Notions of Family : Intersectional Perspectives 9781781905364, 9781781905357

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NOTIONS OF FAMILY: INTERSECTIONAL PERSPECTIVES

ADVANCES IN GENDER RESEARCH Series Editors: Vasilikie Demos and Marcia Texler Segal Recent Volumes: Volume 4:

Social Change for Women and Children – Edited by Vasilikie Demos and Marcia Texler Segal, 2000

Volume 5:

An International Feminist Challenge to Theory – Edited by Vasilikie Demos and Marcia Texler Segal, 2001

Volume 6:

Gendered Sexualities – Edited by Patricia Gagne´ and Richard Tewksbury, 2002

Volume 7:

Gender Perspectives on Health and Medicine: Key Themes – Edited by Marcia Texler Segal and Vasilikie Demos with Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld, 2004

Volume 8:

Gender Perspectives on Reproduction and Sexuality – Edited by Marcia Texler Segal and Vasilikie Demos with Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld, 2005

Volume 9:

Gender Realities: Local and Global – Edited by Marcia Texler Segal and Vasilikie Demos, 2005

Volume 10:

Gender and the Local – Global Nexus: Theory, Research, and Action – Edited by Marcia Texler Segal and Vasilikie Demos, 2006

Volume 11:

Sustainable Feminisms – Edited by Sonita Sarker, 2007

Volume 12:

Advancing Gender Research from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-first Centuries – Edited by Vasilikie Demos and Marcia Texler Segal, 2008

Volume 13:

Perceiving Gender Locally, Globally, and Intersectionally – Edited by Vasilikie Demos and Marcia Texler Segal, 2009

Volume 14:

Interactions and Intersections of Gendered Bodies at Work, at Home, and at Play – Edited by Marcia Texler Segal, 2010

Volume 15:

Analyzing Gender, Intersectionality, and Multiple Inequalities: Global, Transnational and Local Contexts – Edited by Esther Ngan-ling Chow, Marcia Texler Segal and Lin Tan, 2011

Volume 16:

Social Production and Reproduction at the Interface of Public and Private Spheres – Edited by Marcia Texler Segal, Esther Ngan-ling Chow and Vasilikie Demos, 2012

ADVANCES IN GENDER RESEARCH VOLUME 17

NOTIONS OF FAMILY: INTERSECTIONAL PERSPECTIVES EDITED BY

MARLA H. KOHLMAN Department of Sociology, Kenyon College, OH, USA

DANA B. KRIEG Department of Psychology, Kenyon College, OH, USA

BETTE J. DICKERSON Department of Sociology, American University, DC, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

Emerald Group Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2013 Copyright r 2013 Emerald Group Publishing Limited Reprints and permission service Contact: [email protected] No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-78190-535-7 ISSN: 1529-2126 (Series)

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CONTENTS LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

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INTRODUCTION: INTERSECTIONAL DYNAMICS OF GENDER, FAMILY AND WORK Marla H. Kohlman and Dana B. Krieg

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CULTIVATING GENDERED TALENTS? THE INTERSECTION OF RACE, CLASS AND GENDER IN THE CONCERTED CULTIVATION OF U.S. ELEMENTARY STUDENTS Catharine H. Warner and Melissa A. Milkie

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BLOCKED OPPORTUNITIES AND GENDERED POWER: INABILITY TO ATTAIN PREFERRED GENDER ROLES Kathryn A. Sweeney and Delores P. Aldridge

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WOMEN OF COLOR PARTICIPATING IN PERSONAL ADVERTISING: DATING, MATING, AND RELATING IN A ‘‘POST’’ RACIAL, GENDERED, AND MODERN SOCIETY Pamela Anne Quiroz

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MARRYING FOR THE KIDS: GENDER, SEXUAL IDENTITY, AND FAMILY IN SAME-SEX MARRIAGE Katrina Kimport

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WHY DO YOU THINK WE DON’T GET MARRIED? HOMELESS MOTHERS IN SAN FRANCISCO SPEAK OUT ABOUT HAVING CHILDREN OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE Anne R. Roschelle

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EXAMINING STATUS DISCREPANT MARRIAGES AND MARITAL QUALITY AT THE INTERSECTIONS OF GENDER, RACE, AND CLASS Tracey A. LaPierre and Shirley A. Hill

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CULTURAL CONTRADICTION OR INTEGRATION? WORK–FAMILY SCHEMAS OF BLACK MIDDLE CLASS MOTHERS Paul Dean, Kris Marsh and Bart Landry

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MOTHERING FOR CLASS AND ETHNICITY: THE CASE OF INDIAN PROFESSIONAL IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES Namita N. Manohar

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AFRICAN AMERICANS’ AND LATINAS’ MOTHERING SCRIPTS: AN INTERSECTIONAL ANALYSIS Karen Christopher

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A CAMPAIGN FOR GOOD MOTHERHOOD? EXPLORING MEDIA DISCOURSE ON SARAH PALIN, HILLARY CLINTON, AND MICHELLE OBAMA DURING THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN Heather E. Dillaway and Elizabeth R. Pare´

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INTERSECTIONALITY AND WORK–FAMILY BALANCE: A STUDY OF BLACK, WHITE, AND MEXICAN-AMERICAN ADULTS Rashawn Ray and Pamela Braboy Jackson

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LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION AMONG ASIAN, BLACK, HISPANIC, AND WHITE MOTHERS IN 20 OCCUPATIONS Liana Christin Landivar

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Delores P. Aldridge

Department of Sociology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

Karen Christopher

Department of Women’s & Gender Studies, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA

Paul Dean

Sociology/Anthropology Department, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH, USA

Bette J. Dickerson

Department of Sociology, American University in Washington, DC, USA

Heather E. Dillaway

Department of Sociology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

Shirley A. Hill

Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

Pamela Braboy Jackson

Department of Sociology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

Katrina Kimport

Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health Program, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

Marla H. Kohlman

Department of Sociology, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH, USA

Dana B. Krieg

Department of Psychology, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH, USA

Liana Christin Landivar

U.S. Census Bureau, Fairfax, VA, USA

Bart Landry

Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA vii

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Tracey A. LaPierre

Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

Namita N. Manohar

Department of Sociology, Brooklyn College – CUNY, Brooklyn, NY, USA

Kris Marsh

Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

Melissa A. Milkie

Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

Elizabeth R. Pare´

Department of Sociology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

Pamela Anne Quiroz

Department of Sociology & Educational Policy Studies, University of IllinoisChicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Rashawn Ray

Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

Anne R. Roschelle

Department of Sociology, State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, NY, USA

Kathryn A. Sweeney

Department of Behavioral Sciences, Purdue University Calumet, Hammond, IN, USA

Catharine H. Warner

Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

INTRODUCTION: INTERSECTIONAL DYNAMICS OF GENDER, FAMILY, AND WORK FOUNDATIONS OF INTERSECTIONALITY Analyses focusing on the intersecting forces of race, class, and gender have been around much longer than theorists in the traditions of social science and the humanities have acknowledged. As early as the 19th century, Sojourner Truth and Anna Julia Cooper began to voice many of the sentiments that continue to shape the discourse around race, gender, and class that is occurring in this new millennium. They anticipated today’s debate over the inadequacy of reliance on single categories of race, gender, or even class, to capture the complexities of lived experience (Lemert & Bahn, 1998; Painter, 1990). Their awareness of the importance of the intersection between race, gender, and class made their spoken perspectives on gender inequality unique at a time when the ‘‘cult of true womanhood’’ reigned supreme. Despite this fact, much of the literature utilizing this intersectional framework of analysis emerged just after the Civil Rights and Women’s Liberation movements of the 1960s. Memorable pioneers of this paradigm of analysis are Angela Davis’ Women, Race & Class (1981), Audre Lorde’s Sister-Outsider (1984), and Paula Giddings’ When and Where I Enter (1984). These crucial texts and speeches call for us to be mindful of the intersections of experience that are instrumental in the formation and maintenance of families and that are so often ignored in discursive theory and research, which treats race, gender, and class, sexuality, etc. as mutually exclusive social forces. Since that time, there has been a large body of work that has called attention to the need to understand how race, class, and gender work together with other socially constructed institutional dynamics to shape our experiences and the ways in which we make sense of our everyday world. Notable examples are Elizabeth Spelman’s Inessential Woman (1988), which cautions us against ‘‘tootsie roll metaphysics,’’ which posit that ‘‘each part of [our] identity is separate from every other part, and the significance of ix

