Harmonization Challenges: Women’s Interpretations of Homemaking

Homemaking is one of the main roles of women in all societies that is interpreted and executed differently in different social and cultural contexts. The aim of the current study is to explore the concept of homemaking in the interpretation of housewives in Shiraz City. For this purpose, a constructivist qualitative approach and a generic theory qualitative method have been used. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with individual participants and groups. The participants consisted of 34 married housewives, with children who had at least five years of married life. They were selected form different regions of Shiraz through purposive and snowball sampling methods. The data were analyzed using theoretical coding techniques. The interview transcripts were categorized under six schemes: marriage norm, child status, role management and acceptance, role pressure and over-load, instability of homemaking role, as well as rethinking and regretting. The core category in this research is harmonization challenge, indicating that women experience contradictory expectations and acts and actively try to harmonize these contradictions