Spheres of Knowledge: A Feminist Analysis of Women's Rhetoric in the Twilight Sleep Debates of 1914-1916
(Johnson & Quinlan, 2015)
High-Society Framing: The Brooklyn Eagle and the Popularity of Twilight Sleep in Brooklyn
(Johnson & Quinlan, 2017)