Childfree Women : Becoming, Being, and Belonging

ISBN-13: 9783639107944 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 100 str.

Lisa M. Mortimore

Opis

Dominant discourses of womanhood and femininityequate woman and mother synonymously, implying thatmotherhood is a woman s destiny. Childfree women needto create identities divergent of these dominantdiscourses. Traditional and some feministpsychological theories of women''s identitydevelopment are based on women''s biology and theircapacity to reproduce, either implicitly orexplicitly. Women who choose to be childfree falloutside of these theoretical models and illuminatethe necessity to revise or expand our theoreticalunderstanding of women s identity development. Inthis qualitative inquiry, six childfree women between29 and 35 years of age were interviewed about theirexperience of being and becoming women. They sharedtheir experiences of self discovery, livingauthentically, creating identities, and how beingchildfree impacts their sense of belonging to thewomanhood.

O autorze

Lisa Mortimore, MA, is a psychotherapist and educator with a
private practice in Victoria, BC. Currently she is working on her
PhD at the University of Victoria. Her clinical practice and
research interests focus on identity development, social justice,
trauma, and spirituality.