The purpose of this study was to explore women's identity shifts as they navigate their postdivorce lives. We conducted in-depth, loosely structured interviews with 31 women who had been through at least 1 divorce. Interviews included questions about how women experienced life after divorce, specifically addressing changes they made to separate from the marriage and form a postdivorce identity. Patterns emerged regarding the process of identity change in 3 distinct domains: physical appearance, physical surroundings, and marital artifacts. Results are discussed in terms of the interplay between internal and external changes and the retrospective nature of the identity shifts.Women face unique challenges in the aftermath of divorce. Although both partners need to sort out finances, divide possessions, and reconfigure relationships, the act of changing one's marital status signifies a host of other changes that women face more often and more intensely than men. Among other differences, research shows that divorce results in more negative consequences for women than it does for men, particularly with respect to their
Drawing on a seven-year ethnography, we illuminate how unpublished romance writers employed emotional capital to negotiate the competitive publishing industry. To legitimate themselves as "real" writers, aspirants constructed occupational calling narratives, which they then drew upon to manage their emotions when publication was elusive. We call this process "aspirational emotion work" to illustrate how writers made use of their emotional capital to manage their feelings and sustain their identities without knowing if they would realize their dreams. We posit that aspirational emotion work is particularly prevalent among those seeking work in the creative industries, where potential for self-actualization is high but opportunity for secure employment is low.
Drawing on four years of ethnographic research with romance novel writers, we show how their affiliation with romance-a literary genre known for stories containing sexual content-prompted outsiders to sexually stigmatize them. our work examines both the application and management of this stigma. We describe how outsiders applied the stigma in two ways: by conveying blatant disapproval through "sneering" and inviting writers to display a highly sexualized self through "leering." Writers interpreted outsiders' sneering as slut-shaming rhetoric and responded discursively to manage the stigma; leering, however, sent a more complicated message that was harder for writers to manage. in revealing how these interactions threatened to strip writers of their sexual agency, our analysis suggests gender may be a primary mechanism by which stigma is applied and managed, which has theoretical implications for the stigmatization of women's sexual selves.
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