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Complex Inequality and Working Mothers |
July 15, 2015 |
| Reviewer:
CHOICE-M. Gatta, Rutgers University and Wider Oppo from USA
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O'Hagan (Univ. of Limerick, Ireland) addresses an important theoretical and empirical gap in feminist scholarship by writing a comprehensive analysis of gender, work, and motherhood in Ireland. Using the theoretical framework of feminist intersectionality along with in-depth interviews with a diverse group of working mothers, she significantly contributes to the understanding of how individuals experience inequalities and privilege in everyday life, and how various social structures - including state, workplace, family, and church - create and reinforce those inequalities. Critical to O'Hagan's analysis is that she intentionally demonstrates the diversity of Irish working mothers, showing how they are not a monolithic group. Instead, there are inequalities within the group, and as a result some women are able to experience greater privilege at times. In her attempts to address the complex inequality that women experience, the author explores the impacts on women, children, families, child minders, and society. She concludes with what she sees as a new gender regime rooted in challenging the traditional gendered ideology and organization of work and family, and proposes state policy structures to support that change.
Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.
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