Women remain significantly underrepresented at partnership level in accounting firms. The past three decades witnessed a steady increase in investment and research in gender equality in the profession, but there is a scholarly reluctance to focus specifically on motherhood despite the fact that four in five women will have children in their lifetime and experience inequality and discrimination as a result of their status as mothers. This article shares original empirical data of interviews with 60 female partners in Germany and the UK, focusing specifically on their experiences of motherhood and mothering. Theoretically, this article is framed by O’Reilly’s (2016a) matricentric feminism and Gatrell, Cooper and Kossek’s (2017) Douglasian thesis of the maternal body as a social pollutant at work. In Germany, the accounts frequently juxtaposed the maternal body with professionalism, with mothers expected to work part-time, but part-time working patterns deemed irreconcilable with partnership. Becoming a mother was often experienced as representing a burden to others at work. In the UK, the respondents were concerned with accessing maternity leave and returning to work, with some finding it challenging to make claims on the basis of their status as mothers. Half of the mothers were married to ‘househusbands’, often working like normative fathers, with some noting a lack of ‘choice’ in the matter despite their status and financial independence. In both countries, the unencumbered norm was mostly left unchallenged and the task of managing and hiding one’s care responsibilities left for individual women to work out in private, with the primary beneficiary of this concealment being the firm and its clients. The article demonstrates that we must make space for the study of mothering in accountancy if we want to be serious about tackling gender inequality within the profession.

在会计师事务所的合伙人级别，女性的代表性仍然明显不足。在过去的三十年里，该行业对性别平等的投资和研究稳步增加，但尽管五分之四的女性在一生中会生孩子并经历不平等和歧视，但学术界不愿专门关注母性问题。由于她们作为母亲的地位。本文分享了对德国和英国 60 位女性伴侣的访谈的原始经验数据，特别关注她们的母爱经历。从理论上讲，本文由 O'Reilly (2016a) 的母性中心女权主义和 Gatrell、Cooper 和 Kossek (2017) 的 Douglasian 论文构成，即母体是工作中的社会污染物。在德国，这些叙述经常将产妇身体与专业精神并置，希望母亲从事兼职工作，但兼职工作模式被认为与伙伴关系不可调和。成为母亲通常被认为是工作中其他人的负担。在英国，受访者担心休产假和重返工作岗位，有些人发现以母亲身份提出索赔具有挑战性。一半的母亲嫁给了“家庭主妇”，通常像规范的父亲一样工作，有些人指出，尽管她们的地位和经济独立，但在这件事上缺乏“选择”。在这两个国家，不受约束的规范大多没有受到挑战，管理和隐藏自己的护理责任的任务留给了个别妇女私下工作，这种隐瞒的主要受益人是公司及其客户。文章表明，如果我们想认真解决职业中的性别不平等问题，就必须为会计学中的母性研究留出空间。