ABSTRACT
Although men and women seem to have a fairly equal career outlook in the Colombian audiovisual industries, there are tacit considerations about gender, maternal responsibilities and capital background that constrain the prospects for mothers’ careers. In this context, the most disadvantaged women are those who do not run their own business or do not count on an advantageous cultural, social or economic capital that allows them to find a balance between their personal and professional lives. The higher the position in the audiovisual production chain, the less demanding their motherhood negotiations with work will be. On the contrary, the lower their role in the production chain, the more complicated their negotiations will be. However, these negotiations and their outcomes depend on each mother’s approach to motherhood.
Furthermore, to keep up with the demands from the audiovisual sector, mothers negotiate not only the time they devote to either work or family but also the public display of their maternal status. This is how the local production culture revealed by this study is marked by masculine patterns of work and employment, where women and mothers observe male labour approaches and practices to be taken as valuable members of the sector.
