Susan Douglas

NIU welcomes Susan Douglas,
author of ‘The Mommy Myth’

NIU’s Women’s Studies Program is proud to announce that Susan J. Douglas, an award-winning author and nationally recognized expert on gender and the media, will visit campus to deliver two public lectures as part of the university’s celebration of Women’s History Month.

Douglas is the Catherine Neafie Kellogg Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and chair of the department. She has appeared as a guest expert on a variety of television and radio shows, including “The Today Show” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” as well as NPR’s “Fresh Air,” “Weekend Edition,” “The Diane Rehm Show” and “Talk of the Nation.”

Douglas will present a public lecture, titled “The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How it Has Undermined Women,” at 7 p.m. Monday, March 5, in the Barsema Hall auditorium. Earlier in the day, she will hold an informal seminar, titled “Researching Women in the Media.” It will take place at 3:30 p.m. in the Heritage Room of the Holmes Student Center.

Both of the events are free and open to the public. Sign language interpreters are available upon request by calling (815) 753-6515 V/TTY. (One week’s notice is preferred.)

Douglas’s lecture will focus on motherhood and the media. Specifically, she will examine the rise of what she calls the “new momism,” a romanticized notion of the perfect mother whose standards of success are impossible to achieve.

Douglas will pay special attention to the role of the mass media in helping to construct and reinforce the “new momism.” The lecture will be based on research Douglas conducted for her most recent book, “The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women,” co-authored with Meredith Michaels.

As the media becomes ever more pervasive in society, consumers increasingly need to be equipped with skills in media literacy. Douglas’s seminar will introduce participants to the process of conducting research on representations of women in the media. She will also discuss methods for analyzing media images.

Douglas is particularly well qualified to address these issues. In addition to countless scholarly and journalistic articles, she is the author of a number of books that focus on the media, including “The Mommy Myth,” “Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media” and “Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination,” which won the Hacker Prize in 2000 for best popular book about technology and culture.

Douglas has received many awards and honors, including two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities for research on the representation of women in the media. She is a board member for the prestigious George Foster Peabody Awards. Douglas has also served on advisory councils for the Media Education Foundation, the Library of American Broadcasting and the American Studies Association.

The lecture and seminar are co-sponsored by the Graduate Colloquium Committee, Women’s Studies Program and College of Business, as well as by the departments of marketing and political science. For further information on the events, call the Women's Studies Program at (815) 753-1044.

2-26-07