Family Patterns, Gender Relations

by Fox, Bonnie J.

• ISBN13: 9780195424898
• ISBN10: 0195424891
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-05-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

What is a family? Bonnie Fox suggests that family relationships are ones in which people care for children, themselves, and each other. At the same time she emphasizes that these relationships are shaped by the larger social context. While understandings of family are no longer limited to the male bread-winner-female homemaker model of the 1950s, gender ideologies still play a major role in structuring family relations.

Author Biography

Bonnie Fox is Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xi
Putting 'Family' in Perspective	p. 1
Conceptualizing 'Family'	p. 3
The Unnatural Family	p. 21
Is There a Family? New Anthropological Views	p. 29
Diverse Family Patterns	p. 41
Foraging Societies: Communal 'Households'	p. 42
Women in an Egalitarian Society: The Montagnais-Naskapi of Canada	p. 43
Agricultural Societies: The 'Family Economy'	p. 55
The Family Economy in Modern England and France	p. 56
Patriarchal Relations of Production in Nineteenth-century Ontario	p. 85
Industrial Capitalism: The Rise of Breadwinner-Homemaker Families	p. 97
Dynamics of Kin in an Industrial Community	p. 99
Domesticity	p. 111
Putting Mothers on the Pedestal	p. 118
From 1950s Breadwinner-Homemaker Families to Twenty-first Century Diversity	p. 136
Sexuality and the Post-war Domestic 'Revival'	p. 137
Wives and Husbands	p. 156
As Times Change: A Review of Trends in Family Life	p. 180
Elements of Family	p. 209
Sexuality: Negotiating Adult Intimacy	p. 210
Heterosexuality: Contested Ground	p. 212
Navigating Sexual Terrain: Legacies of the Sacred and the Secular in the Lives of French-Canadian Women	p. 219
One Is Not Born a Bride: How Weddings Regulate Heterosexuality	p. 236
Marriage and Domesticity: Becoming Family	p. 241
'Here Comes the Bride': The Making of a 'Modern Traditional' Wedding in Western Culture	p. 242
Veering Toward Domesticity	p. 259
Education, Work, and Family Decision-making: Finding the 'Right Time' to Have a Baby	p. 277
Parenthood and Childcare: Taking on Gendered Responsibilities	p. 290
When the Baby Comes Home: The Dynamics of Gender in the Making of Family	p. 292
Motherwork, Stress, and Depression: The Costs of Privatized Social Reproduction	p. 310
'Like a Family': Reproductive Work in a Co-operative Setting	p. 325
Opting into Motherhood: Lesbians Blurring the Boundaries and Transforming the Meaning of Parenthood and Kinship	p. 343
The Gender-divided Work Involved in Maintaining Families	p. 365
Household Labour and the Routine Production of Gender	p. 367
Lesbians at Home: Why Can't a Man Be More Like a Woman?	p. 385
Moneywork: Caregiving and the Management of Family Finances	p. 417
The Politics of Family and Immigration in the Subordination of Domestic Workers in Canada	p. 428
Family Coping Strategies: Balancing Paid Employment and Domestic Labour	p. 453
Families Negotiating Change, Changing Families	p. 475
From Hong Kong to Canada: Immigration and the Changing Family Lives of Middle-class Women from Hong Kong	p. 477
Gender, Generation, and the 'Immigrant Family': Negotiating Migration Processes	p. 496
Transforming Rural Livelihoods: Gender, Work, and Restructuring in Three Ontario Communities	p. 509
Other Family Matters	p. 523
Confronting Violence in Women's Lives	p. 525
Children's Adjustment to Divorce	p. 543
Lessons from Europe: Policy Options to Enhance the Economic Security of Canadian Families	p. 552
Index	p. 575
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