Communication and the Work-Life Balancing Act

Intersections across Identities, Genders, and Cultures

Contributions by Julia Anderson, Katrina Bloch, Patrice Buzzanell, Shannon N. Davis, Katherine Hampsten, Millie A. Harrison, Shannon K. Jacobsen, Cara Jacocks, Amanda Macht Jantzer, Loraleigh Keashly, Erika L. Kirby, Timothy Kuhn, M. Chad McBride, George F. McHendry Jr., Rebecca J. Meisenbach, Gladys Muasya, Robyn V. Remke, Jessica M. Rick, Scott A. Sellnow-Richmond, David G. Smith, Elizabeth Fish Hatfield, Samantha Szczur, Tiffany Taylor, Elizabeth Tolman, Brianna Turgeon, Stacey M. B. Wieland Edited by Elizabeth Fish Hatfield

Not available to order

Publication date:

27 December 2016

Length of book:

298 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781498534161

Communication and the Work-Life Balancing Act: Intersections across Identities, Genders, and Cultures offers scholarly research related to work-life balance in today’s environment, with a particular focus on the fields of communication and gender studies. The chapters examine the choices, challenges, and gendered experiences that women and men face as they navigate structures of work, domestic duties, and childcare in search of balance. Underpinning this text is the notion that work-life balance affects everyone but is experienced differently through the intersections of sex, age, gender, socioeconomic status, and race. Recommended for scholars of communication, gender studies, organizational communication, sociology, and family communication.

Contents

Foreword
Patrice Buzzanell

Introduction
Elizabeth Fish Hatfield

Crafting the Modern Ideal Worker

Chapter 1
The ideal teleworker: A critique of ideal-worker constructions in a nonstandard work environment
Millie A. Harrison

Chapter 2
What work-life balance? Ohio welfare to work program managers’ focus on paid work
Tiffany Taylor, Katrina Bloch, and Brianna Turgeon

Chapter 3
Putting your career first: Forbes’ guilt-free working mom
Samantha Szczur

Having It All in a Culture of Competing Demands

Chapter 4
Freedom with limits: Communication, work-life balance and the “mompreneur”
Cara Jacocks

Chapter 5
Opting (back) in to paid work: A capitalist, gendered, classed, careerist analysis
Erika L. Kirby with Timothy Kuhn, M. Chad McBride, George F. (Guy) McHendry, Jr., Rebecca J. Meisenbach, Robyn V. Remke, and Stacey M. B. Wieland

Chapter 6
Innovative career-life initiatives for women faculty in STEM: A content analysis of funded NSF ADVANCE STEM Institutional Transformation proposals
Elizabeth Tolman and Amanda Macht Jantzer

Chapter 7
It’s about priorities: Adaptation strategies of dual military couples
David G. Smith

Gender Roles at Home in a Dual Earner Society

Chapter 8
“There’s a thousand invisible things I do around here”: Examining mothers’ roles in the gendered division of labor on sitcoms
Elizabeth Fish Hatfield

Chapter 9
Work-family balance and immigrant Sub-Saharan women in the United States
Gladys Muasya

Chapter 10
Uncovering pathways to support for family relocation: The gendered influence of the divisions of housework and perceptions of fairness
Shannon N. Davis, Julia Anderson, and Shannon K. Jacobsen

Defining Work-Life Balance Beyond Mothers

Chapter 11
Social stigma, child-free identities, and work-life balance
Jessica M. Rick and Rebecca J. Meisenbach

Chapter 12
Tracing the Daddy Wars: The emergence of dad culture and the prioritization of work-life balance
Elizabeth Fish Hatfield and Katherine Hampsten

Chapter 13
Paternity leave, identity and fatherhood
Scott Sellnow-Richmond and Loraleigh Keashley

About the Editor and Contributors

This compilation brings to life the unique approach, and contribution, of communication scholarship to the quandaries and opportunities in managing the work/life interface. It is just the kind of collection I’ve been hoping to see brought forth.