Markets in women's reproductive labor

Much of the evolution of social policy in the twentieth century has occurred around conflicts over the scope of markets. To what extent, under what conditions, and for what reasons should we limit the use of markets? Recently, American society has begun to experiment with markets in women's reproductive labor. Many people believe that markets in women's reproductive labor, as exemplified by contract pregnancy, are more problematic than other currently accepted labor markets. I will call this the asymmetry thesis because its proponents believe that there ought to be an asymmetry between our treatment of reproductive labor and our treatment of other forms of labor. Advocates of the asymmetry thesis hold that treating reproductive labor as a commodity, as something subject to the supply-and-demand principles that govern economic markets, is worse than treating other types of human labor as commodities. Is the asymmetry thesis true? And, if so, what are the reasons for thinking that it is true? My aims in this article are to criticize several popular ways of defending the asymmetry thesis and to offer an alternative defense....I focus my discussion on those arguments against contract pregnancy that depend on the asymmetry thesis. I believe that the asymmetry thesis both captures strong intuitions that exist in our society and provides a plausible argument against contract pregnancy.     

The psychological impact of reproductive difficulties on women's lives

Little is known about the long-term impact of reproductive experiences on women's lives. This paper uses questionnaire data collected from 107 White female college graduates, when they were approximately 47 years old. More than half the sample had experienced at least one type of reproductive difficulty (abortion, miscarriage, or infertility). The stress and coping model of life difficulties (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984) was used to examine the relationship between the women's reproductive difficulties and emotional sequelae, politicization, and orientation to motherhood at midlife. As predicted, emotional responses to the reproductive difficulties varied according to the particular nature of each experience. In addition, women who had abortions and no other difficulties were more politicized at midlife than other women. Women whose reproductive experiences were especially likely to arouse feelings of not being in control of their life (those who had miscarriages or infertility) described a more agentic orientation to motherhood when compared with other women.     

Lower income Hindu women's attitude towards abortion: a case study in urban India

After a brief discussion of Hindu views on abortion as reflected in classical Hindu philosophical and religious texts, this article examines, from an interdisciplinary perspective, current social attitudes towards abortion among lower-income Hindu women in Calcutta and attempts to identify the reasons for the striking disparity between traditional and modern Hindu views. Does Hindu dharma have the regulatory power it wielded in the past? What accounts for the changing face of mores in urban centers like Calcutta? These and related issues are the focus of this essay.     

Sexual preference,feminism, and women's perceptions of their parents

In an attempt to clarify the relation between parental variables, sexual preference, and sex-role attitudes, three groups of women were studied: lesbian feminists, heterosexual feminists, and heterosexual traditional women. The women were asked about their perceptions of their parents when they were in high school. The groups differed more from each other with respect to their perceptions of their fathers than their mothers. The perceived attitudes of the father were much more important in differentiating lesbian feminists from heterosexuals than in differentiating heterosexual feminists from heterosexual traditionals. Both the heterosexual groups (feminist and traditionals) reported having a more affectionate and involved father who also encouraged them more in the expression of anger than the lesbian feminists reported. The results suggest women's father relationships must not be obscured in research and support Johnson's hypothesis that the father relationship is more central than the mother relationship in sex typing and especially in the specifically sexual aspects of sex typing.     

Men's and women's self-confidence in persuasive,comforting, and justificatory communicative tasks

The self-confidence of men and women was assessed in three types of interpersonal communicative situations. Participants indicated anticipated level of success, evaluated their performance, and assessed the extent to which the outcome was due to ability and to effort. The most striking finding was higher self-confidence in women than in men in comforting tasks. No difference emerged in level of self-confidence between men and women in persuasive tasks. Men tended to anticipate more success in justifying decisions, but following their performance, did not rate either the quality of the performance or their ability higher than did women.     

Multidimensional self-concepts,masculinity, and femininity as a function of women's involvement in athletics

Measures of multidimensional self-concepts, masculinity (M), and femininity (F) were completed by high-school women athletes and nonathletes, and by young-adult women athletes and nonathletes. Women athletes in both age groups had substantially higher scores in M and in self-concept of physical ability, but did not differ substantially from nonathletes in F and in other areas of self-concept. Women athletes in both groups also judged their self-concept of physical ability to be more important to them than did nonathletes, but the two groups did not differ in the perceived importance of other areas of self-concept. These findings support the androgyny contention that MF should not be considered a bipolar construct and suggest that women can be more M without being less F. The specificity of the relation between athletic involvement and the multiple dimensions of self-concept also provide further support for the construct validity of the self-concept dimensions.The authors would like to acknowledge Lindsay McCaughan for his assistance in the design of the study, the staff and students at Pymble Ladies College, and the group of female powerlifters.     

Some demographic,personality, and role variables as correlates of women's well-being

This study examined the contributions of some demographic (age and education), personality (extraversion and neuroticism), and role variables (role occupancy and role quality) as predictors of happiness and symptoms of psychological distress in a sample of employed and non-employed English women (N= 145). Using multiple regression analysis, the results showed that personality variables accounted for the largest proportion of explained variance in the well-being measures. The results, however, did not support the predictions made by the transactional model of stress and that the three sets of predictor variables (demographic, personality and roles) combined additively in their effects on women's psychological well-being. Finally, the results showed that happiness and distress, though related, had different correlates. These findings are discussed in relation to current issues within the literature on women's work and family roles in relation to their well-being.     

Commitment,intimacy, and women's perceptions of premarital sex and contraceptive readiness

A person-perception study was conducted to examine the influence of intimacy and commitment on the acceptability of premarital sex and contraceptive preparedness. Ninety-six women rated a female target's personality and behavior after reading a diary entry describing a couple's initial sexual encounter. The nature of the couple's relationship and who provided the condom were manipulated between participants. Women inferred a committed relationship when intimacy was present. Women rated the target, and her behavior, as more acceptable when she had sex in a relationship with commitment. When she provided a condom, the target was perceived as less nice in the noncommitted than in the committed relationship. When her partner provided the condom, however, commitment level did not influence personality ratings.     

Work-family conflict,locus of control,and women's well-being: tests of alternative pathways

The author tested for the 3 possible pathways (i.e., direct, moderator, and mediator effects) in which locus of control can influence the relationship between work-family conflict and well-being. The author predicted that work-family conflict would be negatively correlated with well-being. In a sample of 310 Malaysian employed women with families, work-family conflict was a significant predictor of both job satisfaction and distress--negatively related to job satisfaction and positively related to symptoms of distress. More important, the results provided support for the effects of all 3 pathways of control on the relationship between work-family conflict and well-being, depending on the outcome measure: For job satisfaction, locus of control had direct effects, acted as a partial mediator, and played a significant moderating role. In contrast, only the direct effect of locus of control predicted distress. The author discusses those findings with reference to the literature on work-family conflict, locus of control, and the issue of stress-distress specificity.     

Men's friendships,women's friendships and the alleged inferiority of the latter

Over a decade of research utilizing a model and technique for the study of same-sex friendships has revealed some unsought and initially unexpected differences between men and women. Relevant aspects of this research are reviewed. Taken as a whole, the findings indicate overall differences between men and women that were readily interpretable in terms of traditional sex roles and socialization practices. However, when differences were found, they were seldom extremely large or glaringly obvious and thus provide no sound basis for predicting the character of the friendship of any particular pair of men or women. Moreover, when the friendships examined were limited to those that were very strong and of long duration, no appreciable sex differences were found. Special attention is given to the contention that women's friendships are inferior to those of men.     

Midlife women's generativity and authoritarianism: marriage, motherhood, and 10 years of aging

Generativity and authoritarianism assessed at age 52 were correlated with criterion variables assessed at age 62 in a sample of well-educated women (N = 81). Results indicated that generativity predicted positive personality characteristics, satisfaction with marriage and motherhood, and successful aging. By contrast, although authoritarianism is linked in the literature to endorsing traditional gender roles, authoritarianism was uncorrelated in the current study with happiness about marriage and was negatively related to perceptions of motherhood. Furthermore, authoritarianism was correlated with neuroticism later in life. These data suggest that midlife authoritarianism may be problematic as women transition from their 50s to their 60s. Midlife generativity, in contrast, seems to offer one path to life satisfaction.