The price of motherhood in the Irish film and television industries

This study describes the gendered challenges that mothers face when working in Irish film and television industries. Data were derived from a snowball sample of 44 mothers located in multiple genres of film and television production. The key findings are first, there is a systemic bias against mothers, not just a gender bias against them as women but an additional and more specific bias against them as mothers; second, there is evidence that mothers internalize the marginalization that comes from their maternal status. Many of the respondents accepted the inequality and maternal penalty they experienced as inevitable and “the way it is” and so made no demands that the industry change; and third, many mothers described various adaptations that help them to sustain their working lives, but they were rarely supported in those adaptations by the screen production industry. The impact and consequences of maternal inequality need to be examined and addressed further by industry in order to better include the voices of mothers in cultural productions.