Achieving motherhood: a qualitative analysis of MLM success stories online

ABSTRACT

Multilevel marketing companies (MLMs) traditionally recruited participants using stereotypical gender roles. Today, MLMs use websites and social media to recruit women by offering opportunities for them to become “boss babes” and “momtrepreneurs.” They capitalize on family responsibilities and some women’s desires to be a mother. Moreover, race, ethnicity, and class are essential to women’s MLM participation and require consideration. The author conducted a qualitative case study to examine this topic, analyzing 34 online success stories or personal testimonies of one cosmetic and skincare MLM. Using the interactionist perspective, the author argues that the featured stories construct images of ideal women who love and care for their children, reinforcing their identities as mothers. Textually constructed for recruitment, these online success narratives link women’s ability to mother to this MLM. Unlike previous studies, stories include infertility and adoption and the relevance of race and class in the recruiting process. Finally, the author contends that this MLM leverages postfeminist and white hegemonic ideologies, displaying the deceiving experiences of women and mothers for profit.

KEYWORDS:

• Content analysis
• race
• motherhood
• multilevel marketing (MLM)
• online success stories

Acknowledgments

I thank the anonymous reviewers for their insight into this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Comparatively, 57.4% of American women were a part of the broader labor force. Women’s participation in the workforce increased from the 1960s until the 1980s and then gradually declined until 2015 (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2021). However, industry estimates are notoriously unsubstantiated (Keep 2020). For a more extensive discussion on deception by the DSA and MLMs, see Keep (2020) and Keep and Vander Nat (2014).

2. In countries like Ecuador (Casanova 2011), the feminization of labor and the growth of the informal economy creates a suitable environment for MLMs. 3. This MLM counts Hispanic participants (23%) separately (Direct Selling Association 2022).

3. It may be important to note the potential decline of the global direct sales industry, see Keep (2020) for a discussion of this issue.

4. Participant earnings can come from direct and indirect income streams, including purchases from non-distributors, distributors, company compensation, and distributors’ downlines (Keep and Vander Nat 2014).

5. For an extended discussion of MLMs, including compensation structure, earnings, and deception, see Keep and Vander Nat (2014).

6. See Stacie and McKeage (2015) and Keep and Vander Nat (2014) for a detailed explanation of pyramid schemes and MLM compensation structures; see also Federal Trade Commission v. BurnLounge, Inc. (2014), Phillips (2020), and Securities and Exchange Commission (2013).

7. To avoid superficially assigning race and ethnicity to the consultants, I used photographs and narrative text to document race, ethnicity, and nationality. However, some consultants did not specifically reference their racial and ethnic identities, which complicated the process of honoring consultants’ agency in constructing their identities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jessica Pearce

Dr. Jessica Pearce is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her research interests include gender and social media.