Women's Decision-Making: Common Themes . . . Irish Voices

About the Book

Essential characteristics of women's decision-making have long been ignored or, if considered at all, have been viewed in relationship to male-based factors. Veeder, drawing on experiences of Irish women, establishes that women making important choices do so differently than men. The women, ranging in age from as young as thirteen to over sixty-five, were divided into three age groupings, thereby offering insights into variables over much of the life-span. Themes, born from common experiences, emerge from the poignant, compelling accounts of individual women. The author's analysis and commentary structure the book's development and maintain its focus on the context wherein women make their private, but immensely important, decisions, the family. Education, vocation, marriage, and childbearing are considered relative to the thought and emotional factors that influenced the women's decisions.

Veeder concludes that women show strength and insight in their approach to choices. She sees women, in comparison with men, as taking more factors into consideration, being more aware of consequences, being more practical, flexible, and valuing of relationships. Women's participation in the workforce and their increased societal roles make this a most timely book. It is, too, an important contribution to, and stimulus for, additional research on gender and decision-making.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Introduction: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
How Women are Supposed to Make Decisions: Old Explanations
How Women Actually Make Decisions: New Explanations
The New Women's Scholarship: Different Questions, Different Approaches, Different Conclusions
Northern Irish Women: Who Are They Historically, Currently, and in This Study?
Decision-Making for Oneself and One's Family
Influences of One's Mother on Decision-Making
Women Influencing Men's Decisions
Differences Between Women's and Men's Decision-Making
Do Only Northern Irish Women Think This Way?
A New Look at Women Making Decisions
Appendix: Study Instruments and Release Forms
Bibliography
Index

About the Author :
NANCY W. VEEDER is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Social Work at Boston College. She researches in the field of women's issues and also in human services management and marketing.

Review :
?The experiences of three generations of women from Northern Ireland, including 22 women aged 65 and over, their 40 daughters, and 38 granddaughters, provide the evidential base for this book on female decision-making and authority in the family. Veeder, an American, initiated the project, developed the questionnaire, and analyzed the results. The study was carried through by Northern Irish students, who assembled the snowballing sample of respondents from among their relatives and friends and conducted the hour-long interviews. The descriptive material selected by Veeder confirms that this group of women has often made decisions even while appearing not to, that family welfare was a primary concern for them, and that their actions empowered them in subtle ways. The same passages also indicate that the respondents have generally had a narrow range of options and poor control over outcomes. Because Veeder takes an essentialist view of female personality structure, she is less interested in power differentials within and among families than in showing how commonalities in the component elements of women's decision-making articulate with a distinct female style in the conduct of interpersonal relations. Undergraduate; community college; pre-professional.?-Choice "The experiences of three generations of women from Northern Ireland, including 22 women aged 65 and over, their 40 daughters, and 38 granddaughters, provide the evidential base for this book on female decision-making and authority in the family. Veeder, an American, initiated the project, developed the questionnaire, and analyzed the results. The study was carried through by Northern Irish students, who assembled the snowballing sample of respondents from among their relatives and friends and conducted the hour-long interviews. The descriptive material selected by Veeder confirms that this group of women has often made decisions even while appearing not to, that family welfare was a primary concern for them, and that their actions empowered them in subtle ways. The same passages also indicate that the respondents have generally had a narrow range of options and poor control over outcomes. Because Veeder takes an essentialist view of female personality structure, she is less interested in power differentials within and among families than in showing how commonalities in the component elements of women's decision-making articulate with a distinct female style in the conduct of interpersonal relations. Undergraduate; community college; pre-professional."-Choice