‘Neoliberal motherhood’: workplace lactation and changing conceptions of working motherhood in the contemporary US

Boyer, Kate ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8356-4412 2014. ‘Neoliberal motherhood’: workplace lactation and changing conceptions of working motherhood in the contemporary US. Feminist Theory 15 (3) , pp. 269-288. 10.1177/1464700114545321

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Abstract

Through an analysis of policy texts, population statistics and a targeted sample from the popular press, this paper both furthers knowledge about changing meanings of working motherhood in the contemporary US, and proposes a refinement to existing conceptual work relating to how wage-work and care-work are combined. I focus analysis on recent US social policy which grants new rights and protections for women seeking to combine lactation and wage-work (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2011). I critique this policy through Bernise Hausman’s work on the politics of motherhood, arguing that it represents a form of work-life integration that is particularly burdensome for working mothers. I further argue that maternal practice as well as well as expectations of working motherhood in the contemporary US are being reshaped around the demands of neoliberalism, producing what I term ‘neoliberal motherhood’. I assert that this policy represents a way of combining wage-work and care-work that is not captured within existing feminist theory, and suggest that a re-working of theory in this area is needed in order to address cases in which embodied care-work is enfolded within the time and space of wage-work.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Cardiff Institute of Society and Health (CISHE) Cardiff Work Environment Research Centre (CWERC) Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education) Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data & Methods (WISERD) Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Subjects:	A General Works > AZ History of Scholarship The Humanities B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General) H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman J Political Science > JC Political theory
Additional Information:	pdf uploaded in accordance with publisher policy at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/1464-7001/ [accessed 28/10/14]
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
ISSN:	1464-7001
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	07 Nov 2023 06:22
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/65969

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