Where is the story going?” Narrative forms and identity construction in Life stories of Israeli Men and Women

Narrative research of autobiographies has suggested that men and women construct narratives differently. Men tend to devise clear defined plots, and their stories are more linear, chronologically ordered, continuous, and coherent. Women's stories are more scattered and fragmentary, and they tend to construct narratives along multiple dimensions. In psychological literature, such differences have been understood as representing the different nature of gender identities. This representation has been criticized by feminists who attribute gender differences in narratives to the powerlessness, inferiority, and political status of women. The conflict between the two positions, high status and mediocre level of income and prestige, with one advocating inherent gender differences and the other attributing differences to social and political contexts, form the backdrop for this chapter, which considers the place of both gender and status in oral life stories and the interaction between them in creating the life story