The Novel COVID-19 pandemic has dissolved the spatial distinction between production/workplace and reproduction/home. With essential services like childcare and public schools either shut down or ...dramatically curtailed, families have been stretched to the breaking point. Nowhere is the stress greater than among single mothers. This paper presents the results of a survey of single mothers who live alone with their children and single mothers who live in multi-adult households. We focus on three questions relevant to the situation faced by single mothers: (a) Does the experience of having created a support network prior to becoming a single mother mitigate the impact of the pandemic on single mothers? (b) Will the weight of daycare for preschool and school age children lead single mothers to look for new ways to organize their households? (c) More generally, will the antagonism between production and reproduction be altered as a result of the pandemic?
Single mothers by choice who delay having a child without a partner can choose to conceive with donor sperm and eggs. When they do, however, they face twin paradoxes: (a) advances in assisted ...reproductive technologies (ARTs) make it easier to have a child but harder to make an unquestioned claim to being a mother in light of a conventional genetic narrative; and (b) children who come from the same batch of donor embryos have more in common with each other genetically than they do with their gestational mother. Those paradoxes pose fundamental questions about motherhood and kinship. For example, does gestational motherhood with two donors alter the motherhood narrative? What becomes of the role of egg donor? How do single mothers manage their extra embryos and what role do extra embryos play in kinship? In-depth interviews with 42 single women suggest that they respond to the paradoxical effects of ARTs by engaging in a new process of motherhood—maternal bricolage—first in crafting embryos and then in finding homes for the ones they do not use. As bricoleurs, they challenge extant definitions of motherhood and kinship.
Unprecedented families formed by sperm donor siblings have grown up at the intersection of new reproductive technologies, social media, and the human desire for belonging. As the Internet has ...expanded, parents (and their children) who shared the same donor have discovered that they can connect. When they meet, they wonder: What does it mean to be a donor sibling? Do shared genes make you family? Does “family” even describe our relationship?
In an era in which conventional families are shrinking, the idea of connecting with genetically related strangers offers opportunities and risks. Hertz will discuss the contemporary interplay of genetics, social interaction, and culture expectations in an effort to explain the emergence of web-based donor sibling networks. Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, her talk is based upon over 350 interviews with donor-conceived children, their parents and donors from her co-authored book, Random Families.
A remarkable number of women today are taking the daunting step of having children outside of marriage. This book offers a full-scale account of this fast-growing phenomenon, revealing why these ...middle class women are taking this unorthodox path and how they have managed to make single parenthood work for them. Sixty-five women were interviewed—ranging from physicians and financial analysts to social workers, teachers, and secretaries—who speak candidly about how they manage their lives and families as single mothers. What the research discovers are not ideologues but reluctant revolutionaries, women who—whether straight or gay—struggle to conform to the conventional definitions of mother, child, and family. Having tossed out the rulebook in order to become mothers, they nonetheless adhere to time-honored rules about child-rearing. As they tell their stories, they shed light on their paths to motherhood, describing how they summoned up the courage to pursue their dream, how they broke the news to parents, siblings, friends, and co-workers, how they went about buying sperm from fertility banks or adopting children of different races. They recount how their personal and social histories intersected to enable them to pursue their dream of motherhood, and how they navigate daily life. What does it mean to be “single” in terms of romance and parenting? How do women juggle earning a living with parenting? What creative ways have women devised to shore up these families? How do they incorporate men into their child-centered families? This book provides concrete, informative answers to all these questions.
Institutional change has a human face. This paper explores how a select group of women in China and India experienced economic and political turmoil and why they chose to become change agents. ...Through in-depth interviews with 40 women from NGOs, government agencies and private business, four broad moments in the evolution of a change agent are identified and discussed: (1) awareness of a double-bind; (2) reframing the tension induced by that double-bind; (3) becoming an agent of change; and (4) building a vibrant network. To highlight these key features, four women’s narratives are discussed in greater depth from recognizing injustice to taking a non-traditional stand. The paper concludes with a call for further comparative work on the role of personal narratives in shaping a movement for change.
