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“My Child Has Two Parents”: Swedish Women Entrepreneurs Doing and Undoing Their Motherhood
King's College London, London, United Kingdom; Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6186-0659
Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden.
Halmstad University, School of Business, Innovation and Sustainability. Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0691-2740
2025 (English)In: Gender, Work and Organization, ISSN 0968-6673, E-ISSN 1468-0432, Vol. 32, no 6, p. 2133-2148Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

In this study, we explore how women who are both mothers and entrepreneurs construct their subject position as mothers in the presence of dominant discourses. Based on multiple interviews with 15 participants, our findings indicate that women engage in doing and undoing motherhood. Although undoing one's motherhood is related to negotiating one's position vis-à-vis social norms and expectations, doing motherhood is related to the construction of new discourses. We illustrate how a norm-breaking motherhood discourse emerges through processes of gender abating and coalescing. In this discourse, child-rearing is not a woman's primary responsibility but is shared between the parents, and the public and private spheres—work and family—coalesce. A good mother is constructed as an individual who can pursue her passions and realize her dreams and who focuses on her relationship with her child through her work as an entrepreneur while mastering desirable attitudes and values in life. We also find that entrepreneurship can be a vehicle for escaping normative assumptions about motherhood and crafting one's “project of the self.”. © 2025 The Author(s). Gender, Work & Organization published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2025. Vol. 32, no 6, p. 2133-2148
Keywords [en]
doing motherhood, motherhood, mothers, subject position, women entrepreneurs
National Category
Gender Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-56039DOI: 10.1111/gwao.13272ISI: 001484164400001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105004459289OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hh-56039DiVA, id: diva2:1958567
Available from: 2025-05-15 Created: 2025-05-15 Last updated: 2025-10-28Bibliographically approved

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Naldi, Lucia

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