Facets of Agency in Stories of Transforming From Childless by Choice to Mother

Family scholars have explored in depth how and why some women choose to never have children. However, some childless‐by‐choice (also termed childfree or voluntarily childless) women—who have declared their desire and intention to never have children—ultimately become mothers because of changes in choice or circumstance. Through a qualitative analysis of interviews with mothers who once articulated themselves as permanently childless by choice, this article presents three facets of agency in women's stories about childbearing transformations: accidental conception, ambiguous desire, and purposeful decision. Participant interviews indicated that each facet of agency was enabled and constrained by multiple individual, relational, and cultural considerations, including self‐described biological urges, partners' childbearing desires and intentions, and cultural stigma against abortion. Pathways from childless by choice to mother often encompass multiple facets of agency and include movements in and out of various fertility desires and intentions before conceiving.     

失地农民——一个亟需关注的弱势群体

失地农民——一个亟需关注的中国典型弱势群体,目前的情况变得愈来愈严重。在此之前已有不少专家学者进行过呼吁,但一直未能得到妥善的解决。本文从新时期失地农民的情况进行剖析,结合了许多当地实际问题,得出了不少有特殊见解的结论。     

If Momma Ain't Happy: Explaining Declines in Marital Satisfaction Among New Mothers

This study tests competing explanations for the link between the transition to motherhood and declines in wives' marital satisfaction. Using data from the first and second waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 569), we found that new mothers' marital satisfaction declines could be attributed to reductions in wives' quality time spent with their husbands and to increases in perceptions of unfairness in housework. Family role traditionalization in the wake of the birth of a child did not directly explain marital satisfaction declines but was linked to perceptions of marital unfairness. Attendance at religious worship services did not moderate the association between the transition to motherhood and marital satisfaction changes.     

情感张力下的女性存在之思——普拉斯母性体验诗《展歌》细读

从诗歌理论术语“张力”入手,剖析诗中初为母亲的“我”的情感变化所凸显的情感张力。结合普拉斯的创作经历与创作背景,探讨普拉斯在母性体验书写中所传达的关乎女性存在的思考。由此可知,普拉斯在创作《晨歌》时所发的思考并非悲观的绝望,而是积极的希望。     

Motherhood of Battered Women: The Struggle for Repairing the Past

The purpose of this study was to describe and analyze battered women's subjective perceptions of their own motherhood. Although there is substantial knowledge about the negative effects of children witnessing their mothers' abuse by their fathers, there is little research available on the motherhood of battered women. Examining this issue in the clinical, ethical, and research domains is a complex process. Yet, increasing our understanding of battered women's own perspective is essential if we want to implement comprehensive and effective treatment. The present study is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 20 battered women. The finding show that battered women describe a basic mission in their life that structure the core meaning of their motherhood, namely, to repair the negative experiences of physical and emotional distress caused by their parents. Such repair is seen as compensating for the past and as building a positive and safe emotional reality for their children's future.     

信用缺失与权利义务的失衡

权利与义务是社会关系的基本内容,也是信用关系的基本内容。信用虽然表现为对于人们交往活动的基本义务要求,但其实质却是对于权利的承认与尊重,权利与义务的统一是信用秩序赖以建立和维持的基础。社会信用缺失的根源在于权利与义务的分裂和背离,因此,重建信用的核心在于为守信者提供利益保障,使背信之人受到应有的制裁,恢复权利与义务的平衡。在信用秩序的重建过程中,制度具有关键的作用。只有道德的价值导向与制度的利益导向的有机结合,社会信用秩序的重建才有希望。     

论《金色笔记》中的女性异化

资本主义制度本质上是父权制度,女性异化是资本主义父权制的必然产物,女性在资本主义社会主要被异化成三种身份:性伴侣、母亲和妻子。《金色笔记》是多丽丝.莱辛的第二部小说,主要记录了女主人公安娜的生活经验,揭示了包括女性在内的整个社会群体的分裂。安娜的精神混乱状态是资本主义社会女性异化的最终结果,这种异化具体体现在性体验、母职和精神智力三个层面,对这三个层面的深入分析有助于探索女性的最终解放途径。     

‘Making It’ Versus Satisfaction: How Women Raising Young Children in Poverty Assess How Well They Are Doing

ABSTRACT

Using in-depth interviews with 17 women raising young children in urban poverty, two separate standards were examined—“making it” and satisfaction. “Making it” referred to one's perceived ability to meet the basic physical needs of her children. In contrast, satisfaction referred to how closely one's current life circumstances align with her personal notions of success. Results indicated that self-expectations greatly influenced which standard individuals prioritized, such that those with higher expectations valued satisfaction while those with lower expectations prioritized “making it.” Self-expectations aligned largely with one's poverty status, and women with the fewest economic resources typically expected the least for their lives. Findings from this study suggest that efforts to support women raising young children in poverty must address both standards if they are to be relevant, effective, and sustainable. Similarly, if individuals are to succeed in such interventions, they must be supported in developing higher expectations for their lives, given the role that expectations play in catalyzing one's sense of a life beyond survival. Future research and implications for theory and practice are outlined.     

Not Ready to Make Nice: Aberrant mothers in contemporary culture

The story of motherhood in popular culture has never been a simple one. Cross-cut by race, class, and sexuality (and, importantly, marital status), interwoven with changing psychological and biological theories and fantasies, tied up with nation-building and citizenship claims, images of motherhood remain both template and signpost upon which we project our desires for kinship and care and our most vexed understandings of womanhood and femininity. This essay examines fictional motherhood in an era of real-life Octomoms and presidential candidates. We argue that a new type of mother has emerged—particularly on TV—that presents a radical departure. From the suburban mom/drug dealer of Showtime's outré series Weeds to the vapid 1960s wife of Mad Men, aberrant mothers abound in contemporary culture. But, unlike aberrant mothers of earlier eras, these mothers are by and large heroines, unapologetically non-normative in their maternal functioning. The parenting is cursory at best and often downright neglectful, behavior that has typically resulted in sure death for Hollywood mothers of earlier eras. We examine these images as a challenge to normative familialism and rigid gender ideologies.     

Good Mothers,Bad Mothers

This paper reports on an analysis of representations of child abuse in English-language newspapers in Malaysia. Certain media images of mothers recur: bad mothers who are unable to protect their children; and good mothers, who are feminine representatives of a maternalised national government which is charged with interceding on behalf of abused children. Mothers implicated in child abuse are harshly judged by the maternalist regime. Our findings resonate with previous feminist analyses of child abuse but manifest differently in a non-Western, non-Christian context. In Malaysia, motherhood plays a crucial role in nationalist political culture; women and mothers carry increasing economic, social and political burdens in the rapidly modernising state. Fathers are largely marginal or absent in media reporting of child abuse, while mothers are represented as fully responsible for the care of children, particularly when problems occur. The media's blaming of child abuse on social changes while valorising traditional families reflects a conservative, patriarchal perspective, occluding discussion of the contexts of child abuse and thus mitigating against comprehensive solutions.