Academic mothers and the practice of embodied care: navigating and resisting uncaring structures in the neoliberal academy

• Date: 09 January 2024
• Pages: 784-803
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-07-2022-0194
• Published date: 09 January 2024
• Author: Lara Pecis,Anne Touboulic

Academic mothers and the practice

of embodied care: navigating and

resisting uncaring structures in the

neoliberal academy

Lara Pecis

Cardiff Business School, Cardiff, UK, and

Anne Touboulic

Nottingham University Business School, Nottingham, UK

Abstract

Purpose –Recent research has captured the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in widening gender

inequalities, by highlighting that academic women have been disproportionately affected. During the COVID-

19 pandemic, women assumed most of the care labour at home, whilst working at normal patterns, leaving

them unable to perform as normal. This is very concerning because of the short and long-term detrimental

consequences this will have on women’s well-being and their academic careers. This article aims to stimulate a

change in the current understandings of academic work by pointing towards alternative –and more inclusive –

ways of working in academia.

Design/methodology/approach –The two authors engage with autoethnography and draw on their own

personal experience of becoming breastfeeding academic mothers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Findings –To understand the positioning of contemporary academic mothers, this study draws on insights

from both cultural studies and organisation studies on the emergence of discursive formations about gender,

that is “postfeminist sensibility”. Guided by autoethnographic accounts of academic motherhood, this study

reveals that today academia creates an individualised, neutral (disembodied), output-focused and control-

oriented understanding of academic work.

Originality/value –This paper adds to the conversation of academic motherhood and the impact of the

pandemic on working mothers. The study theoretically contributes with the lens of “motherhood”in grasping

what academic work can become. It shows the power of motherhood in opening up an alternative way of

conceptualising academic work, centred on embodied care and appreciative of the non-linearity and messiness

of life.

Keywords Motherhood, Academia, Postfeminism, Ethics of care, Bodies

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

Despite more women working than ever before (WEF, 2022), inequalities linked to gendered

divisions of labour, and specifically care responsibilities continue to persist (Howe-Walsh and

Turnbull, 2016;Mason and Goulden, 2004;Mason et al., 2013;Pecis et al., 2022;Wolfinger

et al., 2008). The context of the COVID-19 pandemic has reinvigorated these discussions and

has brought even more to the fore questions and issues related to both professional and

personal spheres. Within the context of higher education, research that addresses gender

inequalities vis-

a-vis the pandemic has recently flourished (Almanssori and Hillier, 2020;

Minello et al., 2021;Pereira, 2021). These works have demonstrated that women have been

disproportionately affected during the pandemic, notably in terms of their ability to do

research and remain “productive”at work (Manzo and Minello, 2020;Martucci et al., 2022;

Martucci, 2023;Minello, 2020;Minello et al., 2021). During the pandemic, women have tended

to assume most of the care labour at home (Minello et al., 2021;ONS, 2020), as they also

worked, leaving them unable to work and perform as normal (Miller and Riley, 2022;Thomas

et al., 2020;Williams, 2020). This is very concerning because of the short and long-term

EDI

43,5

784

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-7149.htm

Received 29 July 2022

Revised 26 January 2023

18 September 2023

30 November 2023

5 December 2023

Accepted 6 December 2023

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 43 No. 5, 2024

pp. 784-803

© Emerald Publishing Limited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-07-2022-0194

detrimental consequences not only on women’s academic careers, but also in advancing

women’s hard-won achievements (see Pecis et al., 2022 for an illustration). Various

contributions in the literature have sought to highlight the gender inequalities exacerbated

by the pandemic and to offer some suggestions as to what practical approaches may be

adopted in order to redress the situation (e.g. Fulweiler et al., 2021).

As women in the UK academic context who have recently become mothers, we are

enthused by the energy that has been generated around these questions and the attempts,

especially by fellow women academics, to drive change within and across the confines of our

institutions. These efforts must be celebrated. We feel however that it is critical to engage in

further reflections regarding the way forward , especially to expose the underlying

assumptions on the meaning of motherhood and on academic work (Pereira, 2021). Paying

attention to the political and power dynamics at play can help illuminate how experiences of

being mother and academic are shaped at multiple levels, and what forms resistance takes in

this context. We must be careful not to reproduce and impose narrow and problematic

conceptualisations of academic motherhood/ing if we are to identify pathways for thriving

and flourishing. In this paper, we take the shocks generated by the COVID-19 pandemic to

further reflect on the current state of academia. We see this as an opportunity to rethink

academic work more broadly and challenge existing power structures by centring on care as

resistance.

In what follows, we problematise how academic work is understood and performed. We

unveil the patriarchal assumptions underpinning it, namely that (1) academic work is

associated with performance and productivity in a way that neutralises the body; (2) it creates

a space for rational thought that marginalises love and emotions; (3) it emphasises

individualised measurable outputs over processes, and in so doing masks the reality of the

labour. To address these patriarchal assumptions, we use the lens of “motherhood”to show

its power in opening up an alternative way of conceptualising academic work, centring on

embodied care, and appreciating the non-linearity and messiness of life.

We provide windows into our own experiences as academic mothers and as such are able

to render palatable at the micro-level of experience where “the effects of power are felt”

(Thomas and Davies, 2005, p. 684). This work constitutes our attempt to find “wholeness”as

academic mothers as proposed by Pillay (2009), but more certainly it represents a way of

“acting otherwise”in our domain of work and hence as a form resistance (Johansson and

Vinthagen, 2016;Mumby, 2005), which we hope will help stimulate change.

2. Conceptualising academic motherhood: theoretical foundations

2.1 A postfeminist regime

To understand the positioning of contemporary academic mothers in the worlds of work and

home, we draw on insights from both cultural studies and organisation studies on the

emergence of discursive format ions about gender, termed “postf eminist sensibility”

(McRobbie, 2004). Understanding how a postfeminist sensibility operates to construct the

ways women (and men) should interact, relate to each other, to the family and work is key for

capturing how mothers articulate, experience and justify existing forms of sexism.

A postfeminist sensibility describes the remaking of gendered relations in contemporary

cultural discourse (Gill, 2007;McRobbie, 2004,2009). The term itself is contested (Adamson

and Kelan, 2019) because it embeds both feminist values - of freedom of choice, self-

determination and equality of opportunities in patriarchal relations (Gill, 2007;Liu, 2019;

Pecis and Priola, 2019) and antifeminist ideas, such as the reinforcement of the traditional

family and traditional roles within the family (Gill, 2014;Gill and Scharff, 2011;McRobbie,

2004). Postfeminist disc ourses emphasise an ideal of the contemporary woman as

empowered, able to self-transform and self-discipline (Adamson, 2017). This resonates

Academic

motherhood

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