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each part is unaffected by the other parts’’ (p. 136), Amott and Matthaei’s informative Race, Gender and Work (1991, 1996), which chronicles the racial–ethnic histories of women in the United States and how these histories have informed the mutually reinforcing experiences of gender, family, and work for these groups of women. Following this rich tradition, Patricia Hill Collins has been prolific in her writing on the need to theorize all things from an understanding of the matrix of domination, which calls us to be mindful of our differences and similarities as we serve as agents of both oppression and privilege in our theorizing about the social world. Her groundbreaking text, Black Feminist Thought (1990), has now been followed by several others, including Fighting Words (1998) and Black Sexual Politics (2004), to further elucidate the need for clear critical theory to battle hegemonic articulations of race, gender, and class that pervade much of the literature and research found in the social sciences and the humanities. This paradigm of analysis that emphasizes the interlocking effects of race, class, and gender has come to be called intersectionality or intersection theory by many scholars, calling attention to the ways in which other master statuses become an integral part of this process. Intersectionality provides a unique lens of analyses that does not question difference; rather, it assumes that differential experiences of common events are to be expected. In the social sciences, this has been most specifically articulated in Deborah King’s ‘‘Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness: The Context of Black Feminist Ideology’’ (1988), Iris Marion Young’s ‘‘Gender as Seriality: Thinking About Women as a Social Collective’’ (1994), and Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie Thornton Dill’s ‘‘Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism’’ (1996). The illuminating nature of this paradigm of analysis is also reflected in the discourse of critical race theory and critical race feminism, which emerged in the 1990s with the scholarship of Ann DuCille, Bette Dickerson, Derrick Bell, Lani Guinier, Kimberle Crenshaw, Charles Lawrence, and Cheryl Harris. The purpose of this edited volume is to specifically draw attention to the way in which intersectional analyses articulate the variant experiences of family formation, while also acknowledging the statics and dynamics in the social institution of the family. The articles featured in the pages that follow explore the theoretical paradigm of intersectionality to proffer multiple frameworks for understanding the ways in which salient experiences of class position, race, sexuality, gender, and other demographic characteristics function simultaneously to produce the outcomes we observe in the lives of individuals and in societal maintenance of families. While there is a large

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body of literature on the social institution of family, mate selection, and on the work and family balance, only within the past decade have scholars attempted to model and analyze the ‘‘simultaneity’’ of their functioning as one concerted force in everyday lived experience. Moreover, there has been little directed focus on any particular institutional force, aside from law and public policy, in current textual discussions of intersectionality. This book seeks to begin the process of addressing this dearth by examining intersectional approaches to family formation and maintenance in the United States.

CONCEPTUALIZING THE INTERSECTIONAL LENS In an article co-authored with Bonnie Thornton Dill and Kohlman (2012) cites the following portion of an address given by Audre Lorde at a conference devoted to Simone de Beauvoir’s book The Second Sex in order to illustrate the social justice imperatives of the intersectional approach: Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference – those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older – know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we all can flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. (Lorde, 1984, as cited by Dill & Kohlman, p. 168)

‘‘Just as Lorde called for feminists to turn difference into strengths, the theoretical paradigm of intersectionality has provided a voice and a vision to scholars seeking to render visible the interlocking structures of inequality to be found within the academic and everyday concerns that shape both our livelihoods and our experiences of the world’’ (Dill & Kohlman, 2012). Dill and Kohlman also note that intersectionality has now reached the point where it may be regarded as a member of the theoretical cannon taught in courses on law, social sciences, and the humanities. At the same time, they urge scholars to engage in the affirmative use of strong intersectionality, which is characterized by theoretical and methodological rubrics that seek to analyze institutions and identities in relation to one another in order to ascertain how phenomena are mutually constituted and interdependent, how we must understand one in deference to understanding another. On the other hand, weak intersectionality explores differences without any true analysis. That is to say, ‘‘weak intersectionality’’ ignores the very mandate called for by Audre Lorde and seeks to explore no more

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than how we are different. ‘‘Weak intersectionality’’ eschews the difficult dialogue(s) of how our differences have come to be, or how our differences might become axes of strength, fortification, and a renewed vision of how our world has been, and continues to be, socially constructed by a theory and methodology that seeks only occasionally to question difference, without arriving at a deep and abiding understanding of how our differences are continuing to evolve. This is because the primacy of the basic core principles of intersectionality – that is, mutually constituted interdependence, interlocking oppressions and privileges, multiple experiences of race, gender, sexuality, etc. – are now more widely recognized as such and scholars are more apt to hold one another to these basic rules of application, whatever methodology is employed. In fact, the debates occurring within intersectional scholarship today reflect the growth and maturation of this approach and provide the opportunity to begin, as Lynn Weber says, to ‘‘harvest lessons learned’’ (Dill & Kohlman, 2012). In this text, we present research from authors who have sought to engage with the intersectional perspective to illustrate the emerging dynamics of mate selection, family formation, and the work and family balance. Taken together, each of the articles in this text provides an opportunity to reflect upon how we have moved away from a patriarchal vision of the family to the current multidimensional perspective.

NOTIONS OF FAMILY IN THE 21ST CENTURY Recent scholarship has yielded findings that men and women perpetually find themselves trapped between desiring the privilege of productive achievements, and the rigid cultural standards around parenting and family maintenance (Blair-Loy, 2003; Fox, 2003; Maushart, 1999; Stone, 2008; Williams, 2010). Addressing the plight of working women in particular, Pamela Stone uses the terminology of the ‘‘choice gap’’ to describe the situation of working women, torn between cultural ideals that define true womanhood as motherhood, and the cultural value placed upon productive work associated with conventional masculinity. She uses this term to emphasize that the ‘‘choices’’ available to working mothers are significantly constrained by institutional forces that impact employed fathers very differently. The standards that dictate whether a woman is successfully performing femininity are precisely those that declare her unfit for the workplace: a devoted mother is an uncommitted worker; an assertive or powerful woman is respected but not liked, and a likeable woman is not

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respected; women must repeatedly prove themselves as both a strong worker, and a strong mother – and the two are considered mutually exclusive (Crittenden, 2001; Eagly & Carli, 2007; Williams, 2010). This is an important point of departure for understanding the scholarship that has shaped the work–family debate in current research and policy efforts. Part of this dynamic is also due to the way in which the workplace has been structured around the availability of male employees. As Belkin details in her New York Times article ‘‘The New Gender Gap’’: That was the case in the 1930s, when working women were dismissed so that they didn’t take jobs from able-bodied males with families to support. During the 1940s women were invited back in, a replacement work force when the men went to war. By the 1950s and into the ‘60s women lost their higher-paying blue-collar jobs and took lower-paying ones in the expanding retail and service sectors or returned home; in the 1970s the most ambitious among them rebelled – a period when women truly commandeered the train and drove it forward, often sacrificing dreams of children to get ahead. By the 1980s mothers worked because of the growing feeling that households needed two incomes, and the realization dawned that the workplace was designed to fit the life of a man with a wife at home rather than a woman juggling work and family. (p. MM11)

Although these structural impediments to optimizing work–family balance have been revealed in numerous studies over the years, many researchers have attributed a significant portion of the career interruptions and complications that have stalled, or eliminated altogether, women’s ability to advance in their careers, to the pull of caregiving responsibilities and family obligations (Baker, 2002; Crittenden, 2001; Hewlett & Luce, 2005; Stone, 2008; Williams, 2010, 2000). In fact, these findings have emerged in the face of a flood of popular media assertions that women choose to leave the workforce, presumably disillusioned by the fast-paced, all-or-nothing workplace and drawn by the irresistible mystique of motherhood (Belkin, 2003; Douglas & Michaels, 2004; Stone, 2008; Warner, 2005). These women have been called ‘‘‘new traditionalists’’’ (Faludi, 1991) disenchanted by the accomplishments of feminism that enabled women’s entre´e into the labor force, in favor of triumphantly reclaiming their post in the home (Stone, 2008; Williams, 2010).

