Speaking & Writing
Sandy enjoyed a career in marketing before a radical change in 2016 brought her to the world of academia. As such, she marries a unique skillset and knowledge base, understanding phenomena like 'the motherhood penalty' as more than just theory. She speaks at conference both academic and corporate, and is available for writing and speaking engagements dependant on the suitability of each project.
Common themes of her work include:
The Motherhood Penalty
The social organisation of care labour continues to impede the full political and economic participation of women. Second wave feminism of the the 1970's brought about significant gains for women in the workplace, however, an outdated Fordist notion of the family persists, disempowering mothers specifically. As such we have witnessed a gendered pay gap - less a result of man vs women - more a result of mothers vs non-mothers. In every country across the world, mothers earn less than non-mothers and significantly less than Fathers - who often times receive a 'Fatherhood Bonus' for their change in circumstance. Multiple social and economic factors feed this discrimination, but more than anything else the 'Motherhood Penalty' is a result of an intensive mothering ideology that directly conflicts with that of the ideal worker.
Maternal Regret
'I regret motherhood.'
Sandy presented a conference in July 2023 beginning with these words. The audience responded in markedly different ways - some horrified at the thought, whilst others, many of them mothers, cried tears of relief.
Regretting motherhood remains taboo. Maternality continues to be shrouded in sentimentality and discontent is silenced, but why? It seems that almost everything today is up for discussion with ambivalence being a respected and often times expected response - and yet motherhood is exempt from these 'un-natural' reflexions.
Sandy thinks through maternal regret from the persepective of social constructionism - that is to say the societal conditioning that women and mothers experience before and throughout their journeys into this existential event.
Matrophobia
Adrienne Rich describes matrophobia as a 'woman splitting [her]self, in the desire to become purged once and for all of our mother’s bondage, to be individual and free.” But how many of us seek determinedly to mother in the opposite way we were mothered? How many of us are afraid of becoming our mother through our own relationships with our children?
Sandy describes matrophobia as a fear of becoming her. A conscious action that is itself a cruel optimism for we exist at all times in our own prison of observation - as prosecutor and defence - as judge and juror. As philosopher, mother and once self identified matrophobic, Sandy offers a unique take on the idea of freedom and autonomy, in many ways shattering the notion that we can ever not be her.