| Using a symbolic interactionist frame and combining it with theories of gender, medical sociology, social constructionism and culture, this project explores what happens to women who want to have children and have "failed" to make the life course transition into motherhood. This project examines how infertility changes women's relationships and, in turn, her sense of self. In-depth interviews and an open-ended web survey of infertile women are used to examine how infertility, as a critical challenge, reshapes the self. I explore the impact of infertility on the self in three parts. In the first I argue that the most important relationships in the infertile woman's life have the behavioral expectation that she will become a mother. When she cannot meet this expectation she is subject to negative appraisals from these others, which has a negative impact on her self-concept. When others offer positive social support the impact is lessened. When others withhold support or offer negative support the woman is likely to experience a diminished self-concept. She can short circuit this impact by manipulating her relationships with these people. However, non-kin relationships are more easily manipulated than kin relationships. In the second part I argue that relationships with individuals the infertile woman is less close to appear to have a stronger impact on the self. Infertility causes women to be unable to "do gender" the way they are expected, by being mothers and talking about being mothers with other women. This leads to a change in the gendered self which often results in them feeling as though they were not truly women. In the third part I explore why some women come to take on the identity of "infertile," while others do not. Discourses concerning infertility associated with various infertility communities and women's connections to these communities facilitate their taking on of the discourse and this influences whether they come to see themselves as infertile. Throughout the project effects of social class and religiosity and their implications for the self are discussed. |
