Filling The Glass: Gender Perspectives On Families: YRA ARX Erree

MYRA MARX FERREE University of Wisconsin
Filling the Glass: Gender Perspectives on Families
The challenge feminist scholarship posed to to assess how gender research informs family
family studies has been largely met through the studies now, I focus on both what has changed
incorporation of research on gender dynamics and what remains marginalized in relation to this
within families and intersectional differences agenda. In this article, I suggest that the half-full,
among them. Despite growing attention to half-empty glass metaphor aptly describes how
gender as performance and power in more the field has responded in the past decade to the
diverse families, the more difficult work of challenges of analyzing gender as a significant
understanding the dynamics of change among social relationship.
institutions including the family and using The fullness of the glass is apparent in the
intersectional analyses to unpack relationships volume of empirical research on families that
of power is only beginning. Reviewing the takes gender relations rather than sex roles as its
contributions researchers have made in these core analytic concept for thinking about women
areas over the last decade and applying the and men (see overviews in Coltrane & Adams,
idea of circuits to the study of care work, this 2008; Lloyd, Few, & Allen, 2009). Especially at
article points to promising practices for both the microlevel, the dynamics of gender as power
improving research on gender and families and (Bittman, England, Sayer, Folbre, & Matheson,
contributing to the slow drip of institutional 2003) and as performance (Fox & Murry, 2000;
change. Jurik & Siemsen, 2009) have emerged as topics
of general concern. The emptiness is revealed by
Two decades ago, I argued against a purely the continuing force of functionalism in defining
social psychological understanding of gender a normative standard family, still considering
as a socialized role carried by individuals and family structure difference in terms of deviance
primarily produced in and by families (Ferree, (Walker, 2009) and gender as a role in a single
1990). Instead, I suggested that thinking of institution rather than an inequality that cuts
gender in a more multilevel and dynamic across multiple institutions (Risman, 2004).
way would also demand thinking of families The massive increase in attention to family
differently. Drawing on feminist research, I diversity has only begun to be connected to
challenged the functionalist assumptions that the dynamics of change within and across
families were separate spheres of interaction multiple institutions and to the relations of
with internally unitary interests, a natural gender with other inequalities, as McDowell
and universal specialization of roles, and a and Fang (2007) pointed out. Wills and Risman
foundational position in the social order. Invited (2006) emphasized the progress made but also
pointed out the continuing challenge to go
beyond a token recognition of gender. I suggest
Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Room
that the field of family studies has not been able
7103, Sewell Social Science Building, 1180 Observatory to fully incorporate gender analyses because it
Dr., Madison, WI 53706-1393 (mferree@ssc.wisc.edu). has still rarely placed families explicitly in a
Key Words: caregiving, discourse, feminist theory, gender, dynamic field of economic and political changes
intersectionality, power. in which the struggles over gender relations,
420 Journal of Marriage and Family 72 (June 2010): 420 – 439
DOI:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00711.x
Filling the Glass 421
as well as over other forms of inequality, are are gendered experiences of the institution
recognized as collective as well as individual. (‘‘his’’ and ‘‘her’’ marriage), continued with
Lacking such an analysis, family change has the challenges to the dominance of role theory
continued to be seen more as a crisis than an in the 1980s, and produced political fights over
opportunity for challenging pervasive structures gendered changes in family relations in the 1990s
of societal inequalities. (see earlier decade reviews by Ferree, 1990,
Rather than presenting a representative and Fox & Murry, 2000). Feminist research on
sample of gender research in family studies, families still engages the questions generated by
this review focuses on the studies that have these struggles, building an impressively large
engaged family, gender, and social change in body of research (reviewed by Lloyd et al., 2009)
theoretical and empirical interaction, using this that has now made the relevance of gender hard
work to show the value family scholars gain by to ignore, even for those who feel the feminist
taking such a multilevel and dynamic view of challenge to patriarchal marriage has gone too
gender. It begins with a brief overview of the far (Waite & Gallagher, 2003; Wilcox, 2004).
places where gender has been best incorporated Indeed, the glass is so full of studies
within family studies and then looks at research considering gender as a variable that reviewing
that moves past a micro-macro division to all this work would be impossible (consider
ask intersectional, multilevel questions about the gender comparisons offered in many of the
gender dynamics. This perspective, still often articles in this issue, particularly on lesbian,
found only at the margins of family studies, gay, bisexual, and transsexual [LGBT] families;
approaches families as an institutional site in work-family relations; family policy; and power,
which gender-based relations of inequality are conflict, and violence). This review regretfully
often contested, sometimes changed, and always omits many such studies and also points to the
connected to other gendered institutions and comprehensive set of reviews in Lloyd et al.
inequalities (Cooke, 2006; Haney & Pollard, (2009) as well as fine discussions of gender and
2004; McDowell & Fang, 2007). family issues in Calasanti and Slevin (2006) and
The two dynamic threads that I follow are Coltrane and Adams (2008) to cover some of the
the contested multi-institutional relationships other gaps.
among families, states, and markets that A broad sense of what has been accomplished
are gendered in locally specific, temporally by bringing gender into family studies can be
dynamic, and systemically meaningful patterns conveyed by considering how well incorporated
and gender as a structural inequality related some topics have become despite how radi-
to other inequalities such as race, class, age, cal they seemed when first introduced. Most
and sexuality. I also use feminist research conspicuously, assessing the causes and conse-
on care to demonstrate some contributions of quences of the division of household labor in
a simultaneous institutional and intersectional married couples has become routine, with much
analysis of gender and families. I point to issues of this research proceeding from the assumption
of contradiction and resistance that this research that gender itself, not merely a rational alloca-
has posed for understanding changes in gender tion of time, is fundamental (for excellent recent
relations, not just as happening to or in families, contributions, see Gupta, 2006, and Treas &
but as wide-ranging societal transformations deRuijter, 2008). There has been much atten-
in which the institution of family matters. I tion to the irrationalities in these arrangements,
conclude by suggesting that attention to power particularly focusing on assessing the claim that
and change will inevitably make studies of wives who earn more than their husbands engage
gender and family political. in a compensatory display of gender conformity
by doing more domestic labor (Bittman et al.,
2003; Cooke, 2006; Gupta, 2007). Microlevel
ASSESSING THE PARAMETERS OF GENDER AND social constructionism as an approach to gender
FAMILY RESEARCH relations has lost its novelty, but as Deutsch
To see what a gender perspective brings to (2007) argued, much of this work has been more
family studies, it is first necessary to recognize about ‘‘doing’’ than ‘‘undoing’’ gender. Over-
the vast transformation of the field created by all, it is no longer extraordinary to consider
feminist critique. These changes began with the household as a place in which gender is
the arguments by Jessie Bernard that there produced and performed through the provision
422 Journal of Marriage and Family
of housework and childcare—a ‘‘gender fac- the discourse of family change has been
tory’’ as Berk (1985) memorably called it. deeply politicized for at least two decades,
A second major accomplishment lies in and perhaps much longer (M. Adams, 2007;
the now common acknowledgment that the Coltrane, 2001; Smock, 2004), the dominant
work-family balance issues faced primarily by framing of the debate has been that the
women reflect large, historically and politically status quo represents science and only feminist
meaningful shifts in gender arrangements (Moen claims are political (Presser, 1997). Pitting
& Roehling, 2004; Stone, 2007; Williams, ‘‘family’’ against ‘‘feminism,’’ conservative
2000). Structural research has provided tools American activists have vigorously mobilized
for understanding the complexity of this both at home and abroad to argue for the
transformation, showing how family interactions continued institutionalization of different family
reflect wider but nationally and historically responsibilities for men and women (Buss
specific shifts in the material conditions of & Herman, 2003). The connection between
production and reproduction (Coontz, 2005; gender arrangements and family change, a theme
Peterson, 2005; Thistle, 2006) and related throughout the social science of the 20th century
expectations about self and society (Cherlin, (Smock), has been often framed in family studies
2009; Rosenfeld, 2007). Even those who are as a threat to the (functional) family, understood
skeptical about the merits of the dual career ahistorically, as Coltrane noted. In response,
family and gender equality as societal norms much American social policy has adopted
have recognized that they are part of an ongoing the cause of ‘‘healthy relationships’’ defined
restructuring of the economy (e.g., Wilcox, as those organized around gender difference
2004). Looking at gender equality effects of the (Heath, 2009).
social organization of childcare has also become Walker (2009) recently deplored how little
well accepted (Cancian, Kurz, London, Reviere, feminist research entered mainstream family
& Tuominen, 2002). journals and how difficult she found it, as the
Third, the lens of family studies has widened editor of this journal, to bring in a critical,
to include more studies of gender relations as socially dynamic gender analysis, when many
shaping diverse family types, including lesbian of the research studies she reviewed still spoke
and gay families (Goldberg, 2009; Oswald, primarily to what she called a ‘‘deeply conser-
2002; Stacey, 2005), transnational families vative’’ functionalist agenda: one in which mar-
(Mahalingham, Balan, & Molina, 2009; Par- ried, heterosexual, White, middle-class families
renas, 2001), and families of color in the United with young children and a harmony of interests
States (Few, 2007; Hill, 2005). Research on appeared as the norm (p. 19). She applauded the
poor and nonpoor single mothers has prolif- contributions of particular researchers, but her
erated as well, analyzing both the challenges overall conclusion was one of missed opportuni-
of material survival and the impact of cultural ties for the field of family studies. Additionally,
expectations on their struggles to ‘‘do family’’ the ongoing conceptualization of gender in terms
in the face of continued normative disapproval of roles situated within the family as a single
(Hays, 2002; Hertz, 2006; M. Nelson, 2003). institution has served to depoliticize the under-
These studies provide an essential knowledge standing of processes that connect inequalities
base for seeing gender relations within the fam- across multiple institutional sites. Allen (2001)
ily as interconnected with other forms of social and Coltrane and Adams (2003) noted how this
inequality that are also materially changing and process contributes to framing research on gen-
culturally contested. dered family change in individualized, social
