Austerity Culture and the Myth of the Mumpreneur

Dr Roberta Garrett, University of East London

This paper comes out of my interest in

contemporary popular domestic fiction and a

piece I wrote on mum’s lit comic fiction. It

was evident that mum’s lit heroines – figures

who are presented as capturing the zeitgeist of

what it means to be a contemporary working

mother – tend either to be self-employed or are

aiming to become so in the future. While many

of the protagonists were freelance writers

(reflecting the author’s own field of expertise)

the novels are also peopled by mothers who were

engaged in small scale business ventures; these

were often linked to traditional feminine

domestic skills and interests (e.g. baking,

needlecraft etc). Significantly (and this holds

true of chick-lit in general) very few of the

female characters worked in the traditional

spheres of employment associated with female

professionals, such as education or healthcare.

I wanted to flag this up before I start

addressing the issue of mumpreneurs more

specifically, as it could be argued that mum’s

lit, and other forms of female-orientated

cultural representations, typify broader shifts

in the cultural narratives woven around maternal

employment. Mum’s lit fiction is representative

of a fairly distinct shift away from dominant

ideology which justified women’s employment from

the 1920s- to 1970s, in which female employment

was sanctioned by an underlying ethos of public

service and self-sacrifice – what we might refer

to as the ‘call the midwife’ ethos. Since the

rise of neo-liberal political culture and

ideology, the prior emphasis on the enhancement

of the public realm through female-dominated

‘caring’ occupations, such as teaching and

nursing, has been replaced by one in which women

are encouraged to retreat into the domestic

realm and transform their existing feminine

skills and interests into commercial

transactions in order to benefit their

individual families. The cultural endorsement

of maternal self-employment thus complies with a

more general ideological thrust towards the

prioritisation of the private over public sector

and state’s desire to unleash the

entrepreneurial spirit in ordinary citizens.

This longer history brings us to the more

specific and recent history of Austerity Culture

and the Myth of the Mumpreneur. I’m going to

cover four main areas in the paper:

Firstly – When and Where does this term

originate?

Secondly – Who/what does it refer to?

Thirdly – How does the figure of the

‘mumpreneur’ enhance the rhetoric of Austerity

culture?

1 What are the origins of the term and where

does it circulate?

While the cultural idealisation of certain kinds

of female run business has a longer history –

aligned to neo-liberal ideals -the circulation

of the term mumpreneur or ‘mom’ preneur (in the

US) is much more recent. Most references –

either in the form of on-line magazines, forums,

in social media and in newspapers, have appeared

in the last decade. The term is therefore,

either explicitly or implicitly aligned with the

recession and imposition of austerity measures .

There are two British on-line magazines, the

Business Mum’s Journal, sponsored by mothercare and

launched in 2008, this was later rivalled by

Mumpreneur Uk, in 2010, there is a US mompreneur

facebook site and a UK Facebook Mumpreneurs

networking site (both started in 2011) aswell as

numerous advice websites on becoming a

mumpreneur. Mumpreneurs UK organises a national

conference with an award scheme sponsored by

Amazon and there are various other award schemes

for successful mumpreneurs. In terms of more

conventional (print) media sources, the Telegraph,

Independent and Daily Mail have run a number of

stories on the growing ‘phenomena’ of the

mumpreneur over the last few years for example,

The Telegraph ran a piece entitled ‘The rise of

the mumpreneur’, The Independent,, ‘mums do the

business’ and Daily Mail, The School Run Entrepreneurs,

The Rise of the Mumpreneur, Who will be crowned our

Mumpreneur of the year? (in reference to the Daily

Mail’s first set of mumpreneur wards to be

announced later this year).

2 What is a mumpreneur?

The definition varies according to source, but

there are certain key factors that mark out

‘mumpreneurs’ from the business community or

entrepreneurs more generally. Firstly, that

they are the parents of young children.

Secondly, that they are female. There are no

dadpreneurs or parentpreneurs, only mumpreneurs.

The term brings together two apparently opposed

terms in an uneasy alliance: the cosiness,

reliability and non-threatening cuddliness

associated with the humdrum and familiar ‘mum’

with the risk taking, wheeler-dealing,

traditional, ‘phallic’ connotations of

entrepreneurship. The mumpreneur is most

frequently depicted as an ‘ordinary’ mum who has

chanced upon a niche selling opportunity

aligned to her everyday mothering activities.

The mumpreneur’s response to the success of her

small scale business venture is frequently

surprise and gratitude. While some

‘inspirational’ stories began by acknowledging a

recession linked redundancy or an inability to

juggle work and childcare within their existing

careers, economic desire or need is rarely

emphasised as a motivation for starting the

business. They are more often portrayed as

searching for work/life balance (in the sense of

assuming the role of primary carer and

housekeeper while still earning) and/or to

assist other mothers by providing particular

products and services which will enhance their

children’s lives. These are a couple of examples

from Mumpreneur Uk:

Sotiria Spantidea, a busy mother of two,

decided to turn her back on her successful IT

career in the City to start an online children’s

boutique store.

