Browsing by Author "Williams, Heidi M."
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- Do You See What We Carry?: A Digital Content Analysis of Black Mothering Affective ExperiencesAmore, Jenaya (Virginia Tech, 2023-06-09)This project aims to explore the affective experiences of Black mothering within an anti-black context by analyzing podcast episodes. The project is organized by examining a) socio-historical constructions of race and gender which influenced Black motherhood and mothering experiences during chattel slavery, b) how those meanings have informed contemporary social constructions around Black mothering in opposition to normative mothering and motherhood–defined as white, cisgender, and middle class and c) the ways affect appears in Black mothering strategies today in a country that many argue continues to devalue Black lives The following questions ground this project: 1) How do social constructions around normative motherhood as a raced, gendered, and classed institution continue to impact Black women's mothering experiences, and 2) How do Black mothers narrate their mothering experiences, including their affective experiences of mothering within the U.S.? To capture Black mothers' sentiments around mothering, I used purposive sampling to select 33 podcasts from mothering blogs and a content platform that compiled lists of recommended podcasts of Black mothers speaking on mothering and other related topics. I analyzed the dialogue in 15 episodes of Black mother's reported experiences. I arranged the findings under three categories of affect: the affect of surrender and survival, the affect of agency, and the affect of community which is reflected in the conceptual framework of liberatory parenting.
- Lesbi Honest: Barriers to Identifying and Actualizing Sexuality as a "Later in Life Lesbian"Graves, Alayna Louann (Virginia Tech, 2023-05-30)The growth of Queer Sociology has produced a body of research focused on LGBTQ identity formation, while less has been discovered about subsets of this community, including later-life lesbians who were previously partnered in long-term heterosexual relationships with cisgender men. Several theories, including the Cass Theory of Sexual Orientation Identity Formation and Fassinger's Theory, provide a model which LGBTQ people may progress through as they develop their sexual orientation identity. These models provide insight towards the development of a lesbian identification later in life. Through sixteen in-depth interviews with lesbians in the United States who did not identify as lesbian until after age thirty-five, I examine the social barriers that impact these women's identity formation processes, and examine how sexual orientation identity development theories help us understand this process. My findings reveal that heteronormativity, compulsory heterosexuality, lack of representation, gendered expectations, and the pursuit of success all acted as societal barriers that delayed these women in their sexual orientation identity development. Thus, we see that Cass' recognition of the importance of the sociocultural environment is vital. However, the theory's commitment to linearity is still questionable, and her theory may not provide enough flexibility for the fluidity of sexual orientation. Alternatively, Fassinger's theory provides more space for sexual orientation to exist as a process of continuous development.
- Mothering Out of Bounds: Inequality and Resistance in Fat MotherhoodByers, Lyla Elliott Eaton (Virginia Tech, 2023-05-22)What happens when "child bearing hips" become 'too' wide and layered with fat? The medicalization of weight and body size pathologizes difference as deviance, framing fat women as a danger not only to themselves but to society at large when daring to reproduce. This dissertation seeks to uncover the long term impacts of weight stigma at different intersections in order to expand sociological understandings of fatness, health, gender, and inequality in motherhood. It highlights parallel mechanisms of surveillance (for example, between fat and poor mothers) to show how society constructs who "should" and "should not" be parents. Based on a series of 36 in-depth interviews with 18 mothers conducted in the first half of 2022, findings illustrate that the negative social and medical perception of fat motherhood has a significant detrimental impact on the lived experiences of fat mothers. Findings also pull from material culture in the form of representational artifacts from motherhood brought by participants in order to understand how medical and social anti-fatness impacts identity and experiences, and contributes to inequality in fat motherhood.
- A Queer Reluctance to Seek Medical TreatmentBechtold, Victoria Lauraine (Virginia Tech, 2024-06-25)This study explores whether queer people wait longer than non-queer people to seek professional medical care in the wake of an illness or injury. Little scholarship has evaluated queer people's pursuit of palliative medical care. An online survey was distributed to Virginia Tech students aged 18-30 years old who have experienced an illness or injury in the last year that compromised their daily function. Using demographic data obtained about gender identity and sexuality, respondents were divided into "queer" (non-cisgender and/or non-heterosexuals) and "non-queer" (cisgender, heterosexuals) groups. The survey assessed the number of days between the onset of an illness or injury and the first attempt to schedule care. The statistical analysis revealed significant differences suggesting that, of the people who had received care in the last 12 months, queer people, on average, waited fewer days than non-queer people to attempt to schedule care. This does not include respondents who indicated that they did not receive care in the last 12 months. This may indicate that queer people forego seeking palliative care unless absolutely necessary. This study is informed by M. Reynolds's Health Power Resources theory, and demonstrates the importance of measuring not only the presence of behaviors but also the absence of relevant behaviors when applying this theory. Based on the results, this study calls for further research into both delays in care-seeking behavior and into healthcare avoidance among queer individuals.
- Smiling Under the Mask: How Emotional Labor Shapes Restaurant Workers' Experiences during COVIDThompson, Victoria Isabelle (Virginia Tech, 2024-06-13)This study examines whether front-of-house workers' experiences of emotional labor affected their turnover intentions while working a food service job during COVID. To investigate, I asked a sample of 14 tipped workers and two general managers about their experiences working in restaurants during the lockdown and reopening phases of COVID. I learned about participants' experiences working and their reasons for staying and quitting their job during the reopening phases. From interviews, I collected data on workers' perceptions of health mandates, their customer interactions, and their own assessments of COVID-related risks. I analyzed interview data to assess how organizational changes during COVID affected workers' performances of emotional labor and whether their reasons for leaving related to emotional labor being altered. Findings show that workers had to manage customers' heightened emotions while handling their own. From decreased income, increased negative emotions, and mask interference, workers' experiences of emotional labor were significantly changed. Importantly, organizational changes made many workers uncomfortable in their workplace and in following organizational demands, both related and unrelated to emotional labor. These experiences led seven participants to ultimately quit and six to desire to quit without doing so. I conclude that emotional labor was intensified for workers' whose wage predominantly rested on their capitalization of interactions with customers. Evidence reveals how organizational changes led to increased feelings of stress, emotional burnout, and exhaustion. However, the widespread occurrence of these feelings and intensified emotional labor make it unclear whether increased and intensified emotional labor directly created or heavily influenced desires to quit.
- We get by with family: Maternal partnership transitions and extended kin coresidenceWilliams, Heidi M. (Wiley, 2023-04)Objective This study examines the extent to which mothers coreside with extended kin during partnership transitions.Background Parental relationship changes are increasingly common, especially among unmarried parents. Although research shows that families often coreside out of economic necessity, extended kin coresidence as a function of maternal relationship changes has not been explored. Using life course theory, this study examines where and with whom mothers and their children live during partnership transitions.Method Data are from 2,886 mothers who participated in the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Bivariate and multinomial logistic regression, random effects, and fixed effects models were estimated to determine if mothers' coresidential relationships with extended kin were formed by changes in mothers' coresidential romantic partnership statuses.Results Mothers' partnership changes were associated with extended kin coresidence, especially among unmarried mothers. By Year 9, mothers were more likely to live "elsewhere." Mothers' parity and multipartnered fertility decreased their chances of living with extended kin.Conclusion This study indicates that maternal relationship changes provoke family instability and reliance on extended kin. Mothers' transitions contribute to "network fatigue" and homelessness.Implications Housing support for mothers may mitigate instability associated with maternal relationship transitions and protect extended kin against transitions.