Childfree And Feminine

@article{Gillespie2003ChildfreeAF,
  title={Childfree And Feminine},
  author={Rosemary G. Gillespie},
  journal={Gender \& Society},
  year={2003},
  volume={17},
  pages={122 - 136}
}
  • R. Gillespie
  • Published 1 February 2003
  • Sociology
  • Gender & Society
The roles of women and of feminine identity have been historically and traditionally constructed around motherhood. However, recent years have seen a growing trend among women to remain childless/ childfree. Drawing on interviews with 25 voluntarily childless women, this article considers the extent to which this trend results from the appeal or pull of the perceived advantages of a childfree lifestyle as well as the ways childfree women might represent a more fundamental and radical rejection… 
View on SAGE
195 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
30
Background Citations
92
Methods Citations
2
Results Citations
7

195 Citations

Silent bodies: Childfree women’s gendered and embodied experiences
This article reports from the first studies on voluntary childlessness in Sweden and addresses a so far neglected issue – the embodied experiences of childfree women. These childfree women reject and…
Women, thy Name is Womb: Marginalization of voluntary childfree women in feminist performance literature.
This thesis examines voluntary childfree women's lack of representation in modern feminist theatre. Pronatalist ideology within North American cultural feminism is explored in the context of…
An Autoethnography of a Childless Woman in Korea
The study presented here explored the experiences of a Korean childless woman through self-reflection. The autoethnographic narrative describes the social encounters of the childless woman and how…
Reconsidering Childfreedom: A Feminist Exploration of Discursive Identity Construction in Childfree LiveJournal Communities
This article employs participant definitional analysis, sensitized with feminist poststructuralism and critical ethnography, to understand three identity construction processes that members of…
Lived Experiences of Childfree Lesbians in the United Kingdom: A Qualitative Exploration
Evidence suggests that most lesbians remain childless, but little is known about the childfree lesbian experience. The current study qualitatively explores the experiences of five childfree lesbians.…
Fifty shades of freedom. Voluntary childlessness as women's ultimate liberation
Representations of Childless Women in the Australian Print Media
There is an array of socially constructed life scripts which feature the motherhood role as a pinnacle for women; however, increasing numbers of women are remaining childless, violating these very…
Making the childfree choice: Perspectives of women living in South Africa
This article explores heterosexual childfree women’s decisions and the ways in which they negotiate their childfree identity in the context of pronatalist expectations. A convenience sample of seven…
Exploring the Construction of Adulthood and Gender Identity Among Single Childfree People in Mexico and Japan
This article presents the analysis of personal narratives of Mexican and Japanese single and childfree cisgender heterosexual individuals to explore how people who do not comply with heteronormative…
Women's Voluntary Childlessness: A Radical Rejection of Motherhood?
In a culture in which motherhood is central to feminine identity, what are the experiences of women who decide not to have children? How might their experiences inform feminist scholarship on…
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 53 REFERENCES
Voluntary childlessness in the United Kingdom
When no means no
Reconceiving Women: Separating Motherhood from Female Identity
According to recent surveys, approximately 40% of American women between the ages of 18 and 44 do not have children. Yet these women are virtually missing from accounts of women's lives. In this…
The Motherhood Mandate
The centrality of motherhood to the definition of the adult female is characterized in the form of a mandate which requires having at least two children and raising them well. The processes mandating…
Lesbian mothers and the motherhood hierarchy.
  • E. M. DiLapi
  • Sociology, Economics
    Journal of homosexuality
  • 1989
TLDR
The "motherhood hierarchy" is presented as a conceptual framework for viewing lesbian mothers, and evidence from the literature supporting the existence of this hierarchy is integrated throughout the discussion.
Motherhood and Women’s Lives
Motherhood is a central aspect of most women’s lives worldwide. For example, in 1994 there were 6.7 million women with children under 16 in the UK: that is, 29 per cent of all women (Church and…
Unwomanly conduct : the challenges of intentional childlessness
Acknowlegments Preface: A Researcher's Story 1. the Politics of Reproductive Difference 2. Troubling Developments 3. Explaining the Choice 4. Symbolic Politics I 5. Symbolic Politics II 6. The Social…
Mother or not, mother or what?: Problems of definition and identity☆
Introducing Women’s Studies
In the late 1990s, Simone de Beauvoir’s statement is open to question. This questioning has come from post-modernists who have deconstructed the category ‘woman’, from those who prefer to think in…
Contemporary Families and Alternative Lifestyles: Handbook of Research and Theory
Single parent families, reconstituted families and dual-earner families -- this monumental effort synthesizes research and explores theories about such alternatives to traditional family life.…
...
...