Nonetheless there is also good reason to problem terms.
present the glass as half empty and to argue The chief difference between emphasizing the
that a gender perspective is still profoundly full or empty state of the glass may be found in
marginalized. Critical reviews of family policy whether gender analysis is defined more or less
studies have shown how, even in gender-political loosely. A loose definition of gender as a variable
controversial domains such as gay parenting distinguishing women and men as individuals
(Stacey & Biblarz, 2001) or extramarital or as defining relationships located within
childbirth (O’Connor, 2001), most research the context of family is omnipresent. Studies
designs have accepted the gender norms of the fitting this definition often have employed
status quo as unfailingly appropriate. Although the theoretically disconcerting language of
‘‘gender role,’’ which either encapsulates gender dynamics within families, and those between fam-
within a single institution or turns role into ilies and broader social systems, are reciprocally
a synonym for cultural stereotype. Far fewer influential. Relationships between family mem-
studies have applied the feminist-inspired and bers are deeply influenced by social discourses and
material realities associated with the social loca-
theoretically rigorous definition of gender as a tions of each member and the family as a whole.
relationship of power connected to institutional Likewise, power dynamics within families, and
processes organizing—and changing—families. the role families play in the transmission of cul-
Even though stressing the half-full glass, the tural and social knowledge, continually influence
broad review of family journals by Wills and broader social structures. (p. 555)
Risman (2006) found an important gulf between
family studies that considered gender at all, In the rest of this review, I examine the gender
which made up 26% of the articles between research of the past decade that has avoided the
1992 and 2002, and those that explicitly brought implicitly functionalist separate spheres model
in a feminist perspective (about 6%). of family structures, social interactions, and
Overall, it is important to acknowledge individual beliefs and behavior by bringing the
that families have become increasingly seen wider political and cultural context of these
as sites where gender matters, but also to processes into its study design. This research
recognize the limited ways that gender has has not only studied what the gender relations
been seen to matter. Gender too often has of the present are like but has also attempted to
remained personalized at the level of individual explain the interests and injustices connected to
struggles and depoliticized by reducing social these arrangements, how and by whom they are
inequalities to differences. Feminist questions being resisted, and why, in the interest of gender
about conflicts of interest within the family as well as family justice, they can and should be
and the connections between families and changed.
changes in culture, economics, and politics have
entered the field of family studies, but the
answers have often stressed adaptation rather ANALYZING GENDER: THEORETICAL
than transformation, as some reviewers have ADVANCES AND CHALLENGES
already noted. For example, Stacey and Biblarz The challenge for gender analysis in this decade
(2001) asked whether the defensive claim that has been to integrate the structural story of
children raised by gay and lesbian parents transformation at the macrolevel with a con-
are ‘‘not different’’ from the heterosexual sideration of women’s and men’s individual
norm needs to be challenged by considering and collective agency in families and family
when and how sexual norms deserve to be politics. Like social constructionist views of
transformed in ways that these parents may families (e.g., Holstein & Gubrium, 1999), the
be able to do more effectively. Danby (2007) gender perspective has emphasized the agency
similarly asked whether the feminist focus on of persons and organizations, the meanings that
gender relations in couples (whether married social action carries, and the microprocesses of
or not, gay or straight) provided an effective interaction (Jurik & Siemsen, 2009). But unlike
way of challenging normative boundaries on social constructionism, gender analysis situates
the family, even for heterosexuals. Bringing these meanings and microprocesses in the con-
gender into family studies but trying to make it text of multiple, intersecting historical forces—
uncontroversial and apolitical by disconnecting economic, demographic, and political—that are
it from the ongoing struggles over what kinds both material and discursive (Deutsch, 2007;
of gender relations are socially valued and K. A. Martin, 2009; Risman, 2004). Like struc-
supported is a pyrrhic victory. tural analyses of culture (Cherlin, 2009), policy
Over the past decade, some researchers have (Harrington Meyer & Herd, 2007), or the econ-
challenged the domestication of gender studies omy (Thistle, 2006), these analyses have made
with a more dynamic, multilevel, and critical conflict and change over time visible and explic-
understanding of gender. McDowell and Fang itly considered political interests (Gornick &
(2007) critically reviewed the strengths and Meyers, 2009). But unlike studies that remain
weaknesses of multicultural family scholarship, solely macrolevel, research driven by gender
saying that gender scholars are beginning to theory also has tried to bring individual and col-
assume that lective agency into the story of social change. By
highlighting the cultural and material resources (‘‘doing difference’’; Fenstermaker & West,
that people and groups bring to their struggles, 2002), the material and discursive resources
such research has sought to identify practices available for struggles to ‘‘undo’’ gender (Blume
with potential for changing structures of inequal- & Blume, 2003; Deutsch, 2007; Risman, 2009),
ity (Jacobs & Gerson, 2004; Macdonald, 2010; and the contradictions between what is ‘‘said
Williams, 2000; Williams & Boushey, 2010). and done’’ and varying degrees of awareness in
This sort of gender analysis of the family the ‘‘saying and doing’’ (P. Y. Martin, 2003b).
as an interactive institution integrated with Macrostructures have been identified not solely
politics, the economy, and civil society and in material inequalities of power and resources
entwined in relations of inequality based on but also in the cultural schemas and the dis-
race, sexuality, ethnicity, disability, and age courses of difference, power, and belonging
remains outside the mainstream, as feminist that define social groups such as communities,
reviewers have often pointed out (e.g., Calasanti nations, races, and genders (Gal & Kligman,
& Slevin, 2006; Few, 2007; McDowell & Fang, 2000; Hancock, 2004).
2007). Its integration of macro-, meso-, and Such macrolevel culture can be seen in
microconcerns represents both a contribution specific gendered discourses of identity and
that gender theoretical research has distinctively value. Gender analysis attempts to untangle
added to the understanding of families in the past how women use such cultural narratives. For
decade and a promising direction for moving the example, K. A. Martin (2009) looked at variation
field forward. in how mothers conveyed norms of heterosex-
uality to their children, and Pyke and Johnson
Theoretical Advances (2003) identified the tensions in self-conceptions
of daughters of Korean and Vietnamese immi-
A gender perspective has also been called gender grants in relation to a narrative of absolute
relations theory, gender as a social structure, gen-
opposition between patriarchal Asian and egali-
der as an institution, and an intersectional gender
tarian White American cultures. Such culturally
analysis (Lorber, 2005; P. Y. Martin, 2003a; Ris-
grounded identities are then seen as crucial in
man, 2004). At its core, the gender perspective
negotiating gender, for example, in conflicts
rejects gender as a static norm or ideal (the
between mothers and nannies over good moth-
so-called gender role), and instead defines gen-
der as a social relation characterized by power ering (Macdonald, 2009) and between parents
inequalities that hierarchically produce, orga- and children over gendered behaviors (Kane,
nize, and evaluate masculinities and femininities 2006). The reverse is also true: Such struggles at
through the contested but controlling practices the interactional level are understood as part of
of individuals, organizations, and societies. The the slow process of transforming cultural norms,
differences between and among women and men what Sullivan (2004) called the ‘‘slow drip’’
are thus not only seen as socially constructed version of a gender revolution.
but also as politically meaningful. Individual As it has grown and developed, gender theory
gendering activities are situated in larger struc- has approached families not as a separate sphere
tures that have their own institutionalized gender at all, but as only one of a number of interlinked
practices and meanings (P. Y. Martin, 2003a). institutions where gender relations are con-
The macro-micro dynamic is integral to this structed, reproduced, and transformed (Albiston,
theoretical perspective (Anderson, 2005). 2007; Coontz, 2005; Moen & Roehling, 2004;
Over the past decade, research addressing Presser, 2004). This gender perspective under-
gender as a multilevel structural relationship stands politics in terms of ongoing multilevel
(Risman, 2004) has added to, rather than struggles over the nature of intersectional power
replaced, the microsocial view of gender as relations, not merely those occurring in formal
an interpersonally evaluated performance, or institutional contexts in and around governments
‘‘doing gender’’ (West & Zimmerman, 1987), and social movements (Brush, 2003; Pascale,
an approach that has continued to grow in the- 2007). For example, the politics of care does not
oretical sophistication in its own right. The only encompass the important macrolevel ques-
social constructionist view of gender has itself tions of when and how states and markets should
expanded to encompass more concern with be used to complement and support family-based
interactional analyses of multiple inequalities care (Daly & Rake, 2003; Gornick & Meyers,
2009). It also refers to the mesolevel organiza- diverse institutional inequalities at multiple lev-
tional conditions under which care is provided els of analysis and opens differing spaces for
in specific cases, how these draw on and create social change.
social inequalities, and when and how such insti-
tutions are changed (Hobson & Fahlen, 2009; INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS: SITES AND
Presser, 2004). It includes microlevel questions CIRCUITS OF GENDER POWER
of individual identities and interpersonal rela-
tionships among care workers, employers, and A dynamic gender analysis treats institutions
recipients of care as sites of struggle (Mac- such as families, states, and markets as inter-
donald, 2010; Tuominen, 2003). Each of these connected sites rather than separate spheres or
levels is seen as relating systematically to each even discrete systems (Howell, 2007). At the
other, with gender a meaningful structural rela- sites of family relations—both in and across
individual households—gender power gets exer-
tion needing analysis at and between each level
cised and institutionalized. Gender and family
(Risman, 2004). Gender as an inequality oper-
relations also depend on what Howell (p. 424)
ates in, on, with, and through family as an called the circuits connecting families with many
institution on all these levels. other institutions, such as government and for-
By defining power as a multilevel and mal employment, in particular settings. Walby
dynamic relation that enables, constrains, and (2009) portrayed these circuits as feedback
gives meaning to action, recent gender analyses loops, both positive (stabilizing) and negative
of families have focused much needed atten- (destabilizing) for the relations of inequity. She
tion on both institutions and intersectionality further argued that older notions of systems the-
(Haney & Pollard, 2004). Institutions consist of ory were wrong, not because they focused on
