Studying Complex Families in Context

"How Does the Gender of Parents Matter?" is an intriguing follow-up to Stacey and Biblarz' s (2001) meta-analysis of the research on lesbian and gay parenting, in which they asked the question "(How) does the sexual orientation of parents matter?" The authors concisely and thoughtfully summarize much of the research on lesbian and gay parenting and single parenting and raise some interesting questions about how, specifically, the gender of parents matters. Their review stimulated me to consider several key, interrelated issues. First, it prompted me to reflect upon the ways that we have chosen to think about and study gender. Specifically, I would like us to consider a lens that seeks to probe the intersections of gender with other relevant social categories and contexts, as opposed to a framework that aims to identify how gender operates "independent" of these. Second, this review compelled me to consider some of the ways in which our definitions of family have caused us to overlook important elements of diversity within lesbian-parent and gay-parent families. Third, I was prompted to consider how the data that we rely upon as sources of knowledge - that is, quantitative and qualitative - necessarily shapes the conclusions we draw regarding the nature, meaning, and implications of gender and family. In my commentary, I discuss these three issues as they relate to the authors' review. Gender and Context One major goal of the authors' synthesis appears to be to isolate the "main effect" of gender on parenting, apart from parental sexual orientation, number of parents, marital status, and biological relatedness to one's child. And yet their review points, again and again, to the reality that the interactions, where gender is concerned, are far more plentiful, compelling, and interesting than the main effects. Thus, although it is true, as they conclude in their abstract, that "average differences favor women over men, but parenting skills are not dichotomous or exclusive," the findings that they present tell a far more complicated story and seriously call into question whether gender can ever be truly studied and understood independent of both the immediate (familial) environment and the broader (e.g., societal and legal) context. Indeed, although it is statistically possible to hold constant factors such as sexual orientation, number of parents, marital status, and the biogenetic relationship of parents to the child, in order to evaluate the unique effect of gender, the practical utility of understanding how gender operates independent of these social categories is questionable. Further, even when controlling for such factors, it is debatable whether the gender that we observe in one environment or context is truly equivalent to the gender that we observe in another. Consider a study that controls for the number of parents in the household, parents' marital status, and parents' biogenetic relationship to their child by comparing the parenting behaviors of lesbian adoptive mothers who are married to female partners to those of heterosexual adoptive mothers who are married to male partners. We cannot say that these scenarios are equivalent except for parental gender. The relational context (i.e., the experience of parenting with a woman or a man) necessarily transforms the role, meaning, and function of gender. As the authors observe, in their review. Two mothers tended to play with their children more (e.g., Golombok et al., 2003) and to discipline them less than married heterosexual parents. They were less likely to employ corporal punishment, to set strict limits on their children, or try to elicit social (and gender) conformity (Bos et al., 2004, 2007; Johnson & O'Connor, 2002; MacCallum & Golombok, 2004).... In other words, two women who chose to become parents together seemed to provide a double dose of a middle-class "feminine" approach to parenting....Parenting without men may enhance "feminine" dimensions of parenting, but also might release women from some gender constraints, (p. …