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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2012

From me towards the other in me. An ethical perspective on motherhood and accounting

Résumé

In this paper, we raise the question of why women in high commitment careers in the accounting profession decide to quit their positions or make decisions that are likely to be potentially harming for their careers. This paper sets out toThe view taken is to propose a conceptualization of the identity construction in the case of female accounting professionals ants and mothers which emphasizes reflexivity as well as the ethical connection with others. This conceptualization suggests that "[i]ndividuals act in certain ways because it would violate their sense of being to do otherwise" (McNay 2000, p. 80). The empirical data presented in this paper is based upon the doctoral project dissertation of one of the authors on female French public accountants' identity construction. Drawing on 23 semi-structured interviews with female accountants and mothers we seek to throw light on how being a mother may affect professional life priorities for women professionals and with what consequences on the construction of their identities. Our analysis resonates to a large extent with Messner's (2009) recent inquiry into the ‘‘limits of accountability". Messner also builds on Butler's work in order to describe the accountable self as being opaque, exposed, and mediated by norms and as such inherently limited in its ability to give an account of itself. Thus, according to Butler, there is, first, a part of us which remains inaccessible despite our sincerity and willingness to tell the story of the self. It is precisely the personal history, this unique exposure to the social world, which together with our early relationships, forever locked in the pre-consciousness, can never be told. SecondMoreover, this story of the self is always addressed to somebody, who in return influences the self-narrating ‘I'. Thus, the other is always present in the story of the self, as all beings are living in interdependence. Finally, there are social norms that not only influence the way in which the I deliver my story, but that also tend to impose themselves upon me and to cancel my attempts of expressing my uniqueness as a person. In this paper, we attempt to show that all these three elements (opacity, exposure and norms) seem to act differently depending on whether one is a woman or a man. They constitute limitations to the construction of the self, or in Butler's own terms the source of my foreignness with respect to myself. However, according to Butler: "my own foreignness to myself is, paradoxically, the source of my ethical connection with others" (2005, p. 84). Besides, she adds: "I find that my very formation implicates the other in me" (p. 84). Thus, building on Butler (2005), I argue that the limits mentioned by Messner (2009) building on Butler do not limit or close the identity construction, but on the contrary help establish the relationship with others as the basis of the self and consequently ground the responsibility we have towards the others. Thus, these limitations do not ultimately limit but enable the construction of the self. This relationship with the other constitutes together with the norms "the conditions of my emergence as a reflective being" (Butler, 2005, p. 39).
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hal-02408613 , version 1 (13-12-2019)

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  • HAL Id : hal-02408613 , version 1

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Ioana Lupu, Jean-Luc Moriceau. From me towards the other in me. An ethical perspective on motherhood and accounting. Gender, Work and Organization : 7th Biennial International Interdisciplinary Conference 2012, Jun 2012, Keele, United Kingdom. ⟨hal-02408613⟩
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