"A Fire in my Belly:" Conceptualizing U.S. Women's Experiences of "Mom Rage".

"Mom rage" is a term growing in popularity that refers to the anger or rage that women experience as they make their way through motherhood. This study focuses on the maternal anger experiences of 65 mothers in the U.S. to explore how women describe and come to understand their experiences with "mom rage." Mothers in the study shared both their perceptions of "mom rage" experiences and their understanding of the personal and social implications of their anger. Findings demonstrated that women framed their experiences of "mom rage" in five ways: losing control, visualizing harm, expressing anger (with two sub-themes physical and emotional), reacting physiologically, and experiencing catharsis. Two additional themes highlighted how women's understanding of their "mom rage" experiences were grounded in identifying contributors to their mom rage episodes and evaluations of their mom rage experience. Study findings provide insight into the emotional complexities of navigating motherhood in the U.S. Implications for destigmatizing and supporting women through motherhood, as well as limitations and directions for future research, are discussed.

"It's Better to Be Depressed Skinny than Happy Fat:" College Women's Memorable Body Messages and Their Impact on Body Image, Self-Esteem, and Rape Myth Acceptance.

This study investigated the content of memorable body messages that college women recall receiving in their childhood, and the relationship of those messages to state body image satisfaction, self-esteem, rape myth acceptance, and likelihood to report rape or sexual assault. Memorable messages were mostly about body size, body type, body parts, haptic messages, body positivity, and development. Mothers were the most frequent source of memorable body messages during childhood. Although there was no difference in any of the dependent variables based on the content of the message, there was a relationship between perceived message valence with body image, self-esteem, and rape myth acceptance. Messages that participants interpreted as more positive and beneficial were associated with higher body image satisfaction, higher self-esteem, and increased rape myth acceptance.