Algoritmo de c´alculo de contenido de un nD-EVM

Introduction

The aim of this research was to explore the discourses used to construct women’s decisions surrounding family and work within a contemporary New Zealand context. A key argument of this thesis is that research, government policy, and ideology are mutually reinforcing and exert a triadic effect on people’s lives. This occurs both directly through the implementation of legislation that changes the pragmatic costs and benefits of certain life choices, but also indirectly through their influence on dominant discourses that constrain and enable choices at an ideological level through making some subject positions more accessible than others. My particular area of focus therefore was the interface between government policy and women’s lived experience. To that end I conducted a critical discourse analysis of two pieces of text, the government policy on women and the talk of two focus groups. This final chapter draws together the various strands that emerged from the two phases of analysis in order to address the initial questions: What are the similarities and differences between how the government and women construct the objects and subjects of interest to this research: motherhood, paid work, women, and children? Do these New Zealand women experience the tension between the dominant discourses of motherhood and worker that has been identified in other discursive research? As discussed in Chapter Four, critical discourse analysis goes beyond the naming of discourses and aims to consider what the social consequences of the deployment of those discourses might be. Therefore, after drawing together the two analyses, I explore the questions of who is best served by the key discourses and which social institutions are strengthened and supported by their use.

Similarities and Differences

Motherhood

Motherhood is a core element of most New Zealand women’s lives and identities. One of the most striking aspects of the analysis was the differences between how the Action Plan and the women themselves constructed motherhood. Within the vision, the Plan constructs mothering as part of

“In the midst of the doors opening in front of women it behoves us to be aware of the doors being shut behind us…. When women are truly liberated, all of their roles, traditional

and non-traditional, will be valued and supported.”

women’s contribution to society along with other caregiving and voluntary work within the community, and it argues that these traditional roles need to be valued more. However, in rendering motherhood as all but invisible, the Plan itself fails to value the role. In contrast to paid work, which is constructed as actively participating in society, mothering is constructed as a passive activity undertaken from outside society. The Plan does not depict women in the mother role, and the word “mother” does not appear in the text. When it is alluded to, mothering is constructed as a demand on women’s time, a burden that must be managed in order to free women to undertake more paid work. At the same time, women are positioned as needing to financially provide for their dependants, and in this discourse mother is constructed as identical to father, as full time breadwinner. Within the Action Plan therefore, mothers are positioned primarily as paid workers.

In contrast, for the women in the focus groups there could be no doubt that their main focus and priority was their new role as mothers. They drew on a traditional intensive mother discourse constructed from several interlinked elements: the maternal bond as powerful and amazing, women as the natural caregivers of children because of biological differences between the sexes, mothering and fathering as qualitatively different, and children, especially babies, as needing to be in parental rather than institutional care with a special need for maternal love. Within this discourse, women’s traditional role as caregiver is promoted and valued: A mother’s care and love are vital to the child’s welfare and therefore women are positioned as needing to be home with their babies. For the women, drawing on this discourse enables and promotes staying out of the workforce.

However, discourses are multiple, and contradictions and variability are often signs of discursive shifts. In contrast to the valuing of motherhood within the intensive mother discourse, the women drew on another construction which paralleled the Plan’s rendering of mothering as invisible: motherhood as worthless. Within this discourse, mothering, particularly as a full time role, is constructed as doing nothing, both in the sense of not being busy and in the sense of not doing anything worthwhile, and as an undesirable role and not sufficient for a successful woman. For some of the women, this linked into the transition to motherhood being felt as a loss of identity. In direct contrast to the intensive mother discourse, the motherhood as worthless discourse positions women who stay home as inadequate, and therefore exerts pressure on women to be more than “just” mothers, thus promoting returning to the paid workforce.

In previous research with first time mothers in Australia, America, and the UK, researchers have argued that a newer construction of motherhood, the independent mother, is gaining dominance (Brannen, 1992; Hays, 1996; Lupton & Schmied, 2002). Within this discourse, a good mother is one who does not devote herself exclusively to her children. The women in the focus groups deployed this discourse to resist the pressure of the intensive mother discourse and to justify time away from their babies, in part time work or other activities.

Paid work

The Plan deploys an economic rationalism discourse that privileges financial measures of well-being above all others, and constructs the family through a dual breadwinner model with all adults in the workforce, preferably full time. Within this discourse, women are positioned as workers first and foremost, and full time participation in the labour force is constructed as necessary for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, women need to earn sufficient income to provide for their children now and in the future. Secondly, paid work is constructed as being necessary to self-fulfilment. Thirdly, the Plan deploys an economic independence discourse to argue that all individuals have a social responsibility to support themselves, and finally, women need to be in the labour force in order to contribute to the economy, and so fulfil their obligations as good citizens.

This shift, from the traditional ideology of father as breadwinner and mother as caregiver towards a dual breadwinner model, was not strong in the women’s talk with only one couple planning to have both parents in full time work while the children were young. However, the discourses of paid work as essential were evident in the women’s talk. They positioned themselves as needing to earn money, wanting to contribute financially to the family. They also felt the pressure of the economic independence discourse. Their current position, out of the workforce and financially dependent upon their partners, was clearly not the social ideal and this manifested as guilt. As well as constructing work as necessary for financial reasons, the women talked of work as being an important source of social contact and respect, and as important to their sense of self. They constructed paid work as the norm, something that was expected of them. Within these discourses, full time mothering is not work, it is not valued, and it is not, therefore, an easy option.