the social formations through which persons and feedback, but because they assumed equilibrium
groups are organized in meaningful relations and treated sites as if they were closed sys-
over time (P. Y. Martin, 2003a). Families are tems. Viewing gender only in relation to family,
social institutions existing in a multi-institutional class in relation to the economy, and race in
field in which social processes (such as produc- relation to states and nations distorted analyses
tion, reproduction, and representation) are orga- of these inequalities and institutions by hiding
nized through gender inequality, although never the dynamics of change. For example, the legal
by this relationship alone (Walby, 2009). Inter- definition of marriage and allocation of benefits
sectionality refers to the active interaction of the on that basis has become an obviously con-
various relations of inequality such as race, class, tested and changing institutional circuit between
sexuality, gender, and age within and across all family and state, simultaneously organized by
of the institutions of society (Anderson, 2005). gender, sexuality, age, and nationality. To grasp
All families must manage individual intersec- the implications of this struggle for families
tionality, because each member has been socially demands studying processes across levels of
assigned multiple identities (e.g., gender, race, analysis and institutional domains.
age, and nationality). Families as institutions are
also located in intersections of structural rela- From Structures Down and From Agents Up
tions of inequality within and across all other
The institutional aspect of gender relations
institutions (economic, governmental, religious, theory places families in a social context
and civic) at all levels from local to transnational larger than themselves. Moving beyond separate
(McCall, 2005). spheres ideology, it deals explicitly with the
In the following sections, I separately review issues of stability and change, the unevenness
contributions to the understanding of institu- and contradictions of gender relations within
tional and intersectional analysis of families and across social locations, and the balance
offered from a gender perspective. Afterward, between structure and agency in those sites.
I illustrate the potential for integration of insti- Albiston (2007), Blair-Loy (2003), Hobson and
tutional and intersectional issues by comparing Fahlen (2009), Jacobs and Gerson (2004), Moen
American and European feminist approaches to and Roehling (2004), and Presser (2004) have
understanding of care as a gendered system that offered varying conceptualizations of the circuits
links families and individuals within and across of work and family that follow this model.
In turn, the activity emphasized by a dynamic the processes of contradiction and contention
institutional approach moved analysts away in change over time (Allen, 2001; Coltrane,
from seeing either women or men as ‘‘actors 2004; Coontz, 2005; Risman, 2009). Rather
whose interests could be read directly from than individualizing culture schemas as personal
their economic position by invoking utilitar- attitudes or dehistoricizing cultural demands as
ian assumptions,’’ toward a conception of them monochromatically traditional, an institutional
as ‘‘boundedly-rational, operating with reper- approach to gender analysis defines culture
toires—of collective action, of organization, of as a powerful force operating at all levels,
identity—that are culturally constituted in ways but one that is locally specific and contested.
specific to time and place’’ (J. Adams, Clemens, For example, gender as a category does not
& Orloff, 2005, pp. 36 – 37). The power of just passively exist but must be defined by
inequality is not only economic or demographic, state action. In the United States, the first
but also expressed in cultural knowledge and challenges to laws limiting marriage to ‘‘a
self-understandings (P. Y. Martin 2003b). These man’’ and ‘‘a woman’’ came at the margins
discourses and schemas provide tools for making of these gender categories. Existing marriages
personally meaningful choices, but are them- with transsexual partners had to be validated or
selves imbued with implicit and explicit gender, invalidated by American courts deciding what is
race, sexual and national meanings (Pyke & ‘‘a man’’ and ‘‘a woman,’’ just as earlier courts
Johnson, 2003; K. A. Martin, 2009). Actors do had ruled on who belonged to which racial
not make truly free choices, but they do express categories. The state-by-state inconsistency of
individual agency through the cultural values, these legal definitions of gender underlined
political projects, and personal intentions they how arbitrary they were, as those rules defining
embrace (or resist). Society itself is a recurring racial categories for the purpose of preventing
human accomplishment (Connell, 2002). miscegenation also had been, which helped
The historicity emphasized by this institu- courts to see them as unconstitutional (Lenhardt,
tional approach to gender also makes it mean- 2008). Relations of gender and sexual inequality
ingful to ask not only when but how specific also have inspired collective resistance to the
structural gender relations become ‘‘deinstitu- state on family issues, as in LGBT movements’
tionalized,’’ as Cherlin (2004) has argued in direct efforts to eliminate the gender specificity
the case of contemporary American marriage. of the right to marry the person of one’s choice
Feminists have explored the active reinstitution- (Taylor, Van Dyke, & Anderson, 2009).
alization of gender on fundamentally different At the macrolevel, culture appears as dis-
cultural and material bases, not only in the courses of commonsense, appropriateness, and
United States (Goldin, 2006) but also transna- normality—what have been termed ‘‘ideolo-
tionally (Cha & Thebaud, 2009; Connell, 2008; gies’’ and ‘‘cultural models’’ (cf. Cherlin, 2009,
Peterson, 2005) and in other specific locales, on ‘‘expressive individualism’’). Pascale (2007)
such as postsocialist states (Adler, 2004; Gal showed how individuals made use of macrolevel
& Kligman, 2000; Rudd, 2000). Particularly race and gender discourse in micro ways, by
in studies of fatherhood, gender research has defining who they were in terms of what could
emphasized both the evidence of change in indi- be taken for granted about them. Attention to cul-
viduals and families (Coltrane, 2004; Townsend, tural discourse thus provided her a context for
2003) and the institutional obstacles to remak- understanding accountability (a key term in an
ing fatherhood on significantly more egalitarian interactional understanding of doing gender) in
terms (Hobson & Fahlen, 2009; Lister, 2009). more historically and locally situated terms. This
The risk remains that changes in gender relations approach has rejected the traditional-modern
become framed as the inevitable outcome of a dichotomy and, instead, has tried to expose
single force like modernization, rather than as the various intensifications and reformulations
objectives of struggles that are typically contra- of cultural norms that follow no one linear,
dictory in their processes and results. progressive path (Armstrong, 2003; Macdonald,
2009; Wade, 2009).
For example, despite their common self-
Contestation and Change definition as modern, the United States and
A gender analysis that is self-consciously Western European countries differ strikingly in
attentive to both structure and agency explores the common sense expressed in their public
discourses about gender and families, and their and transformed, but which often operate along
policy changes have sometimes come from separate tracks. Thus inconsistency between
contradictory directions. For example, Jenson discursively legitimate claims (‘‘we share house-
(2008) argued that, in the wake of feminist hold labor equally’’) and the routines of practice
movements as well as economic change, the (who does what and when) should be expected
current policy thinking of the European Union within and among individuals as well as across
has shifted to privilege ‘‘the child and its social locations such as race and class. Rather
parents’’ rather than ‘‘the worker and his than a ‘‘stalled revolution,’’ this represents the
dependents.’’ Although strikingly less gendered, predictably inconsistent nature of the circuits
this new model directs attention away from connecting household labor with other insti-
the elderly to focus instrumentally on children tutional sites (Jenkins-Perry & Claxton, 2009;
in terms of developing human capital rather Lang & Risman, 2007; Sullivan, 2004).
than either achieving gender equality or meeting Institutional analyses combining the macro-
human needs. structures of definitional and sanctioning author-
Although stressing human capital and defer- ity with the local level of implementation and
ring to the demands of the market is a long resistance have been particularly fruitful when
institutionalized (albeit highly problematic) U.S. they have simultaneously highlighted individual
norm, contestations in actual American family and collective agency as well as state power.
policy have been sharply divided by class. More For example, U.S. states’ efforts to impose their
affluent families get framed by a discourse of definitions of gender-appropriate roles on the
making policy more ‘‘family friendly’’ (Jacobs categories of man and woman and husband
& Gerson, 2004; Stone, 2007). Poor families get and wife by emphasizing gender difference
framed as needing more ‘‘work-discipline’’ and as the means to ‘‘healthy relationships’’ have
paternal engagement and influence (Christopher, encountered local resistance, as Heath (2009)
2004; Collins & Mayer, in press). Haney and showed in her study of a state-sponsored rela-
March (2003) showed how sharply policymak- tionship training course in a conservative state in
ers’ understandings of fathers as disciplinarians which lesbian couple participated without local
and income providers diverged from the caring objection. A comparison between the resistance
engagement poor women themselves want from strategies available to and used by American and
men in relation to their children. Problema- Dutch mothers confronting state case workers
tizing such market-driven demands has been highlighted the interplay of nationally specific
essential to an institutional approach to gender, cultures and state regulatory powers in making
which puts contestations within families and gender-based claims effective (Korteweg, 2006).
between families and employers into the context Research that brings in the relations among
of current and future changes in employment gendered institutions as such, not only look-
relations for both men and women (Moen & ing at identities and interactions within families,
Roehling, 2004). For example, neither women will continue to offer family scholars an impor-
nor men can easily resist occupational demands tant tool for exposing such contradictions and
for overwork, but institutional demands for long explaining gender and family change.
hours have reinforced gender-specific inequali-
ties (Jacobs & Gerson). Husbands’ longer hours
INTERSECTIONAL ANALYSIS: LOCATIONAL AND
pushed their wives down in as well as out of
the labor force (Cha, 2010), and mothers’ longer RELATIONAL MODELS
hours led them unwillingly to ‘‘opt out’’ of In the past decade, gender analysts have the-
career tracks (Stone). orized more specifically how social structures,
An institutional approach sees tension and political discourses, interpersonal practices, and
contradiction in gender expectations within individual experiences of inequality are shaped
and across sites as characteristic rather than not by gender alone but in interaction with race,
exceptional, both historically (M. Adams, 2007; class, age, sexuality, disability, and other rela-
Smock, 2004) and in the present (Gerson, 2002; tions of inequality (Ferree, 2009; Few, 2007;
Sullivan, 2004). P. Y. Martin (2003b) empha- Hancock, 2007; McCall, 2005; McDowell &
sized how all institutions rely on conscious Fang, 2007). The long and fruitful tradition of
discourses of legitimacy and unconscious rou- feminist scholarship by women of color provided
tine practices, both of which can be challenged the base on which current theory has built.
Despite differences in specifics, any perspec- Unfortunately, the locational emphasis on

