Discipline and resistance in the representation of motherhood: postpartum recovery discussion onXiaohongshu

This study analyzes the dominant discourses around postpartum recovery and mothers' responses to them on Xiaohongshu, a popular social media platform in China. From a Foucauldian point of view, this study follows the approach of critical discourse analysis and conducts the analysis based on 300 posts about postpartum recovery. The results reveal that mothers relinquish the control of their own postpartum body to authoritative knowledge. The unattainable goal of girlishness for mothers propagates narrow visions of what a "normal" postpartum body should be by spreading the before-versus-after templates. Moreover, the dominant discourses are legitimated and penetrated by the mutually dependent and reinforcing moral regulations of the second shift (childcare) and third shift (bodywork). Therefore, mothers would internalize these discourses unconsciously, conduct better self-surveillance through quantified self-report data and invited surveillance in group settings, and pursue a docile postpartum body. This study also explores platform power in cultural production by delineating the new motherhood imaginary on the social media platform. This imaginary unpacks the competing realities of home, work, and self-care for mothers in contemporary China and extends the understanding of the new third shift bodywork as mothers' neoliberal personal responsibilities and an emergent component of motherhood