Until recently, theories and research about job stress and ways of coping have been based primarily on men's experience. Women's experience of stress and coping has remained unexplored, despite studies which show that women are confronted with more and different work-related stressors than men.
Written by feminists and other researchers from the disciplines of psychology, sociology, anthropology, and management science, the fourteen essays in this collection are about women's experience of paid work and women's ways of coping with employment stress. The opening essays highlight the tremendous social and cultural changes that have compelled women to develop new coping strategies. Several contributing authors examine specific workplace structures and describe women's experiences in different occupational contexts whether hostile or hospitable. Shifting from a structural to an individual perspective, other contributors deal with psychosocial factors, such as gender differences, that have been found to moderate stress and enhance the coping process. They analyse individual experiences with work-related stressors, focusing on the mediating effects of cognitive appraisals. The concluding chapters provide a critique of research methods commonly used to study work-related stress and coping and a review by the editors of the many factors and relationships which influence women's ways of coping with employment stress.
Women, Work, and Coping contains contributions by Nina Colwill, Bruce E. Compas, Esther R. Greenglass, Barbara Gutek, Catherine A. Heaney, Sharon E. Kahn, Ronald C. Kessler, Karen Korabik, Bonita C. Long, Judi Marshall, Diana L. Mawson, Lisa M. McDonald, Pamela G. Orosan, Hazel M. Rosin, Craig A. Smith, Anne Statham, Allison Tom, Elaine Wethington, and Lois M. Verbrugge.
ISSN 1188-1127
Editors: Duncan Cameron, Bruce Campbell and Daniel Drache
This series, sponsored by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and co-published by McGill-Queen's University Press, presents important research on Canadian policy and public affairs. Books in the series are written by leading economic and social critics in the Canadian academic community and are intended for use as classroom texts and by the informed reader as well as by the academic specialist.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives promotes research on economic and social issues facing Canada. Founded in 1980, the CCPA maintains that economic and social research should contribute to building a better society. Through its research reports, studies, conferences, and briefing sessions, the CCPA provides thoughtful alternatives to the proposals of business research institutes and many government agencies. The Centre is committed to publishing research that reflects the concerns of women as well as men; labour as well as business; churches, cooperatives, and volunteer agencies as well as governments; minorities as well as the dominant group; the disadvantaged as well as those more fortunate. Critical Perspectives on Public Affairs reflects this tradition through the publication of informed, scholarly monographs and collection.
