ABSTRACT

This article develops a critical inquiry into women’s processes of renouncement in their pursuit of work- and family-oriented goals. It brings together insights from two different schools of thought: the capability approach and critical sociology. This qualitative analysis is focused on how processes of resource conversion fail to mobilise women’s resources and instead block their capabilities. The subjects of analysis are 24 paradigmatic life stories of highly educated Italian women in precarious work, who, having previously invested in the development of a professional career, then began to ‘back away’ from their initial goals following the arrival of children. This article makes three contributions: it sheds light on three multi-layered processes that prove to be unsuccessful in converting resources into the desired work-family outcomes in neoliberal economies, thus making a novel contribution to the capabilities framework; second, it shows that these processes are constructed over three different temporalities, suggesting that conversion processes abide by specific time modalities, thus moving towards a dynamic approach to capabilities; finally, it shines light on subtle but powerful mechanisms underlying the (unsuccessful) conversion processes through which the system of structural gender inequality is reproduced, thus opening up the analysis to the politics of power in action.

摘要

本文对女性在追求以工作和家庭为导向的目标时的放弃过程进行了批判性调查。它汇集了来自两种不同思想流派的见解：能力方法和批判社会学。这种定性分析的重点是资源转换过程如何未能调动女性的资源，反而阻碍了她们的能力。分析的主题是 24 个受过高等教育的意大利妇女在不稳定的工作中的典型生活故事，她们以前曾投资于职业生涯的发展，然后在孩子出生后开始“背离”最初的目标。本文做出了三个贡献：它揭示了三个多层次的过程，这些过程被证明在新自由主义经济中未能将资源转化为理想的工作-家庭成果，从而对能力框架做出了新的贡献；其次，它表明这些过程是在三个不同的时间上构建的，这表明转换过程遵循特定的时间模式，从而朝着能力的动态方法发展；最后，它揭示了（不成功的）转换过程背后的微妙但强大的机制，结构性性别不平等系统通过这些机制得以复制，从而打开了对行动中的权力政治的分析。它表明这些过程是在三个不同的时间上构建的，这表明转换过程遵循特定的时间模式，从而朝着能力的动态方法发展；最后，它揭示了（不成功的）转换过程背后的微妙但强大的机制，结构性性别不平等系统通过这些机制得以复制，从而打开了对行动中的权力政治的分析。它表明这些过程是在三个不同的时间上构建的，这表明转换过程遵循特定的时间模式，从而朝着能力的动态方法发展；最后，它揭示了（不成功的）转换过程背后的微妙但强大的机制，结构性性别不平等系统通过这些机制得以复制，从而打开了对行动中的权力政治的分析。