In the communities of the Cape Flats, it is expected that all women will bear children and become mothers. Motherhood serves as a social and cultural indicator of femininity and enables women to access social and economic networks that knit them into community. The social and cultural valorization of motherhood in these communities has informed the powerful stigmatization of infertility ( or the involuntary nonconformance to motherhood). The stigma associated with infertility affects women in particular, because the inability to bear children is commonly perceived to be a woman's problem. This study explores the cultural constructions of infertility. It examines in particular, the diverse cultural meanings and the stigma associated with infertility. The examination of these cultural meanings challenges the notion that infertility should only be examined in the biomedical realm. My research was conducted over a seven month period with six infertile women and with women who have borne children from different areas on the Cape Flats. The infertile women were the primary informants. Other informants included the mothers with whom the focus group was conducted and specialist informants who were healthcare professionals. The participants were recruited through the primary health care clinic in Manenberg, the network of community newspapers, The Daily Voice and through my own social network. Qualitative research methods were used. The study also used participatory research methods involved because the participants played an active role in the construction of the research process and interview schedules. The primary information used was obtained from in-depth interviews and journals kept by the infertile women. For comparative purposes, a focus group was conducted with a group of mothers. The study illustrates that on the Cape Flats, infertility is constructed as a major cultural and social problem for women. The stigma attached to infertility draws its power from the social and cultural meanings associated with inability of infertile women to live up to the expectation that every adult woman will become a mother. The effects of the social stigma of infertility are especially profound. As I show, bio-medicine does offer some solution, but only to the few who can afford it.

No description available.

Infertility affects millions of women in the United States and across the globe. Research has identified negative psychological outcomes of infertility (depressive and anxiety symptoms). Many women (and men) report infertility as the most upsetting event in their lives. Regardless of which partner is infertile, women report questioning their self worth, experience guilt, and feel responsible. Specific reasons why these negative outcomes occur are not well understood. The goals of this study were to examine women’s perceived infertility stigma and explore its role in psychological functioning. Perceived stigma can include shame, embarrassment, or fear of rejection related to holding a stigmatizing attribute. Infertility may be stigmatizing for women given the majority are socialized to want children, and motherhood still is considered women’s primary social role. Feeling of inadequacy or inferiority may result when women perceive themselves as not measuring up to societal expectations or to their own expectations as women. The present study, the first to examine infertility stigma using direct, quantitative methods, included development of a perceived infertility measure, and a pilot test of the measure to examine its relation to psychosocial outcomes. Nine women with infertility from Appalachia were interviewed in-depth. Fully recorded and transcribed interviews were coded for stigma-related content; scale items were developed from this content. The initial 87 items were pilot tested on a sample of women with infertility. Results showed that women report a variety of experiences including perceiving themselves as inferior or less of a woman, trying to keep infertility a secret from others, and being treated differently including in a patronizing way. Women also reported fearing rejection from others including their partners. Details of scale development and preliminary results of pilot testing, including initial validation of the new scale, will be discussed.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

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

Despite recent attempts to retrieve the body within sociology and the assumption of a now 'embodied' framework, how this should be done remains problematic, contentious and disputed. Current tensions more than partially revolve around the difficulty overcoming the limitations of foundationalist and anti-foundationalist approaches, restricting the development of a truly embodied and empirically driven conceptual framework. Remarkably little theory has entered the body and considered the body in terms of its own inner processes, the result of a persistent ontological queasiness concerning bodily interiority. The exclusion of the interior of the body problematises any integration between not just what bodies mean but also what they can do. As a field of location, I address the question of how both the female body and women's embodied experiences within the field of infertility can be both theorised and explored without succumbing to these limitations. Acknowledging the influence of both feminist and hermeneutic perspectives, and situating my approach within a temporal and biographical framework, I acknowledge both the interior and exterior of the female body. An empirical study of 15 women's experiences of infertility treatment was conducted using life story interviews and researcher-solicited diaries. Analysis focused upon the conditions of meaning-making and understanding, emphasising the biographical and temporally-situated of women's narratives in relation to the female body. By overcoming the difficulties admitting the female body into our analyses, this thesis illuminates the process of embodiment itself in the development of a truly embodied and empirically driven theoretical and conceptual framework in this field.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1989.