This thesis examines the experiences, beliefs, motivations, and perceived costs and benefits of women who are childless by choice in Southern Alberta. I investigate the naturalized and normalized understandings of femininity, motherhood, and citizenship more broadly, and what this means for voluntarily childless women. Using data collected from 21 semi-structured qualitative interviews, I draw on a Foucauldian feminist framework to explore the narratives of voluntarily childless women, and, through subsequent examination, to explore issues of choice, responsibility, pronatalism, identity, and stigma. I first consider how the women negotiate their childbearing decisions in light of competing pronatalist, capitalist, and cultural demands. I then focus on techniques of identity construction by highlighting the negotiations of voluntarily childless women in relation to the physical, emotional, and social costs and benefits of their reproductive decisions. Finally, I explore the varying sources of pressure and support that impact women’s experience in daily life. / viii, 215 leaves ; 29 cm

Thesis (M.A.) Family and child studies--University of Central Oklahoma, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 45-47).

Thesis (doctoral)--Pontificia Universitas Lateranensis, 1986. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [179]-185).

Thesis--Wisconsin. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-84).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Western Seminary, Portland, OR, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 295-301).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Western Seminary, Portland, OR, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 295-301).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Western Seminary, Portland, OR, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 295-301).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Iowa, 2006. / Supervisor: Ellen Lewin. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 254-273).

Dominant discourses of womanhood and femininity equate woman and mother synonymously, implying that motherhood is a woman's destiny. Childfree women need to create identities divergent of these dominant discourses. Traditional and some feminist psychological theories of women's identity development are based on women's biology and their capacity to reproduce, either implicitly or explicitly. Women who choose to be childfree fall outside of these theoretical models and illuminate the necessity to revise or expand our theoretical understanding of women's identity development. In this qualitative inquiry, six voluntary childfree women were interviewed about their experience of being and becoming women. They shared their experiences of self discovery, living authentically, creating identities, and how being childflee impacts their sense of belonging to the womanhood.

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc. Psychology)--University of Waikato, 2008. / Title from PDF cover (viewed February 24, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 134-145)