Feasey, R (2025) 'The sex and relationship therapist will see you now: perimenopause, post-natal depression, and single motherhood in 'Sex Education' (2019–2023).' In: Liddy, S and Flynn, D, eds. The Routledge handbook of motherhood on screen. Routledge, Abingdon, pp. 460-478. ISBN 9781032485720 (Forthcoming)
Abstract
Examining the ways in which mothers are depicted in the media is crucial to an understanding of both media and motherhood studies; after all, the ways in which motherhood and motherwork are presented have the power, scope, and reach to open up a dialogue around family comportment, gender roles, and pronatalist expectations. With this in mind, I am keen to explore popular maternal representations, with particular attention to a character who is seen to navigate marriage, infidelity, divorce, friendships, relationships, domestic responsibilities, work commitments, advanced maternal age, pregnancy risk, perimenopause, single motherhood, and postpartum depression, namely the sex and relationship therapist, Dr Jean Milburn/Gillian Anderson, of the contemporary teen dramedy, Sex Education (2019–2023). This chapter will interrogate the ways in which this figure speaks to contemporary maternal roles and responsibilities considering the potential opportunities for the character in question challenge the ideology of intensive mothering that continues to saturate much popular media culture in favour of a more complex and ostensibly contradictory maternal figure.
| Item Type: | Book Chapter or Section |
|---|---|
| Divisions: | Bath School of Art, Film and Media |
| Related URLs: | |
| Date Deposited: | 31 Mar 2025 09:43 |
| Last Modified: | 31 Mar 2025 09:43 |
| URI / Page ID: | https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/16987 |
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