Publications
Publication details [#867]
Vair, Hester. 2013. The Discourse of Balance: Balance as Metaphor and Ideology. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie 50 (2) : 154–177. 24 pp.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Keywords
Abstract
This paper studies the relationship between paid work and motherhood, which are generally considered by social institutions as mutually exclusive. The paper conducts a survey on the social conditions of 21 middle-class working mothers and on their life organisation. Results show that these working mothers have not been able to organise work and motherhood. The tensions created by this situation are described by the mothers by using the metaphor of “balance”, i.e. work-life balance. However, the mother's narratives of the difficulties of managing working motherhood seem to disconfirm the condition of equilibrium that this metaphor entails.