How do you manage? An auto-ethnographic inquiry into contemporary maternal labor

• Date: 10 October 2023
• Pages: 804-824
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-08-2022-0222
• Published date: 10 October 2023
• Author: İlkay Baliç

How do you manage?

An auto-ethnographic inquiry

into contemporary maternal labor

_

Ilkay Baliç

Women’s Studies PhD Program, Kadir Has University, _

Istanbul, T€

urkiye

Abstract

Purpose –This article tackles the intersection of mothering and labor throughthe author’s own experience as

a feminist mother/managerfrom Istanbul, Turkey. It aims to revisit the first years of motherhood, exploring the

struggle to invent a peculiar maternal subjectivity in opposition and negotiation with the patriarchal institution

of motherhood, the new definition of maternal labor in a highly digital, neoliberal context and the issue of

marital fairness in a dual-income heterosexual marriage.

Design/methodology/approach –The article presents an autoethnographic, retrospective and

introspective inquiry into the first seven years of the author’s mothering experience in order to offer an in-

depth exploration of the various aspects of contemporary maternal labor.

Findings –The article shows how maternal labor has shifted in nature and expanded in scope in a

contemporary non-Western context. It investigates the dissolution of the spatial, temporal and sensorial

boundaries between the managerial labor dedicated to the workplace, and to the family. Highlighting the

similarities of the two forms of labor, the article manifests the materiality, tangibility and visibility of

maternal labor.

Research limitations/implications –Further intersectional studies shall be beneficial to redefine maternal

labor in different contexts.

Practical implications –Departing and diverting from the terms “invisible labor”and “mental load”, the

article suggests a shift in terminology to stress the multifaceted medley of managerial tasks mothers

undertake today.

Originality/value –The article provides an original take on maternal labor through the first-hand experience

of a middle-class, professional mother from Istanbul, Turkey.

Keywords Gender, Labor, Motherhood, Management, Communication technologies

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

This article is an excavation into my mothering experience as a professional middle-class

woman. It is born out of a personal need to revisit and reflect upon the first seven years of

mothering, the struggle to invent a peculiar maternal subjectivity through mothering practice

in negotiation with the existing patriarchal institution of motherhood, the expanding scope of

maternal care labor for a mother/manager in a dual-income heterosexual marriage in a

neoliberal context, and the dissolution of spatial, temporal and sensorial boundaries between

the managerial labor dedicated to the workplace and to the family.

EDI

43,5

804

This paper was developed and written in relation to the Advanced Research Methods course in Kadir

Has University, Women’s Studies PhD Program. The author is grateful to Prof. Dilek Cindo

glu for her

encouragement and insightful guidance, as well as to the fellow researchers who, throughout the course,

generously shared their ideas, engaged in discussion and brought new perspectives to this paper (Emek

Aydın, Zuhal Çelik, Eylem Mercimek G€

o

g€

us

¸, Elif Bestenigar Mert, Ays

¸e Berre €

Ozdemir, Gonca S

¸ahin,

Rumeysa Sena S

¸ahbaz and Ebrar Beg€

um €

Ust€

un).

The author would like to express deepest gratitude to the editor of this special issue, Liela Ahmed

Jamjoom, and the anonymous reviewers whose generous comments and criticism provided invaluable

support in developing the text.

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 15 August 2022

Revised 3 March 2023

30 May 2023

1 September 2023

Accepted 2 September 2023

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 43 No. 5, 2024

pp. 804-824

© Emerald Publishing Limited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-08-2022-0222

I’m a 43-year-old woman fromIstanbul, an ever-growing megapoliswhere parents from all

segments of society have limited access to public childcare services and are pushed to find

individualsolutions for childcareto enter and stay in the labor market.My child is eight years

old,and we live in a flatin the city centeras a nuclear family.I was born and raisedin Istanbul as

the single daughter of secular parents, both with tertiary education and professional careers

respectively. I was encouraged to highereducation and participation in the labor force, having

worked voluntarily at least part-timesince I was fifteen. Throughmy child’s early years, I was

working full-time in a managerial position for a non-profit culture and arts center. When my

child was six,I resigned from my role and switchedto independent work aswell as pursuing a

PhD in Gender Studies. I have been a feminist since my teen years. Yet, due to my relatively

privileged position in terms of economic,cultural and social capital, I did not encounter direct

gender-based discrimination or failed to recognize it until I became a mother. Therefore,

motherhoodhas been a turningpoint in my personalhistory and a wake-upcall that mademe a

more enragedand engagedfeminist. And I knowI’m not alone in this. In addition to inequalities

that cutacross nationality,race and class, aswomen, we are oppressedas a sex-class.When we

becomemothers, we face doubleoppression.When we insist on combining a professional career

with mothering, we face additional challenges. As em ancipated as we may seem or feel, women

who have moreaccess to economic and social resourcesare not immune to oppression.

Today, single, middle-class women increasingly occupy competitive professional roles that

entail more status and power, which mask the persisting gender roles and expectations and lead

to a self-conception as relatively “genderless beings.”(Quiney, 2007). Despite single men’sand

women’s lives being more alike pre-marriage, traditional gender expectations re-surface once

women become mothers (O’Reilly, 2016,p.43).Atthatmoment,“mothering practice”

simultaneously becomes the grounds on which individualist identities and ideological

formations are defined and expressed, and a battlefield where the institution of “patriarchal

motherhood”is confronted (Rich, 1976;DiQuinzio, 1999,p.11).O’Reilly (2016) uses the term

“feminist mothering”to outline maternal styles and discourses that are in opposition to the

patriarchal institution of motherhood, deconstructing and re-imagining mothering as an

empowering practice through which we can discover our own peculiar maternal voice (O’Reilly,

2016, p. 136). I think of myself as a feminist and “autonomous”mother.CoinedbyPetraBueskens,

the term refers to “world-making women, releasing maternal subjectivity, vision and politics into

the world”(Bueskens, 2021, p. 13). In this article, through my own experience, I shall argue that

the struggle to find or invent one’sownautonomy,or“blend”ofnegotiation, radicalism, rebellion

and courage requires not only mental and emotional labor but also a new form of managerial

labor rooted in knowledge work and service economy. The writing process itself has been part of

this struggle and an empowering tool towards finding my own peculiar maternal voice.

Throughout the article, I focus on the labor-intensive aspects of my feminist mothering

practice, seeking to redefine maternal labor in an increasingly digitalized world and a

neoliberal context. While my central axis is maternal labor, the issue of marital fairness

simultaneously flows through the article to explore and problematize the obstacles that

prevent feminist or pro-feminist men from sustaining more equal engagement in parental

labor. Thus, addressing the academic literature on motherhood and mothering, the sex-based

domestic division of labor, care and work-family conflict, I intend to show how the patriarchal

institution of motherhood is persistent in shaping a relatively privileged woman’s mothering

practice in a Non-Western neoliberal context.

Theoretical background

Sylvia Federici writes that “[t]hrough my involvement in the women’s movement, I realized

that the reproduction of human beings is the foundation of every economic and political

system and that the immense amount of paid and unpaid domestic work done by women in

On

contemporary

maternal labor

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