ABSTRACT
Academic work on parenting in the film and television industries has so far focussed on the effects on women of having children and there is a growing body of work around this subject. Yet, women who do not have children somehow do not acquire the advantages of being male in the television production workplace by virtue of their childlessness. They also do not access the potential dispensations of having children – the networks and adaptations mothers make to continue their work, which by virtue of their existence are potentially exclusionary. How do women without children react and adapt to these possibilities? Do they feel a different weight upon them by virtue of not having children? This chapter takes as its premise that there has been a ‘turn to care’ in the British television industry but it is, as yet, not developed enough to apply to all. With particular focus on flexible working, it demonstrates the exclusionary nature of the industry work done so far and that there has, in fact, been a resulting fracturing of practice that is of detriment to women across the British television industry because underlying norms remain intact.
