Giving up: why mothers leave gendered organisational cultures

Explanations for professional and managerial mothers’ departure from paid work concentrate on childcare and women’s preferences or choices. In contrast, our study, based on in depth interviews with professional and managerial mothers in London, shows that women’s experiences within hegemonic masculine cultures play a key role. For example, working time norms require these mothers to work exceptionally long hours, to have permeable time boundaries even if they have negotiated reduced working hours and to ‘socialise’ in the evenings.  Mothers are limited in their ability to protest or implement creative working time solutions because they feel they must hide their motherhood, which in itself creates tension. Mothers who are seemingly supported to work fewer hours are sidelined to lower-status roles for which they are underpaid and undervalued in relation to their experience and previous seniority. Unless mothers mimic successful men, they do not look the part for success in organisations.