Inequalities and privileges : middle-class mothers and employment

This thesis explores the inequalities and privileges women experience by combining motherhood with paid employment. Examining the experiences of thirty ‘working mothers’ through an intersectional1 lens, this thesis reveals complex patterns of inequality and privilege, which arise at the intersection of motherhood with paid work because in contemporary Ireland the normative construction of an ideal worker is one without care responsibilities, and an ideal mother works full time in the home. Applying a feminist, intersectional research methodology, a case study was conducted with thirty women in a middle class Irish suburb. During focus group discussions and interviews, women reveal they experience different relations of privilege and penalty, because the social relations of gender, motherhood and class intersect with the institutional domains of family, workplace and society and at these intersections, women experience privileges or inequalities which vary according to each woman’s individual circumstances. Through the concepts of choice, care and time, this study reveals the power operating through the dominant discourses of neo-liberalism, individualism, feminism and motherhood, which encourage women to both devote significant effort to developing their children, while also to commit themselves to productive paid work. Women navigate the terrain between motherhood and paid work with little social support and each woman’s decision to combine motherhood with paid work is configured as her individual ‘choice’, thus the dilemmas which arise are her own responsibility. This intersectional approach reveals relationships between discourses which are interdependent and create new complex patterns of inequality for ‘working mothers’. By privileging some women sometimes, enduring inequalities are created for all.