ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to explore the experiences of women academics who are also mothers, to name the reality of the struggle and resistance that these dual roles involve, and to suggest strategies for surviving and celebrating the possibilities that occupying these two worlds offers. It explores the experiences of women academics through the use of concepts which reflect our major concerns. These concepts are: silence and isolation; the public/private divide; sexuality and the body; choice; power; intellectual space and play. The contributions of the workshop participants were also invaluable in providing a sense of community of experience, and these are included in the text. Different approaches to feminism, diverse and complex, have shed light on the importance of, and interconnections between, the public and private spheres in explanations of women's oppression. The presumed unemotional, competitive and mercenary, in opposition to those in the private being altruistic, affective and non-goal oriented.
