Confronting Gender Ideology and Crafting Gender Identity: Women’S Experience With Infertility and Assisted Reproductive Technologies

ABSTRACT - Given the persistent construal of motherhood as a defining feature of feminine gender identity in contemporary culture, this paper examines the experiences of women whose quest for motherhood is frustrated by infertility. Focusing on women who consume assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in order to deal with the challenge of infertility, we examine their experiences with ideologies that shape dominant notions of femininity and motherhood, and the challenges this poses for their identities. The technological options offered by ART to the American and Canadian informants in our study simultaneously raised their hopes of achieving culturally sanctioned goals of motherhood, and heightened the tensions between equally potent ideologies that are equally salient in the lives of North American women today.



Citation:

N/A (2004) ,"Confronting Gender Ideology and Crafting Gender Identity: Women’S Experience With Infertility and Assisted Reproductive Technologies", in GCB - Gender and Consumer Behavior Volume 7, eds. Linda Scott and Craig Thompson, Madison, WI : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: .

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GCB - Gender and Consumer Behavior Volume 7 | 2004



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