Filling the Glass: Gender Perspectives on Families

Abstract

The challenge feminist scholarship posed to family studies has been largely met through the incorporation of research on gender dynamics within families and intersectional differences among them. Despite growing attention to gender as performance and power in more diverse families, the more difficult work of understanding the dynamics of change among institutions including the family and using intersectional analyses to unpack relationships of power is only beginning. Reviewing the contributions researchers have made in these areas over the last decade and applying the idea of circuits to the study of care work, this article points to promising practices for both improving research on gender and families and contributing to the slow drip of institutional change.