The Family of Woman : Lesbian Mothers, Their Children, and the Undoing of Gender

Amidst the shrill and discordant notes struck in debates over the make-up--or breakdown--of the American family, the family keeps evolving. This book offers a close and clear-eyed look into a form this change has taken most recently, the lesbian coparent family. Based on intensive interviews and extensive firsthand observation, The Family of Woman chronicles the experience of thirty-four families headed by lesbian mothers whose children were conceived by means of donor insemination.With its intimate perspective on the interior dynamics of these families and its penetrating view of their public lives, the book provides rare insight into the workings of emerging family forms and their significance for our understanding of "family"--and our culture itself.

"As lesbian mothers boldly go where no family has gone before, Maureen Sullivan bears witness to their courageous ingenuity and achievements. Providing the most illuminating, theoretically sophisticated account to date of how the lesbian co-parented family is quietly shattering the existing gender order, this book expertly weaves captivating ethnographic family portraits into the broader social and political tapestry of our fiercely fought contemporary family revolution. Scholarly, provocative, witty, and deeply humane, The Family of Woman is that precious rarity—a genuinely original, profound scholarly work that is a joy to read."—Judith Stacey, author of
In the Name of the Family

"Sullivan makes a compelling argument that lesbian families challenge, at root, the very basis of patriarchal familial norms, and indeed modern notions of biological fixity. A provocative, fascinating study."—Arlene Stein, author of Sex and Sensibility: Stories of a Lesbian Generation

"A notable document of the quiet social revolution that is producing new forms of the family. Maureen Sullivan tells the stories of the lesbian women who have created coparenting families, and have made them viable, often in the face of prejudice. Her research is carefully reasoned and insightful. The implications for our understanding of families, gender equality, and child development are immense."—R.W. Connell, author of Gender and Power

Amidst the shrill and discordant notes struck in debates over the make-up-or breakdown-of the American family, the family keeps evolving. This book offers a close and clear-eyed look into a form this change has taken most recently, the lesbian coparent family. Based on intensive interviews and extensive firsthand observation, The Family of Woman chronicles the experience of thirty-four families headed by lesbian mothers whose children were conceived by means of donor insemination. With its intimate perspective on the interior dynamics of these families and its penetrating view of their p Amidst the shrill and discordant notes struck in debates over the make-up - or breakdown - of the American family, the family keeps evolving. This book offers a close and clear-eyed look into a form this change has taken most recently, the lesbian coparent family. It chronicles the experience of thirty-four families headed by lesbian mothers. The trend toward economic globalization in the last three decades of the twentieth century created social conditions in the industrialized world variously referred to as postmodernity, radicalized modernity, postindustrial society, media or spectacle society, and the information age. Annotation Drawing upon interviews with gay families, Sullivan contends that gay families have more equitable social relations and move forward in equalizing gender roles