The care crisis : a research priority for the pandemic era and beyond

Focusing on two areas of care research - unpaid domestic labour and academic work - this chapter considers points at which the care deficit has been made most apparent or amplified by the coronavirus pandemic. The chapter unpacks the gendered dimensions to the care crisis and argues that family relationships and organisational cultures might mutually reinforce the care gap. Centring on the pandemic recovery but also reimagining our care relationships and infrastructures, recommendations are made for future research and advocacy to address the care deficit

Vice-Chancellor's Gender Equality Fund Final Report 2021: Equity, Policy and Practice: Disruptions to Candidature and Barriers to Career Progression for Women HDR Candidates

Whilst prior research has established barriers to career progression for women academics, the experiences of women HDR candidates and the barriers to candidature progression, including movement to on-going, academic labour, or careers outside of academia, has not received the same level of attention. This project therefore aims to generate a better understanding of equity considerations for research disruption, with particular reference to the COVID-19 pandemic, for women HDR candidates. There are two key research questions for this project: 1. What are the barriers to HDR progression for WSU women candidates? 2. How might WSU support the progression of women HDR candidates through targeted strategies? This report provides recommendations for best practice for supporting the progression of women HDR candidates at Western

The Future of Work and Childcare: Towards Equity and Justice for Western Sydney Communities

This white paper by Western Sydney University researchers advocates for more equitable models of work and childcare that prioritise gender equity, gentle parenting, community building, social support, and climate justice. The care economy in western Sydney is under-resourced and inflexible, and current policies prioritise economic growth over family and community relationships. Women, especially those from disadvantaged or marginalised backgrounds, face greater challenges in accessing education and earning less than men. The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted existing inequalities in work and childcare responsibilities. The researchers propose a vision statement and a place-based research agenda to influence socially just policy making and practices. The six proposed research streams include defining gendered workforce participation, understanding the childcare sector, mapping formal childcare services, generating a childcare stress metric, collecting evidence on innovative models and informal childcare supports, and co-creating equitable and just systems through design justice workshops with local people, groups, and the sector

The Rise and Fall, and the Rise (Again) of Feminist Research in Music: 'What Goes Around Comes Around'

This article reports from a two-phase study that involved an analysis of the extant literature followed by a three-part survey answered by seventy-one women composers. Through these theoretical and empirical data, the authors explore the relationship between gender and music’s symbolic and cultural capital. Bourdieu’s theory of the habitus is employed to understand the gendered experiences of the female composers who participated in the survey. The article suggests that these female composers have different investments in gender but that, overall, they reinforce the male habitus given that the female habitus occupies a subordinate position in relation to that of the male. The findings of the study also suggest a connection between contemporary feminism and the attitudes towards gender held by the participants. The article concludes that female composers classify themselves, and others, according to gendered norms and that these perpetuate the social order in music in which the male norm dominates

Feminism as capital : gender, class and mobility for women in paid care work

This paper draws on research conducted with thirty-nine self-identified working-class and middle-class women who work and study in the field of paid caring work in order to reflect on the relevance of feminism for contemporary Australian women. It examines variations in women's attitudes to feminism by comparing and contrasting the narratives of women from different class and educational backgrounds and it explores the role of education in disseminating feminist knowledge. Moreover, this paper examines in detail the attitudes that women in senior posts in the paid caring field have to feminism; and examines whether feminism has played a role in their career success. Finally, this paper draws on the findings to put forward an argument for a Bourdieusian conceptualisation of the value of feminism.It is suggested that the contemporary relevance of feminism might be better understood if it is reconceptualised as capital;for this enables feminism to be seen as an everyday cultural resource for women

Gendering

In this chapter, we examine how sociologists theorize gender and some of the ways in which structures, histories and power manifest in particular gendered practices. In doing so, we refer to the examples above, particularly the objectives of the #MeToo movement, as well as other moments and icons of popular culture to explain the functioning and shortfalls of theories of gender as well as the influence of feminism. The chapter begins by explaining developments in gender scholarship as a move from theorizing biological sex to theorizing gendering. As will be explained, this development has allowed sociologists to see gender as socially constituted over time and to connect the individual with the interactional and larger social structures. We will argue that this way of thinking has enabled sociologists to perceive gender as somethin more than two monolithic categories that operate in a binary - it has allowed us to better perceive gender difference. Related to this, sociologists now understand gender as intersecting with other inequalities like race and class; this has complicated analyses but also made them more sophisticated (see Chapter 9: Racializing and Chapter 4: Dividing). In the final sections, this chapter explains the relationship between feminist thinking and the sociology of gender before moving to focus on one area of social life in which gendered patterns are especially 'sticky' an so are of longstanding concern for sociologists - gendered labour in homes and work-places (see Chapter 6: Working)

Class and career choice : motivations, aspirations, identity and mobility for women in paid caring work

This article explores the significance of class for women’s participation in paid care work. It draws on in-depth interviews with female nurses and social workers in order to understand what motivates women to pursue paid caring careers. Using the theoretical tools of Bourdieu, this article explores the career motivations, mobility experiences and aspirations of differently classed nurses and social workers. The research reveals some significant differences between the women who self-identify as coming from working-class backgrounds and those who self-identify as coming from middle-class backgrounds. The article therefore provides a gender/class analysis of women’s participation in the paid caring field and moves beyond gender analyses of caring work

'What have I done?' : an exploration of the ambivalent, unimaginable emotions of new motherhood

Women are presented with all manner of information about what motherhood is like and how it should be done. These sometimes dialogic, sometimes competing scripts shape expectations, but often fail to prepare parents-to-be for what is to come. Making use of two diverse case study interviews with Australian mothers, this chapter explores the disunity between pre-birth expectations and the lived bodily experience of new motherhood. These disconnections occur around appearance, birth, relationships, self-concept, and career, and point to the ideological nature of much parenting discourse. Mothers report a range of emotional responses to new parenthood that often do not fit with the dominant romantic narratives that are constructed around baby making including anxiety, anger, guilt, and grief. While this disconnect sometimes encourages women to resist dominant ideology, they also demonstrate commitment to gender norms and a complicated relationship with good mothering discourse