Bristol Palin: the pedagogical media spectacle of a sexual abstinence ambassador

This paper explores the public political media spectacle of Bristol Palin's teenage pregnancy and her status as a single mother through the lens of a critical feminist discourse analysis. The author explores how cultural anxieties over teenage sexuality and unintended pregnancy in America are constructed when the pregnant teen is the daughter of an ambitious politician who is White, upper-middle class, and holds evangelical Christian beliefs. From pregnant teen thrust into the media spotlight by her politically ambitious mother to ambassador of sexual abstinence, the pedagogical media spectacle of Bristol Palin promoting abstinence is unique and can be understood as part of a broader postfeminist media culture in which the articulation of feminist empowerment principles, such as female agency and reproductive choice, is subverted within the neoliberal discourse of personal responsibility and financial independence.