OPTING OUT, OR PUSHED OUT? Most scholars devoted to the maintenance of family and work dynamics will remember the catalyst for this discussion in the popular media provided by Lisa Belkin’s New York Times Magazine article ‘‘The Opt-Out Revolution

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(2003). Here Belkin featured interviews with women who had ‘‘opted-out’’ of high-power positions in the workplace in favor of renewing their commitment to hearth and home. While men often cite opportunities for career advancement elsewhere as a reason for leaving their job, women most often refer to the pull of family obligations (Baker, 2002); some of these women are not simply leaving their jobs, they are leaving the workplace all together. Workplace discrimination continues to afflict women encumbered by parenting or other caregiving obligations (Crittenden, 2001; Gootman, 2011; Stone, 2008; Williams, 2000). Moreover, women have found themselves perpetually disadvantaged by their token status, sometimes one of few or the only woman amid a sea of male colleagues, often subject to harmful stereotypes, excluded, barred from promotions, and without substantial role models or support systems to cope – and it only intensifies as they ascend the proverbial corporate ladder (Eagly & Carli, 2007; Galinsky et al., 2003; Kanter, 1993; Stone, 2008; Williams, 2010). We have noticed that the vast majority of scholarship in the area of women, family, and work has focused on women currently in the workforce as they attempt to strike a work–family balance (Bianchi, Robinson, & Milkie, 2006; Hochschild, 1997; Hochschild & Machung, 1989; Presser, 2005), while the vast majority of media stories have focused on stay-at-home mothers who are drawn to parenthood over the working world. This has resulted in the voices of working women at the opposing extremes being left out of the discussion altogether; that is, those who have left the workforce to stay home, unable (or unwilling) to strike a balance between career and family, and those who have managed to successfully juggle work an family dynamics. Even as these working women have been all but virtually excluded from this discourse, we recognize that the language pervading much of the research on social institutions of gender, family, and work decrees that their actions are a reflection of changing preferences rather than structural limitations.

CHALLENGING THE BOUNDARIES: GENDER, RACE, AND CLASS IN DISCOURSES ON WORK AND FAMILY All of the evidence provided above could very easily lead one to conclude that contemporary expectations of work and family, as they are culturally defined, are necessarily mutually incompatible; and to perform in both

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realms with a culturally denoted benchmark of success in each, is virtually impossible. The debate thus far has focused heavily on redefining workplace norms that rely on a male-breadwinner with limited to no family responsibilities, and public policy that is more supportive of working parents (Crittenden, 2001; Macdonald, 2011; Presser, 2005; Stone, 2008; Williams, 2010). But what the debate has not sufficiently referenced are those families who have managed to balance work and family demands with relative success (Damaske, 2011; Lacy, 2007). Moreover, the upper-middle-class women that have been the focus of much scholarship and media attention have the financial means to have choices, such as hiring outside care (Macdonald, 2011) if they cannot rely more heavily on their children’s father for sharing the responsibility of care work. While recent scholarship does indeed find evidence that women today are still, in many ways, confined to pressures of the cult of true womanhood, much of it focuses on a slim segment of the population: women who have access to the kinds of resources that allow them to fulfill this ideal in the first place. Indeed, much of the research has focused on white, highly educated, upper-middle-class women (Stone, 2008; Warner, 2005; Williams, 2010; Williams & Boushey, 2010). For women who are not at the upper-echelons of society, deciding to stay at home is usually not considered to be a feasible option. For example, Stone’s preoccupation with women’s lack of ‘‘choice’’ as they confront the impossibility of combining family responsibilities with workplace climate reveals her neglect of the notion that to leave the workplace in the first place is a privilege not available to the vast majority of working women in the United States. Women who ‘‘opt’’ to leave the workplace are exercising a fundamental choice, even if they perceive those choices as being embedded within the constraints of inflexible workplaces and rigid cultural norms around mothering (Hays, 1996; Lareau, 2003; Stone, 2008; Warner, 2005). While the workplace continues to be inflexible and many antiquated gendered beliefs remain in place, most recent research in this area of scholarship indicates that younger cohorts of men and women alike aspire to more egalitarian relationships in which gender roles are increasingly fluid, and work and family responsibilities are more flexibly divided (Fox, 2009; Gerson, 2010; Mason & Lu, 1988; Zuo & Tang, 2000). And yet many women exhibit ‘‘maternal gatekeeping,’’ or a reluctance to give up control over every aspect of caretaking responsibilities, to another caretaker – be it a nanny or their child’s father – so as to preserve her ‘‘mother’’ title. This results in many mothers’ preservation of rigid gender roles within the family, and adherence to standards of parenting that will

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ensure her status as a ‘‘good’’ mother (Allen & Hawkins, 1999; SchoppeSullivan, Brown, Cannon, Mangelsdorf, & Sokolowski, 2008; Stone, 2008). While a significant portion of these parenting pressures are externally applied, women’s abilities to enact this form of parenting, to fulfill the standards of intensive mothering (Hays, 1996) through concerted cultivation (Lareau, 2003), and to safeguard mothering as hers and only hers, is a reflection of privilege, status, and the enactment of choice that remains unavailable to many working women. The ‘‘constellation of resources’’ (Garey, 1999, p. 55) afforded by social class significantly shapes the strategies families employ to manage work and family responsibilities, so that while the self-sufficient family unit may be possible and functional for the upper-middle class, this is not a viable reality for the working class. Instead, many families, in an effort to ‘‘cobble together individually negotiated solutions in the private marketplace’’ (Williams, 2010, p. 8), utilize ‘‘fictive kin’’ networks to aid in parenting pursuits (Dill, 1994). According to Warner (2005), the overrepresentation of the upper-middle class in the media (and even scholarship) stems from a sort of obsession with upper-middle-class life as the ultimate mark of the ‘‘good life.’’ This stance delineates intensive parenting and work habits of the upper class as the best and right way to live, when there may be more balanced, fulfilling, and functional ways of being in the world. Several scholars have explicitly recognized that the prototypical model of intensive mothering reflected in the experiences of the predominantly white middle-class wives, daughters, and mothers of the 1950s must be strictly differentiated from the experience of black women as informed by historical precedent (Davis, 1981; Jones, 1986). ‘‘Judged by the evolving nineteenth century ideology of femininity, which emphasized women’s roles as nurturing mothers and gentle companions and housekeepers for their husbands, Black women were practically anomalies’’ (Davis, 1981, p. 5). ‘‘[F]or peoples of color, having children and maintaining families have been an essential part of the struggle against racist oppression. [Thus, it is not surprising that] many women of color have rejected the white women’s movement’s view of the family as the center of ‘women’s oppression’’’ (Amott & Matthaei, 1991, pp. 16–17). Intersectional scholarship on the family has been able to highlight the myriad ways in which the experiences of working class white women and women of color differ in the nuances of the maintenance of family. More specifically, these differences are to be found within the inextricable lines of racial ethnicity and gender that were influential in the fomentation of a feminist consciousness for some women

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that was both distinct from, and dependent on, the experiences of other women (Guy-Sheftall, 1995; hooks, 1981; Lorde, 1984). Indeed, the family has been for many women of color a sort of ‘‘haven in a heartless world’’ of racism that provides the needed support to fight against oppression of many types (Dill, 1979; hooks, 1984). Drawing on the work of a number of the pioneering black feminist intersectional scholars, Landry (2000) argues in his book on black middle-class women that this support enabled black women to produce a new ideology of womanhood that permitted the formation of the modern dual-career and dual-earner family. This model of womanhood rejected the notion that ‘‘outside work was detrimental to [black women’s roles] as wives and mothers’’ (Landry, 2000, p. 73). Indeed, black women of the late-19th and early-20th centuries realized that ‘‘their membership in the paid labor force was critical to achieving true equality with men’’ (p. 74) in the larger U.S. society in a way that was not available to white women under the cult of true womanhood that constrained them to the exclusive domains of hearth and home. Women of color, having always been regarded as a source of labor in the United States, were never the beneficiaries of this ideology of protectionism and were not, therefore, hampered from developing an ideology that saw beyond the dictates of traditional feminist principles based in the experience of gender subordination perceived as endemic to all women (see, e.g., Davis, 1972). The recent scholarship of Damaske (2011) and Lacy (2007) further highlights the differing work patterns of black women in the United States that emphasize the experience of work as a positive and vital aspect of the formation and maintenance of family ties.