A fundamental part of the adolescent self is formed through interaction with intimates, usually family members whose roles are reasonably well-defined. However, donor siblings-children who share a ...sperm donor-lack social scripts for interacting with one another, particularly when they are raised in different households. Moreover, they are often challenged to figure out their relationship to newly discovered genetic relatives. This article examines how donor-conceived teens and young adults navigate relationships with their half siblings and form intimate relationships. Drawing on Garfinkel's concept of indexing, or the use of familiar categories to make sense of new situations, these youth rely upon their personal knowledge of friends and family to figure out what kinds of relationship they can develop with donor siblings. Based on interviews with 62 youth aged 14-28, who had their own social media accounts and who had chosen to establish contact with their donor siblings, the articles discusses the three stages most donor siblings go through-"anticipation", "first contact", and "relationship building"-and the way those stages shape individual identity formation. In the course of the analysis, the article also explores whether interaction with donor siblings affected individual's sense of identity and whether feelings of closeness with donor siblings differ for youth raised as solo children versus those who have siblings with whom they share a household. For those who report feeling close, youth describe how intimacy is sustained and negotiated at a distance. Finally, as much as youth pick and choose intimates from their larger network, the article also argues that their collective identity as related-kin members remains.
Chivalry dictates that on a “date,” the man pays, whereas egalitarian ideals suggest that gender should not determine who pays. We examined the extent to which people embrace or reject these ...competing notions. Unmarried heterosexual participants (N = 17,607) reported their behaviors and attitudes regarding who does and who should pay for dates on a survey posted on NBCNews.com. Although most men (74%) and women (83%) report that both members of the couple contribute to dating expenses after dating for 6 months, most men (84%) and women (58%) reported that men still pay more expenses. Many women (39%) wished men would reject their offers to pay and 44% of women were bothered when men expected women to help pay. Many women, however, were bothered when men won’t accept their money (40%). Nearly two thirds of men (64%) believed that women should contribute and nearly half of men (44%) said they would stop dating a woman who never pays. Nevertheless, the majority of men said they feel guilty when accepting women’s money (76%). These data illustrate how many people are resisting or conforming to traditional gender norms in one telling aspect of dating that historically was related to the male’s displaying benevolent sexism, dominance, and ability to fulfill breadwinner role during courtship.
Although women constitute approximately half of medical school graduates, an uneven gender distribution exists among many specialties, including radiation oncology, where women fill only one third of ...residency positions. Although multiple social and societal factors have been theorized, a structured review of radiation oncology resident experiences has yet to be performed.
An anonymous and voluntary survey was sent to 611 radiation oncology residents practicing in the United States. Residents were asked about their gender-based experiences in terms of mentorship, their professional and learning environment, and their partnerships and personal life.
A total of 203 participants submitted completed survey responses. Fifty-seven percent of respondents were men, and 43% were women, with a mean age of 31 years (standard deviation=3.7 years). Although residents in general value having a mentor, female residents prefer mentors of the same gender (P<.001), and noted having more difficulty finding a mentor (P=.042). Women were more likely to say that they have observed preferential treatment based on gender (P≤.001), and they were more likely to perceive gender-specific biases or obstacles in their professional and learning environment (P<.001). Women selected residency programs based on gender ratios (P<.001), and female residents preferred to see equal numbers of male and female faculty (P<.001). Women were also more likely to perceive work-related strain than their male counterparts (P<.001).
Differences in experiences for male and female radiation oncology residents exist with regard to mentorship and in their professional and learning environment.
Comparative research on sperm donors and egg donors in the United States suggests that while men view themselves as fathers of their offspring, women do not view themselves as mothers. Comparative ...research suggests as well that men and women are equally interested in contact with offspring, equally curious about them, and equally likely to hold themselves responsible for those offspring. This paper re-examines these differences and similarities using data from a survey of donors who registered on a third-party website with hopes of having some contact with their genetic offspring. Our findings suggest that women and men offer similar reasons for donating and similar assessments of the experience. Yet, the two groups have developed quite different patterns of interest in their offspring. The men create a sense of "prideful lineage" rather than fatherhood. The women create a pattern of feeling that involves "concerned responsibility" rather than motherhood.
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