Women’s Family

When women first began to enter traditionally male domains, their numbers were so small that such inquiries could be elucidating. research paper writing services - buy customized research paper prepared from scratch by trusted writers! We learned, for example, that pioneering female managers were often firstborn or only children who identified more with their father's enterprise than with their mother's caretaking. Commonalities were sought and found, and psychology's wont for generalization again was satisfied. As their numbers increased, females pursuing formerly male occupations could no longer be catalogued according to certain family configurations. In addition, a psychological focus on sex role socialization and family demography alone does not suffice as an explanation for adult identity development and motivation. Factors of social context, including political and economic change, must be considered as shaping individual life direction. Moreover, a fuller understanding of human development requires psychologists temporarily to put aside their nomothetic approach for an idiographic one.
In this study women's family backgrounds are examined for insights about the formation of their identities and aspirations. Commonality is neither sought nor found. In fact, what we discover is a diversity of experience and messages in families. For some women, mothers were perceived as most instrumental; for others, fathers; and a few indicated that their families had no influence whatsoever on their career development. Early socialization is but one of several important influences in one's psychological development. Moreover, we have learned that development does not end at age twenty-one. Not only does it continue throughout adulthood, but it can be radically reframed in connection with a shifting social environment.
The families of the women here manifested messages that departed from traditional notions of the course of female development, even as they were living according to those notions themselves. We find, too, that people do not necessarily acknowledge the influence of social movements, even while they are being shaped by them. The women of this study demonstrate both the early influence of family and the later shaping of identity in relation to social change. These women, whose lives deviated from a traditionally female path, attended to the kind of sex role expectations that existed in their families. It is not difficult to Editing essay with the professionalism of trained project editors! Make your essay the best! Many focused on the roots of the independence that later served to distinguish them from other family members and female peers. Presumably, countless aspects of family life might have been topics for these women. Most salient to career, however, were parental expectations and familial perspectives on education, independence, and sex roles.

Women and Family

In talking about their careers, women described themselves. Who they are and where they come from were undeniable parts of the interviews. Remarks about family crept into accounts of career path as well as in response to explicit queries. A woman's professional life was informed by personal learning and attributes. Similarly, her personal development was significantly shaped by career experience. Her identity was about both. Career was integral to these women's identities. written term paper of high quality is rare. Purchase professional service, essay and paper writing, here! They abided by contextual distinctions between personal and professional, but their analyses often joined the two. Able to relate diverse aspects of their experience to each other, women presented an integrated perspective on their lives and themselves. It is not surprising, therefore, to hear references to family within a discussion of career. Identities were formed through family and profession.
Women were asked specifically about the influence of family on their career development. Because of the question's open-ended format, they were free to select which family to talk about: the family of origin or the family of procreation. Responses centered on family of origin. That one's first family has a profound influence on identity formation and life direction has been a long-accepted tenet in psychology. The channeling of men's and women's lives into separate spheres of endeavor, corresponding to mutually exclusive personality characteristics, has served to confirm our theories of the socialization process and its differential application by gender. Exceptions to expectation have prompted special inquiry. Thus, when females claim a traditionally male domain for their own pursuit, psychologists become particularly interested in what distinguishes those females from their traditional sisters. Their family backgrounds are studied to determine the origins of personality characteristics and ambitions that deviate from gender expectation. In seeking understanding of the departure that these women represent, such studies usually look for common themes among their upbringings that might account for nonconformity.

Woman’s Achievement

In the article on work and mobility, a common sentiment among those interviewed was a desire for challenging and interesting work. Women frequently did not have a specific path planned for their careers, but they knew that they could not tolerate a position that became boring. Boredom was synonymous with comfort for many who found themselves moving out of a position prior to feeling complete mastery of it. Though reluctant to sacrifice learning for advancement, they could not turn down opportunity. New positions may or may not have represented promotions, but they certainly meant exciting challenges.
Management women's drive for mastery through new learning and their commensurately low tolerance for boredom are common findings. Some theorize that this characteristically female orientation is responsible for women's ultimate disappointment with corporate employment, which is not structured to recognize and reward individual excellence. Other authors contradict this notion and provide evidence of corporations' seeking and promoting people who exhibit high internal motivation for achievement in relation to the work itself. Moreover, women are found to value and be motivated by many of the same job elements pursued by men. Professional custom written papers are ready to help you with essay writing; custom services! There is considerable evidence that male and female high achievers, who are more psychologically alike than different, are concerned with both people and production. Moreover, rather than being preoccupied with themselves or their status, high-achieving managers of both sexes are conspicuous by their concentration and investment in the work itself.
Women of this study overcame their initial fears and repeatedly proved their capabilities with each assignment. In the process, they learned about themselves. These women became increasingly aware of how much they could do and how much they needed to feel gratified. A drive to do and be more, what psychologists call need for achievement, can exist even before a woman is fully conscious of it. Through observation and experience, women like thirty-year-old woman, who has held five positions in six years, discover inherent needs that set them apart from others.

Woman’s Personal Development

Women's accounts of their professional development are replete with references to the self. When they talk about their relation to work and how their careers unfolded, they naturally talk about themselves. In actuality, women's self-development is the topic of this entire volume. In article, their self-disclosures formed the underside of a text whose main theme was work. Here we look at the self more squarely in its own right. Information about women's self-development comes from interviews that were centered primarily on career. What we learn about the women themselves is drawn, therefore, from both direct and indirect responses. It is not difficult to edit essays with the help of educated project editors! Make your essay flawless! They were explicitly questioned about self-perception, especially with reference to experienced change. Additionally, they offered observations about personal characteristics, internal dynamics, and interpersonal behavior in conjunction with responses to a variety of other questions. All self-expression was welcome, and this article represents its compilation regardless of contextual source.

Women discuss aspects of themselves that are ostensibly most related to functioning in the workplace. Ambition, achievement needs, and notions of what constitutes success have apparent connections to work and to the development of a career. Although self-assertion and confidence are discussed within a context of professional growth, women readily acknowledge their wider ramifications. In fact, their reflections about personal attributes are often more broadly drawn than the confines of work might dictate. These women recognize that personal qualities contribute to professional development. Moreover, work experience can change an individual's attributes.

The idea that individual characteristics can be significantly modified through learning, experience, or various forms of changed consciousness runs contrary to trait theory, the traditional psychological understanding of personality. Trait theory holds that an individual's personality, in place at an early age, is composed of enduring, relatively fixed attributes whose consistency warrants the appellation "traits." In contrast, a more contextual view of personality formation and change holds that personal characteristics, displayed through behavior, can vary considerably across time and situational demands. Personality can be understood as highly malleable in response to new learning and changing contexts over the course of development that continues through adulthood. Contemporary American women, for example, have displayed significant change in their perceptions of self and prospects for life direction commensurate with the current women's movement.

Individual psychological change, then, can be prompted by the larger social context as well as by the conditions of one's personal life. In either case, women display diverse attributes, some conventionally associated with their gender, some not. Just as we can no longer portray women in stereotypic ways, we also cannot uniformly characterize women in similar career positions, as this would simply be trading old stereotypes for new. If you are looking for written term paper, get professional custom paper writing assistance online! An examination of the personal characteristics of women interviewed provides lucid evidence of individual variation. Women with equally impressive professional accomplishments express divergent views of themselves. A uniform description cannot be applied accurately to them. We do not find here a picture of an "organization woman" that would lend itself to generalizations. We see instead a fascinating collection of people with different personal styles and attributes.