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    Combining motherhood and work in the creative industries: Mothers have the problem


    O’Brien, Anne and Arnold, Sarah (2024) Combining motherhood and work in the creative industries: Mothers have the problem. Media, Culture and Society, 46 (6). pp. 1200-1215. ISSN 0163-4437

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    Abstract

    This article examines film and television workers’ experience of mothering in Ireland and argues that not only are mothers constructed as a ‘problem’ in these Creative Industries workplaces because of their care work duties, but the ‘problem’ of work’s incompatibility with motherhood is presented as one to be ‘solved’ by mothers themselves. Drawing from the scholarship on motherhood in film and television work and 12 interviews with workers in the film and television Creative Industries sectors who are mothers, we undertake a thematic analysis to uncover common experiences and insights that are reflective of but depart in some ways from the literature. We identify four themes that suggest that motherhood remains Othered in film and television work and that balancing care work and motherhood remains a form of additional labour that mothers (almost exclusively) must undertake: managing pregnancy at work; maternity leave and the return to work; care for children while working; and mothers’ finding solutions.
    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: Care; creative industries; labour; mothers; work;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > School of English, Media & Theatre Studies > Media Studies
    Item ID: 19617
    Identification Number: 10.1177/01634437241229327
    Depositing User: Sarah Arnold
    Date Deposited: 27 Mar 2025 12:00
    Journal or Publication Title: Media, Culture and Society
    Publisher: Sage
    Refereed: Yes
    Related URLs:
    URI: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/19617
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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