‘All about Eve’: Mothers, Masculinities and the 2011 UK Riots

Abstract

The riots that erupted in English cities in August 2011 were provoked by a complex mix of socio‐economic factors. Sidelining structural explanations for the civil disorder, conservative commentators argued that dysfunctional families had caused the riots. Reinforcing traditional connections between criminality, the family and welfare, conservatives contended that the absence of fathers in lone mother‐headed families explained both the dynamics of the civil disorder and the aggressive behaviour of some of the young men involved. Such claims located both the causes of the riots and solutions to expressions of violent masculinities in the familial sphere. Employing the framework of critical studies of men and masculinities this article interrogates these narratives and maps their depoliticising effects. Additionally, it exposes how the effects of a range of social problems were projected on to poor, lone mothers, reinforcing a range of regulatory narratives and practices that target this social group.

The commodification of motherhood: normalisation of consumerism in mediated discourse on mothering

“…It takes stock of insights from existing research on womanhood and motherhood in such contexts as, inter alia, the media (Johnston and Swanson 2003), consumption (Taylor, Layne, and Wozniak 2004;Davis et al 2010) or, indeed, celebrity culture (McGannon et al 2012;Gilchrist 2007; for an overview, see de Laat and Baumann 2016). By looking at a variety of contemporary, including new/ social media, discourses, the article furthers the existent scholarship on motherhood by highlighting the salience of intersectionality, in particular of gender and class (Ashe 2013;Ponsford 2011) including in the context of the media (Raisborough, Frith, and Klein 2012) highlighted, inter alia, by such class-based distinctions in mothering as the opposition between "celebrity moms" and "welfare mothers" (Douglas and Michaels 2000).…”

After riots: Toward a research agenda on the long-term effects of urban unrest

“…With the majority of rioters tending to be young men, gender also looms large in the structural dimensions of riots. Ashe (2014) has noted how conservative commentators laid blame on the family unit in the English riots, using a lack of a male "authority figure" to explain the perceived failures of single mothers to control their unruly sons. Such discourse helped politicians to avert the popular gaze away from structural inequalities exacerbated by austerity, and toward a pathologizing explanation based on individual dysfunction (cf.…”

The New Politics of Fatherhood

“…In relation to fathering and fatherhood, lawlessness, criminality, societal breakdown, and a range of harms to fathers themselves, are attributed to the victimisation of men. For example, politicians and the media framed the 2011 London riots and the unruly/violent behaviour of the young men who made up the vast majority of the rioters as a direct result of the purported absence of fathers in their lives (Ashe, 2014). The assumption is that 'fathers bring discipline; lone mothers undermine discipline' (Ashe, 2014: 664).…”