CURRENT CONTRIBUTIONS Ultimately, future research can elucidate the complexities of women’s decisions about work and family formation, starting mainly with the inclusion of a wider segment of the working population. In this edited volume, we present new and original research that more readily includes the insights and experiences of minority women, working-class women, those who straddle the line of stay-at-home and working mom (i.e., those who work at home), those who either work part-time or have left the workforce to stay home, and those who are homeless. In the 12 chapters presented here, four themes related to the formation, nurturance, and maintenance of family reoccur.

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Gender Roles Warner and Milkie (Chapter 1) and Sweeney and Aldridge (Chapter 2) apply intersectionality to our understanding of gender roles in a family context. In ‘‘Cultivating Gendered Talents? The Intersection of Race, Class and Gender in the Concerted Cultivation of U.S. Elementary Students,’’ Warner and Milkie discuss how children learn gender roles, how parents reinforce gender roles, and how race and social class influence gender differentiation. These authors discuss how parents shape the experiences of their young children, but also ‘‘how children’s social location shapes parenting practices.’’ In the context of adult familial relationships, Sweeney and Aldridge (‘‘Blocked Opportunities and Gendered Power: Inability to Attain Preferred Gender Roles’’) explore structural barriers preventing women from achieving ideal traditional and egalitarian gender roles. As researchers show, particularly among a younger generation of women, increased desire for egalitarian roles, it is important to consider obstacles along the path to these goals (Fox, 2009; Gerson, 2010; Mason & Lu, 1988; Zuo & Tang, 2000). Sweeney and Aldridge seek ‘‘to understand how societal inequalities related to class, race, and gender limit the ability of women to achieve their desired gender ideology.’’ These authors suggest, for future research, an exploration of how gendered socialization processes (like those addressed by Warner and Milkie) affected by other aspects of social status, influence intimate relationships.

Mate Selection and Marital Choices Several chapters focus on the role of intersectionality in the establishment and maintenance of marital and committed relationships. Quiroz (Chapter 3: ‘‘Women of Color Participating in Personal Advertising: Dating, Mating and Relating in a ‘Post’ Racial, Gendered, and Modern Society’’) explores the communication of relationship ideals. In interviewing unmarried women participating in personal advertising, Quiroz examined the intersectionality of personal identities as they are presented in an interpersonal context. Quiroz illustrates how personal advertising is used to present a construction of self including multiple identities, focusing on one’s own perceptions of social location, rather than any objective measure. Kimport (Chapter 4) and Roschelle (Chapter 5) examine factors influencing decisions to marry. In ‘‘Marrying for the Kids: Gender, Sexual

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Identity, and Family in Same-Sex Marriage,’’ Kimport examines motivations for marriage among gays and lesbians as well as the role parenthood plays in establishing the importance of marriage. This analysis illustrates how gender intersects with sexual identity and parenthood status and how one’s experience of marginalization varies with these social locations. Roschelle (‘‘Why Do You Think We Don’t Get Married? Homeless Mothers in San Francisco Speak Out About Having Children Outside of Marriage’’) studied ‘‘how socially structured race, class, and gender inequality influence the marital decision making of homeless women.’’ Like Sweeney and Aldridge, Roschelle shows how societal inequity leaves women unable to reach preferred marital goals, even when these goals reflect traditional values. In the current chapters, Roschelle and Kimport both demonstrate that deviation from the marriage model reflects structural obstacles rather than deviant values. Among those who have chosen to marry, LaPierre and Hill (Chapter 6: ‘‘Examining Status Discrepant Marriages and Marital Quality at the Intersections of Gender, Race, and Class’’) examine how marital quality is shaped by structural inequalities, identifying markers of status that influence marital quality. Specifically, LaPierre and Hill examine how the intersection of race, gender, and class moderate the effect of educational status on marital quality. These authors conclude that levels of marital happiness are, indeed, shaped by race, gender, educational status, and class, showing a more complex hierarchy than has been previously identified in the literature. Consistent with Sweeney and Aldridge, Roschelle, and Kimport, this research ‘‘reflects continuing inequality in access to the resources and ideologies that enhance marital quality.’’

Notions of Motherhood The third feature of family considered here is mothering. Dean, Marsh, and Landry (Chapter 7), Manohar (Chapter 8), and Christopher (Chapter 9) establish and explore new schemas, scripts, and ideals for motherhood, while Dillaway and Pare´ (Chapter 10) consider the societal interpretation of these mothering styles. Dean, Marsh, and Landry (‘‘Cultural Contradiction or Integration? Work–Family Schemas of Black Middle Class Mothers’’) challenging cultural schemas that require women to be devoted to home or work, propose a new work–family schema that allows middle-class black mothers to establish an alternative model of motherhood. ‘‘Cultural schemas subjectively shape how work and family are perceived or not

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perceived to conflict with one another.’’ These cultural schemas are formed at the intersection of race, gender, and social class. These schemas also set models for children and contribute to marital satisfaction. Manohar (‘‘Mothering for Class and Ethnicity: The Case of Indian Professional Immigrants in the United States’’) again challenges traditionally accepted notions of motherhood, showing that mothering schemas cannot be and should not be universally applied. Manohar explores the agency that interacts with social location to allow for creation of a new motherhood schema. In ‘‘African Americans’ and Latinas’ Mothering Scripts: An Intersectional Analysis,’’ Christopher explores adherence to intensive and extensive mothering scripts, demonstrating the interaction of race and social class. While some mothers, influenced by social location, may have different goals; attainment of the goals is affected by available resources. Dillaway and Pare´ (‘‘A Campaign for Good Motherhood? Exploring Media Discourse on Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, and Michelle Obama During the 2008 Presidential Election Campaign’’) explore media representations of mothering as a reflection of societal beliefs and expectations about ‘‘good’’ mothers and how these beliefs are influences by age, race, and class of the mother. This chapter illustrates societal reactions to and media portrayals of mothers who appear to be adopting different styles of, or schemas for, motherhood.

Work–Family Conflict The final area explored in this volume is the role of social location in families’ attempts to negotiate the conflicting demands of work and family. As mentioned above, Dean et al., Manohar, Christopher, and Dillaway and Pare´ discuss new schemas, scripts, and frameworks for motherhood, which include notions of work–family balance. Ray and Jackson (Chapter 11) and Landivar (Chapter 12) emphasize the role of socioeconomic factors in an individual’s ability to reach work–family balance goals. In applying new frameworks for understanding work and family balance, and the variability in ideals and expectations, these authors discuss resource for and limitations to meeting these ideals. Ray and Jackson (‘‘Intersectionality and Work–Family Balance: A Study of Black, White, and Mexican-American Adults’’) stress that the concept of balance is inadequate to describe the complexity of a couple’s negotiation of multiple conflicting roles. In ‘‘Labor Force Participation Among Asian,

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Black, Hispanic, and White Mothers in 20 Occupations,’’ Landivar goes further into the impact of social class by examining the specific occupational roles women play and how these occupational options (influenced by race, class, gender, etc.) interact with race to determine whether women will opt out of the labor force. In contrast to the model shown by Dean et al. (for example) wherein women are making choices related to work–family commitments based on what they find to be ideal, Landivar shows women opting in or out of the labor force for more reasons related more closely to structural constraints.

