At the time they were interviewed in the mid-1980s the twenty-two women described in this book were all in their forties and had traveled far from the traditional world in which they had grown up and in which they had spent their early adulthood. Most striking, given their traditional upbringing, was the extent to which they had become committed to careers. They numbered among them seven college faculty, five administrators, three lawyers, an artist, a business owner, a doctor, a banker, an engineer, a psychologist, and a writer. They had accumulated eight Ph.D.s, three J.D.s, one M.D., and three M.A.s....

The experiences of the women in this study reveal the power of cultural symbols and a traditional socialization, both inside and outside of family life, to shape the perceptions and aspirations of young girls. Eighteen of the twenty-two study participants—like the majority of white, middle-class women in the years after World War II—chose a Traditionalist track by the end of high school, focused on a future as wife and mother. However, there were some, the four labeled Nontraditionalists in this book, who found enough support for a more expansive concept of femininity—one that included a career. The...

Their college years provided a bridge to adulthood for the twenty of the study participants who pursued their education.¹ Gender considerations continued to playa powerful role in shaping opportunities and aspirations, as the contrasting experiences of study participants and the men they married demonstrate.

Women at college in the late 1950s and early 1960s faced many of the same paradoxes about gender behavior and expectations that marked their early years. On the one hand, college seemed to offer a potential breathing space, a time to escape the oppressiveness of a restrictive gender ideology and explore new options. Some scholars, in...

Julia, with her dissertation still not completed, found herself unhappily at home taking care of her two daughters. Despite all of her struggles—to delay marriage and to get a Ph.D. and to become a professor—she was immersed in a daily life that “was like Mom’s daily life had been.” Julia was angry about it, but neither she nor her husband could understand what had happened: “Gordon was as surprised as I was.” They hurled disjointed charges at each other:

Julia: Why is this; what happened?

Gordon: I thought you wanted a career.

Julia: Why can’t you make me...

While the women in this study were spending time at home, dramatic changes in the social reality of women’s lives were taking place and new social norms for female behavior were emerging. These changes made the world of the 1970s a far different place than the one in which they had grown up. More women worked outside of the home, increased divorces and a lower birthrate made marriage and family seem less of a lifetime commitment, and burgeoning women’s movement and self-fulfillment movements provided the rationale and ideology for new choices.¹ All of this made the 1970s a decisive decade...

The transformations that the women in this study made in their lives attest to the changes that occur over the life course and to the personal flexibility that allows adults to modify their values and behavior in response to developing historical circumstances.¹ But their experiences also raise the question of just how much change can and does take place, and how much continuity remains between earlier experiences and later ones.² After all, families had been formed and marital bargains struck at an earlier time. And, despite altered gender norms and continuing socialization in response to new situations, old ideas about...

Much has changed in the lives of American women in the last forty years. There is no longer the intense ideological pressure for women to achieve identity solely through marriage. Women are marrying at an older age, more are remaining single, and more are divorcing.¹ Most women expect to be employed for a large portion of their lives, and middle-class women routinely look to careers as an integral part of their self-definition.

Yet marriage and motherhood remain a significant element in many women’s lives. Approximately 90 percent of white women are currently projected to marry, down from 97 percent in...

A life-course perspective on the lives of the twenty-two women described in this book has shown the ways that changing historical circumstances have affected the adult choices and opportunities of a transition generation. Although raised at a time when marriage and motherhood were considered the integral ingredients of female identity, their lives were ultimately not limited to this narrow definition. Instead, they were able to expand their own sense of self when increasing opportunities for women encouraged them to develop new aspirations. At the same time, however, continuities with the past remained. The family, the workplace, and gender ideology all...