Between the late 19th and 20th centuries, 4 million women, mostly young single women, emigrated from Ireland to various countries including the United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada (Hayes and Urquhart 159). Donald Harman Akenson, author of “Women and the Irish Diaspora: The Great Unknown,” describes the categories of women on the run, which include: young widows with children, married women with children, childless couples, dependent women not yet marriageable, single women who could marry, women, and unmarried women who could not marry (Akenson 162). Despite Akenson's seemingly comprehensive conceptualization of Irish immigrant women, she fails to describe other dimensions of the emigrant, as noted by Sharon Lambert, author of "Irish Women's Emigration to England 1922-1960: The Lengthening of Family Ties." These essays are discrepant in describing the experiences of Irish migrant women, particularly in the categories of migrant women, their motivation for emigrating, and their connection to family members after emigration. Regardless of these discrepancies, Lambert and Akenson agree that Irish female emigration was overly sexualized. The first discrepancy includes Akenson's failure to mention unmarried women and couples facing unexpected pregnancy who have been forced to emigrate for the sake of their families' reputations. Lambert describes a study with the aim of determining women's motivation to emigrate and in some of the documented stories, women said they emigrated to hide pregnancies. In Irish society, sex was seen as taboo and women were not taught about sex, which caused some women to become pregnant without fully realizing their actions (Lambert 183). I......middle of paper......category who emigrated from Ireland. This is a possible reason to explain their different approach to female immigration. Overall, although each of these readings depicts a sexualized vision of Irish female independence, it provides a picture of the motivation behind female emigration. Works Cited Akenson, Donald. "Women and the Irish diaspora: the great unknown" trans. Array The Irish Women's History Reader. London: Routledge, 2001. 161-167. Print.Lambert, Sharon. "The emigration of Irish women to England 1922-1960: the lengthening of family ties". Trans. Array The Irish Women's History Reader. London: Routledge, 2001. 87-94. Print.Ryan, Louise. “Sexualized Emigration: Discourses on Irish Female Emigration in the 1930s.” International Forum on Women's Studies. 25.1 (2004): n. page. Press..