Mothers in Academia

REIMAGINING THE FAIRYTALE OF MOTHERHOOD IN THE ACADEMY

Barbara A. W. Eversole, Darlene M. Hantzis, and Mandy A. Reid

ACADEMIC WOMEN know that our presence in our profession evidences earlier acts of transgressive border crossing. Despite years of challenging borders and revising the profile of professors, however, women represent a minority of the newly hired and of professors in every legitimate rank. We are officially welcomed in the academic house, but the culture of the academy teaches us repeatedly that women are not (yet) “rightful residents” of our professional homes. The persistent discomfort of a problematic fit characterizes most academic women and rises significantly for academic mothers. Talking together about our lives as “momprofs,” we recognized the powerful pedagogy of mothering in the academy; it is never just right and always transgressive of normative institutional culture. Our reflective analysis recognizes that transgressions of social identity can elicit punitive consequences, subtle and explicit, despite official policies or practices established to remedy injustice. This chapter features experiences from each of the three authors regarding the challenges we face(d) as mothers and professors at different career stages and in different professional roles. Our experiences are specific but not unique; we preserve echoes and resonances between and among our stories to demonstrate the common ground of academic mothers while honoring the importance of time and place in experience.

We locate “momprof” as a stigmatized social identity. Erving Goffman posited the power of stigma first by recognizing the sociality of subjectivity. The “self” is always already imbricated in a social structure that, in Goffman’s terms, affords the “category of persons available for [one] to be” (1963, 3). Social identity categories ease social intercourse by prescripting characters that inhabit each category, thus producing a set of appearances and actions as well as beliefs and attitudes that can be reasonably expected of each member of the category. Goffman significantly noted that such “normative expectations” transform “into righteously presented demands” that guarantee the stability of the social category by policing its borders (2). Individuals who manifest attributes that violate their social identity are stigmatized, which authorizes punitive responses from the obedient inhabitants of the violated social identity category and by others who recognize that licensed violation in one category threatens the structure itself.

The stigma of “academic mother” derives from multiple determinations of transgressions: the increased visibility mothering yields to the already stigmatized identity of woman professor; the potential suspicion of secrecy or deception surrounding the disclosure of pregnancy or motherhood to colleagues across the academy; the potential disruption in the normative timeline of professional success; and the multiple, disruptive time conflicts between the academic workday and the demands that accompany mothering. The stigma of academic mothers is bolstered by attributes that potentially stigmatize any mother, including (among other attributes) the mother’s marital or partnership status, working status, and personal characteristics (e.g., age, race, class, perceived health). In addition, mothers are scrutinized based on the method by which one becomes a mother and the identity characteristics of one’s child(ren). This essay does not rehearse the arguments that demonstrate the persistent social inequality of women or the ways in which that inequality marks every additional social identity inhabited by women, including the category of academic woman. Efforts to chronicle, document, and explain while resisting pervasive sexism and its consequences are ongoing and multiple. The experiences recounted here demonstrate our attempts as academic mothers to cope with and challenge Goffman’s so-called spoiled identities—in this case, those of momprofs. Although Goffman’s work on stigma makes it clear that those who inhabit stigmatized identities often act from that positionality and are acted upon based on the perception of their status as stigmatized, through this essay we want to offer a different point of view.

EXPERIENCES MANAGING “ACADEMIC MOTHER”

Through the sharing of our experiences as momprofs, a common language surfaced among us that characterized our understanding of the ways in which choosing to inhabit the social identity of “mother” while working and living the social identity of “professor” seemed to violate both categories. For instance, through conversations with each other it became clear that our academic mothering transgressed the temporal logic of our profession in specific and varied ways. In addition, our interactions with formal and informal policies and practices of “academic culture” meant we were constantly negotiating concepts of faculty “work” (labor) and confronting the policed border that marks the personal and the public. Ultimately, in one form or another, we all insistently worked toward transgressing the rules and, like Goffman, saw a lingering ambivalence about the normative attributes of social identities.

