It is undeniably true that women find it challenging to balance career and family. This is particularly true for women in academia, where fewer women hold senior positions such as Associate Professors and Full Professors. The under representation of women in academia has been argued across centuries, underpinning early feminist movements for gender equality. To date, there is a high proportion of educated women, with many achieving PhDs. It is therefore in the best interest of universities in the South African context - where transformation is a top priority - that deserving academics hold senior positions, irrespective of their gender.

But, what is stopping women from reaching the top? One of the reasons includes motherhood. The fact that a disproportionate percentage of senior academic women are single, divorced and childless suggests that integrating work and family remains a problem for women. Nevertheless, I believe that it is a privilege to be a mother, therefore this piece of writing is not meant to diminish the validity of many women who are also dealing with infertility, family planning decisions, pregnancy loss or any other reason for not being a mother whilst also navigating academia.

I am a female academic and a mother to a lovely son. I am committed to both roles in my life, the academic role and the motherly role. Nonetheless, I have learnt in the past two years of being a mother that the phrase that ‘the sanctity of academia does not merge well with the sanctity of motherhood’ is somewhat true. And I am sure many mothers would agree with this phrase. To debunk what I thought was a ‘myth’ - that motherhood and academia are exclusive - I have encountered considerable conflicts. When you combine full-time academic work with motherhood, you continue to face challenges in terms of working hours, stress levels and work/family conflict. Universities emphasise research productivity and international collaborations, and these unfortunately aggravate these challenges. Substantial care responsibilities could either reduce a woman’s ambition and productivity or require her to develop very efficient work habits. Therefore, I would like to applaud all the mothers who have successfully risen through the ranks in their academic lives.

I would, however, like to highlight that academics who are mothers face unique challenges that disturb and negatively affect their work productivity, compared to academics who are fathers. These challenges are well documented in academic literature, and are because of the gender roles. Despite the major shifts in the conceptions of gender roles in work and family life, traditional expectations still exist that a woman’s primary responsibility lies in caring for children and family. For example, there is an unbalanced division of parenting and domestic tasks, such as cleaning, cooking and staying awake during the night to care for a child. Being successful in academia involves working long hours doing research and publishing – summed up in the well-known phrase “publish or perish”. Because of the parenting role, women have reduced time dedicated to research, which decreases their work productivity after the birth of children and puts them at risk of ‘perishing’. More often than not, this is associated with negative self-judgement when one fails to cope with conflicting demands. This is likely to cause increased stress levels and contribute to post-natal depression.

It is important to note that both roles bring a sense of joy and fulfilment. Therefore, this is an effort to start a discussion which many people shy away from - that motherhood is a challenge. The discussion will lead to a better understanding of the need to reduce the adverse effects of contemporary motherhood on women academics in terms of institutional support, family support and creating opportunities for more academic mothers to thrive and occupy senior positions.