tive is today called intersectional if it takes multi- giving voice to those who are in positions of
ple relations of inequality as the norm, sees them oppression has also contributed in practice to
as processes that shape each other, and considers what Hancock (2007) called a ‘‘content spe-
how they interactively define the identities and cialization’’ interpretation of intersectionality:
experiences—and thus analytic standpoints—of a substantive focus on the study of multiply
individuals and groups (for reviews, see Choo marginalized groups in isolation from broader
& Ferree, 2010; Davis, 2008; Hancock, 2007; systems. Moreover, approaches to disadvan-
McCall, 2005). Although feminist research made taged groups that fail to bring the standpoint
intersectional gender analyses possible, this per- of the multiply marginalized to the center of
spective has also been fruitfully challenged and the analysis lose the essential critical edge of
enriched by queer theory (Danby, 2007; Gold- intersectionality, continuing to frame group dif-
berg, 2009) and by studies of race/ethnicity, ference in terms of social problems as seen from
colonialism, and citizenship (for reviews, see the centers of power. Such tacit functionalism
Few, 2007; Mahalingham et al., 2009; McDow- may be especially pronounced when researchers
ell & Fang, 2007). Intersectional gender research impose a traditional-modern dichotomy on their
has continued to share with feminist research a data.
compelling interest in understanding inequali- Allendorf (2009) illustrated the value of
ties (rather than differences) and identifying the shifting the normative lens of the discipline
potential for change in (rather than adjustment away from identifying poor mothers in relation
to) the status quo (Allen, 2001). to problems from which they need rescue. She
Although gender scholars have enthusiasti- studied pregnant women’s empowerment and
cally embraced intersectionality, the very ubiq- maternal health in South Asia not only in
uity of the term hides the variety of meanings relation to familiar issues of illiteracy, poverty,
it has carried (Davis, 2008; Hancock, 2007; and family violence but also by bringing in
McCall, 2005). One significant distinction is variation in what the women thought important:
between locational and the relational versions the love and trust they had from and for
of intersectional analysis (Choo & Ferree, 2010; husbands and mothers-in-law. Hertz (2006) used
Ferree, 2009). the standpoint of women who chose single
motherhood to explore how American families
were changing. M. Nelson (2006) used the
Locational Intersectionality economic struggles of rural White working-
class single mothers to ‘‘make do’’ as a way
The locational approach derives from thinking of getting at both the cross-institutional work of
of intersections as defining groups (Crenshaw, organizing material survival and the class and
1989) and draws strongly on feminist standpoint gender discourses that made women’s choices
theory (McGraw, Zvonkovic, & Walker, 2000). of whom they consider family meaningful. This
A focus on intersectional locations emphasizes feminist emphasis on voice, standpoint, and
the identity categories and social positions that critical analysis is essential to locational analyses
are found when multiple forms of subordination of intersectionality worthy of the name.
co-occur (e.g., poor, Black, single) and makes
particular efforts to bring the standpoint of
such marginalized persons and groups into the Relational Intersectionality
research design. Studies of lesbian mothers Framing intersectionality as relations begins by
(Goldberg, 2009; Mamo, 2007), of urban identifying the processes, such as dichotomiz-
women’s experiences with welfare rules and ing gender and racializing selected ethnicities,
family poverty (Collins & Mayer, in press; that interact to produce dynamic and com-
Haney & March, 2003), and of immigrant plex patterns of inequality for everyone, not
domestic workers (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2001; merely the most disadvantaged (Hancock, 2007;
Parrenas, 2001) not only have illuminated what McCall, 2005; Walby, 2009). Struggles and con-
these socially devalued individuals face, but flicts, rather than groups, are the preferred focus
also used their standpoint theoretically to gain of study in this approach because these are
insights into the workings of the intersectional understood as both ubiquitous and informative.
systems of disadvantage. For example, M. Adams (2001) looked at a
‘‘family values’’ campaign of the 19th century which employees claimed rights for family time
to understand what was contentious over time from employers (Armenia & Gerstel, 2006),
in American gender and family discourse, and and when and why employers resisted specific
Hancock (2004) focused on tracing the develop- claims and claimants for leaves (Albiston, 2007;
ment of political discourses demeaning African Clawson, Gerstel, & Huyser, 2007).
American women as ‘‘welfare queens’’ as the
context in which poor women attempted to resist
such attributions (Haney & March, 2003). Gender, Men, and Masculinity
The relational approach has emphasized that Both types of intersectional analysis have helped
individuals contend with both institutionalized to make family research truly about gender rather
practices and cultural discourses. Pascale (2007, than just about women, directing attention to
p. 48) studied how individuals both used and men as actors with gendered subjectivities and
contested ‘‘commonsense’’ about race, gender, to gendered relations of masculinity operating
and class in making their own identities mean- in relation to other inequalities. Locational
ingful, treating the meaning of ‘‘difference as studies of masculinity as intersectional have
strategic and positional, and of identity as mobile proven useful to family studies in several
and performative.’’ In this light, K. A. Martin ways. They have given voice to men who
(2009) explored the discourse of heteronorma- may be otherwise overlooked, for example,
tivity in childrearing and Kane (2006) looked at by showing the egalitarianism in working-
the struggles between children and parents over class compared to professional men’s ideals
gender-nonconforming behaviors. The conflict and practices of family participation in Japan
between middle-class motherhood and career (Ishii-Kunz, 2009) and in the United States
success emphasized in American culture (Dill- (Shows & Gerstel, 2009) or revealing how
away & Paré, 2008; Kuperberg & Stone, 2008) gay fathers understand the challenges of being
was found not to be reflected in any similarly fathers in a heterosexist society (Berkowitz
oppositional relationship for individual wom- & Marsiglio, 2007; Stacey, 2005). They have
ens’ self concepts (McQuillan, Greil, Shreffler, highlighted contradictions, as when Townsend
& Tichenor, 2008). Connell (2002) spoke not of (2003) explored the standard normative case
passive locations but of active gender projects of middle-class American masculinity to pull
as positioning decision-making individuals in out the elements of self-concept not reducible
relation to dynamic social structures of oppres- to the single relationship of breadwinning and
sion and empowerment. McDaniel (2004) uses to highlight inconsistencies among these parts.
generation in this way to highlight gendered age And they have identified men’s own family
relations as intersectional, unequal, contested, change projects, even among conservative
and changing. Christians who are more or less consciously
Many of these studies have stressed how remaking patriarchy for themselves at the
relations of inequality themselves undergo microlevel (Wilcox, 2004). The best locational
change. For example, the shift to globalized intersectional research has situated individual
chains of production and the intensification of men’s struggles with masculinities (their gender
employer demands for workers’ time availability projects) in relation to macrolevel changes in
have challenged local gender systems as well how masculinity is institutionalized, such as
as race and class arrangements (Ehrenreich & the shift from local bourgeois masculinity (with
Hochschild, 2003; Peterson, 2005). Relational church and community involvement linked to
models of intersectionality have been able to men’s career advancement) to the rootlessly
incorporate the institutional emphasis on active transnational corporate masculinity now seen
circuits of power that work through both material among elites (Connell, 2008; Peterson, 2005).
and discursive means by researchers’ focus The relational perspective on intersectionality
on specific struggles. They have often studied has proven particularly fruitful for unpacking
family outside the family: For example, some the multiple layers of both oppression and
have explored how state support and women’s privilege in action for men and boys. For
childcare labor is negotiated in welfare offices example, relational gender analysis has been
by caseworkers and clients in different countries used to understand how racialized masculinity
(Haney, 2000; Korteweg, 2006) and across U.S. was used by both European American and
locales (Hays, 2002; Mayer, 2007), how and African American teachers to stratify African
American boys in a public school (Ferguson, In sum, the difference between the two
