Qualitative interviews with 17 postbaccalaureate nurses are analyzed with special attention to their management of conflicting commitments in the personal and occupational domains. Problems are seen as arising not only from organizational difficulties associated with parallel involvement with a profession and with the traditional domestic-maternal role, but from cultural categories that reflect sexual asymmetry. The paper discusses the strategies respondents use to minimize these contradictions, showing that these generally operate either to enhance harmony between the two domains or to accentuate their separateness from each other.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BAILYN, L.
(1964) "Notes on the role of choice in the psychology of professional women."Daedalus93: 700-710.
2.
BARDWICK, J. M.
and E. DOUVAN (1971) "Ambivalence: the socialization of women," in V. Gornick and B. Moran (eds.) Woman in Sexist Society. New York: Basic Books.
3.
BENSTON, M.
(1969) "The political economy of women's liberation."Monthly Rev.21: 13-27.
4.
BERNARD, J.
(1964) Academic Women. University Park: Pennsylvania State Univ. Press.
5.
CHESLER, P.
(1972) Women and Madness. New York: Doubleday.
6.
COSER, R. L.
and G. ROKOFF (1971) "Women in the occupational world: social disruption and conflict."Social Problems: 535-554.
7.
DALLA COSTA, M.
(1972) "Women and the subversion of the community."Radical America6: 67-102.
8.
DAVIS, F.
and V. L. OLESEN (1965) "The career outlook of professionally educated women: the case of collegiate student nurses."Psychiatry28: 334-345.
9.
DAVIS, F.
and V. L. OLESEN (1963) "Initiation into a woman's profession: identity problems in the status transition of coed to student nurse."Sociometry26: 89-101.
10.
DeBEAUVOIR, S.
(1953) The Second Sex.New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
11.
DEUTSCH, H.
(1944) Psychology of Women. New York: Grune & Stratton.
12.
EPSTEIN, C. F.
(1970) Woman's Place. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
13.
ETZIONI, A.
[ed.] (1969) The Semi-professions and their Organization. New York: Free Press.
14.
FOGARTY, M. P.
, R. RAPOPORT, and R. RAPOPORT (1971) Sex, Career and Family. London: Allen & Unwin.
15.
FREUD, S.
(1962) Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex. New York: Dutton
16.
FREUD, S.
(1933) "The psychology of women."New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. London: Hogarth Press.
17.
FRIEDAN, B.
(1963) The Feminine Mystique. New York: Dell.
18.
GEERTZ, C.
(1973) "Religion as a cultural system," in The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
19.
HOLMSTROM, L. L.
(1972) The Two-career family. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman.
20.
HORNER, M.
(1970) "Femininity and successful achievement: basic inconsistency," in J. M. Bardwick, E. Douvan, M. S. Horner, and D. Gutman (eds.) Feminine Personality and Conflict. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
21.
HORNEY, K.
(1924) "On the genesis of the castration complex in women."International J. of Psychoanalysis5: 50-65.
22.
KOMAROVSKY, M.
(1953) Women in the Modern World. Boston: Little, Brown.
23.
KOMAROVSKY, M.
(1946) "Cultural contradictions and sex roles."Amer. J. of Sociology52: 184-189.
24.
MILLETT, K.
(1970) Sexual Politics. New York: Doubleday.
25.
MITCHELL, J.
(1966) "Women: the longest revolution."New Left Rev.40: 11-37.
26.
OLESEN, V.
and E. WHITTAKER (1968) The Silent Dialogue. San Francisco: J ossey-Bass.
27.
ORTNER, S. B.
(1974) "Is female to male as nature is to culture?" in M. Z. Rasaldo and L. Lamphere (eds.) Woman, Culture and Society. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.
28.
POLOMA, M. M.
and T. N. GARLAND (1971) "The myth of the egalitarian family: familial roles and the professionally employed wife," in A. Theodore (ed.) The Professional Woman. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman.
29.
ROSALDO, M. Z.
(1974) "Woman, culture and society: a theoretical overview," in M. Z. Rosaldo and L. Lamphere (eds.) Woman, Culture and Society. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.
30.
SCHATZMAN, L.
(1966) "Voluntarism and professional practice in the health professions," in J. R. Folta and E. S. Deck, A Sociological Framework for Patient Care. New York: John Wiley.
31.
SIMPSON, R. L.
and I. H. SIMPSON (1969) "Women and bureaucracy in the semi-professions," in A. Etzioni (ed.) The Semi-Professions and their Organization. New York: Free Press.
32.
THOMPSON, C. M.
(1964) On Women. New York: New American Library.
33.
TROPMAN, J. H.
(1968) "The married professional social worker."J. of Marriage and the Family30: 661-665.
