Offside: the experience of professional women in Rio de Janeiro

This paper was part of the symposium "Hidden Voices in CWF Research and the SDGs" organised by Clarice Santos and Bianca Stumbitz (both from Middlesex:

Despite the broadening international scope of work-family research, findings from the Global North continue to dominate the literature. Related findings are too often uncritically applied to the Global South, without much consideration of the cultural, socio-economic and political contexts in which working families are embedded in different countries. This symposium aims to mainstream these ‘hidden voices’ by bringing together culturally-sensitive research on community, work and family issues in India, Brazil and South Africa. The papers presented here underscore the differences within work- family dynamics across and within national contexts, while also highlighting implications for work-family research more widely, and thereby challenge assumptions based on research from the Global North. This symposium is timely and relevant to the overall theme of this year’s CWF conference, as all of its contributions address the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in different ways, particularly SDG 5 on gender equality, but also SDG 8 on decent work and SDG 3 on good health and well-being. Even though gender equality has improved in recent decades, it remains the most pervasive form of inequality across the world as evidenced in workplace discrimination against women, gaps in women’s access to decent employment and high maternal mortality rates particularly in the Global South. The first three papers in this symposium explore the tensions arising from changing cultural role expectations and identities of women in traditional cultures, and implications for gender equality and work-family lives. In the first presentation titled Revisiting bread winning and household headship in emerging economies, Shweta Singh examines the phenomenon of women competing for the headship when a male is a part of the household. The roles of women in urban-middle class Indian families have shifted from caregiving to breadwinning as women are increasingly employed in formal sectors with higher salary structures. This development has been supported by informal and in-kind social supports, particularly in the form of childcare. Although such practices remain a cultural core in India, they are becoming increasingly jeopardized by tensions between traditional cultural structures and modern economic processes. Singh’s paper explores the concepts of identity and bargaining power as tools in forming a breadwinner identity and household headship in India, while highlighting contextual differences in the culture of in/formal work and urban/rural households. The findings shed light on the heterogeneity within households in urban landscapes and the inter-generational gender differences in household functioning within dual- and single-worker families. The second presentation by Clarice Santos and Adriana Garibaldi de Hilal will focus on the experience of professional women in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil is a young democracy with a very diverse population, and its culture is characterized by high levels of ambiguity, where individuals are negotiating between a modern egalitarian code and a traditional one. This ambiguity seems to 66 flow into the work-life field which remains to be dominated by more hierarchical relational practices, although some modern practices can also be observed. Focusing on Rio de Janeiro, the findings of this study reflect these tensions. They show that family-supportive provisions that go beyond the mandated state-level policies have not made their way into formal organizational policy and practice and there is little pressure from employees to change that. The construction of the ‘working woman’ identity is tremendously impacted by role conflict, primarily due to the expectation persisting in Brazilian society that women need to fulfill their destined roles as wives and mothers. Women act as agents who uphold rather than defy these roles – a self- fulfilling prophecy. Inequality remains an “inconvenient truth” and this paper shows examples of what can be interpreted as denial. This behavior allows a rhetoric of diversity to flourish within the corporate world without bringing about real change and inclusion. Finally, Bianca Stumbitz and Ameeta Jaga will present on Breastfeeding support at work in South Africa. Breastfeeding-friendly workplaces are needed for economic, health and social development, especially in many African developing countries such as South Africa (SA). Although the health benefits of breastfeeding for both mother and child are widely recognised, research shows that work is a major barrier to optimal breastfeeding, particularly for low income and informal economy workers. SA currently has the lowest rate of exclusive breastfeeding (8%) in the world (UNICEF, 2012). Breastfeeding tends to be treated as a private matter and there is an urgent need to raise awareness of how different types of workplaces in SA can support mothers’ breastfeeding practices through low-cost interventions. Using the SDG 3 on maternal and child health as a guiding framework, this paper addresses this gap and sets a research agenda. Adopting a context-sensitive approach, it recognises that breastfeeding support at work is influenced by legislative, socio-cultural and health constraints (transmission of HIV) as well as employer resistance, and argues that the links between workplace breastfeeding support and sustainable social and economic development need to be more fully recognised.