Ideal bodies at work: faculty mothers and pregnancy in academia

This study explores female faculty members' pregnancy and pregnant embodiment in academia. Based on semi-structured interviews with 32 faculty mothers from 21 academic institutions in the U.S., I examine their experiences of working while pregnant and highlight the ways that the pregnant body disrupts the masculine disembodied ideal academic worker norm. Pregnancy can still be an anomaly in the university classroom where the division between work and family - mind and body - is the norm and where the 'ideal academic worker' model can influence who succeeds or fails. The ideal of the disembodied academic influenced the pregnant women's decisions about when to announce their pregnancy, how they managed their pregnant body, and how colleagues and students responded to their growing physique. The conclusion calls for more research on how the academic workplace responds to the embodied realities brought about by the changing sex composition of university faculty.