Research Commons
      • Browse 
        • Communities & Collections
        • Titles
        • Authors
        • By Issue Date
        • Subjects
        • Types
        • Series
      • Help 
        • About
        • Collection Policy
        • OA Mandate Guidelines
        • Guidelines FAQ
        • Contact Us
      • My Account 
        • Sign In
        • Register
      View Item 
      •   Research Commons
      • University of Waikato Research
      • Education
      • Education Papers
      • View Item
      •   Research Commons
      • University of Waikato Research
      • Education
      • Education Papers
      • View Item
      JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

      "Never say never?": Heterosexual, bisexual, and lesbian women's accounts of being childfree.

      Hayfield, Nikki; Terry, Gareth; Clarke, Victoria; Ellis, Sonja J.
      Thumbnail
      Files
      Hayfield Terry Clarke Ellis.pdf
      Accepted version, 243.0Kb
      DOI
       10.1177/0361684319863414
      Find in your library  
      Citation
      Export citation
      Hayfield, N., Terry, G., Clarke, V., & Ellis, S. J. (2019). ‘Never say never?’: Heterosexual, bisexual, and lesbian women’s accounts of being childfree. Psychology of Women Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684319863414
      Permanent Research Commons link: https://hdl.handle.net/10289/13148
      Abstract
      Feminist scholars have identified a “motherhood imperative” in Western cultures, when heterosexual women are understood to both want and to have children. However, social shifts have resulted in a decrease in pronatalism as well as an increase in social recognition of the parenting desires of same-sex parents. Despite a resurgence of interest in childfree identities, research to date has predominantly focused on heterosexual women’s explanations for being childfree and their experiences of marginalization. Our aim in the current study was to explore how childfree heterosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and queer women negotiate their childfree lives and identities in the context of their personal and social relationships within changing cultural contexts. Data from 23 interviews with women in the United Kingdom, who responded to a call for childfree participants, were thematically analyzed. We constructed two themes: (1) Never say never? Negotiating being childfree as ever precarious, which shows how women constructed being childfree as requiring constant revisiting and renegotiating to maintain and (2) An ordinary life: Constructing being childfree as rational and reasonable, in which we identify the rhetorical efforts of participants to establish their being childfree as an ordinary, reasonable, and rational position. We conclude that for these women, childfreedom was constantly in flux and that maintaining a positive childfree identity required considerable identity work in order to manage intimate personal relationships and wider friendships.
      Date
      2019
      Type
      Journal Article
      Publisher
      SAGE Publications
      Rights
      This is an author’s accepted version of an article published in the journal: Psychology of Women Quarterly. © 2019 Sage.
      Collections
      • Education Papers [1416]
      Show full item record  

      Usage

      Downloads, last 12 months
      488
       
       
       

      Usage Statistics

      For this itemFor all of Research Commons

      The University of Waikato - Te Whare Wānanga o WaikatoFeedback and RequestsCopyright and Legal Statement