Parallel Mothers, Parallel Academics: Becoming Mothers in Australia Academia

Parallel Mothers, Parallel Academics: Becoming Mothers in Australia Academia

We are three feminist academics who taught in and shaped the same gender studies program over a period of four years, and who each recently became mothers within a six-month period. In this panel, we come together in friendship and coalition to reflect on our experiences of becoming mothers as feminist scholars. We explore the similarities and distinctions of our experiences as both academics and new mothers to consider what it might mean to become and be a mother in Australian academia today. We contemplate the relationship between our mother and academic selves and what this relationship might mean for our new, emerging subjectivities. In doing so, we ask: what would a call for mothering that privileges space for care for self and others, rest, and healing represent in the current Australian academic context? We also wonder how this context—as well as our broader patriarchal, neoliberal capitalist, colonial society—might support or hinder ways of being that challenge normative concepts of productivity, professional growth, and self-worth. In this collaborative exploration, we engage with thinkers such as Adrienne Rich, Luce Irigaray, and Silvia Federici to help us create sense from our experiences and locate our musing within a genealogy of feminist thinkers who have considered these questions before us. In doing so, we respond to the conference’s call to engage in feminist work courageously, as we attempt to claim a space in academia where we can become and be mothers driven by ethics of care and relationality.

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