Why I quit my city career to set up Butterfly

Occasions …..

My journey into entrepreneurship started as simply an enjoyable hobby, as I loved to search online for unique and unusual items for my children’s bedrooms. I have two little boys aged3 and aged 5 years old, and like many mothers, Ihad ideas of the quality and designs I wanted but often couldn’t find them on the high street or from mainstream retailers.

Soon, I realised that I was pretty good at researching and collating ideas, and decided to share them with friends and family. After receiving positive feedback about my choices of toys and furniture, I decided to take the plungeand turn my hobby into a fully-fledged business!

The biggest challenge however for 2015 will be trying to juggle my business and family life!

It’s not an easy thing to do, but I always try to find time to do the things I love and to be with the people I love. I’m trying not to steal the time I spend with my children to do my business as my family comes first.

Bubble Bum (inflatable car sears)

mumpreneur/owner, Grainne Kelly

How did you come up with the idea for BubbleBum?

I was travelling with my two kids back and forthto England to visit my mother-in-law who was very poorly at the time and every time I arrivedat the car rental desk they didn’t have the car booster seats, even though I had pre-booked them. I got into a real strop and asked loads ofquestions as to why they didn’t have them, to betold simply that they didn’t have the space. After speaking with friends, I found that this is actually a very common problem faced by parents so I decided that there was a need for an inflatable and portable solution that was lightweight and easy to fit into hand luggage.

And from The Business Mum’s Journal

Victoria Dixon, creator of ‘enhance me/’ an on-line service which enhances children’s photographs

‘ I was never intending to make huge profitsrunning my own business – I wanted to dosomething to supplement my husband’s income andhelp us live more comfortably.

In instances in which mumpreneurs are celebrated

founders of sizable companies, the rhetoric that

surrounds them still insistently places

domesticity and family first. For example, the

narrative surrounding Julia Deane, founder of

The Cambridge Satchell Company highlights her

desire to earn money but states that she was

chiefly motivated by her desire to rescue her

child from a sink comprehensive, where she was

apparently being bullied.

When Julie Deane discovered her daughter was being bullied, she vowed to move her to the £12,000-a-year school down the road.

But unable to afford the fees, the housewife satdown at her kitchen table and wrote a list of ten ways to raise money.

She says the greatest reward of her venture has been fulfilling her promise to her daughter.(10th Deceomber, 2012)

Similarly, one The Daily Mail mumpreneur award

nominees, was motivated to start her successful

chocolate company to support her autistic son. Harry Specters chocolates launched in November 2012, after Mona, 45, left her job in NHS corporate governance to make truffles. Her son Ash has autism, and she and her husband Shaz, 48, an engineer, had

grown increasingly concerned about his job prospects on leaving school.

The presentation of these ventures, particularly

in Mumpreneur Uk and Mums in Business reproduces the

visual rhetoric and personal interest narratives

of women’s lifestyle publishing more generally.

As you’ve probably surmised from some of the

examples I’ve mentioned, many of the companies

are orientated towards child products and

services, with names that are consciously cosy

and whimsical: Butterfly Occasions, Bubble Bum, Little

Pickles Marketplace, The Wooden Gnome store, Coochie Coo

Nappies, Corporate Baby, Big Hugs, Mess Around.

Although, surprisingly perhaps, The Daily Mail

featured a Scottish mumpreneur who had started a

successful small brewery, most of the companies

specialized in either luxury or child-safety

products and services (such as Bubble Bum) with a

heavy emphasis on home crafts and a general

ethos of wholesomeness ( organic and natural

products feature heavily). However, like many

small start-up business, they are largely

reliant on internet promotion and sales, using

this as a way of directly appealing to customers

and thus avoiding many of discriminatory

practices that have historically deterred women

from starting small business e.g. women’s

failure to secure the capital necessary to

obtain a shop.

In the final section I want to discuss what I

think are the specific problems with this term

and how it reinforces certain gender and class

positions within the culture of neo-liberalism

generally and the politics of austerity more

specifically.

As many sociologists and cultural critics have

observed, despite its endorsement of competitive

individualism, the rise of neo-liberal politics

has been coterminous with the normalization of a

neo-traditionalist view of family life and the

maternal role in particular (Diane Negra, 2009;

Ringrose and Walkerdine , 2008). As state

support for public funded institutions and

services withers, parental anxiety, particularly

in relation to the health and education of their

offspring, increases.