2000). It has also helped to explain the political approaches to intersectionality can best be seen
hostility in France and the United States among in the degree to which institutional change
working-class men toward people of color is central to the analysis. The locational
(Lamont, 2000). As Lamont showed, French approach is more static: It defines groups a
men took up media depictions of immigrants priori as marginalized or privileged and then
as ‘‘too patriarchal’’ and U.S. White men saw uses perspectives from these margins to reveal
Black families as ‘‘lacking male authority,’’ but relationships of power at the center and expose
both used the framing of others as having the relations across a list of elements of inequality,
wrong sort of families to buttress their own self- such as race, class, gender, sexuality, and age.
respect as fathers. Hobson (2002) considered the The relational approach foregrounds struggles
various national and local frameworks shaping that reveal the multidimensional organization
the process of ‘‘making men into fathers’’ of power and privilege. It draws on the
and Hook and Calasanti (2008) pointed to discourses of more and less powerful social
the contradictions in male single parents’ dual actors to critically engage with the terms of
projects of doing masculinity and mothering. debate in such institutional sites as scholarship,
Studies of how discourses about gender policy making, and popular culture. Studies of
(Gal & Kligman, 2000) and family (Haney even privileged White men and middle-class
& Pollard, 2004) have been used to interpret masculinity are intersectional to the extent that
and manage social change for both men they ask questions about how structural changes
and women are another type of relational in class and gender relations have encouraged
analysis of intersectionality that has been men and women to embrace different forms
particularly important in the past decade. Gal of family, whether gay fathers in Los Angeles
and Kligman used data from postsocialist ‘‘mothering’’ special needs children (Stacey,
Eastern Europe to indicate how discourses 2005) or elite fathers left behind to pay the
of male authority and practices of control bills for cross-national ‘‘helicopter’’ mothers
over relations of reproduction carried particular supervising the education of their children
weight in times of political uncertainty. Espiritu (Mahalingham et al., 2009).
(2001) showed how economically marginalized Both relational and locational intersectional
immigrant families in the United States used analyses complement each other and enrich a
control over their daughters’ sexuality as a gender perspective, especially when they bal-
way of claiming moral superiority to the host ance attention to structures of inequality with
culture, a claim that daughters sometimes shared a concern for agency and voice. Some have
and sometimes contested. Using comparisons of pointed to the danger in locational attention to
Dutch and American discourses about teenage diversity in that it makes cultures appear too
sexuality, Schalet (2000) demonstrated how static, homogeneous, and well bounded (Han-
the American ‘‘raging hormones’’ interpretation cock, 2007; McDowell & Fang, 2007). Others
fed into authorities’ efforts to suppress sexual have argued that the relational approach risks
expression, to control boys as ‘‘predators,’’ and understating the significance of historically insti-
to protect girls as their helpless ‘‘prey,’’ whereas tutionalized collective identities as standpoints
the Dutch view of ‘‘readiness’’ promoted for a critical view of inequalities (Anderson,
more self-regulation by both boys and girls. 2005; Davis, 2008). Yet intersectional analysis
Rudd (2000) described both men and women of either kind implies looking at privilege and
in the former East Germany as sharing an oppression as inherently multiple and contra-
understanding of their family relations as having dictory and so opens up new opportunities for
been utterly undercut by the new capitalist critique and change.
order. Contested discourses over ‘‘traditional
marriage’’ in the United States and ‘‘veiling’’ in
CONSIDERING CAREWORK AS
Western Europe provide other rich examples
of intersectional relationships of inequality INSTITUTIONALLY INTERSECTIONAL
in struggles over the role of the state in Carework has long been important to feminist
regulating gender, sexuality, and culturally theory because the actual work of care is
valued family practices (Heath, 2009; Rottmann strongly tied to women, socially devalued, and
& Ferree, 2008). incontrovertibly vital to society (Folbre, 2001).
Thinking about care provides an illustration won legal support for their struggle to ‘‘undo’’
of the challenges for developing a family gender. Challenging the U.S. state to value care
research agenda more attentive to institutional, work appropriately has led to both research and
intersectional dynamics of gender (England, activism around sick leave, parental leave, and
2005; Folbre, 2004). Because families are one of pensions (see, e.g., www.iwpr.org).
the several institutions charged with providing Income, a key circuit connecting families and
care, gender scholarship will benefit if family workplaces, is one way to approach the insti-
research makes a greater effort to investigate tutional valuation of care and its intersectional
caregivers’ locational standpoints and relational inequalities. A new line of research on how
struggles across multiple sites. income inequality in couples changes over time
The institutional unraveling of a system of within a marriage and in society as a whole
care built on the premise of male breadwinner follows this circuit to expose both material
families has become generally obvious in both and normative change (Becker, 2008; Winkler,
Europe and the United States in recent years McBride, & Andrews, 2005; Winslow-Bowe,
(Folbre, 2004; Hochschild, 2003). But because 2006). Following the circuit of income also
states differ, intersectional gender scholarship points to the discrimination facing mothers in
in the United States and Europe has tended the workplace, which has emerged as a promis-
to emphasize different problematics. In the ing topic in recent years. There is now evidence
United States, research has followed practice from both labor force data and innovative experi-
and stressed income deficiencies and market mental research (Correll, Benard, & Paik, 2007)
discrimination as major problems for caregivers. that White women who are perceived to be
In Europe, feminist research has focused on mothers will be faced with an additional layer
how state policy interacts with personal agency of discrimination on top of what they face as
and how time use is institutionally regulated. women, although not necessarily above what
Both have offered provocative ideas for taking
Black women routinely face (Glauber, 2007).
states, markets, families, and communities
Labor force studies have found all fathers got a
seriously as macrostructures in the throes of
wage bonus rather than paying a cost, but only
institutional transformation and have begun to
non-Black married men earned more when their
consider issues that have long been neglected.
Such research points to promising practices wives worked fewer hours (Glauber, 2008). Yet
with which individual and group struggles can for both men and women, work with a care-
increase the slow drip of social change in the giving component was paid less than other jobs
direction of social justice. of similar skill and gender (Budig, England, &
Folbre, 2002).
The income circuit also points to how the
American Challenges wages of paid caregivers have been suppressed
At the heart of the American issues with families by the American discourse pitting caring
as caring institutions is the degree to which a against earning. Interviews with employers have
political culture of liberal individualism resists revealed that they think the quality of care
valuing care (Cherlin, 2009; Folbre, 2001). is enhanced by the selective effects of low
Levitsky (2006) provided an exemplary study pay, so that only those who are willing to
of U.S. caregiver support groups that focused on work ‘‘for love’’ would be willing to do
how family caregivers struggle to articulate their this work (J. Nelson, 2003; Whitaker, 2003).
demands for more financial and social support Nonetheless, this underpayment contributed to
against the grain of the discourse, pointing high turnover, which lowered quality of care
to how state policy, employer actions, local through disruptions of personal relations. Pitting
groups, and interpersonal needs shaped these love against money as exclusive motivations also
individuals’ legal consciousness, that is, their has been found to contribute to the devaluation
sense of a right relationship between themselves of foster mothers, often working-class women
and the state. Legal consciousness was also (Swartz, 2004) and to the racialization of
critical to Albiston (2005), who showed both that elder care (Dodson & Zincavage, 2007). Yet
employers particularly resisted men’s claims for care workers have also actively contested this
family leave when there was any woman in their devaluation, sometimes successfully (Misra,
household and that the men who persevered 2003; Macdonald, 2010; Tuominen, 2003).
European Challenges configuration (Cooke & Baxter, 2010; Morgan,

