“I felt sad then, I feel free now”: a case for examining the constructive resistance of opted-out mothers
Abstract
Purpose
While past research has explored how opting-out enables mothers to break free from masculinist organizational cultures, less attention has been given to how they resist disciplinary power that constitutes and governs their subjectivities. This paper aims to add to the discussion of opting-out as a site of power and resistance by proposing the concept of “constructive resistance” as a productive vantage point for investigating opted-out mothers' subversive practices of self-making.
Design/methodology/approach
This Malaysian case study brings together the notion of constructive resistance, critical narrative analysis and APPRAISAL theory to examine the reflective stories of eighteen mothers who exited formal employment. These accounts were collected through an open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured email interviews.
Findings
The mothers in the sample tend to construct themselves in two main ways, as (1) valuable mothers (capable, tireless, caring mothers who are key figures in their children's lives) and (2) competent professionals. These subjectivities are parasitic on gendered and neoliberal ideals but allow the mothers to undermine neoliberal capitalist work arrangements that were incongruent with their personal values and adversely impacted their well-being, as well as refuse organizational narratives that positioned them as “failed” workers.
Originality/value
Whereas power is primarily seen in previous opting-out scholarship as centralized and constraining, this case study illustrates how the lens of constructive resistance can be beneficial for examining opted-out mothers' struggles against a less direct form of power that governs through the production of truths and subjectivities.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank their research assistants, Shafiqah Alliah binti Razman, Swetha Siva and Wong Xiu Wei, for their contributions to this study and all the participants for sharing their stories. The authors would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful feedback and suggestions. This research was funded by the Women in Southeast Asian Social Sciences (WiSEASS) Collaborative Grant.
Citation
Yoong, M. and Mohamed, N. (2023), "“I felt sad then, I feel free now”: a case for examining the constructive resistance of opted-out mothers", Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-08-2022-0202
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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