This is fuelled by an ever intensifying state

and media rhetoric of parental choice,

competition and performativity linked to the

expansion of private education, school league

tables, private healthcare and so on. As primary

caregivers, mothers are encouraged to be

knowledgeable, vigilant and tireless consumers,

seeking out the best possible opportunities and

services for their offspring, and developing a

raft of skills which feed into the now common-

sense assumption that good mothering is

‘intensive’ mothering (Hays, 1996; Douglas and

Michaels, 2004)). The mumpreneur’s stated

desire to achieve ‘work/life’ balance is thus

more accurately the need to combine this mode of

privatized and ‘professionalised’ mothering with

remaining economically productive. As paid child

care is a) highly expensive and b) requires

relinquishing the level of control currently

required to achieve ‘good mother’ status, being

self-employed and engaged in work which is

aligned to motherhood and domesticity seems the

obvious way to resolve the perennial

work/childcare conundrum within patriarchal,

neo-liberal culture.

There are other obvious ways in which the

mumpreneur feeds into a culture of neo-liberal

self-determination and austerity measures.

Firstly, mumpreneurs are often public sector

managers and workers that have either been

pushed or opted to take redundancy in the wake

of coalition cuts to public services.

Secondly, many of the services they provide,

particularly in the area of franchised

playgroups (often with some ‘niche’ element such

as Mess Around – a messy play company) or basic

advice on children’s health and safety( e.g. mini

first aid, a privatized service to instruct mums on

basic first aid tips for children) are moving

into the space vacated by dwindling public

services. As the vast majority of the cited

mumpreneurs are white, middle-class, university

educated women held down professional jobs prior

to becoming mothers, it raises the prospect of

wealthy women charging poorer ones for basic

services (such as toddler playgroups or

healthcare advice) which would, in previous

years, been provided by the state.

These issues key into a more covert aspect of

the celebration of the mumpreneur in terms of

both class and gender. She both banishes and

evokes the specter of two abject feminine

figures. Firstly, the phallic, avaricious,

business woman or ‘career bitch’. While

depictions of business women have become more

commonplace since the 1980s, they are

nonetheless still presented as troubling and

incompatible with normative views of gender

roles and family life. Initial cultural

representations in film and television

frequently presented such women as damaged and

cruel (Working Girl, Baby Boom, Fatal Attraction) while

more recent ‘reality’ programmes, such as

Dragon’s Den or The Apprentice continue to play on

the stereotype of the hard-nosed, anti-maternal

corporate woman or entrepreneur. In addition to

this, women such as Nicola Horlick and dot com

millionaress, Martha Lane Fox become the focus

of both admiration and derision.

In this context, the mumpreneur’s extreme and

performative ‘cosiness’ appears as a screaming

disavowal of the phallic attributes projected

onto such women. Indeed, it could be argued,

that the cultural presentation of mumpreneur

business practices and motivations are far more

closely aligned to a middle-class, feminine,

austerity culture of retro-thrift and ‘make do

and mend’ (addressed by my colleague Tracey

Jensen) than the dirty, unfeminine, cut-and-

thrust world of the male business tycoon. The

mumpreneur’s thrifty, no-nonsense desire to ‘do

her bit’ also raises the specter of a second

figure of abject femininity which has also

loomed large in the rhetoric of austerity: the

scrounging ‘Chav’ mum ( Tyler, 2008; Allen and

Osgood, 2009). While mumpreneurs are not greedy

or overtly materialistic, they are also

responsible, self-sufficient individuals whose

response to either economic or personal

catastrophe (eg redundancy, caring for a

disabled child) is to find ingenious ways to

provide for their families rather than relying

state handouts.

Conclusion: The Myth of the Mumpreneur.

I just want to begin drawing some final

conclusions which highlight why the mumpreneur

is an austerity culture myth (in the Roland

Barthes sense). It might seem obvious at this

point that the discursive construction of the

mumpreneur plays into both neo-traditionalist

views of gender and parenting and the ‘strivers

and skivers’ austerity rhetoric in which the

most disadvantaged members of society – such as

impoverished single mothers – are made

scapegoats for the excesses of neo-liberal

capitalism.

However, I want to end by raising a different

but equally salient objection to this term. If

the ideological imperative behind the

endorsement of entrepreneurship is one of

growth, providing employment and trickle down

wealth creation, the very small scale of these

business and their heavy reliance on promoting

themselves in relation to the particular life

stage and interests of the mother/founder,

precludes this. Ironically, it could be argued

that far from creating jobs, through the stated

advantage of ‘flexible working’ in terms of

combining work and childcare, small scale

mumpreneurs are reducing the need for

childminders and nannies that these women might

otherwise have employed. To conclude, unlike the

more successful founders of start-up business,

who are often male entrepreneurs and working

within the booming tech-sector, Mumpreneurs are

relatively privileged mothers who are finding

ways to remain economically active while they

cope with the onerous task of raising children

in neo-liberal culture. While the terms such as

‘pin-money’ are banished from these life-

affirming stories of female achievement, it is

highly misleading to describe them as

entrepreneurs in the traditional and the

discourse which surrounds them is no less

patronizing or reductive.