ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses how female professionals handle family and work obligations. The following questions are answered: Has ideology on gender equality at home progressed at the same rate as it has in the workplace? What coping strategies do these highly professional women working in the globalised service industry have to deal with challenges of work and home – that is, the ‘triple shifts’ of fulfilling obligations at work, housework and ‘emotional work’ at home? How are these elite, seemingly confident, independent women similar or dissimilar to women who work for a wage as they face challenges of being starved of time, a care deficit and self-guilt? What resources do different female professionals make use of to be able to look after their children and support their career development? The answers relate to three contradictions embedded in the life trajectories of the respondents which motivate us to rethink the social construction of gender and the power politics of interpretation.
