Female Identity and Career Pathways

Qualitative interviews with 17 postbaccalaureate nurses are analyzed with special attention to their management of conflicting commitments in the personal and occupational domains. Problems are seen as arising not only from organizational difficulties associated with parallel involvement with a profession and with the traditional domestic-maternal role, but from cultural categories that reflect sexual asymmetry. The paper discusses the strategies respondents use to minimize these contradictions, showing that these generally operate either to enhance harmony between the two domains or to accentuate their separateness from each other.