Despite the large number of textbooks dealing with the notion of family, no attempt has been made at presenting a methodological approach to examining family relationships and their role in society. This compelling and insightful text fills that gap by offering articles that together develop a systematic understanding of family. Family Patterns, Gender Relations focuses not only on the dynamics of childcare, sexuality, and daily co-habitation, but also on the way that these patterns are shaped by the larger social culture. While some of the readings examine cross-cultural and historical variations in family patterns so as to highlight the social organization of things that otherwise seem "natural", the bulk of articles focus on the social relations of sexuality and intimacy, reproduction, parenting, and living together. Because these relations are typically gender relations, a concern with gender inequality is constant throughout the book. Gathering under one cover the work of nearly three dozen leading scholars, this work synthesizes a broad range of approaches to this critical issue for courses in the sociology of the family or women's studies.
This completely updated, second edition offers articles that together develop a systematic understanding of family. It focuses not only on the dynamics of childcare, sexuality, and daily cohabitation, but also on the way that these patterns are shaped by the larger social culture. While some of the readings examine cross-cultural and historical variations in family patterns, highlighting the social organization of things that otherwise seem "natural," the bulk of articles focus on the social relations of sexuality and intimacy, reproduction, parenting, and living together. Because these relations are typically gender relations, a concern with gender inequality is constant throughout the book. Compelling and insightful, this timely work synthesizes a broad range of approaches for all those interested in sociology of the family or women's studies.
Preface
Acknowledgements
Part One: Putting 'Family' in Perspective
Chapter 1. The Unnatural Family, Felicity Edholm
Chapter 2. Is There a Family? New Anthropological Views, Jane Collier, Michelle Z. Rosaldo, Sylvia Yanagisako
Chapter 3. Conceptualizing Family, Bonnie Fox and Meg Luxton
Part Two: Examining Family Diversity Across History and Culture
Section 1: Foraging Societies: Communal Households
Chapter 4. !Kung Women: contrasts in Sexual Egalitarianism in Foraging and Sedentary Contexts, Patricia Draper
Chapter 5. Women in an Egalitarian Society: The Montagnais-Naskapi of Canada, Eleanor Leacock
Section 2: Preindustrial Europe and North America: The Household Economy
Chapter 6. Women, Men, and the Family in Medieval England, Tracey L. Adams
Chapter 7. The Family Economy in Modern England and France, Louise A. Tilly and Joan W. Scott
Chapter 8. Gender at Work at Home: Family Decisions, the Labour Market, and Girls' Contributions to the Family Economy, Bettina Bradbury
Chapter 9. Domesticity, Nancy F. Cott
Chapter 10. Putting Mothers on the Pedestal, Maxine Margolis
Part Three: Twentieth-Century Developments
Chapter 11. As Times Change: A Review of Trends in Personal and Family Life, Bonnie Fox
Chapter 12. Wives and Husbands, Meg Luxton
Chapter 13. 'Leave It to Beaver' and 'Ozzie and Harriet': American Families in the 1950s, Stephanie Coontz
Part Four: Exploring the Many Facets of Personal Life and Family
Section 1: The Social Construction of Gender: Processes Creating Mothers, Wives and Breadwinners
Chapter 14. The Reproduction of Family Life: Perspectives of Male and Female Adolescents, Jane Gaskell
Chapter 15. hard Choices: Veering Toward Domesticity, Kathleen Gerson
Section 2: Sexuality and Love: Gendered Experiences
Chapter 16. Heterosexuality: Contested Ground, Mariana Valverde
Chapter 17. Heterosexual Sex: Power and Desire for the Other, Wendy Hollway
Section 3: Becoming a Mother, Becoming a Father, Doing Motherwork
Chapter 18. Making Labour Work: Women Negotiating Medicalized Childbirth, Diana Worts and Bonnie Fox
Chapter 19. Reproducing Difference: Changes in the Lives of Partners becoming Parents, Bonnie Fox
Chapter 20. Motherwork, Stress, and Depression: The Costs of Privatized Social Reproduction, Harriet Rosenberg
Section 4: The Gendered Division of Household Work
Chapter 21. Family Coping Strategies: Balancing Paid Employment and Domestic Labour, Meg Luxton
Chapter 22. The Third Shift, Arlie Hochschild
Chapter 23. The Politics of Family and Immigration in the Subordination of Domestic Workers in Canada, Sedef Arat-Koc
Part Five: Ethnic/Racial Diversity in Families
Chapter 24. African-American Families and Family Values, Niara Sudarkasa
Chapter 25. Swapping: 'What Goes Round Comes Round', Carol Stack
Chapter 26. Black Families in Canada: Exploring the Interconnections of Race, Class, and Gender, Agnes Calliste
Chapter 27. From Hong Kong to Canada: Immigration and the Changing Family Lives of Middle-Class Women from Hong Kong, Guida Man
Part Six: Families That Challenge Conventional Patterns
Chapter 28. Lesbian Families, Fiona Nelson
Chapter 29. Pathbreakers: Some Unconventional Families of the Nineties, Bonnie J. Fox and Doreen Fumia
Part Seven: Other Family Matters
Chapter 30. Confronting Violence in Women's Lives, Rosemary Gartner, Myrna Dawson, and Maria Crawford
Chapter 31. Children's Adjustment to Divorce, Frank F. Furstenberg and Andrew J. Cherlin
Part Eight: Toward Change: Social Policies for Families
Chapter 32. Lessons from Europe: Policy Options to Enhance the Economic Security of Canadian Families, Shelly A. Phipps
Chapter 33. Welfare State Restructuring and Changing Gender Relations: The Politics of Family Policy in Sweden and Canada, Rianne Mahon
Index