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.