Ideologies of class, motherhood, and work The subject of the working mother viewed the lens of welfare reform

Ideologies of class, motherhood, and work

The subject of the working mother viewed the lens of welfare reform

Korteweg

Anna C.

Korteweg, Anna C.

Author

University of California, Berkeley

Center for Working Families

University of California, Berkeley. Center for Working Families

Sponsor

text

working paper

Berkeley, CA Center for Working Families, University of California, Berkeley 2002 2002 monographic

Berkeley, CA

Center for Working Families, University of California, Berkeley

2002

monographic

English eng

English

eng

electronic application/pdf 36 p. born digital

electronic

application/pdf

36 p.

born digital

Using in-depth interview data, this paper explores how work experiences during pregnancy influence women's identities as workers and as mothers. I argue that despite the influx of mothers into the workplace, the normative view of motherhood in the U.S. still requires women who have children to place their identities as mothers before all else, and certainly before their identities as workers. I examine how work experiences during pregnancy affect how women go about adding “mother” to their identity palette. Among the women I interviewed, those whose workplaces supported their multiple roles and identities found it easier to keep worker as a primary part of their self and easier to resist exaggerated norms of intensive mothering. In contrast, women who experienced negative events in the workplace related to their pregnancy were more likely to subscribe to the normative view of the primacy of motherhood as an identity. This paper argues that workplace support during pregnancy contributes significantly to whether a woman is able to maintain her sense of self as a worker while starting a family.

Lindy Fursman is a predoctoral fellow at the Center for Working Families and a Ph.D. candidate in the Sociology Department at the University of California, Berkeley.

Berkeley Center for Working Families Working Paper No. 38

Berkeley Center for Working Families Working Paper

No. 38

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wfn_bwpaper_36.pdf

MChB English eng

MChB

English eng

English

eng