LAUSR

Abstract The present study analyzes the models of motherhood reflected and constructed in two popular Israeli television series that center around mothers. The analysis reveals the change in social norms and values regarding the institution of motherhood in Israel, while also shedding light on the construction, reproduction, and distribution of the dominant and alternative discourses of motherhood in neoliberal countries, and the global diversity of this discourse. Using critical discourse analysis, the study shows a dialectic flux in the representation of Israeli motherhood between the tendency to preserve preexisting notions and the propensity for innovation. It demonstrates the move from a collective society in which motherhood constitutes a woman’s civil duty to her nation and serves as a source of power in the public sphere, to an individualistic society where motherhood is also a private identity and universal practice. While the emergence of an ambivalent mothering discourse in the few years between the two series reflects the development of an alternative feminist voice in the Israeli public sphere, both series still reflect the deeply embedded conservative social presumption that every Israeli woman should become a mother at some stage in her life.