MULTIPLE METHODOLOGIES These 12 chapters include data collected through interviews, surveys, ethnographies, participant observations, and content analyses. The samples included reflect a diverse cross section of American society. Sample sizes range from 14, in one interview study, to 67 million in a national survey. Participants represented a range of educational and income levels and various geographic regions. The samples are racially and ethnically diverse, including both American born and immigrant participants. Data was analyzed at the level of the individual, couple, and family. Quantitative data has been analyzed with structural equation modeling (SEM) and hierarchical linear models (HLM); while qualitative data has been coded using grounded theory, constant comparison, and other approaches. The use of these diverse methodologies strengthens the collective conclusions and demonstrates the importance and relevance of an intersectional approach for all research designs.

INTERSECTIONAL NOTIONS OF FAMILY These chapters, reflecting the experiences of a diverse sampling of American society, illustrate the continuing structural constraints women face as they make personal choices about family. We live in a society where others’ views of family values influence our own perceptions of those choices, the opportunities we have to make choices, the resources to support these choices, and the policies in place that dictate our choices. The constrained choices we make, then, are considered as reflections of our own family values. However, in the chapters that follow, we see illustrations of the

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social structural obstacles that can play a stronger hand in our decision making than our own values and goals. Quiroz takes the intersectional framework from a societal to an interpersonal level, saying that our society ‘‘relies on the vectors of race, gender, class, and sexuality to define not only the institutional relationships, but also personal relationships.’’ In Kimport’s study, participants reported political meanings for marriage, seeing a legal union as both an act of civil disobedience and an attempt to garner rights historically given only to married heterosexual couples. It is an odd thing when relationship choices are taken outside of the couple and placed under purview of policy makers, highlighting ‘‘how marriage law has operated as a means of sexual identity oppression.’’ Similarly, Roschelle shows economic factors as crucial considerations for marriage. In each case, we see patterns of family organization affected by class, sexuality, age, and race. In Dillaway and Pare´’s analysis of media coverage in the last presidential campaign, perceptions of mothering roles are interpreted through a political lens. Media portrayals of, and societal reactions to, these mothers show that adoption of a particular motherhood schema does not go without judgment. Taken together, these studies show that intersectionality is a framework not only for addressing the interacting factors that influence and constrain families, but also for creating the lens through which we interpret our own and others’ experiences. Although the upper-middle-class women featured in much of the scholarship and media on the maintenance and stability of family as a social institution do exhibit choice and privilege, the focus on the individuality of choice certainly does not tell the whole story for any American – regardless of class, gender, race, or sexuality.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT Special thanks to Katharine O’Hara for her assistance with the research and editing of this introductory chapter.

REFERENCES Allen, S. M., & Hawkins, A. J. (1999). Mothers’ beliefs and behaviors that inhibit greater father involvement in family. Journal of Marriage and Family, 61, 199–212. Amott, T. L., & Matthaei, J. A. (1991). Race, gender and work. Boston, MA: South End Press.

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Baker, J. G. (2002). The influx of women into legal professions: An economic analysis. Monthly Labor Review, 125, 14–24. Belkin, L. (2003). The opt-out revolution. New York Times Magazine, October 26, pp. 42–47, 58, 85–86. Belkin, L. (2009). The new gender gap. The New York Times, October 4, p. M11. Bianchi, S. M., Robinson, J. P., & Milkie, M. A. (2006). Changing rhythms of American family life. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation. Blair-Loy, M. (2003). Competing devotions: Career and family among women executives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Collins, P. H. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York, NY: Routledge. Collins, P. H. (1998). Fighting words: Black women and the search for justice. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minneapolis Press. Collins, P. H. (2004). Black sexual politics: African-Americans, gender, and the new racism. New York, NY: Routledge. Crittenden, A. (2001). The price of motherhood: Why the most important job in the world is still the least valued. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books. Damaske, S. (2011). For the family? How class and gender shape women’s work. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Davis, A. Y. (1972). Reflections on the black woman’s role in the community of slaves. The Massachusetts Review, 13(1/2), 81–100. Davis, A. Y. (1981). Women, race, and class. New York, NY: Random House. Dill, B. T. (1979). The dialectics of black womanhood. Signs, 4, 543–555. Dill, B. T. (1994). Fictive kin, paper sons, and compadrazgo: Women of color and the struggle for family survival. In: M. B. Zinn & B. T. Dill (Eds.), Women of color in U.S. society. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Dill, B. T., & Kohlman, M. H. (2012). Intersectionality: A transformative paradigm in feminist theory and social justice. In S. N. Hesse-Biber (Ed.), The handbook of feminist research: Theory and praxis. Washington, DC: Sage. Douglas, S. J., & Michaels, M. W. (2004). The mommy myth: The idealization of motherhood and how it has undermined women. New York, NY: Free Press. Eagly, A. H., & Carli, L. L. (2007). Through the labyrinth: The truth about how women become leaders. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Faludi, S. (1991). Backlash: The undeclared war against American women. New York, NY: Crown Publishers. Fox, B. (2009). When couples become parents: The creation of gender in the transition to parenthood. Buffalo, NY: University of Toronto Press. Fox, F. (2003). Dispatches from a not-so-perfect life: How I learned to love the house, the man, the child. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press. Galinsky, E., Salmond, K., Bond, J. T., Kropf, M. B., Moore, M., & Harrington, B. (2003). Leaders in a global economy: A study of executive women and men. New York, NY: Families and Work Institute. Garey, A. I. (1999). Weaving work and motherhood. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Gerson, K. (2010). The unfinished revolution: How a new generation is reshaping family, work, and gender in America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Giddings, P. (1984). When and where I enter: The Impact of Black women on race and sex in America. New York, NY: William Morrow.

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Gootman, E. (2011). Bloomberg discrimination-suit ruling renews work-life debate. The New York Times, August 16, A18. Guy-Sheftall, B. (1995). Words of fire: Anthology of African-American feminist thought. New York, NY: The New Press. Hays, S. (1996). The cultural contradictions of motherhood. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hewlett, S. A., & Luce, C. B. (2005). Off-ramps and on-ramps: Keeping talented women on the road to success. Harvard Business Review, 83, 43–54. Hochschild, A. (1997). Time bind: When work becomes home and home becomes work. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books. Hochschild, A., & Machung, A. (1989). The second shift. New York, NY: Viking. hooks, b. (1981). Ain’t I a woman: Black women and feminism. Boston, MA: South End Press. hooks, b. (1984). Feminist theory: From margin to center. Cambridge: South End Press. Jones, J. (1986). Labor of love, labor of sorrow: Black women, work, and the family from slavery to the present. New York, NY: Basic books. Kanter, R. M. (1993). Men and women of the corporation. New York, NY: Basic Books. King, D. (1988). Multiple jeopardy, multiple consciousness: The context of black feminist Ideology. Signs, 14, 42–72. Lacy, K. (2007). Blue-chip black: Race, class, and status in the new black middle class. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Landry, B. (2000). Black working wives: Pioneers of the American family revolution. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Lemert, C., & Bahn, E. (1998). The voice of Anna Julia Cooper. Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield. Lorde, A. (1984). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing. Macdonald, C. (2011). Shadow mothers: Nannies, au pairs, and the micropolitics of mothering. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Mason, K. O., & Lu, Y-H. (1988). Attitudes toward women’s familial roles: Changes in the United States, 1977–1985. Gender & Society, 2, 39–57. Maushart, S. (1999). The mask of motherhood: How becoming a mother changes everything and why we pretend it doesn’t. New York, NY: The New Press. Painter, N. I. (1990). Sojourner truth in life and memory: Writing the biography of an American exotic. Gender & History, 2, 3–16. Presser, H. B. (2005). Working in a 24/7 economy: Challenges for the American family. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation. Schoppe-Sullivan, S. J., Brown, G. L., Cannon, E. A., Mangelsdorf, S. C., & Sokolowski, M. S. (2008). Maternal gatekeeping, coparenting quality, and fathering behavior in families with infants. Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 389–398. Spelman, E. V. (1988). Inessential woman: Problems of exclusion in feminist thought. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Stone, P. (2008). Opting out?: Why women really quit careers and head home. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Warner, J. (2005). Perfect madness: Motherhood in the age of anxiety. New York, NY: Riverhead Books, Penguin Group.

