Audible Birth, Listening Women: Storytelling the Labouring Body on Mumsnet

Abstract

What do women perceive when they hear “birth”? This question is complex. Web 2.0 has offered mothers the opportunity to participate in the accumulation of text, audio, and visual data about motherhood, and the women on Mumsnet provide a plethora of rich sonic descriptions. This chapter is part summary and part collaborative critique, an arts-inspired exploration of thousands of Mumsnet threads woven into a unique narrative fabric. The women-authored materials on Mumsnet contain many perspectives and complex social analyses, which can be contextualised by broader feminist critiques of the gender power relations at the core of families and medical institutions. In doing so, this chapter locates women’s intellectual work in non-elite women-authored literature.