Modern motherhood in Australia and New Zealand is marked by contradiction. Recent decades have seen policy changes aimed at facilitating gender equality – such as enhanced paid parental leave and more generous childcare subsidies – alongside cultural shifts in the gendered division of domestic labour and women’s workforce participation. Yet, despite these changes, motherhood continues to be a contested and divisive subject, as well as a site of inequality.
Many households and communities strive for egalitarian relationships and challenge the conflation of women with motherhood; however, essentialist notions of the maternal persist. Norms of 'good motherhood' continue to limit the identities available to mothers, and structural responses to gender inequities often fall short. Tensions are therefore present in cultural representations of women and families, workplace and sector policies and practices, government initiatives, and lived experiences of motherhood.
Intersectional inequalities compound these challenges. Indigenous, sole, and migrant mothers face additional barriers that workplace and welfare policies have failed to adequately address. The COVID-19 pandemic intensified these pressures, while simultaneously presenting opportunities to restructure work and care.
With contributions from scholars across a range of disciplines – including history, sociology, criminology, human geography, media and communication, and business and management – Motherhood, Labour and Care in the 21st Century: Contradictions in focus interrogates these substantive themes in diverse communities across Australia and New Zealand. It offers a critical reflection on motherhood, labour and care, uncovering taken-for-granted assumptions about gender and family life, and redressing stubborn inequities.
Motherhood, Labour and Care in the 21st Century hopes to encourage individuals and households to think differently about motherhood, and to inform government perspectives and social policy on gender ideologies, families, workplaces, and the broader care deficit.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements
Dedication from the authors
Chapter 1: New perspectives on the contradictions of motherhood, labour and care in the twenty-first century: An introduction by Sheree Gregory and Kate Huppatz
Chapter 2: Doing it alone or doing it my way? Work, care and ambiguous absences in migrant motherhood by Leah Williams Veazey
Chapter 3: Motherhood and work–life balance in ABC’s Kids Bluey: Breaking or reinforcing gender norms at home and work? by Briony Lipton
Chapter 4: “I’d got back from maternity leave and they’d basically written me off”: Situating servicewomen, motherhood and mothering in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) “family” by Kate Huppatz and Selda Dagistanli
Chapter 5: Mothers and writers: Navigating work/care contradictions through creative home-based labour by Emilie Baganz
Chapter 6: The (mis)conception of the “bad” Aboriginal mother in Australia by Corrinne T. Sullivan and Georgia Coe
Chapter 7: “Have you got your childcare problem under control?” The contradictory construction of care and motherhood in the screen industries by Sheree Gregory and Deb Verhoeven
Chapter 8: “Desexualised, vapid and frazzled”: Women’s responses to media treatment of mothers in Aotearoa New Zealand by Charlotte Kells Robertson
Chapter 9: Labouring towards academic leadership: Mothering, contradictions and possibilities in the neoliberal university by Michelle O’Shea, Emilee Gilbert and Chloe Taylor
Chapter 10: Chinese migrant professional women returning to paid work after maternity leave: Mothers’ care and career, employer practices and work–family policies by Yinghua Yu
Chapter 11: Cultural contradictions: Perceptions of sole mother poverty and welfare in an age of neoliberalism and intensive mothering by Emily Wolfinger
Chapter 12: Conclusions: Resisting and reshaping the contradictions of motherhood by Sheree Gregory and Kate Huppatz
Contributors
Index
About the Author :
Dr Sheree Gregory is Senior Lecturer of Human Resource Management in the Newcastle Business School. Her research explores contemporary issues and policy challenges surrounding work and families and in relation to gender in Australia.
Professor Kate Huppatz is Associate Dean, Research (School of Social Sciences) at Western Sydney University. Her research explores the role of labour and culture in the production and reproduction of gender inequality, with a focus on workplaces and families.