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Williams, J. (2000). Unbending gender: Why family and work conflict and what to do about it. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Williams, J. (2010). Reshaping the work-family debate: Why men and class matter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Williams, J., & Boushey, H. (2010). The three faces of work-family conflict: The poor, the professionals, and the missing middle. Retrieved from http://www.americanprogress.org/ issues/labor/report/2010/01/25/7194/the-three-faces-of-work-family-conflict Young, I. M. (1994). Gender as seriality: Thinking about women as a social collective. Signs, 19, 713–738. Zinn, M. B., & Dill, B. T. (1996). Theorizing difference from multiracial feminism. Feminist Studies, 22, 321–331. Zuo, J., & Tang, S. (2000). Breadwinner status and gender ideologies of men and women regarding family roles. Sociological Perspectives, 43, 29–43.

Marla H. Kohlman Dana B. Krieg Editors

CULTIVATING GENDERED TALENTS? THE INTERSECTION OF RACE, CLASS, AND GENDER IN THE CONCERTED CULTIVATION OF U.S. ELEMENTARY STUDENTS Catharine H. Warner and Melissa A. Milkie ABSTRACT Purpose – We seek to understand how gender shapes the practice of concerted cultivation in connection to other key social locations of race and class. Design/methodology/approach – This quantitative research paper uses multi-level modeling to provide an intersectional analysis of parenting practices across diverse social and institutional settings. Findings – We find gender matters: across three aspects of ‘‘concerted cultivation’’ (involvement in schooling, extracurricular activities, and cultural outings), parents invest more time and resources in girls compared to boys. More importantly, using an intersectional approach, we find distinct racial/ethnic differences in engendering concerted cultivation. Gender differences occur among Black and Hispanic but not

Notions of Family: Intersectional Perspectives Advances in Gender Research, Volume 17, 1–27 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-2126(2013)0000017004

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white parents’ involvement in their child’s schooling. Additionally, parents cultivate girls’ participation in certain kinds of extracurricular activities more so than for boys, but this difference is greatest at the highest socioeconomic levels. Social and practical implications – The ways in which parents’ shape young children’s activities and experiences in daily life vary greatly across gender, race, and class statuses. Originality/value – Gender shapes access and exclusion to various social settings across the life course; this paper adds to literature on socialization, incorporating other social statuses into understandings of processes of the social reproduction of inequality. These results are of value to parents, schools, and social scientists. Keywords: Intersectionality; gender; family; childrearing; concerted cultivation; education

Parents structure daughters’ and sons’ lives in part based on beliefs about what children can accomplish and ideas about what their future family and work roles may be (Ridgeway & Correll, 2004). ‘‘Concerted cultivation,’’ a logic of parenting in which parents cultivate children’s skills and successful futures by overseeing educational experiences and orchestrating talents through outside activities (Lareau, 2003), may have an important gendered component. Lareau (2003, p. 36) refers to the gender differences in the families she observes as ‘‘particularly striking,’’ noting differences in not just the toys and peer groups of girls and boys, but in the types of activities parents orchestrate on behalf of them. We contribute to the literature in two important ways: first, we examine parents’ gendered socialization through an analysis of a central and critical form of socialization: concerted cultivation practices. Second, we theorize concerted cultivation logic as an intersectional process by paying close attention to the ways in which parents’ gendered approaches to socialization operate in conjunction with children’s racial/ethnic and social class statuses. This study uses a sample of third graders from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) to extend knowledge about how parenting practices are shaped by a child’s gender with central attention to the importance of two other key social statuses. This intersectional analysis allows us to illustrate a gendered cultivation of children that varies by class and race. We examine intersectional differences in the

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practice of three interrelated types of concerted cultivation: the level of parents’ involvement in their child’s schooling, the level of children’s participation in extracurricular activities, and children’s cultural outings with family members. We address two key research questions using a nationally representative sample. First, do U.S. parents practice a gendered approach to ‘‘concerted cultivation?’’ Second, how can we better understand the relationship of gender and concerted cultivation through an intersectional analysis?

AN INTERSECTIONAL ANALYSIS OF PARENTING PRACTICES Gender is a major cultural frame in which beliefs about the proper place of girls and boys shape logics of how they are treated, what children believe they can do, how talented they see themselves (Correll, 2004; Ridgeway & Correll, 2004), and how parents see children’s futures in work and family worlds (Gerson, 2010). Concerted cultivation practices (parents’ efforts to structure children’s institutional and ‘‘free time’’ interactions) and intensive mothering (gendered discourse that demands mothers maintain a childfocused life) are key components to understanding family processes and gender, race, and class reproduction (Hays, 1996; Lareau, 2003). This study makes both theoretical and methodological contributions to gender and family research. First, we argue that examining the intersectional nature of the logics of parenting will illuminate gender practices in families more fully. Gendered analyses of family processes do not often incorporate an intersectional approach. Intersectionality calls attention to the complexities associated with social location and the ways in which race, class, and gender together may define the extent to which parents see particular possibilities for their children. Feminist theorists of color have advocated the centrality of multiple systems of oppression and privilege in understanding lived experiences (Collins, 1993, 2000; King, 1988; Zinn & Dill, 1996). An individual’s social location across race, gender, class, and sexuality suggests unique experiences based on the salience of each of these statuses in specific social contexts. The simultaneity of these systems is key to an intersectional approach; race, class, gender, and sexuality are not separate, but rather interdependent, and work in unique ways depending on the setting or context (Zinn & Dill, 1996). We examine an important set of parenting practices in family literature called concerted cultivation. Social class is central in this form of parenting

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according to Lareau (2003). As middle- and upper-class parents imagine each individual child’s future, they act with concerted effort to cultivate him or her through fostering schooling that fits the child, and through scheduling numerous enrichment activities. Distinct from this ‘‘concerted cultivation’’ logic, working-class and poor parents’ childrearing logic allows children to grow talents naturally within boundaries they create (Lareau, 2003). While this paper focuses on concerted cultivation, intersectional differences in gendered approaches to natural growth are important to consider. Cheadle and Amato (2011) use the ECLS-K data to explore racial/ethnic differences in a composite measure of concerted cultivation, finding that white parents engage in more concerted cultivation than Black, Hispanic, or Asian parents with controls for SES in place. They also find girls are more the focus of concerted cultivation than boys, and Lareau (2003) also notes gender differences in families. These works emphasize the independent and additive influences of other key social statuses on parenting practices. We extend these findings by taking an intersectional approach to conceptualizing concerted cultivation. We argue that parents cultivate children’s lives by selecting daily activities based on the unique constellation of their multiple social locations. When planning a child’s future, parents may not only see, for example, obstacles in place for a daughter, but also for a young woman of color or for a low-income Hispanic girl facing structural barriers. Untangling how patterns of class, gender, and race are linked to specific aspects of cultivating children’s talents will advance our understanding of the multiple forms of inequalities individuals face and the salient gender beliefs in family socialization settings. Second, we not only highlight the multiplicity of children’s identities in understanding the cultural logics of parenting, but we also underscore the potential for quantitative analysis to further our understanding of intersectionality in family life. Although there is debate on the best methodological approach to intersectionality, McCall (2005) highlights the value of a categorical approach to intersectional research, which acknowledges that categories of analysis are socially constructed, but uses the categories to explicate existing inequalities among these groups. Gender and family scholars must investigate how effects vary by multiple identities rather than assuming that statistical controls account for different experiences of oppression and advantage across the life course (Harnois, 2005). Using survey research, this article exposes multiplicative inequalities in the cultural logics of parenting, emphasizing the importance of these decisions for families’ daily lives and the reproduction of gender, class, and racial/ ethnic identities. We use a process-centered approach to intersectionality to

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understand how children’s social location shapes parenting practices (Choo & Ferree, 2010). This approach emphasizes an ‘‘intersection-plus’’ model where findings are not necessarily consistent across context, allowing for a relational analysis of structural constraints and power in different situations (Choo & Ferree, 2010, p. 130). The prioritization of social statuses in parenting logics may be situational, where for certain sets of parents the key social statuses at play (combinations of gender, race/ethnicity, social class or nativity) may vary according to the particular context. For example, in imagining children’s futures within the constraints of their current lives, parents may make different decisions within the setting of the school compared to that of the world of extracurricular activities or to children’s exposure to cultural spaces available in their communities. Thus we expect that how a child’s social statuses matter will depend upon the type of socialization under question. The contributions of this paper to gender, family and intersectionality scholarship are based on reassessing a central form of parents’ socialization of children – concerted cultivation – with intersectional theory, and doing so through complex statistical analysis of data from a nationally representative sample, providing a portrait of U.S. parenting. Below, we trace social status variations in three key aspects of concerted cultivation: parental involvement in schooling, children’s participation in organized activities, and family cultural outings. These aspects of parental concerted cultivation are critical to assess because they are associated with educational improvements (Cheadle, 2008; Jeynes, 2007; Kaufman & Gabler, 2004) and provide children with future values needed to navigate successfully in life (Dunn, Kinney, & Hofferth, 2003).

