IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/gender/v28y2021i4p1697-1710.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The political is personal: Postfeminism and the construction of the ideal working mother

Author

Listed:
  • Helen Delaney
  • Katie R. Sullivan

Abstract

This paper critically analyses how postfeminist discourse plays out in media constructions of politician New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern becoming a mother while in office. Data for this project include Ardern's public announcements of her pregnancy, her daughter's birth, and responses to questions regarding being a working mother. Alongside Ardern's framing of becoming a working mother, we also analyze how mainstream media reported on and sought meaning around her story. We are guided by the questions: How do different feminisms materialize in Ardern's case and how do they help us make sense of working and mothering in postfeminist times? Our analysis contributes to gender and organizational literature by teasing out the tensions and possibilities that emerge for a feminist politics of mothering and working.

Suggested Citation

  • Helen Delaney & Katie R. Sullivan, 2021. "The political is personal: Postfeminism and the construction of the ideal working mother," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 1697-1710, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:28:y:2021:i:4:p:1697-1710
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12702
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12702
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/gwao.12702?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yvonne Benschop & Patricia Lewis & Ruth Simpson & Rosalind Gill & Elisabeth K. Kelan & Christina M. Scharff, 2017. "A Postfeminist Sensibility at Work," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 226-244, May.
    2. Alison Edgley, 2021. "Maternal presenteeism: Theorizing the importance for working mothers of “being there” for their children beyond infancy," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 1023-1039, May.
    3. Yvonne Benschop & Patricia Lewis & Ruth Simpson & Patricia Lewis & Yvonne Benschop & Ruth Simpson, 2017. "Postfeminism, Gender and Organization," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 213-225, May.
    4. Rosalind Gill & Shani Orgad, 2018. "The Amazing Bounce-Backable Woman: Resilience and the Psychological Turn in Neoliberalism," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 23(2), pages 477-495, June.
    5. Ilyana Kuziemko & Jessica Pan & Jenny Shen & Ebonya Washington, 2018. "The Mommy Effect: Do Women Anticipate the Employment Effects of Motherhood?," NBER Working Papers 24740, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Yvonne Benschop & Patricia Lewis & Ruth Simpson & Maria Adamson, 2017. "Postfeminism, Neoliberalism and A ‘Successfully’ Balanced Femininity in Celebrity CEO Autobiographies," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 314-327, May.
    7. Shani Orgad & Sara De Benedictis, 2015. "The 'stay-at-home' mother, postfeminism and neoliberalism: content analysis of UK news coverage," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 62626, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. George Kandathil & Rajeshwari Chennangodu, 2024. "Postfeminist individuating of a women collective and the strugglesome emergence of a relational collective feminist solidarity: The story of Kudumbashree, a Kerala state‐instituted women empowerment p," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 115-132, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anna Alexandersson & Viktorija Kalonaityte, 2021. "Girl bosses, punk poodles, and pink smoothies: Girlhood as Enterprising Femininity," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 416-438, January.
    2. Ea Høg Utoft, 2021. "Maneuvering within postfeminism: A study of gender equality practitioners in Danish academia," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 301-317, January.
    3. Udeni Salmon, 2023. "“How did they protect you?” The lived experience of race and gender in the post‐colonial English university," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 510-528, March.
    4. Fitri Hariana Oktaviani & Bernard McKenna & Terrance Fitzsimmons, 2021. "Trapped within ideological wars: Femininities in a Muslim society and the contest of women as leaders," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 1152-1176, May.
    5. Maree Martinussen, 2019. "Reason, Season, or Life? Heterorelationality and the Limits of Intimacy between Women Friends," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 24(3), pages 297-313, September.
    6. Linda Colley & Sue Williamson & Meraiah Foley, 2021. "Understanding, ownership, or resistance: Explaining persistent gender inequality in public services," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 284-300, January.
    7. Karen Jones & Jonathan Clifton, 2018. "Rendering sexism invisible in workplace narratives. A narrative analysis of female entrepreneurs’ stories of not being talked to by men," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5), pages 557-574, September.
    8. Boneva, Teodora & Golin, Marta & Kaufmann, Katja Maria & Rauh, Christopher, 2022. "Beliefs about Maternal Labor Supply," IZA Discussion Papers 15788, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Katrin Huber & Geske Rolvering, 2023. "Public child care and mothers’ career trajectories," Working Papers 228, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    10. Kelly Musick & Pilar Gonalons‐Pons & Christine R. Schwartz, 2022. "Change and Variation in U.S. Couples’ Earnings Equality Following Parenthood," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 48(2), pages 413-443, June.
    11. Maria De Paola & Roberto Nisticò & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2024. "Workplace Peer Effects in Fertility Decisions," CSEF Working Papers 714, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    12. Mari, Gabriele & Cutuli, Giorgio, 2018. "Do parental leaves make the motherhood wage penalty worse? Assessing two decades of German reforms," SocArXiv f2nrc, Center for Open Science.
    13. Auður Magndís Auðardóttir & Annadís G. Rúdólfsdóttir, 2021. "Chaos ruined the children’s sleep, diet and behaviour: Gendered discourses on family life in pandemic times," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(S1), pages 168-182, January.
    14. Zhengyu Cai & Heather M. Stephens & John V. Winters, 2019. "Motherhood, migration, and self-employment of college graduates," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 611-629, October.
    15. Henrik Kleven & Camille Landais & Jakob Egholt Søgaard, 2021. "Does Biology Drive Child Penalties? Evidence from Biological and Adoptive Families," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 183-198, June.
    16. Anna Kim & Youjin Hahn, 2022. "The motherhood effect on labour market outcomes: evidence from South Korea," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 36(2), pages 71-88, November.
    17. Hannah Illing & Johannes Schmieder & Simon Trenkle, 2024. "The Gender Gap in Earnings Losses After Job Displacement," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 22(5), pages 2108-2147.
    18. Hermes, Henning & Krauß, Marina & Lergetporer, Philipp & Peter, Frauke & Wiederhold, Simon, 2022. "Early child care and labor supply of lower-SES mothers: A randomized controlled trial," DICE Discussion Papers 394, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    19. Fabian Cannizzo & Catherine Strong, 2020. "‘Put some balls on that woman’: Gendered repertoires of inequality in screen composers’ careers," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(6), pages 1346-1360, November.
    20. Adams-Prassl, Abi & Jensen, Mathias Fjællegaard & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2024. "Birth Timing and Spacing: Implications for Parental Leave Dynamics and Child Penalties," IZA Discussion Papers 17438, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:28:y:2021:i:4:p:1697-1710. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0968-6673 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.