The European climate for debates about care- 2006). Some European feminists have looked
giving is very different, because there has been a critically at state time policies that endorse the
long history of institutionalized state protections principle of fostering work-life balance, suggest-
and economic provision to support mothers’ ing that women’s own needs and perspectives
caregiving work outside the marketplace (Mor- have gotten short shrift in the scramble to simul-
gan & Zippel, 2003). Using market mechanisms taneously increase economic productivity over
to provide care is deeply controversial, as the the life course and promote fertility (Lewis &
public debate over employing maids in Sweden Campbell, 2008; Stratigaki, 2004). But they have
has shown (Bowman & Cole, 2009). The rela- also begun important theoretical work to inte-
tively smaller significance of markets and unpaid grate structure and agency in this context, partic-
community labor in providing essential care ularly through a capabilities approach (Hobson
work makes the state’s role in the regulation of & Fahlen, 2009; Lewis & Giullari, 2005).
time—the institutionalization of normal working Despite drastic recent changes, policy histo-
hours, days, weeks, and years—an exceptionally ries also matter for entrenching cultural norms.
interesting circuit to follow. For example, the division of household labor
On the one hand, there has been a partially in once-socialist East Germany continued after
successful feminist struggle to bring norms of unification to reflect its different experiences
gender equality into the European Union’s prin- with gender than West Germany (Cooke, 2007),
ciples and policies for care leave. One very and East German women ‘‘stubbornly’’ have
visible outcome of this has been the push to make resisted conforming their family behaviors to
fathers also be legally granted (and sometimes the Western norms (Adler, 2004). Hagemann
even be required to take) paid time away from (2006) drew attention to the ‘‘time politics’’ of
their jobs for childrearing (Hobson & Fahlen, West German institutions, particularly how the
2009). The degree to which men have taken hours kept by schools, shops, and workplaces
available fatherhood leaves varies, depending limited women’s options. A more generalized
on the details of the specific policy, national view of time as a circuit connecting gender rela-
discourses around gender equality, and specific tions among institutions and over the life course
workplace cultures (Hobson & Fahlen; Lister, awaits development.
2009). Time use data have thus been of partic- A truly intersectional view of time and income
ular importance for European research linking practices would also need to consider states,
macropolicies and father engagement (Sullivan, markets, communities, and families as relating
Coltrane, McAnnally, & Altintas, 2009). Unfor- across national borders outside the rich democ-
tunately, the push for state institutionalization racies. Some countries, such as the Philippines,
of engaged fatherhood may also feed intoler- actively encouraged the migration of both moth-
ance by framing European values as modern and ers and fathers to provide remittances and thus
egalitarian in opposition to those of immigrant educational opportunities to their children (Par-
groups, presented as uniformly oppressive and renas, 2005). Other states, such as Italy, have
dangerous (Lamont, 2000; Lister). recruited migrants to provide home-based elder
On the other hand, there have been economic care and encouraged Italian women to take paid
and political shifts in the European Union toward jobs and men to take parental leaves (Naldini
more intensive engagement of all adults in paid & Saraceno, 2008). Models of family support
labor (activation) and toward less regulation of and gender equality that cannot be generalized
hours and conditions of work (flexibilization), across countries are neither sustainable nor fair
with vastly unequal consequences for women (Hassim, 2008).
and men and among women in different member
countries (Daly & Rake, 2003). Legally fixed
A FORWARD-LOOKING CONCLUSION
retirement ages, vacation days, school calen-
dars, and shopping hours are more inflexible in Gender and family change is ongoing, but for
Europe than in the United States. These rules which people and for what relations any partic-
combine with more explicitly gendered state ular change constitutes a crisis or an opportunity
policies of maternity and parental care leaves to is and should be debatable. The circuits of time
set particular parameters for how family mem- and income traced in relation to care are only one
bers coordinate care that vary by specific policy example of what such politics may entail. Many
other cross-cutting multi-institutional issues The search for practices to transform gen-
with substantial implications for families (such der relations in and through the family as an
as adolescent sexuality, reproductive rights, or institution thus points to a continuing need for
interpersonal violence) could be used to illu- research considering the political and economic
minate the power of an institutional and inter- contexts in which families are situated, nei-
sectional gender analysis for family researchers, ther suggesting the United States as an invisible
and also provide arenas in which family studies normative standard nor erasing the difference
has much to contribute to understanding gender that context makes for intersectional struggles.
and other material and discursive inequalities. If gender and family scholars hope to do jus-
But it is important to recognize that, in a context tice to the real diversity of gender strategies
of struggle, not every change is progress and and struggles, research should locate behaviors
nearly all changes have differential effects on and norms in historical or policy contexts, and
those who are more or less powerful and privi- the framing of a traditional-modern dichotomy
leged. This is why studying struggles and their should be avoided, like the equally theoretically
outcomes is so important and yet so difficult. unsupportable term gender role. The circuits
Some changes point to the institutionalization among family-state-market-community should
and intensification of relations of inequality. For be scrutinized as they flow in multiple directions,
example, intensified economic competition, the with both stabilizing and destabilizing effects on
export of many manual labor jobs to low-wage intersectional inequalities in various institutional
countries, and a set of winner-take-all rules in sites. Much more comparative research, espe-
American capitalism certainly have played a cially among the rich democracies, is needed to
role in intensifying demands on middle-class untangle the relations between institutions and
mothers to cultivate their children’s educational practices in this era of change, not only at the
advantages over others. These heightened mater- policy level or in regard to material resources
nal work expectations have been evident both (Cooke & Baxter, 2010; Gornick & Meyers,
from birth to age 3 (Macdonald, 2009) and after 2009), but in the ways that macrolevel discourses
the children are in school (Lareau, 2003). The convey the priorities of the powerful from the
investment in children demanded of ‘‘good’’ top down and become objects of struggle from
mothers today has not only become about the bottom up (Cha & Thebaud, 2009).
actual care work but at least in part demands An analysis of families, therefore, that takes
symbolic sacrifice, for example, in medically seriously the institutional circuits and intersec-
irrelevant refusals of a glass of wine by pregnant tional inequalities in which gender is everywhere
women (Armstrong, 2003). ‘‘Bad mothers,’’ a involved and attempts to understand their opera-
powerfully racialized group, have become sub- tions over time cannot be a depoliticized science.
jected to intensified strategies of social control As the studies reviewed here are, such research
(Flavin, 2009; Springer, in press), and young can be rigorous in its methods and theoretically
Black men’s family relations are disrupted by well defined. But insofar as analyzing gender
extremely high levels of police surveillance attempts to reveal power as an active, chang-
(Goffman, 2009). Poor women have been put ing relationship, such research will contribute
in a position in which they must choose between to either doing or undoing the relations among
violating standards of good care (e.g., making institutions through which inequalities flow. It
sure a child receives needed medical attention) is thus political in the broadest sense. Although
and breaking the rules for keeping their jobs feminist researchers may not find this insight
or state benefits (Collins & Mayer, in press). particularly novel, I suggest that the best gender
Rather than showing a single evolution toward research of this decade has laid the groundwork
greater gender equality in modern societies, for an intersectional, institutional agenda where
these studies have revealed the contested race- contradiction, contestation, and change is central
and class-specific restructuring of gender rela- to studying families.
tions specific to the contemporary United States.
NOTE
Although European societies face their own
struggles over declining fertility and increas- This article could not possibly have been written without
the extensive feminist support and substantive and editorial
ing immigration, they have been more open than suggestions generously offered to me by Lisa D. Brush,
the United States to rewarding care work and Lynn Prince Cooke, Cameron Macdonald, Joya Misra,
accommodating same-sex relationships. and Barbara J. Risman. I cannot begin to thank them
sufficiently. My thanks also go to Naomi Gerstel, Lynne money? Bargaining and time in household work.
Haney, Sarah Kaiksow, Victoria Mayer, Julia McQuillan, American Journal of Sociology, 109, 186 – 214.
Margaret Nelson, Ann Orloff, and Kristen Springer for Blair-Loy, M. (2003). Competing devotions: Career
their encouraging comments and constructive critiques on and family among women executives. Cambridge,
earlier drafts. Wendy Christensen was, as usual, a crucial
and intelligent editorial assistant. Finally, my appreciation
MA: Harvard University Press.
goes to my husband, Don, whose practical support and Blume, L. B., & Blume, T. W. (2003). Toward a
sympathetic patience have buoyed me as I have struggled dialectical model of family gender discourse:
with the difficult task of imposing some degree of order on Body, identity, and sexuality. Journal of Marriage
this vast and diverse literature. and Family, 65, 785 – 794.
Bowman, J. R., & Cole, A. M. (2009). Do working
REFERENCES mothers oppress other women? The Swedish
‘‘maid debate’’ and the welfare state politics
Adams, J., Clemens, E., & Orloff, A.S. (Eds.). (2005). of gender equality. Signs: Journal of Women in
Remaking modernity: Politics, history and sociol- Culture and Society, 35, 157 – 184.
ogy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Brush, L. D. (2003). Gender and governance. Walnut
Adams, M. (2007). Women’s rights and wed- Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
ding bells: 19th-century pro-family rhetoric and Budig, M., England, P., & Folbre, N. (2002). Wages
(re)enforcement of the gender status quo. Journal of virtue: The relative pay of care work. Social
of Family Issues, 28, 501 – 528. Problems, 49, 455 – 473.
Adler, M. (2004). Childfree and unmarried: Changes Buss, D., & Herman, D. (2003). Globalizing family
in the life planning of young East German women. values: The Christian right in international
Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 1170 – 1179. politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Albiston, C. (2005). Bargaining in the shadow of Press.
social institutions: Competing discourses and Calasanti, T., & Slevin, K. F. (2006). Age mat-
social change in workplace mobilization of civil ters: Realigning feminist thinking. New York:
rights. Law and Society Review, 39, 11 – 50. Routledge.
Albiston, C. (2007). Institutional perspectives on law, Cancian, F., Kurz, D., London, A., Reviere, R., &