TRANSGRESSING TIME

We have learned that there is no right time or right way to become a momprof. Whether a woman is single or partnered, pre- or post-tenure, becoming an “academic mother” has historically violated the social identity of “professor” while stigmatizing motherhood. Researchers have suggested that the normal timeframe of completing the doctorate, postdoctoral fellowships, and the pretenure period competes with motherhood’s biological clock. In some cases, women have chosen to defer motherhood to achieve job security, but for those of us who have chosen to combine the social identities of mother and professor during the pretenure period often experience the censure that accompanies stigma, including the failure to earn tenure. The conflict between parenthood and professional success is cited as a factor in the persistent “tenure gap” that marks women as significantly less likely to progress toward tenure. Becoming a mother after tenure threatens professional success less obviously. It compromises no “clock,” and tenure offers protection from some of the potentially punitive actions by colleagues who may doubt the momprof’s commitment. However, reports that tenured professors are increasingly choosing to “stand still” rather than to pursue promotion to the rank of full professor suggests that female associate professors are prioritizing parenting rather than extending their research agendas. Yet such simplistic analyses fail to consider how tenured women have historically carried the weight of departmental service and the ways in which academic policy and practices have unfairly gendered the promotion to full professor. Certainly, no official policies prohibit motherhood. Just as certainly, however, policies can and do discourage the choice and forms of disclosure by creating unnecessary conflicts between professional success and parenting and by licensing an academic climate that, in turn, reveals the stigmatizing presence of prescripted expectations of professors that exclude motherhood. Here we each reflect on choices we made about disclosure of our stigmatizing narratives.

Barbara entered graduate school pregnant and let her pregnant body speak for her because that was the only disclosure she could not control. Passive disclosure in this way attempts to control others’ commentary by forcing them into the difficult position of having to ask directly if a woman is pregnant. Despite Barbara’s control of specific information, the consistent message conveyed through repeated commentary was that mothering violated the identity of a graduate student.

I first felt that I was transgressing when I entered my graduate program six months pregnant with my first child. I knew it would be difficult to pursue my graduate education while pregnant and later, as a mother, but I couldn’t bear to give up either my education or mothering. I suspected that if I asked for permission to do both, my future adviser would deny it. I reasoned I would never have to actually “’fess up” because my pregnant belly would speak for me. The first day of the term my adviser told my class that “we” had discussed delaying my entry into the program as a consequence of my pregnancy and that “we” decided against a delay. No such discussion occurred. His disclosure of my pregnancy established my transgression to my peers and diminished my agency by claiming that he authorized my decision to begin graduate school. When I refused to participate in a class river-rafting trip because I was nursing my newborn, the same man inappropriately and intrusively commented that I could pump while encamped along the river. He assigned an A minus in a later course because, he said, “I noticed that you have become more stressed since having the baby.” Not playing by the rules, it seems, warrants punishment.

Mandy chose motherhood at what is generally acknowledged as the wrong time to have children: on the tenure track. Expecting censure, she also practiced informational control as a strategic choice, keeping the knowledge to herself as long as she could. Once her body revealed her choice, she was surprised by the amount of commentary her pregnancy provoked. Mandy’s pregnancy incited even more commentary because she chose motherhood not only pretenure, but also premaritally, as a single woman.

My body’s disclosure of my pregnancy provoked similar, consistent commentary, censuring through apparent expressions of concern and condemnation of my decision. It’s still not clear to me if becoming a single mother by choice or doing so while pretenure was the greater transgression. Both identities transgress time: pretenure and premarital. I was told that my decision was “the kiss of death for tenure,” so I suppose the greater transgression was ostensibly my tenure status. Single mothering on the tenure track is damn hard. I don’t have the luxury of spending time joining the discussions among my colleagues about whether my decision was courageous or foolhardy. I’m too busy grading papers, drawing elephants, and pursuing a research agenda. I understand that my pretenure colleagues and I have the same twenty-four hours in a day. I recognize that my colleagues also have life obligations in addition to work (spouses, partners, children, hobbies, etc.). The culture of commentary makes it clear that choosing to be a single mother comes with a penalty that is not applied to other choices.

Darlene entered motherhood at what some have claimed is the right time: after achieving tenure. However, for most women, waiting until after tenure also means waiting too late biologically. The commentary Darlene received suggested that waiting “too long” is expected and normative for academic mothers.

In the normative narrative of academic mothers (earn a Ph.D., earn tenure, birth a child if you are able), I am identified as one who “waited.” I understand the assessment: when a well-past-tenure, midforty-year-old associate dean becomes a mother, the choice must be explained. The collegial discussions in which I did not participate generously explained and speculated that “she must have waited” because she prioritized her career, and it is harder to be a mother and a dean than to be a mother and a professor. It can appear logical for women to “delay” motherhood to ensure professorial success, which is timed by the tenure clock, and logical to conclude that administration further discourages motherhood. Although actually I simply changed my mind about motherhood, I frequently found myself cast in the role of “one who waited” and in the position of responding to critical commentary about the costs of my “delay.” That commentary referenced adoptive mothering and my energy and stamina alongside an infant’s needs and my capacity to continue to succeed professionally. Mothering is always a public text, visible and open to scrutiny. The public text of my mothering includes also the facts that I am single and my race differs from my child’s. Certainly, the decision alone engendered comment among those few to whom I disclosed it. I was unsurprised by repeated queries from women colleagues reflecting a concern that I had not thought it through: “Are you sure?” “Are you nuts?” “At your age?” Their incredulity signaled my transgression of normative behavior.