GENDER, INTERSECTIONALITY, AND PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN SCHOOLING Do parents cultivate girls’ formal education more so than boys’ education? How does it depend upon girls’ other key social statuses? What we know about parents’ involvement in children’s education is piecemeal, examining this based on a child’s gender or racial or class status, but not the intersection among these. In terms of gender, research shows that parents are more involved in adolescent daughters’ education compared to sons, providing more discussion about education, more frequent attendance at school events, and higher educational aspirations (Carter & Wojtkiewicz, 2000; Freese & Powell, 1999). These gender differences remain with the inclusion of test scores and

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educational aspirations as mediating effects (Carter & Wojtkiewicz, 2000). These findings may be a result of parental beliefs that daughters face more fragile futures than sons and thus parents are more likely to expend scarce resources on daughters (Grolnick, Benjet, Kurowski, & Apostoleris, 1997). Among parents of African-American students, this increased involvement for girls may be linked to black girls’ historically greater educational attainment compared to black boys’ attainment (Rury & Hill, 2011). Research on minority parents’ levels of involvement compared to white parents’ has yielded mixed results (Ho & Willms, 1996; Kao & Rutherford, 2007; McNeal, 1999, 2001). One line of studies indicates that white parents show the highest levels of interactions with schools (Gosa & Alexander, 2007). On the other hand, with controls for class and immigrant status, Black parents may be more active in parent-teacher organizations than whites (Kao & Rutherford, 2007); and African-American and Hispanic parents have high involvement when their racial identity matches that of the teachers (Kerbow & Bernhardt, 1993). Ho and Willms (1996) found that Asian and Pacific Islanders had lower levels of school communication and home discussion than white parents, but higher levels of home supervision. Other studies have found no strong race/ethnic differences in parents’ engagement with schools with controls for socioeconomic status in place (Ho & Willms, 1996; Zellman & Waterman, 1998). In all, while social class sharply demarcates parental involvement with children’s schools and teachers (Diamond & Gomez, 2004; Lareau, 2003), there are mixed results assessing racial/ethnic differences in parental school involvement. But very little research examines how parents of boys versus girls vary in educational engagement based on their children’s unique social locations that focus not only upon gender but upon ethnic and class status simultaneously. How can we understand family socialization linked to children’s futures through education? With an intersectional lens, we can improve upon family socialization literature through examining how children’s unique constellation of statuses matter for this first key form of concerted cultivation.

GENDER, INTERSECTIONALITY, AND PARENTS’ APPROACHES TO EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES Parents’ orchestration of children into extracurricular activities provides another important, but quite different, social relational context for

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children. How do parents socialize and develop children’s talents outside of school? Although parents may invest in building children’s talents in divergent ways based on whether they are a boy or girl, in this section, we review literature with an intersectional approach to ask: how does the unique constellation of children’s statuses make for patterned socialization practices? Sports are a gendered institution, historically reinforcing conventional gender beliefs and hierarchies (Messner, 2000, 2009). As a result, gender differences in participation in extracurricular activities may be largely contingent on the types of activities under analysis. Girls are more likely to spend time in lessons or clubs while boys are more likely to engage in sports (Posner & Vandell, 1999; Smolensky & Gootman, 2003). The activities in which parents place their children indicate cultural beliefs about appropriate behaviors for boys and girls. Parents may exercise reluctance to endorse boys’ participation in activities broadly considered feminine. Kane (2006) found that there were acceptable types of gender nonconformity for boys (e.g., displays of nurturance or empathy), but this did not extend to activities such as dance. Children are situated in multiple social locations, and gendered cultivation may differ at the intersections of gender and race/ethnicity or gender and social class. Minority children’s participation in extracurricular activities is sometimes reported to be higher than that of whites (Lareau, 2003; Huebner & Mancini, 2003), and sometimes lower (Covay & Carbonaro, 2010; Dumais, 2006). Several complex factors such as parents looking for a similar racial composition when selecting activities (Lareau, 2003), the presence of opportunities to participate (Covay & Carbonaro, 2010), peer approval for specific types of activities (Eitle & Eitle, 2002; Philipp, 1998), and racial variations in autonomy and independence parents grant children (Gauvain & Perez, 2005; Okagaki & French, 1998; Raffaelli & Ontai, 2004) may affect how parents invest in children’s activities differently based on gender, race and class combinations. Given structural constraints, energies may be placed on one aspect of cultivation relative to another, perhaps the one thought to yield the most ‘‘bang for the buck’’ for the child. We expect that extracurricular activities may be one area in which gender differences are more about the type of activity than the number children are involved in, but we expect gender differences in this form of concerted cultivation intersect with race/ethnicity given potential cultural variation in the enactment of traditional gender roles.

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GENDER, INTERSECTIONALITY, AND PARTICIPATION IN ‘‘HIGH CULTURE’’ WITH FAMILY MEMBERS A third way that parents potentially shape children’s gendered experiences is through involvement of their children in ‘‘high brow’’ culture such as arts and museums (DiMaggio, 1982; Roscigno & Ainsworth-Darnell, 1999). Adolescent girls engage in more cultural outings compared to boys (Dumais, 2002; Kaufman & Gabler, 2004; Freese & Powell, 1999). Gendered socialization may influence the types of outings on which parents take children. While previous research noted that girls may need greater cultural capital to attract a husband, Dumais (2002) argues instead that girls need this cultural capital to give them a competitive edge. Another explanation is that since girls are less likely to display externalizing behaviors (Keiley, Bates, Dodge, & Pettit, 2000), parents may find it easier to take them on cultural outings. Differences in participation by race may largely reflect a class effect: the inclusion of socioeconomic and family structure variables greatly reduces the effects of race on cultural participation (Katz-Gerro, 2002; Roscigno & Ainsworth-Darnell, 1999), though some differences exist. Dimaggio and Ostrower (1990) state that arts consumption varies based on the traditionally Euro-American or historically African-American arts under consideration. However, we know little about the ways in which combinations of gender and racial/ethnic or class statuses affect cultural consumption. One exception is Cheng and Powell’s (2007) study of parenting practices among multi-racial families. They find that families of biracial children with one white parent are more likely to take children on cultural outings compared to monoracial parent dyads with the exception of Asian-American parents. For some, if family gatherings are more important than trips out or if ‘‘high culture’’ is viewed as exclusionary or Eurocentric, we would expect that minority parents might take children on these outings less often than white parents. Minority parents teach children about culture, history, and community, but this knowledge may not be adequately displayed in the majority of museums, libraries, and theaters. Given that cultural outings are often geared toward white, middle class dispositions and may be deemed more ‘‘appropriate’’ for girls, we expect that parents of white, higher SES girls may be more likely to engage in these activities.

SUMMARY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS Girls and boys are provided different opportunities through parenting practices; however, parenting logics are arguably based on the unique

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Cultivating Gendered Talents?

constellation of children’s statuses, including gender, racial/ethnic and class locations. Despite the importance of gendered beliefs and their relational contexts for family life (Ridgeway & Correll, 2004; Wight, 2008), we know little about the ways in which the cultural logics of parenting vary according to children’s intersecting identities. Literature on parenting fails to adequately address the multi-dimensional nature of parenting and the ways in which parents’ own awareness of oppression and privilege across social contexts may influence their parenting investments. In this paper we consider interactions across gender, race/ethnicity, and social class to inform the process by which inequalities develop through families (Choo & Ferree, 2010; McCall, 2005). We address two key research questions. First, do parents practice a gendered approach to ‘‘concerted cultivation’’? Second, can we better understand the relationship of concerted cultivation characteristics to gender through an intersectional analysis?

