ABSTRACT
Women’s work within the knowledge economy is shaped by their ability to activate different forms of capital involving human capital, emotional skills, knowledge and experiences. The market- oriented neo-liberal domains in IT work lead to emotional burn-out and alienation, where working middle-class mothers are framed within the gaze of educational performance of their children. For women from disadvantaged backgrounds engaged in knowledge work through group enterprises, the branding or label of IT work is a form of cultural capital, even in the face of emotional battles for social acceptance, the nature of technological enterprises and institutional constraints.
