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Finding Female Fulfillment: Intersecting Role-Based and Morality-Based Identities of Motherhood, Feminism, and Generativity as Predictors of Women’s Self Satisfaction and Life Satisfaction

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Abstract

Focused on 113 U.S. mothers of college-aged daughters, we extend the existent role-based identity literature to address role- and morality-based identities and their ties to women’s fulfillment. Specifically, women’s identities as mothers, feminists, and generative individuals were assessed for their associations with each other, as well as their unique and combined associations with women’s self satisfaction and life satisfaction. Across the results, generativity yielded the greatest significance. Women with higher generativity identity report having higher self satisfaction and life satisfaction; women who were highly committed to mothering have stronger associations between generativity and life satisfaction. Women with strong generativity identities also tend to identify themselves as feminists. Feminist and mothering identity were not related to one another nor directly tied to satisfaction with one’s self nor life. Implications are discussed regarding continued assessment of role- and morality-based identity intersections as well as to the functions and limitations of the three identities and their assessment featured herein.

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Acknowledgements

This research was support by a research grant from the Organization for Research on Women and Communication. The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

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  1. Department of Communication Studies, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA

    Christine E. Rittenour

  2. Department of Communication, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA

    Colleen Warner Colaner

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Correspondence to Christine E. Rittenour.

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Rittenour, C.E., Colaner, C.W. Finding Female Fulfillment: Intersecting Role-Based and Morality-Based Identities of Motherhood, Feminism, and Generativity as Predictors of Women’s Self Satisfaction and Life Satisfaction. Sex Roles 67, 351–362 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-012-0186-7

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