Gender is one of the central topics of contemporary studies in marketing and consumer research. Since the introduction
of Goffman’s schema on gender roles and portrayals in advertisements (Goffman, 1979), scholars continue adapting
his method and reveal some of the hidden factors of gender roles, portrayals or inequalities in contemporary marketing
practices (Bettany et al 2010). Noticeably, less attention has been given to the ideological aspects of gender portrayals
and its unique value of producing and reproducing sociocultural meanings around gender. Thus, this research looks
into the archetypal images of Russian mothers and proposes multiple ichnographic images of motherhood implemented
in contemporary Russian print media. The study adopted critical visual methods (Schroeder, 2002) and qualitative
content analysis (Schreier 2014) while analysing advertisements from three Russian and three Western origin ‘mother
and baby’/’parenting’ magazines. The study is positioned within the theoretical spectrum of Consumer Culture Theory
and contributes to the field by unpacking the role of ‘symbolic power’/ (ideology) (Bourdieu, 1979) around the
motherhood that persists in contemporary Russian consumer culture