work, and family. Annual Review of Law and Tuominen, M. (Eds.). (2002). Child care and
Social Science, 3, 397 – 426. inequality: Rethinking carework for children and
Allen, K. R. (2001). Feminist visions for transforming youth. New York: Routledge.
families: Desire and equality, then and now. Cha, Y. (2010). Reinforcing separate spheres: The
Journal of Family Issues, 22, 791 – 809. effect of spousal overwork on men’s and women’s
Allendorf, K. (2009). The quality of family relation- employment in dual-earner households. American
ships, women’s agency, and maternal and child Sociological Review, 75, 303 – 329.
health in India. Unpublished dissertation, Univer- Cha, Y., & Thebaud, S. E. (2009). Labor markets,
sity of Wisconsin-Madison. breadwinning, and beliefs: How economic context
Anderson, M. (2005). Thinking about women: A shapes men’s gender ideology. Gender and
quarter-century’s view. Gender and Society, 19, Society, 23, 215 – 243.
337 – 355. Cherlin, A. (2004). The deinstitutionalization of
Armenia, A., & Gerstel, N. (2006). Family leaves, American marriage. Journal of Marriage and
the FMLA and gender neutrality: The intersection Family, 66, 848 – 861.
of race and gender. Social Science Research, 35, Cherlin, A. (2009). The marriage-go-round: The state
871 – 891. of marriage and the family in America today. New
Armstrong, E. (2003). Conceiving risk, bearing York: Knopf.
responsibility: Fetal alcohol syndrome and the Choo, H. Y., & Ferree, M. M. (2010). Practicing
diagnosis of moral disorder. Baltimore: Johns intersectionality in sociological research: A critical
Hopkins University Press. analysis of inclusions, interactions and institutions
Becker, T. (2008). When equality is not enough: in the study of inequalities. Sociological Theory,
The (lack of) stability in relative earnings within 28, 147 – 167.
marriage (Dissertation). Available from ProQuest Christopher, K. (2004). Welfare as we (don’t) know
Dissertations and Thesis database (AAT 3349120). it: A review and feminist critique of welfare reform
Berk, S. F. (1985). The gender factory. New York: research in the United States. Feminist Economics,
Plenum Press. 10, 143 – 171.
Berkowitz, D., & Marsiglio, W. (2007). Gay men: Clawson, D., Gerstel, N., & Huyser, D. (2007).
Negotiating procreative, father and family iden- Doing, negotiating, and contesting work time:
tities. Journal of Marriage and Family, 69, An analysis of class and gender in four medical
366 – 381. occupations. In Juravich, T. (Ed.), The future
Bittman, M., England, P., Sayer, L., Folbre, N., & of work (pp. 163 – 181). Amherst: University of
Matheson, G. (2003). When does gender trump Massachusetts Press.
Collins, J., & Mayer, V. (in press). With both Dillaway, H., & Paré, E. (2008). Locating mothers:
hands tied: Welfare and motherwork. Chicago: How cultural debates about stay-at-home versus
University of Chicago Press. working mothers define women and home. Journal
Coltrane, S. (2001). Marketing the marriage ‘solu- of Family Issues, 29, 437 – 464.
tion’: Misplaced simplicity in the politics of father- Dodson, L., & Zincavage, R. (2007). It’s like a family:
hood. Sociological Perspectives, 44, 387 – 418. Caring labor, exploitation and race in nursing
Coltrane, S. (2004). Elite careers and family com- homes. Gender & Society, 21, 905 – 928.
mitment: It’s (still) about gender. Annals of the Ehrenreich, B., & Hochschild, A. R. (2003). Global
American Academy of Political and Social Science, woman: Nannies, maids, and sex workers in the
596, 214 – 220. new economy. New York: Metropolitan Books.
Coltrane, S., & Adams, M. (2003). The social England, P. (2005). Emerging theories of care work.
construction of the divorce ‘‘problem’’: Morality, Annual Review of Sociology, 31, 381 – 399.
child victims, and the politics of gender. Family Espiritu, Y. L. (2001). ‘‘We don’t sleep around like
Relations, 52, 21 – 30. White girls do’’: Family, culture, and gender in
Coltrane, S., & Adams, M. (2008). Gender and Filipina American life. Signs: Journal of Women
families (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman and in Culture and Society, 26, 415 – 440.
Littlefield. Fenstermaker, S., & West, C. (2002). Doing differ-
Connell, R. W. (2002). Gender. Malden, MA: ence: Inequality, power and institutional change.
Blackwell. New York: Routledge.
Connell, R. W. (2008). Men, masculinity and gender Ferguson, A. A. (2000). Bad boys: Public schools
justice. In I. Lenz, C. Ullrich, & B. Fersch (Eds.), in the making of Black masculinity. Ann Arbor:
Gender orders unbound: Globalization, restruc- University of Michigan Press.
turing and reciprocity (pp. 51 – 68). Farmington Ferree, M. M. (1990). Beyond separate spheres: Fem-
Hills, MI: Budrich. inism and family research. Journal of Marriage
Cooke, L. P. (2006). ‘‘Doing gender’’ in context: and the Family, 52, 866 – 884.
Household bargaining and the risk of divorce in Ferree, M. M. (2009). Inequality, intersectionality
Germany and the United States. American Journal and the politics of discourse: Framing fem-
of Sociology, 112, 442 – 472. inist alliances. In E. Lombardo, P. Meier, &
Cooke, L. P. (2007). Persistent policy effects on M. Verloo (Eds.), The discursive politics of gender
gender equity in the home: The division of equality: Stretching, bending and policy-making
domestic tasks in reunified Germany. Journal of (pp. 84 – 101). London: Routledge.
Marriage and Family, 69, 930 – 950. Few, A. (2007). Integrating Black consciousness and
Cooke, L. P., & Baxter, J. (2010). ‘‘Families’’ in critical race feminism into family studies research.
international perspective: Comparing institutional Journal of Family Issues, 28, 452 – 473.
effects across western societies. Journal of Flavin, J. (2009). Our bodies, our crimes: The
Marriage and Family, 72, 516 – 536. policing of women’s reproduction in America. New
Coontz, S. (2005). Marriage, a history: From York: New York University Press.
obedience to intimacy or how love conquered Folbre, N. (2001). The invisible heart: Economics and
marriage. New York: Viking. family values. New York: New Press.
Correll, S. J., Benard, S., & Paik, I. (2007). Getting Folbre, N. (2004). Family time: The social organiza-
a job: Is there a motherhood penalty? American tion of care. New York: Routledge.
Journal of Sociology, 112, 1297 – 1338. Fox, G. L., & Murry, V. M. (2000). Gender and fam-
Crenshaw, K. W. (1989). Demarginalizing the inter- ilies: Feminist perspectives and family research.
section of race and sex: A Black feminist critique Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62,
of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and 1160 – 1172.
antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Gal, S., & Kligman, G. (2000). The politics of gender
Forum, 139 – 167. after socialism: A comparative-historical essay.
Daly, M., & Rake, K. (2003). Gender and the welfare Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
state: Care, work and welfare in Europe and the Gerson, K. (2002). Moral dilemmas, moral strategies
USA. Malden, MA: Polity Press. and the transformation of gender: Lessons from
Danby, C. (2007). Political economy and the closet: two generations of work and family change.
Heteronormativity in feminist economics. Femi- Gender and Society, 16, 8 – 28.
nist Economics, 13, 29 – 53. Glauber, R. (2007). Marriage and the motherhood
Davis, K. (2008). Intersectionality as buzzword: A wage penalty among African Americans, Hispan-
sociology of science perspective on what makes ics, and Whites. Journal of Marriage and Family,
a feminist theory successful. Feminist Theory, 9, 69, 951 – 961.
67 – 85. Glauber, R. (2008). Race and gender in families and
Deutsch, F. (2007). Undoing gender. Gender and at work: The fatherhood wage premium. Gender
Society, 21, 106 – 127. and Society, 22, 8 – 30.
Goffman, A. (2009). On the run: Wanted men Hertz, R. (2006). Single by chance, mothers by choice:
in a Philadelphia ghetto. American Sociological How women are choosing parenthood and creating
Review, 74, 339 – 357. the new American family. New York: Oxford
Goldberg, A. (2009). Lesbian parents and their University Press.
families: Complexity and intersectionality from Hill, S. (2005). Black intimacies: A gender perspec-
a feminist perspective. In S. Lloyd, A. Few, & tive on relationships and families. Walnut Creek,
K. Allen (Eds.), Handbook of feminist family CA: AltaMira Press.
studies (pp. 108 – 120). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hobson, B. (Ed). (2002). Making men into fathers:
Goldin, C. (2006). The quiet revolution that trans- Men, masculinities and the social politics of
formed women’s employment, education, and fatherhood. Cambridge: Cambridge University
family. American Economic Review, 96, 1 – 21. Press.
Gornick, J., & Meyers, M. (2009). Gender equality: Hobson, B., & Fahlen, S. (2009). Competing scenar-
Transforming family divisions of labor. New York: ios for European fathers: Applying Sen’s agency
Verso. and capabilities framework to work-life balance.
Gupta, S. (2006). The consequences of maternal Annals of the American Academy of Political and
employment during men’s childhood for their adult Social Science, 64, 214 – 243.
housework performance. Gender and Society, 20, Hochschild, A. R. (2003). The commercialization of
60 – 86. intimate life: Notes from home and work. Berkeley:
Gupta, S. (2007). Autonomy, dependence or display? University of California Press.
The relationship between married women’s earn- Holstein, J., & Gubrium, J. (1999). What is family?
ings and housework. Journal of Marriage and Further thoughts on a social constructionist
Family, 69, 399 – 417. approach. Marriage and Family Review, 28, 3 – 20.
Hagemann, K. (2006). Between ideology and econ- Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. (2001). Doméstica: Immigrant
omy: The ‘‘time politics’’ of child care and public workers cleaning and caring in the shadows of
education in the two Germanys. Social Politics, affluence. Berkeley: University of California Press.
13, 217 – 260.
Hook, J., & Calasanti, S. (2008). Gendered expecta-
Hancock, A. (2004). The politics of disgust: The
tions? Reconsidering single fathers’ childcare time.
public identity of the welfare queen. New York:
Journal of Marriage and Family, 70, 978 – 990.
New York University Press.
Howell, J. (2007). Gender and civil society: Time
Hancock, A. (2007). When multiplication doesn’t
for cross-border dialogue. Social Politics, 4,
equal quick addition: Examining intersectionality
415 – 436.
as a research paradigm. Perspectives on Politics,
Ishii-Kunz, M. (2009). Working-class fatherhood and
5, 63 – 79.
Haney, L. (2000). Global discourses of need: Mythol- masculinities in contemporary Japan. In S. Lloyd,
ogizing and pathologizing welfare in Hun- A. Few, & K. Allen (Eds.), Handbook of feminist
gary. In M. Burawoy (Ed.), Global ethnography family studies (pp. 177 – 191). Thousand Oaks,
(pp. 48 – 73). Berkeley: University of California CA: Sage.
Press. Jacobs, J., & Gerson, K. (2004). The time divide:
Haney, L., & March, M. (2003). Married fathers Work, family, and gender inequality. Cambridge,
and caring daddies: Welfare reform and the MA: Harvard University Press.
discursive politics of paternity. Social Problems, Jenkins-Perry, M., & Claxton, A. (2009). Femi-
50, 461 – 481. nist visions for rethinking work and family
Haney, L., & Pollard, L. (Eds.). (2004). Families of a connections. In S. Lloyd, A. Few, & K. Allen
new world: Gender, politics, and state development (Eds.), Handbook of feminist family studies
in a global context. New York: Routledge. (pp. 121 – 133). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Harrington Meyer, M., & Herd, P. (2007). Market Jenson, J. (2008), Writing women out, folding gender
friendly or family friendly? The state and gender in: The European Union ‘‘modernizes’’ social
inequality in old age. New York: Russell Sage policy. Social Politics, 15, 131 – 153.
Foundation. Jurik, N., & Siemsen, C. (2009). Doing gender as
Hassim, S. (2008). Global constraints on gender canon or agenda? Gender and Society, 23, 72 – 75.
equality in care work. Politics and Society, 36, Kane, E. (2006). No way my boys are going to be
388 – 402. like that! Parents’ responses to children’s gender
