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Abstract

Organizational values demand that working mothers separate the maternal from the professional. Due to the nature of maternity leave in the United States, however, working mothers who are breastfeeding have little choice but to bring motherhood into the workplace. In investigating the ways women navigate this situation, we found that to maintain their reputations as good workers participants practiced bounded motherhood at work, constraining breastfeeding practices to preserve norms of professionalism. However, participants sometimes practiced unbounded motherhood wherein their inter/actions disrupted organizational orders by merging motherhood and work in material ways. This embodiment of a good working mother identity expands the repertoire or action for working mothers and contributes to a re-meaning of the relationship between work and motherhood. This study demonstrates one means for making breastfeeding while working more feasible as well as to how workers’ bodies can be sites of resistance and reinforcement of gendered symbolic orders in organizations.

Keywords

gender embodiment materiality discourse

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Unbounded Motherhood

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Keywords

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