TY - JOUR TI - Beyond work-family balance in academia: a reconstructive feminist perspective DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3KP80KX PY - 2014 AB - The focus of this study is on the underlying cultural gender norms that present professional women in general and women faculty in higher education in particular with an impossible 'choice' between a successful career and motherhood. On the one hand, societal norms still assign women with responsibility for an intensive form of mothering requiring lots of time and energy that leaves little time for their careers. On the other hand, the norm of the ideal worker, which dominates the culture of many colleges and universities, dictates undivided attention to one's research and precludes taking breaks for childrearing, even if it is guaranteed by the family-friendly policies enacted on campus. The ideal worker norm prevents faculty mothers from utilizing family-friendly policies that could ease the tensions of living up to the norm of motherhood. The mere presence of family-friendly policies, no matter how generous they are, is not enough if using them goes against cultural and institutional norms. Hence, creating a work environment that is conducive to utilizing the most optimal policies for faculty parents is essential for academia to be finally fully equitable for men and women. This will require changes in the assumptions, expectations, and behaviors that constitute the norm of the masculine ideal worker who takes no time for family obligations. An alternative model of academic career, predicated on integration of work and family life, is proposed alongside the norm of shared parenting according to which both parents reduce time at work in order to fulfill childrearing and household responsibilities. In this way, masculinity is no longer linked with paid employment and femininity with childrearing. KW - Liberal Studies KW - Work and family--United States KW - Family policy--United States KW - Sex role--United States LA - eng ER -