Mães acadêmicas: equilibrando os papéis de mães e pesquisadoras

Abstract

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Academic mothers: balancing the roles of parent and researcher There is a well-known proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child ". As both mothers and academics we could not agree more with the sentiment, although we believe that it also takes a village to raise a mother. This village comes in many shapes and forms, and one source of support we can learn from and lean on is one another as mothers who are academics. As we take on the role of parent, we can't deny the formidable changes in society over the past decade that have led to a more equitable division of labor at home, increasing, for some families, the participation of others including men in childcare. However, more common, is an unequal division of care, an inequality not only observed at home but compounded by those in the workplace too (WARD, 2014). We understand our privileged position as academics, but the challenges faced by and strategies used by mothers to successfully balance being both a researcher pursuing a faculty career and caregiver need to be brought to the forefront and discussed in our community (HALLSTEIN; O'REILLY, 2012). Therefore, our intent in this editorial is to start the conversation and begin advocating for an inclusive workplace where women can succeed at their jobs while being a mother. We present actions to facilitate mothers' engagement and further their accomplishments as an academic. This editorial also serves as an introduction to the work of Leventon, Roelich and Middlemiss (2019), "An academic mother's wish list: 12 things universities need ", published in Nature 1 , and it is included in Portuguese version with the authors' and journal's agreement (Annex A). One of the top challenges reported by academic mothers is the pressure to keep publishing during maternity leave. When applying for a faculty position, grants or research funding, as we aim to reach the metrics defined by the post-grad regulatory agencies (e.g., CAPES-Coordination of Superior Level Staff Improvement) maternity leave is not considered, leaving mothers at a career trajectory disadvantage. Many of us authors, experienced this pressure, "because while doing research, the break in the career is not only the time of the maternity leave (120 to 180 days in Brazil, 12 weeks in the USA)" and "My major product of the last year is my daughter", because "Being a mother is a full-time job". As discussed by Ward (2014), gender stereotypes at home and work hinder the performance of women professors. The required participation in teaching, administrative duties, and research, and the lack of flexibility or reduced workload can make it difficult for a mother to progress or even be competitive to enter the profession. For example, one of us noted, "When I came back to work, I felt like my new occupational role-being a mother-was completed...

A trajetória das discentes-mães nos cursos de pós-graduação em ciências contábeis: desempenho, permanência, percepção e desafios

“…Consequentemente, as estudantes-mães precisam recorrer a estratégias para equilibrar e manter, de forma sustentável, tanto sua vida acadêmica quanto sua vida como mães. Um dos principais desafios enfrentados por elas é a pressão para produzir artigos para publicação durante o curso de mestrado ou doutorado (PONTES et al, 2019).…”