Weblog Discourses on Voluntary Childlessness
| dc.contributor.advisor | Kwan, Samantha | |
| dc.contributor.committeeMember | Lee, Shayne | |
| dc.contributor.committeeMember | Gregory, Elizabeth | |
| dc.creator | Saha, Dipabali | |
| dc.creator.orcid | 0000-0003-4025-4745 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2018-07-10T18:52:45Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2018-07-10T18:52:45Z | |
| dc.date.created | May 2016 | |
| dc.date.issued | 2016-05 | |
| dc.date.submitted | May 2016 | |
| dc.date.updated | 2018-07-10T18:52:45Z | |
| dc.description.abstract | This thesis is a study of voluntarily childless individuals who write discourses on weblogs. This research addresses the bloggers’ narratives on who the voluntarily childless bloggers are, what their perceptions are of the dominant reproductive culture, what common experiences are faced by these bloggers in their day to day lives, and how the bloggers express resistance to the normative culture of procreation. The method used is content analysis of eight weblogs. My analysis is an exploratory study of identifying themes of the weblog posts, as well as an examination of how the themes fall into the theoretical framework within the resistance literature. The bloggers bring visibility to voluntarily childless individuals, and show how they use various methods such as myth busting, stigma reversal and creating their own narratives to establish their resistance to the dominant reproductive culture. For a group that is marginalized, this autonomy to create their own narratives is empowering. This study gives a glimpse into how women are redefining femininity by changing the rules, and demonstrates how weblogs can be used in various ways to communicate and express resistance to dominant discourses. | |
| dc.description.department | Sociology, Department of | |
| dc.format.digitalOrigin | born digital | |
| dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10657/3222 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | |
| dc.rights | The author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s). | |
| dc.subject | Voluntary childlessness | |
| dc.subject | Marginalized identities | |
| dc.subject | Resistance | |
| dc.subject | Weblog | |
| dc.title | Weblog Discourses on Voluntary Childlessness | |
| dc.type.dcmi | Text | |
| dc.type.genre | Thesis | |
| thesis.degree.college | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences | |
| thesis.degree.department | Sociology, Department of | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Sociology | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of Houston | |
| thesis.degree.level | Masters | |
| thesis.degree.name | Master of Arts |