The intersection of gender, ethnicity, and religion can contribute to unique discriminations for employed Muslim mothers in South Africa. Not only might their traditional clothing, skin color, and prayer practices present barriers to job opportunities and career progression; their identity of motherhood during pregnancy, maternity, and lactating/pumping when returning to work, augment their workplace discriminations. Euro-American and masculine workplace cultures dominate South African workplaces, and most research on combining breastfeeding and employment remains centered on white samples from the global North, with insufficient attention to ethnic and religious expectations and gendered identities in diverse contexts. Our theoretical framework integrates Holvino’s (2010) intersectional perspective of simultaneity with transnational psychology, grounding our study in the local southern context. By recognizing Muslim lactating mothers' cultural and contextual sensitivities, we validate them as experts of their lived realities. Our novel empirical and theoretical contribution cautions against universal assumptions about breastfeeding mothers’ experiences and the workplace support they need. We employed a longitudinal, qualitative research approach with 36 full-time employed Muslim mothers in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Data were collected at two points: within four weeks of giving birth and four weeks after returning to work. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were thematically analyzed. Preliminary findings suggest that although the man's traditional role in Islam is to provide, South Africa's economic climate necessitates dual-income households. Mothers returning to work endured taxing labor to fulfil their roles as good Muslim mothers, wives, daughters-in-law and workers, often sacrificing their wellbeing and encountering postpartum depression. They experienced bi-cultural stress while assimilating into masculine organizations, struggling with inadequate breastfeeding facilities and privacy concerns that compromised Islamic values of modesty. Despite these challenges, they valued their worker identity and exercised agency in their careers and families. Our findings advance work-family theory
development by integrating transnational psychology and intersectionality, underscoring the need for improved workplace support to retain diverse mothers.

Breastfeeding and lactation at work, transnational psychology, intersectionality, retention of diverse women, global south.

Applied Psychology Around the World | Volume 7, Issue 2