Males are considered more stigmatized by infertility than females, who are offered sympathy. Theoretically, this research challenges more traditional assumptions about the support functions provided by interpersonal relations. Specifically, the physical inability to reproduce appears to become redefined in interaction, however incorrectly, as a mental or sexual problem, even when couched as sympathetic advice. The excessive pursuit of technological solutions to involuntary childlessness may reflect the impact these social labels have on both men and women. In this paper, social constructions of adoption are explored, and assessments of reproductive technologies and childlessness as alternatives to adoption are considered.
Females support donor use with reproductive technologies more than males.
An approach to family research which emphasizes quality of family experience independent of biological relatedness is advocated. Collaborative papers with Dr. Nancy Herman on the nature of generic social processes in her research on ex-pychiatric patients and my research on infertile women. This paper adds to the literature on labeling and stigma by focusing on the positive effects, benefits, and rewards of possessing a stigma or identity mark. A typology of labeling which incorporates positive and negative labeling and the positive and negative consequences which follow is developed. In order to bridge this conceptual gap, the authors compare information management strategies used to avoid or lessen stigma potential observed in studies of involuntarily childless women and ex-psychiatric patients.