@article{elliott_powell_brenton_2015, title={Being a Good Mom: Low-Income, Black Single Mothers Negotiate Intensive Mothering}, volume={36}, ISSN={["1552-5481"]}, DOI={10.1177/0192513x13490279}, abstractNote={ The tenacity of the intensive mothering ideology—the notion that good mothers should invest vast amounts of time, money, energy, and emotional labor in mothering—is well documented, particularly among affluent White mothers. Drawing on 16 interviews with low-income, Black single mothers, we analyze how gender, race, class, and the ideology of intensive mothering intersect to shape these mothers’ parenting. Mothers repeatedly emphasized the importance of sacrifice, self-reliance, and protection. In short, good mothers sacrifice for their children; they are self-reliant and teach their children to be this way too; and they protect their children. We argue that low-income mothers embrace and perform intensive mothering in the absence of larger social supports for their children’s upbringing and at a cost to their own emotional and physical well-being. }, number={3}, journal={JOURNAL OF FAMILY ISSUES}, author={Elliott, Sinikka and Powell, Rachel and Brenton, Joslyn}, year={2015}, month={Feb}, pages={351–370} }
 @article{brenton_elliott_2014, title={Undoing gender? The case of complementary and alternative medicine}, volume={36}, ISSN={["1467-9566"]}, DOI={10.1111/1467-9566.12043}, abstractNote={AbstractDespite a rich body of sociological research that examines the relationship between gender and health, scholars have paid little attention to the case of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). One recent study (Sointu 2011) posits that men and women who use CAM challenge traditional ascriptions of femininity and masculinity through the exploration of self‐care and emotions, respectively. Drawing on 25 in‐depth interviews with middle‐class Americans who use CAM, this article instead finds that men and women interpret their CAM use in ways that reproduce traditional gendered identities. Men frame their CAM use in terms of science and rationality, while simultaneously distancing themselves from feminine‐coded components of CAM, such as emotions. Women seek CAM for problems such as abusive relationships, low self‐esteem, and body image concerns, and frame their CAM use as a quest for self‐reinvention that largely reflects and reproduces conventional femininity. Further, the reproduction of gendered identities is shaped by the participants' embrace of neoliberal tenets, such as the cultivation of personal control. This article contributes to ongoing theoretical debates about the doing, redoing and undoing of gender, as well as the literature on health and gender.}, number={1}, journal={SOCIOLOGY OF HEALTH & ILLNESS}, author={Brenton, Joslyn and Elliott, Sinikka}, year={2014}, month={Jan}, pages={91–107} }