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Paper short abstract:

This talk explores how a group of entrepreneurial mothers ostensibly refute normative constructions of motherhood and work. However, underpinned by personal choice narratives, Mumpreneurs' attempt to counteract these roles ultimately recreates them.

Paper long abstract:

Starting a business around the time they start their families, ‘Mumpreneurs’ straddle the line between economic and domestic spheres. One of the key insights from 18+ months of ethnographic fieldwork with this group was that Mumpreneurs look to entrepreneurship as a means to overcome gendered inequalities they experience in the traditional labour force after becoming mothers that their male peers do not similarly face after becoming fathers. These inequalities manifest most clearly in participants’ attempts to shoulder paradoxical expectations of full commitment to motherhood, career, work, and home. Mumpreneurs suggest that the impossibility of inhabiting and fulfilling these roles simultaneously motivates their decision to become Mumpreneurs in the first place. However, through life-narratives, bios and interviews, participants tend to describe their lifeworlds as the consequence of individual actions and particular life-circumstances, framing Mumpreneurship as a radical, savvy break from traditional gendered divisions of labour. Yet, engaging with Mumpreneurship recreates and reinforces the traditional gender roles they ostensibly refute. This talk will explore the paradoxes that arise from Mumpreneurship’s attempt to counteract - but ultimate recreation of - normative constructions of motherhood.