Kristine M. Baber

Women and families : feminist reconstructions

Families--often a source of satisfaction, growth, and fulfillment for women--can also be an arena of domination, abuse, and pain. This volume uses a postmodern feminist perspective to elucidate womens myriad experiences in the family, providing an integrated analysis of critical aspects of intimate relationships, sexuality, childbearing decisions, care giving, and work within the family context. Throughout, the book focuses on the nature of the choices women must make as they attempt to meet their own needs while nurturing and sustaining their intimate and family relationships.Challenging traditional definitions of the family, WOMEN AND FAMILIES reveals the rich diversity of family relationships that women actually construct. The proliferation of new family configurations, the diversity of connections that women form with intimate partners, and the multiplicity of choices they make regarding paid work and parenting are examined. With a focus on heterosexual and lesbian family experiences, the book provides an inclusive perspective rarely found in the family studies literature. Drawing upon current research and theory, the volume creates a vision of what families might be when relationships are based on mutual respect, equality, and choice.A comprehensive introduction to postmodern feminism, WOMEN AND FAMILIES incorporates feminist thinking and research from a variety of disciplines. It provides an integrated analysis of the connections among women, their families, and the wider culture, and illuminates both the differences and the similarities among women. Action-oriented, the book stresses themes of economic autonomy, choice and equality, reproductive freedom, and education for critical awareness, and presents pragmatic recommendations for empowerment.Offering a unique perspective on the reciprocal influences between women and their families, this volume will be of interest to a wide range of professionals including family specialists, therapists, social workers, psychologists, and sociologists. Ideal as a primary text for upper division undergraduate- or graduate-level family studies, womens studies, and gender studies courses, WOMEN AND FAMILIES also serves as a supplemental text for courses in counseling, sociology, psychology, social work, and life-span development.

College women's career and motherhood expectations: New options, old dilemmas

Women who desire to both work and parent are faced with the dilemma of how to integrate potentially conflicting roles and responsibilities. This study explores 250 college womens thinking about careers and childbearing. The results suggest that although these young women have been rethinking their career options and expanding their career choices into areas that have been traditionally male dominated, there is little indication of a reciprocal change in thinking about the primacy of mothering. All of the women expected to have careers, but few planned to be child free or have only one child. Women pursuing innovative careers were, however, less child oriented than those planning careers moderately innovative or traditional for women. The findings are discussed in the context of these womens proposed strategies for managing conflicting demands of work and family roles. These strategies include delayed childbearing, equalitarian marriages, and part-time work.

ETHICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL TENSIONS IN APPLYING A POSTMODERN PERSPECTIVE TO FEMINIST RESEARCH

We examine tensions that arise in applying postmodernism to feminist research. First, we consider epistemological tensions generated in the process of deconstructing existing knowledge and constructing new knowledge that benefits women. Second, we examine six ethical issues that reflect the tensions in feminist practice as we attempt to justify the dialectic between knowledge and power. In keeping with a postmodernist perspective, we pose these six issues as questions: Is feminist postmodernism “postfeminist”? Does postmodernist language mystify feminist practice and goals? Are qualitative methods more feminist than quantitative ones? Must feminists have a liberatory purpose in their research? Is the personal too personal? Whose aims are served, feminists or their collaborators? We conclude that by adopting a postmodern feminist perspective, we can embrace the struggle between knowledge and practice rather than privilege one over the other.

Building Bridges: Feminist Research, Theory, and Practice A Response to Janet Saltzman Chafetz

To Janet Saltzman Chafetz’s question about whether it makes any sense to talk about feminist theory and feminist methodology in social and behavioral sciences, I respond, “Absolutely.” I relish the opportunity to have these discussions, and as vice-chair of the feminism and family studies section of the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR), I feel responsible for ensuring that they occur. As I read and reflected on Janet’s article, I found that I agreed with a number of points that she made, but I would like to expand on some of these ideas. I agree with Janet that “disciplines have boundaries that define the nature . . . of their endeavors, and work outside that boundary is work of a fundamentally different discipline” (Chafetz, 2004, p. 964 [this issue]). I also agree that those boundaries should not be totally open. There clearly are criteria for what I would include as feminist research, but I hope that the boundaries are still permeable enough to allow a dynamic, multidirectional flow of ideas, energy, and interdisciplinary efforts. It is not clear to me who should do the boundary maintenance, but I hope that all of us with a commitment to doing scholarly work for, by, and about women and other marginalized groups will be open to deconstructing and reconstructing those boundaries from time to time. I see these discussions to be part of that process. My own orientation tends to be more postmodern feminist than standpoint feminist and, as such, I am inclined to attempt to transgress boundaries and to support others’ efforts to do so whenever it appears productive. In regard to the topic of feminist research, I not only relish the work of feminist scholars in family studies and celebrate the progress we are mak-

Women’s Sexualities

Positive sexual experiences contribute to women’s personal and relationship satisfaction throughout life (Brecher, 1984; Spector & Fremeth, 1996). Until recently, however, women’s sexuality either has been seen as a problem or ignored (Ussher, 1993). Therefore, we lack a comprehensive understanding of how women develop a sense of themselves as sexual beings. We also know little about the meaning and importance to women of their sexual identities and experiences. Particularly lacking is information about women’s sexuality after the reproductive years of 15 to 44 (di Mauro, 1995). What we do know about women’s sexuality is fragmented, problem focused, often biomedical in nature, and based primarily on the experiences of white women. Summarizing the results of a comprehensive assessment of sexuality research in the United States, di Mauro (1997) might have been talking about women’s sexuality specifically when she noted that: