Following a straight path? The social locations and sexual identity trajectories of emerging adult women

2021 ◽  
pp. 144078332110495
Author(s):  
Alice Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Young Women ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Adult Women ◽  
Sexual Identities ◽  
Cohort Differences ◽  
Women's Identity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Emerging Adult Women ◽  
Over Time

The sexual identities of today's young women are more fluid and less consistently heterosexual than those of their predecessors – a trend that can be attributed to shifts in the socio-cultural context over time. However, this cannot explain within-cohort differences in women's identity trajectories. In this article, I draw from critical heterosexuality studies and test how young women's social locations are associated with their propensities to change towards or away from claiming a straight identity. Consistent with expectations, I find that women who occupy a position on the sexual landscape characterised by lower levels of heteronormativity, or who indicate a willingness to break with heteronormative expectations in the future, are more likely to change away from claiming a straight identity over time. My findings suggest that heteronormative ideology continues to structure women's lives to degrees that vary according to their social locations.

Relationship Fluidity

2020 ◽  
pp. 39-61
Author(s):  
Megan Lindsay Brown ◽  
Judy Krysik ◽  
Walter LaMendola ◽  
Drishti Sinha ◽  
Lauren Reed
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Adults ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Developmental Trajectories ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
The United States ◽  
Developmental Tasks ◽  
Adult Women ◽  
Adult Identity ◽  
Emerging Adult Women

Emerging adults are persistent users of information and communication technology (ICT), with young women between 18-29 being the highest users of ICT in the United States. Relatively little research has investigated how young women internalize experiences of emerging adulthood in the context of their development, and especially intimate relationships. Using qualitative interviews with young adult women, this chapter will explore how high ICT use mediates the developmental tasks of forming an adult identity and intimate relationships. Emerging adult women (18-29) who were high users of ICT (N=22) described their user habits and discussed their developmental trajectories and experiences. Findings demonstrated that identity and intimacy are still pertinent developmental tasks for emerging adults but have changed in nature allowing a fluidity that challenges the bounds of traditionally developmental theories.

“I’ve always been the one who drops everything”: the lived experiences and life-course impacts of young adult women carers

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-348
Author(s):  
Marjorie Silverman ◽  
Shari Brotman ◽  
Marc Molgat ◽  
Elizabeth Gagnon
Keyword(s):  
Young Adult ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Adult Women ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Young Adult Women ◽  
The Past ◽  
Personal Stories ◽  
The Social ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
The One

Based on findings from a Canadian-based study, this article examines the stories of young adult women carers. Young adult women caring for a parent or grandparent were interviewed using social network maps, participant-driven photography and care timelines. The findings reveal numerous impacts on the women’s lives, which we categorise according to three temporal periods: the past (how they came to be carers); the present (their daily realities of care); and the future (how they imagine what is ahead). We conclude with a discussion regarding the tensions between the women’s personal stories and the social forces that shape young women’s caring.

“I Learned Things That Make Me Happy, Things That Bring Me Down”

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerika C. Norona ◽  
Patricia N. E. Roberson ◽  
Deborah P. Welsh
Keyword(s):  
Romantic Relationships ◽  
Emerging Adults ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Adult Women ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Developmental Factors ◽  
Romantic Competence ◽  
Emerging Adult Women ◽  
Cognitive Maturity

Early romantic relationships have been described as the “learning context” and “training ground” for future intimate relationships; however, research has yet to examine the lessons that individuals take away from such relationships. In the present mixed-methods, longitudinal study, 348 adolescents and emerging adults (53% girls/young women) between the ages of 15 and 23 years were asked to reflect on and report the lessons they learned from romantic relationships in which they were involved 1 year ago (Time 1). These lessons were found to reflect the areas of romantic competence proposed by Shulman et al., including social cognitive maturity, romantic agency, and coherence. Quantitative analyses revealed that girls/young women more often referenced all three of the investigated areas of romantic competence than did boys/young men. In addition, emerging adults and individuals whose relationships were still intact at Time 2 more often referenced social cognitive maturity and coherence, whereas adolescents and individuals whose relationships ended by Time 2 more often referenced romantic agency. Furthermore, qualitative analyses revealed important gender and age differences in the ways adolescent girls and boys and emerging adult women and men described their lessons. In general, results suggest an experiential component to the development of romantic competence that complements developmental factors.

#PLLQueerTheory: Fans’ reactions to queer representation in Pretty Little Liars

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara K. Day ◽  
Summer Melody Pennell
Keyword(s):  
Queer Theory ◽  
Adolescent Girls ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Emerging Adult ◽  
Adult Women ◽  
Television Show ◽  
Queer Representation ◽  
Emerging Adult Women ◽  
The Relationship

Pretty Little Liars is a television show popular with queer teen adolescent girls and emerging adult women who engage in conversation on Twitter. In this case study centred on the queer relationship between main characters Emily and Alison, the authors employ fandom studies and queer theory to analyse tweets about the show using the popular hashtags #Emison and #BooRadleyVanCullen. Findings reveal that queer young women used Twitter both to praise and critique the relationship and its homonormative constructs, resist heteronormativity surrounding the portrayal of Emily’s sexuality in particular, and create a sustainable queer community.

scholarly journals “I didn’t feel normal”: Young Canadian women’s experiences with polycystic ovary syndrome

2021 ◽  
pp. 095935352110307
Author(s):  
Tanja Samardzic ◽  
Kendall Soucie ◽  
Kristin Schramer ◽  
Rachel Katzman
Keyword(s):  
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Polycystic Ovary ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Ovary Syndrome ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Reproductive Aged Women

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which affects 8 to 13% of reproductive-aged women, is a highly gendered disorder whose symptoms disrupt Western conceptions of femininity. This may be especially debilitating for young women, who are targeted by societal discourses governing how they “should” be. We interviewed 10 young Canadian women, aged 18 to 22, about how PCOS has influenced and/or conflated their conceptions of identity and (ab)normality within the current socio-cultural context. Using reflexive thematic analysis through a critical feminist lens, we present three themes: justifying abnormality, pathologizing the abnormal, and fear of failure in pregnancy. Young women described feeling “weird” and “not normal” as a result of their symptoms and expressed worries about their ability to adhere to gendered expectations. We argue that the blanketing of these desirable states as “normal” has pervasive implications for women’s lives and leaves them feeling defective and/or inadequate, which was further reinforced by implicit, gender-based power dynamics in medical institutions when women sought care. We suggest the need for engagement with discomfort and leveraging PCOS as a unique entryway into an analysis of intersectional issues to capture complexities in lived experience.

scholarly journals The Cultural Context of Breastfeeding and Breastfeeding Policy

1996 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penny Van Esterik
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Anthropological Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interdisciplinary Nature ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Social And Cultural Factors ◽  
New Research ◽  
Research And Policy

Breastfeeding is not instinctive behaviour but is dependent on learning and is, therefore, influenced by social and cultural factors. Thus, the social sciences as well as the biological sciences should be engaged in explanatory research about breastfeeding To rebuild breastfeeding cultures to protect, support, and promote breastfeeding a biocultural model of breastfeeding and child care that takes a broader view of culture must be developed: a view that attends more to differences than similarities, that provides more detailed contingencies of context, that is more sensitive to the forces that constrain women's lives, and that can be more directly linked to policy-making. This article explores the interdisciplinary nature of breastfeeding research and suggests some areas where anthropological theory and method could be put to better use to ask new research and policy questions about breastfeeding

They’re Not Mean Girls If They Are Adult Women: Reality Television’s Construction of Women’s Identity and Interpersonal Aggression

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Steven Downing
Keyword(s):  
Male Partner ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Adult Women ◽  
Relational Dynamics ◽  
Popular Romance ◽  
Interpersonal Aggression ◽  
Women's Identity ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Tv Show

Drawing on a first-hand account from co-author and participant in a recent season of a popular romance-based reality TV show, this study considers how such shows construct and reinforce stereotypes about women’s relational dynamics with men and other women. It is argued that through careful production and gender scripting, these typologies are situated within a hierarchy of women’s relational interaction that normalizes aggression and bullying among adult women, reframing the ‘mean girl’ from an undesirable role to one that is portrayed as a normal and empowering role for adult women, especially in service of the pursuit of a male partner. The implications of this transformation extend to other women who are portrayed as ‘the other’ and as a result often subordinately positioned in the relational hierarchy reflected on the show. Implications for future research on gender scripts in popular media, the social construction of women’s relational dynamics, and manifestations of covert and overt bullying in these dynamics are discussed.

Social transmission bias and the cultural evolution of folk-economic beliefs

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hirshleifer ◽  
Siew Hong Teoh
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Economic Attitudes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Beliefs ◽  
Over Time

AbstractEvolved dispositions influence, but do not determine, how people think about economic problems. The evolutionary cognitive approach offers important insights but underweights the social transmission of ideas as a level of explanation. The need for asocialexplanation for the evolution of economic attitudes is evidenced, for example, by immense variations in folk-economic beliefs over time and across individuals.

Domestic Integration and Suicide in the Provinces of Canada

Crisis ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoon A. Leenaars ◽  
David Lester
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Negative Association ◽  
Birth Rates ◽  
Marriage Rates ◽  
Suicide Rates ◽  
The Social ◽  
Divorce Rates ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Over Time

Canada's rate of suicide varies from province to province. The classical theory of suicide, which attempts to explain the social suicide rate, stems from Durkheim, who argued that low levels of social integration and regulation are associated with high rates of suicide. The present study explored whether social factors (divorce, marriage, and birth rates) do in fact predict suicide rates over time for each province (period studied: 1950-1990). The results showed a positive association between divorce rates and suicide rates, and a negative association between birth rates and suicide rates. Marriage rates showed no consistent association, an anomaly as compared to research from other nations.

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