Sara Petersen

Sara Peterson is the author of Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture, which examines not only the cconomics of being a parenting influencer, but the way in which momfluencers “sell mothers on the benefits of bamboo diapers, they sell us the dream of motherhood itself, a dream tangled up in whiteness, capitalism, and the heteronormative nuclear family.”

Peterson’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Bustle, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Refinery29, and elsewhere. She’s a frequent contributor to the Washington Post, where her 2018 essay about talking to her daughter about beauty went viral. She’s also a frequent contributor to InStyle, where she most recently struck a chord with mothers shouldering the bulk of childcare and domestic work during the pandemic. For Glamour, she tackled the phenomenon of “the hot mom,” revealing the particularly insidious ways patriarchy targets mothers and perpetuates internalized misogyny and body issues. And for WBUR’s Cognoscenti column, her essay about Meghan Markle and postpartum depression was one of the site’s ten most-read pieces of 2019.