Undergraduate Activists in the Woman's Movement and Their Public: Attitudes towards Marriage and the Family

Abstract

Abstract This paper compares the attitudes towards women's home and famiy roles of two groups of undergraduate women: undergraduate activists in the Women's Liberation Movement and a random sample of non-activist undergraduates. Data from both of these groups pertaining to career aspirations, marital and fertility expectations, communal living arrangements, and possible strains between future family and work roles are examined. While the desire to combine family and career roles is typical of undergraduate women in both groups, there are important differences between activists and non-activists in their plans for integrating the two role constellations. Activist women's responses are also compared with positions on women's family roles indicated by spokeswomen of the wider radical Women's Movement, and some important differences are suggested by the data. The paper concludes by briefly exploring the implications of the findings for future social change in the family and in the society of which it is a part.