Labor of love? Media, myth, and the gendering of care labor in the news coverage of Wendt v. Wendt and Young v. Hector

The primary research question of this dissertation examines how the media, relying on mythical conceptions of femininity and masculinity, both reflect and shape cultural understanding about gendered labor roles within the context of the family. Drawing on theories of gender identity, political economy, myth, and relations of ruling, the study employs critical textual analysis to explore the news discourse surrounding two high-profile family law trials.; The first case, a divorce trial between Gary and Lorna Wendt, a high-paid executive and his homemaker wife, captured national attention in 1997 when Lorna insisted that her unpaid domestic contributions to the family be considered equally valuable as her husband's financial contributions. While the Wendt case examines the impact that women's participation in unpaid domestic labor has on the economic settlements of divorce, the second case in many ways explores the inverse: the impact that women's participation is paid market labor has on cultural understandings of women's ability to care for their children and concomitant child custody decisions. Receiving national media attention in 1998, the custody dispute between Alice Hector, a successful attorney, and her former husband Robert Young, an unemployed architect, was touted by USA Today and other media outlets as a battle between "Mogul Mom" and "Mr. Mom." Insisting on her ability to combine her work as an attorney with her responsibilities as a mother, Alice came under attack from her husband and fathers' rights groups for "wanting to have it all."; As the media struggle to make sense of shifting and often contradictory notions about gender, marriage, family and work, traditional and reform voices battle for discursive control. While the news coverage is not insensitive to voices of reform, it nonetheless relies heavily upon mythical understandings of femininity and masculinity in its interpretation of the cases. The result is an overall devaluation of care labor as well as an exceedingly narrow construction of what constitutes the appropriate performance of the role "wife" and "mother" in contemporary American culture.