Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

(Re)Constructing Gender: White, Working-Class Women and Trauma

Smeraldo, Kaitlyn N
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1553336041577677

Abstract Details

2019, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Sociology.
In rural, working-class areas, men’s labor market participation has historically determined gender relations, casting women as traditional wives and mothers. As labor market opportunities have worsened for working-class men, family patterns have shifted and this traditional pathway to gendered identities has been altered. The coal region of Central Pennsylvania is a heavily deindustrialized and poverty-stricken area that has been ravaged by the opioid epidemic and bears little resemblance to the booming destination it once was. Using in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 37 white women in the coal region of Pennsylvania, this article explores how women (re)construct a gendered identity when the traditional ways of performing gender are unavailable. Trauma emerges as a mechanism for defining their lives and who they are as women. Three major narratives are revealed: self-empowerment, ignoring trauma, and persistent suffering. These themes indicate that women have different coping strategies for similar kinds of trauma, and these strategies can be either productive, allowing women to maintain work and/or healthy relationships, or unproductive, precluding women from maintaining work or healthy relationships. Women in all narrative types reconstruct strength as a trait of women and maintain compassion as an important aspect of the gendered identity.
Corinne Reczek (Advisor)
Hollie Brehm (Committee Member)
Natasha Quadlin (Committee Member)
42 p.
Sociology
trauma; gender; rural; working-class; narrative

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Smeraldo, K. N. (2019). (Re)Constructing Gender: White, Working-Class Women and Trauma [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1553336041577677

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Smeraldo, Kaitlyn. (Re)Constructing Gender: White, Working-Class Women and Trauma . 2019. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1553336041577677.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Smeraldo, Kaitlyn. "(Re)Constructing Gender: White, Working-Class Women and Trauma ." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1553336041577677

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1553336041577677
333
© 2019, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.