In this study, we explore how women incorporate their experiences of disenfranchised grief into their work lives and with what consequences for their professional selves. To examine this question, we draw on 64 interviews with working women who have experienced a miscarriage within the past year. We find that in the absence of clear organizational policies and scripts for how to deal with their grief, women assess the supportiveness of their work relationships, which informs their emotion regulation processes. We induce two pathways by which women incorporate grief into their work lives. The first is a pathway through which women independently cope with their grief—they engage in solo emotion regulation strategies that enable them to tend to their grief while safeguarding their professional reputations. In so doing, they keep their grieving and professional selves compartmentalized. The second is a pathway through which women relationally claim space for their grief. They engage in social emotion regulation strategies that jointly serve as attempts to safeguard their professional reputations and make bids for psychological recognition. When recognition is attained, these women integrate their grieving and professional selves. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of humanizing the self at work, disenfranchised grief and work, and working women’s experiences of miscarriage.
