Eternal Mothers or Flexible Housewives? Middle-aged Chinese Married Women in Hong Kong

Abstract

How do Hong Kong Chinese women position themselves in relation to this stigmatized social category of "si-nai" (middle aged-housewives) and the prevailing norms and values regarding women's roles? The case of middleaged, married women in Hong Kong provides empirical support for an alternative understanding of the identity of adult woman and helps to problematize conceptualizations of women's identity as centered on their mother roles. The narratives of these twenty-six women show the fluidity of their roles as mothers (and wives). These roles change with reference to social context, life circumstances, and life course. Many middle-aged women have tried to resist becoming "mad housewives" and have learnt to be "flexible housewives" by actively decentering their role as mothers.

Taiwanese Mothers' Reactions to Learning That Their Child is Lesbian or Gay: An Exploratory Study

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“…An interpretive approach was adopted to focus on how individuals constructed meaning out of the social interaction process (Charmaz, 2003) and the way in which their interpretations generated different responses to the situations (Ho, 2007). Open coding was conducted for both field notes from participant observation and the semistructured interview transcripts by examining the text line by line (Dahlgren, Emmelin, & Winkvist, 2007).…”

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