An investigation of the newly emerging pattern of career aspirations in women, in which both a demanding profession and family life are assumed, was conducted within a framework of interrole conflict among major life roles and its correlates. Subjects were 28 dual career couples who responded to an anonymous questionnaire. Of specific interest were the areas and degree of interrole conflict, in addition to their relationship to gender, parent hood, level of career aspirations, spouse's emotional support of career pursuit, and attitudes toward the roles of women. Surprisingly, the prediction of gender differences in regard to areas and correlates of interrole conflict were not supported. The one exception was level of career aspiration, where high aspirations were negatively related to role conflict for men but positively related to role conflict for women. Strikingly different patterns of conflict, however, were found as a function of the presence or absence of children.

The time has come to integrate feminist therapy and knowledge of gender into principles of counseling for both women and men. Gender Aware Therapy (GAT) is such a synthesis. GAT encourages counselors to facilitate the development of women and men through exploration of their unique gender‐related experiences. The foundations, principles, stages, and applications of GAT are described.

This study broadens the construct of intimate relationships to include the experience of lesbian couples. Various psychological variables were assessed in both partners of 275 lesbian couples who considered themselves to be dual career. Because of the paucity of information on lesbian relationships in the literature, considerable attention is first given to describing this sizable sample. Individual and couple scores on each variable were correlated with relationship satisfaction scores. Among individuals, role conflict and personal autonomy were found to correlate negatively with relationship satisfaction, whereas dyadic attachment, power, intimacy, self‐esteem, and life satisfaction were all positively correlated with relationship Satisfaction. Although career commitment was not correlated with relationship satisfaction among individuals, differences between partners’levels of career commitment correlated negatively with each partner's relationship satisfaction. The findings counter extant stereotypes regarding lesbian relationships and provide a more accurate basis for developing an heuristic model of intimate relationships among women.

The present study compared role conflict experienced by career and noncareer women. Subjects were 26 noncareer and IS career women with bachelors degrees employed full-time at a large state university, all of whom were married and had children. The subjects responded anonymously to a questionnaire containing six scales that measured the potential conflict between pairs of major life roles. The roles were worker, spouse, parent, and self as a self-actualizing person. Contrary to prediction, greater role conflict was reported by the noncareer group than the career group. Differences between the groups were found in two role conflict areas in which the self role was paired with a family role. When the effect of spouse support was controlled for, these differences were no longer found. Implications of these findings for working women are discussed.The present study of working women was conceptualized within a role conflict framework in which interrole conflict is predicted when conflicting and competing expectancies are perceived from two or more roles enacted by an individual (

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