Migrant mothers and neoliberal feminism: diasporic audience research on the Korean reality show strangers

ABSTRACT

This study analyzes the ways in which media represent maternal femininity under the context of neoliberalism and migration, and how diasporic housewives rework such representations. By employing a mixed method that includes a textual and online audience analysis of the Korean reality show Strangers, we investigate how diasporic Korean women’s online communities (DKWOC) related to the show’s portrayal of Korean female migrants’ racialized and gendered everyday lives in the US as trailing wives. We found that, while a critique of gender politics and class-ignorance in Strangers already existed, overall diasporic women blamed themselves by constantly comparing their motherhood performance to that portrayed on the show, and justified their sacrifice and hardships using the logic of “migration as a family strategy.” However, the solidarity and comradeship among DKWOC built through positive psychology discourse easily diluted those critical reflections. We argue that a belief in resilience is problematic for the survival of trailing wives, since it casts a blind eye to their real experiences—which includes gender discrimination embedded in both public and domestic spaces—and legitimates backlash narratives, including the belief that the stay-at-home mother position is an active choice, rather than the result of unequal global, legal, and gender infrastructures.

KEYWORDS:

• Family migration
• stay-at-home mothers
• diasporic community
• neoliberal feminism
• Korean reality show

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Claire Shinhea Lee

Dr Claire Shinhea Lee is an assistant professor in the School of Media and Communications at Pusan National University. Her research interests include digital migrant studies, qualitative audience studies, and feminist media studies. Her work appears in peer-reviewed journals including Television & New Media, Convergence, Social Media + Society, and Media, Culture, & Society.

Jin Lee

Dr Jin Lee is a research fellow in Internet Studies at Curtin University, Australia. Her research interests include media intimacies, feminist media studies, and internet vernacular cultures. Her work appears in peer-reviewed journals including Media International Australia, Social Media + Society, Critical Studies in Media Communication, and others.