Description
Book SynopsisHeading Home reveals the stark gap between the promise of gender equality and women’s experience of continued injustice. It draws on in-depth interviews with highly educated London women who left paid employment to take care of their children, juxtaposed with media and policy depictions of women, work, and family.
Trade ReviewThis book tells a story about sacrificing career for family that resonates far beyond the lives of the women in London Shani Orgad has interviewed. Orgad makes a powerful argument about the denials women experience, precisely because the author does not rant. She is a gifted explorer of adulthood in all its promises, twists, and disappointments. Shani Orgad is one of the finest sociologists of her generation. -- Richard Sennett, author of
The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New CapitalismHeading Home is a wonderfully researched and written book, highly engaging, and on a hugely important topic. Orgad’s interviews highlight very meaningful themes: the fact that oppression can be experienced alongside privilege; that structural inequality masks what are perceived as personal choices; and how the public discourses and media representations of ‘choice’ shape the self-identity of women who in fact did not have much of a choice. A great accomplishment! -- Dafna Lemish, Rutgers University
In this rich and compelling book, Shani Orgad persuasively argues for the power of cultural forces, alongside toxic workplace structures and flimsy public policies, to block pathways, shrink selves, and stifle rage among accomplished, highly-educated women who sacrificed careers as they headed home to care for young children. She beautifully weaves the sometimes-wrenching stories of mothers with incisive analysis demarcating the unique predicament of these mothers, who find it difficult to articulate return pathways to the work world despite the celebratory and contradictory culture of mompreneurs and the confidence fantasy. Brilliant! -- Melissa A. Milkie, University of Toronto
Orgad argues that if these affluent women find it hard to juggle work, family and childcare, then those with less money must find the struggle so much harder. * Financial Times *
Heading Home is an essential book. Its significance lies in astutely analysing the contradictions and ambivalences of lived experiences and public discourses of motherhood, equality and work, an important task that is often neglected in media and cultural research. * LSE Review of Books *
The sociologist Shani Orgad enters this rich terrain with a book that asks us to consider those highly educated contemporary women who leave the workforce to raise children. * Times Literary Supplement *
This is a fascinating study, written in the best traditions of interdisciplinarity that would certainly be of great interest to academics studying gender and work, feminist theory and contemporary culture. * Gender, Work, and Organization *
Shani Orgad’s
Heading Home is a fascinating book. It is insightful, attractively written,
warm, sometimes painful, pessimistic – yet also hopeful. -- Hanna-Mari Ikonen * Sociology *
[An] engaging and well-written book . . . A strength of the book is Orgad's insight into the role of the individualist and gender-egalitarian social imaginary on individual and collective understandings of gender, work, and family. * Choice *
Heading Home offers a rich analysis of the challenges that many mothers face as they attempt to combine work and family. Because it often engages with the canonical work on these subjects, it would be an excellent resource for introductory courses. The scope and writing of the book make it accessible and interdisciplinary, and it would be of interest to those studying work, gender, and family in various fields. * Affilia *
Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I: Heading Home: Forced Choices1. Choice and Confidence Culture/Toxic Work Culture
2. The Balanced Woman/Unequal Homes
Part II: Heading the Home: The Personal Consequences of Forced Choices3. Cupcake Mom/Family CEO
4. Aberrant Mothers/Captive Wives
Part III: Heading Where? Curbed Desires5. The Mompreneur/Inarticulate Desire
6. Inevitable Change/Invisible Chains
Conclusion: Impatience
Appendix 1: Interviewees’ Key Characteristics
Appendix 2: List of Media and Policy Representations
Appendix 3: Study Methodology
Appendix 4: Characteristics of UK Stay-at-Home Mothers
Notes
Index
