ABSTRACT
Issues surrounding gender disparities in academic publishing, especially for women with children, have long been reported. The pandemic exacerbated and underscored these issues to an even greater extent. This study explores the ways in which experiences of life during lockdown are narrativized by academic mothers in the comment sections of online news articles covering the topic of gender imbalance in academic publishing during the pandemic. Each of the three articles used in the study was published in the early months of the 2020 lockdown, when evidence of gender disparity was still mostly anecdotal. Methodologically, the study first applies membership categorization analysis in order to understand how gender roles in the academy emerge in the online discussions. Second, narrative analysis is applied to investigate how contributors to the comment sections tell stories of their own and others’ experiences. The intensification of personal and professional pressures is represented in the narratives through shrinking space and time. Exploring this as a chronotope, the study shows how the lockdown caused a collapse between the scales of home and work, which was felt deeply by academic mothers.