Hays, S. (2002). Flat broke with children: Women nonconformity. Gender and Society, 20, 149 – 176.
in the age of welfare reform. New York: Oxford Korteweg, A. (2006). The construction of gendered
University Press. citizenship at the welfare office: An ethnographic
Heath, M. (2009). State of our unions: Marriage pro- comparison of welfare-to-work workshops in the
motion and the contested power of heterosexuality. United States and the Netherlands. Social Politics,
Gender and Society, 23, 27 – 48. 13, 313 – 340.
Kuperberg, A., & Stone, P. (2008). The media young children. American Sociological Review,
depiction of women who ‘‘opt out.’’ Gender and 74, 190 – 207.
Society, 22, 497 – 517. Martin, P. Y. (2003a). Gender as a social institution.
Lamont, M. (2000). The dignity of working men: Social Forces, 82, 1249 – 1274.
Morality and the boundaries of race, class, and Martin, P. Y. (2003b). ‘‘Said and done’’ versus
immigration. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. ‘‘saying and doing’’: Gendering practices and
Lang, M. M., & Risman, B. J. (2007). A ‘‘stalled’’ practicing gender at work. Gender and Society,
revolution or a still-unfolding one? The continuing 17, 342 – 366.
convergence of men’s and women’s roles. Paper Mayer, V. (2007). Contracting citizenship: Shifting
prepared for the 10th Anniversary Conference of public boundaries in the context of welfare reform
the Council on Contemporary Families, Chicago. (Dissertation). Available from ProQuest Disserta-
Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, tions and Thesis database. (AAT 3294077).
and family life. Berkeley: University of California McCall, L. (2005). The complexity of intersection-
Press. ality. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and
Lenhardt, R. A. (2008). Beyond analogy: Perez v. Society, 30, 1771 – 1800.
Sharp, antimiscegenation law, and the fight for McDaniel, S. A. (2004). Generationing gender: Jus-
same-sex marriage. California Law Review, 96, tice and the division of welfare. Journal of Aging
839 – 902. Studies, 18, 27 – 44.
Levitsky, S. (2006). Private dilemmas of public McDowell, T., & Fang, S. R. S. (2007). Feminist-
provision: The formulation of political demand for informed critical multiculturalism: Considerations
long-term care provision. (Doctoral dissertation). for family research. Journal of Family Issues, 28,
Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Thesis 549 – 566.
database (AAT 3245607). McGraw, L., Zvonkovic, A., & Walker, A. J. (2000).
Lewis, J., & Campbell, M. (2008). What’s in a name? Studying postmodern families: A feminist analysis
‘‘Work and family’’ or ‘‘work and life’’ balance of ethical tensions in work and family research.
policies in the UK since 1997 and the implications Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 68 – 77.
for the pursuit of gender equality. Social Policy
McQuillan, J., Greil, A., Shreffler, K., & Tichenor, V.
and Administration, 42, 524 – 541.
(2008). The importance of motherhood among
Lewis, J., & Giullari, S. (2005). The adult worker
women in the contemporary U.S. Gender &
model family, gender equality and care: The search
Society, 22, 477 – 496.
for new policy principles and the possibilities and
Misra, J. (2003). Caring about care. Feminist Studies,
problems of a capabilities approach. Economy and
29, 387 – 401.
Society, 34, 76 – 104.
Lister, R. (2009). A Nordic nirvana? Gender, Moen, P., & Roehlinger, P. (2004). The career
citizenship and social justice in the Nordic welfare mystique: Cracks in the American dream. Lanham,
states. Social Politics, 16, 242 – 278. MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Lloyd, S., Few, A. & Allen, K. (2009). Handbook of Morgan, K. (2006). Working mothers and the welfare
feminist family studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. state. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Lorber, J. (2005). Breaking the bowls: Degendering Morgan, K., & Zippel, K. (2003). Paid to care: The
and feminist change. New York: Norton. origins and effects of care leave policies in western
Macdonald, C. L. (2009). What’s culture got to do Europe. Social Politics, 10, 49 – 85.
with it? Mothering ideologies as barriers to gender Naldini, M., & Saraceno, C. (2008). Social and
equity. In J. Gornick & M. Meyers (Eds.), Gender family policies in Italy: Not totally frozen but
equality: Transforming family divisions of labor far from structural reforms. Social Policy and
(pp. 411 – 434). New York: Verso. Administration, 42, 733 – 748.
Macdonald, C. L. (2010). Shadow mothers: Nannies, Nelson, J. (2003). The childcare economic conun-
au pairs, and the micropolitics of mothering. drum: Quality versus affordability. In K. Moe
Berkeley: University of California Press. (Ed.), Women, family, and work: Writings on the
Mahalingham, R., Balan, S., & Molina, K. (2009). economics of gender (pp. 125 – 141). Malden, MA:
Transnational intersectionality: A critical frame- Blackwell.
work for theorizing motherhoods. In S. Lloyd, Nelson, M. (2003). The social economy of single
A. Few, & K. Allen (Eds.), Handbook of femi- motherhood: Raising children in rural America.
nist family studies (pp. 69 – 79). Thousand Oaks, New York: Routledge.
CA: Sage. Nelson, M. (2006). Single mothers ‘‘do’’ family.
Mamo, L. (2007). Queering reproduction: Achieving Journal of Marriage and Family, 68, 781 – 795.
pregnancy in the age of technoscience. Durham, O’Connor, A. (2001). Poverty knowledge: Social
NC: Duke University Press. science, social policy and the poor in twentieth-
Martin, K. A. (2009). Normalizing heterosexuality: century U.S. history. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Mothers’ assumptions, talk and strategies with University Press.
Oswald, R. (2002). Resilience within the family Stacey, J. (2005). The families of man: Gay male
networks of lesbians and gay men: Intentionality intimacy and kinship in a global metropolis. Signs:
and redefinition. Journal of Marriage and Family, Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 30,
64, 374 – 383. 1911 – 1935.
Parrenas, R. (2001). Servants of globalization: Stacey, J., & Biblarz, T. (2001). (How) does the
Women, migration and domestic work. Stanford, sexual orientation of parents matter? American
CA: Stanford University Press. Sociological Review, 66, 159 – 183.
Parrenas, R. (2005). Children of global migration: Stone, P. (2007). Opting out? Why women really quit
Transnational families and gendered woes. Stan- careers and head home. Berkeley: University of
ford, CA: Stanford University Press. California Press.
Pascale, C. (2007). Making sense of race, class and Stratigaki, M. (2004). The cooptation of gender con-
gender: Commonsense, power and privilege in the cepts in EU policies: The case of ‘‘reconcilia-
United States. New York: Routledge. tion of work and family.’’ Social Politics, 11,
Peterson, V. S. (2005). How (the meaning of) gender 30 – 56.
matters in political economy. New Political Sullivan, O. (2004). Changing gender practices within
Economy, 10, 499 – 521. the household: A theoretical perspective. Gender
Presser, H. (1997). Demography, feminism, and the & Society, 18, 207 – 222.
science-policy nexus. Population and Develop- Sullivan, O., Coltrane, S., McAnnally, L., & Altin-
ment Review, 23, 295 – 331. tas, E. (2009). Father-friendly policies and time-
Presser, H. (2004). Working in a 24/7 economy: use data in cross-national contexts. Annals of the
Challenges for American families. New York: American Academy of Political and Social Science,
Russell Sage Foundation. 64, 234 – 254.
Pyke, K., & Johnson, D. L. (2003). Asian American Swartz, T. T. (2004). Mothering for the state: Foster
women and racialized femininities: ‘‘Doing parenting and the challenges of government-
gender’’ across cultural worlds. Gender and contracted carework. Gender and Society, 18,
Society, 17, 33 – 53. 567 – 587.
Risman, B. J. (2004). Gender as a social structure: Taylor, V., Van Dyke, N., & Anderson, A. E. (2009).
Theory wrestling with activism. Gender and Culture and mobilization: Tactical repertoires,
Society, 18, 429 – 450. same-sex weddings, and the impact on gay
Risman, B. J. (2009). From doing to undoing: Gender activism. American Sociological Review, 74,
as we know it. Gender and Society, 23, 81 – 84. 865 – 890.
Rosenfeld, M. J. (2007). The age of independence: Thistle, S. (2006). From marriage to the market:
Interracial unions, same-sex unions and the The transformation of women’s lives and work.
changing American family. Cambridge, MA: Berkeley: University of California Press.
Harvard University Press. Townsend, N. (2003). The package deal: Marriage,
Rottmann, S., & Ferree, M. M. (2008). Citizenship work and fatherhood in men’s lives. Philadelphia:
and intersectionality: German feminist debates Temple University Press.
about headscarf and anti-discrimination laws. Treas, J., & deRuijter, E. (2008). Earnings and
Social Politics, 15, 481 – 513. expenditures on household services in married
Rudd, E. (2000). Reconceptualizing gender in post- and cohabiting unions. Journal of Marriage and
socialist transformation. Gender and Society, 14, Family, 70, 796 – 805.
517 – 539. Tuominen, M. C. (2003). We are not babysitters:
Schalet, A. T. (2000). Raging hormones, regulated Family child care providers redefine work and
love: Adolescent sexuality and the constitution care. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
of the modern individual in the United States of Press.
America and the Netherlands. Body and Society, Wade, L. (2009). Defining gendered oppression in
6, 75 – 105. U.S. newspapers: The strategic value of ‘‘female
Shows, C., & Gerstel, N. (2009). Fathering, class genital mutilation.’’ Gender and Society, 23,
and gender: A comparison of physicians and 293 – 314.
Emergency Medical Technicians. Gender and Waite, L., & Gallagher, M. (2003). The case for
Society, 23, 161 – 187. marriage: Why married people are happier,
Smock, P. (2004). The wax and wane of marriage: healthier, and better off financially. New York:
Prospects for marriage in the 21st century. Journal Broadway Books.
of Marriage and Family, 66, 966 – 973. Walby, S. (2009). Globalization and inequalities:
Springer, K. W. (In press). The race and class privi- Complexity and contested modernities. London:
lege of motherhood: New York Times presentations Sage.
of pregnant drug-using women. Sociological Walker, A. (2009). A feminist critique of family
Forum. studies. In S. Lloyd, A. Few, & K. Allen (Eds.),
Handbook of feminist family studies (pp. 18 – 28). Williams, J. C., & Boushey, H. (2010). The three
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. faces of work-family conflict. San Francisco:
West, C., & Zimmerman, D. (1987). Doing gender. Center for American Progress/WorkLife Law.
Gender and Society, 1, 125 – 151. Wills, J., & Risman, B. (2006). The visibility of
Whitaker, J. (2003). Seeking compassionate women: feminist thought in family studies. Journal of
The crisis in low-wage healthcare work. (Disserta- Marriage and Family, 68, 690 – 700.
tion). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Winkler, A. E., McBride, T. D., & Andrews, C.
Thesis database. (AAT 3101280). (2005). Wives who outearn their husbands: A
Wilcox, W. B. (2004). Soft patriarchs, new men. transitory or persistent phenomenon for couples?
Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Demography, 42, 523 – 535.
Williams, J. C. (2000). Unbending gender: Why work Winslow-Bowe, S. (2006). The persistence of wives’
and family conflict and what to do about it. New income advantage. Journal of Marriage and
York: Oxford University Press. Family, 68, 824 – 842.

Filling The Glass: Gender Perspectives On Families: YRA ARX Erree

Uploaded by

Document Informationclick to expand document information

Copyright:

Available Formats

Filling The Glass: Gender Perspectives On Families: YRA ARX Erree

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Filling The Glass: Gender Perspectives On Families: YRA ARX Erree

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

MYRA MARX FERREE University of Wisconsin

Filling the Glass: Gender Perspectives on Families

Despite differences in specifics, any perspec- Unfortunately, the locational emphasis on

European Challenges configuration (Cooke & Baxter, 2010; Morgan,

You might also like