Mothering, womanhood and employment

Why are African perspectives on work and family underrepresented despite the continent’s cultural, geographic and ethnic diversity? And what is the impact of a balancing act on low-income mothers?

These are some of the questions Professor Ameeta Jaga of the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) School of Management Studies addressed during her inaugural lecture, which was delivered on 29 August to a full house at the Leslie Commerce Building. Titled “Balancing acts: Mothering, womanhood and employment”, Professor Jaga used personal experience in challenging what she called “masculine workplace norms”.

Utilising feminist methodologies such as photovoice, Jaga’s participatory action research seeks epistemic justice, advocating for better workplace breastfeeding support and policies to address and alleviate the burden of care work, often referred to as ‘the Motherload’.

Faculty of Commerce dean, Professor Suki Goodman, introduced Jaga by hailing her research reach: “Her work is accessible and impactful. Her approach to work–family research is pioneering. I think it is safe to say that she is the most prominent South African academic in the global working family’s researchers’ network – and while playing on the international stage, she remains active and grounded at UCT and at home. She is driven by excellence and powered by heart.”

“I noticed that while there was a significant body of work on breastfeeding in the health community spheres, there was nothing on breastfeeding as a workplace issue.”

For Jaga, this is a topic that stretches as far back as her PhD research, which she began in 2010. She titled that work, “Work–family conflict among Hindu working mothers in South Africa” and laid a strong foundation to get a glimpse of “the tensions between masculine workplace norms such as the expectations of an always available worker; one who’s busy does not need to pause for reproductive reasons or attend to unpaid care work”.

“Growing up, I had a plurality of experiences with culture and belonging. At the time [of doing my PhD], I had a one-year-old daughter and a five-year-old son. I had left my corporate job to join academia, as I experienced corporate culture to be hostile to employed mothers and those from diverse cultural backgrounds and values.”

Breastfeeding

She added, “As my critical reading of northern-derived scholarship developed, especially post PhD, so too grew the decolonisation movements, such as #RhodesMustFall. I began taking a southern positionality to make sense of gender, poverty, inequality, colonialism and race as issues affecting the work–family interface in South Africa. This [southern positionality] was not to create a north–south dualism, but to foster a more inclusive, global understanding of work and family.”

What’s more, she questioned assumptions that reinforce knowledge inequalities and developed new lines of inquiry such as why African perspectives on work and family are underrepresented despite the continent’s cultural, geographic and ethnic diversity.

“In 2015, I attended a workshop to establish an African research network on working families. At this workshop, I learned South Africa had the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world at 8% in 2012. A government representative pleaded with workplace scholars to bring research attention to barriers to breastfeeding. I noticed that while there was a significant body of work on breastfeeding in the health community spheres, there was nothing on breastfeeding as a workplace issue, yet, returning to work was one of the reasons why women stopped breastfeeding.”

Her research also examines the plight of low-income mothers. “Many were sole bread winners, and some were supporting and caring for their families from a distance,” she said. Through her research, she has recognised the work–family interface as a concept that should embrace diverse understandings and enactments of motherhood rather than uphold a singular, static notion. Through a southern analysis, she offered three key insights:

• The breastfeeding practices of mothers were shaped by familial and community networks of care and spatial legacies of apartheid due to absent fathers, young mothers and a lack of formal support systems.
• The breastfeeding discourse overlooks the harsh reality faced by many low-income women in South Africa who deal with unemployment, precarious housing, teen pregnancy and high crime; and this leads to breastfeeding becoming less of a priority.
• Focusing solely on structural barriers to breastfeeding and employment overlooks potential agency within organisations, particularly line supervisors because empathetic supervisors provide breastfeeding support and initiate conversations to that effect before mothers give birth to help overcome those barriers.

There is still more to be done in this research sphere as Jaga said that her next project will bring in low-income fathers into the conversation. This, she hopes, will address the infrastructure failures that make care work, in the context of poverty, unbearable.