“Heading Home: Motherhood, Work, and the Failed Promise of Equality” by Shani Orgad
In today’s advanced capitalist societies, women are encouraged to “lean in,” with the media and government promoting women’s empowerment. However, in a cultural climate that suggests women can have it all, many successful professional women—lawyers, financial managers, teachers, engineers, and others—leave their careers to become stay-at-home mothers after having children. What drives this decision, and how do these women feel about it? What do their stories reveal about contemporary society?
“Heading Home” uncovers the stark gap between the promise of gender equality and the reality of continued injustice faced by women. Shani Orgad presents in-depth, personal, and ambivalent interviews with highly educated London women who left paid employment to care for their children while their husbands continued working in high-powered jobs. These women recognize the structural forces that perpetuate gender inequality, yet they struggle to frame their decisions outside the narrow cultural ideals that devalue motherhood and individualize success and failure. Orgad contrasts these personal stories with media and policy representations of women, work, and family, showing how these women’s experiences contradict the fantasies of work-life balance and egalitarian marriage. Despite this, the women continue to evaluate themselves by the very ideals that fail them. Instead of urging women to change their feelings and behaviors, “Heading Home” calls for amplifying women’s desires, disappointments, and frustrations, and demanding a social infrastructure that supports true equality both at work and at home.
We will have a series of online meeting sessions, each of which will discuss a chapter of the book. Beginning with this book, we would like to open a series of discussions and reflections on the current educational and societal situation of women and other genders.
When? Coming soon, in fall 2024!
Organizer: Dr. Xiaying Wang (xiaywang@iis.ee.ethz.ch)