METHODS The data are from the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K), Third Grade Data File. This survey is a nationally representative sample of over 20,000 kindergarteners in approximately 1,000 public and private schools in 1999 (Tourangeau et al., 2004). The sample includes data from third grade children and their parents collected in spring 2002 during computer assisted interviews. Due to attrition, the sample of child assessments decreases to 15,305 by third grade (Tourangeau et al., 2004). Weights are used in analyses to account for some attrition and nonresponse. After non-response and listwise deletion, the third grade sample is approximately 12,200 children. Analyses of missing data show that the children in the sample are disproportionately white with high socioeconomic status and are more likely to attend private school compared to children missing from the analyses. Multivariate analyses adjust for the sample design of the ECLS-K. We fit a multi-level model using the PROC MIXED function in SAS, which performs similarly to hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) software (Singer, 1998). Fitting simple OLS regression models results in inaccurate standard errors and increased likelihood of rejecting the null hypothesis. Since children clustered in schools share error (and similar characteristics) we adjust for these school-level similarities to limit the underestimation of standard errors. In the two-level model, children’s social locations (level

10

CATHARINE H. WARNER AND MELISSA A. MILKIE

one) are nested in children’s schools (level two). Multi-level modeling will indicate the extent to which common parenting practices exist between schools (as a result of variation in school characteristics) or within schools (as a result of variation across individual social locations). The intercept is allowed to vary, but we do not include additional random slopes. Level-one variables in the multi-level analyses are grand mean centered such that their means are equal to zero, which decreases the influence of outliers and multicollinearity in the model (Kreft, de Leeuw, & Aiken, 1995). Level two variables are not centered. Finally, we use general linear models for all outcomes for ease of analysis rather than categorical analyses, but supplemental analyses with ordered logit indicate similar findings. Results are available upon request.

Dependent Variables The first dependent variable, school involvement, ranges from zero to six. It documents whether parents have done the following in the previous year: attended an open house, attended a PTA meeting, gone to a parent-teacher conference, attended a school event, volunteered at the school, or participated in fundraising. The second dependent variable, extracurricular activities, is an index (0 to 6) of children’s involvement in the following activities over the previous year: dance lessons, organized athletic activities, organized clubs or programs, music lessons, art lessons, and organized performing. The third dependent variable, cultural outings, ranges from 0 to 3. It documents whether families have done the following in the past month: visited an art gallery, museum, or historical site; gone to a play, concert, or live show; or visited a library.

Explanatory Variables The main explanatory variables are children’s gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic statuses. Child gender is measured as female ¼ 1; male ¼ 0. Child race is coded into five mutually exclusive dummy variables: 1) White, 2) Black/African-American, 3) Asian, 4) Hispanic, and 5) Other races, which includes children of two or more races, American Indians, native Hawaiian, other Pacific Islander, or native Alaskan. In the results and discussion, our wording alternates between parents’ race and child’s race, and there is an extremely high, but not perfect, correlation between

11

Cultivating Gendered Talents?

child’s race and parent’s race. We measure child’s race in the analyses because we believe the child’s race/ethnicity to be the more significant factor in shaping parenting logics. We use a composite measure of socioeconomic status. The SES composite variable includes mother’s and father’s education and occupation and the log of household income. It is a continuous variable that ranges from negative three to three and is standardized based on z-scores from the mean and a standard deviation of one. The best measurement of socioeconomic status is a much debated topic in stratification (see Lareau & Conley, 2008 for a discussion). This composite measure is often applied in studies using ECLS-K data (e.g., Condron, 2007; Crosnoe, 2006; Dumais, 2006).

Control Variables Control variables include family structure, employment status, school characteristics, and the survey respondent type. Family structure is measured in three mutually exclusive categories: two biological parents in the household, one biological parent and a partner (e.g., step parent) unrelated to the child, and single parent households/other guardians. Other guardian households account for two percent of the sample and performed similarly to single parent households, so were included together with single parent households. Two biological/adoptive parent households serve as the reference group for the analyses. Parents’ non-U.S.-born status indicates that one or both of the child’s parents were born in a country other than the United States. It does not include an indication of citizenship or length of residency. Additional family characteristics include the number of siblings and maternal employment. Maternal employment is measured as full-time employment where the mother works for pay more than 35 hours per week and part-time employment where the mother works less than 35 hours per week. Non- and un-employed mothers are the excluded categories. Parent respondent is a series of dummy variables for father/male guardian, mother/female guardian (excluded), or another individual. There are three sets of school-level characteristics. Public school ¼ 1 if public and 0 if private school. Geographic location is a series of dummy variables for Midwest, West (omitted), Southeast, and Northeast. Urbanicity ranges from one to three, where one indicates small town/rural locations and three represents large/mid-size cities. Table 1 presents descriptive statistics for all variables used in the analysis.

12

CATHARINE H. WARNER AND MELISSA A. MILKIE

Table 1. Weighted Means of Variables Used in the Analysisa. Variable

Mean

S.D.

3.97 1.52 1.24

1.65 1.31 0.98

0.0 0.0 0.0

6.0 6.0 3.0

0.48

0.48

0.0

1.0

0.57 0.16 0.19 0.03 0.05 0.13

0.48 0.36 0.38 0.16 0.21 0.82

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 2.5

1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 2.6

Control Variables Child and Household Characteristics Biological/Adoptive Parents Step Parents Single Parent Non-U.S. Born Parent(s) Siblings

0.58 0.12 0.30 0.20 1.55

0.51 0.34 0.47 0.41 1.18

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 11.0

Maternal Employment Full Time Part Time Non-Employed No Mother in Household

0.48 0.20 0.27 0.03

0.52 0.41 0.46 0.17

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0

Respondent Relationship Mother/Female Guardian Father/Male Guardian Other Guardian

0.87 0.08 0.05

0.35 0.28 0.22

0.0 0.0 0.0

1.0 1.0 1.0

School Level Characteristics West Midwest South Northeast Urbanicity Public School

0.22 0.23 0.37 0.18 2.14 0.89

0.39 0.40 0.45 0.36 0.70 0.30

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0

1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 3.0 1.0

Dependent Variables School Involvement Extracurricular Activities Cultural Outings Explanatory Variables Girl Race White Black Hispanic Asian Other Races SES

(N ¼ 15,305). a Ns vary due to non-response.

Minimum

Maximum

13

Cultivating Gendered Talents?

RESULTS Multi-level models offer a means to assess individual outcomes (e.g., participation in children’s schooling), while accounting for school-level commonalities like region or public/private schools. In the case of these analyses, the focus is largely on individual-level social status characteristics, but the nature of the data collection requires that school-level effects by taken into account. Analyses of concerted cultivation are shown as follows: Model 1 introduces explanatory variables with controls; Model 2 includes two-way interaction effects. When results are consistent with all interactions in the model (indicating little multicollinearity) two-way interactions are shown in one model. When results vary with multiple interactions, models are shown separately in Models 2A, 2B, and 2C. Model 3 includes three way interactions.

GENDER, INTERSECTIONALITY, AND CULTIVATION THROUGH INVOLVEMENT IN SCHOOLING Table 2 provides multi-level model coefficients of parents’ involvement with the school during third grade. One benefit of using multi-level models is that they offer an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). For parental involvement in schooling, the coefficient is 0.24, indicating that 24 percent of the variance in school involvement in third grade occurs at the school level, while 76 percent of the variance occurs at the individual level. This shows that the majority of variation occurs in relation to individual characteristics, but a quarter of variation in parental involvement occurs as a result of the context of the school the child attends. How does gender relate to concerted cultivation in the form of parents’ involvement and intervention in the child’s school? With controls for background characteristics, Model 1 shows that parents of girls are more likely to be involved in their daughters’ schooling in multiple ways. For each minority group, parents are less likely to be involved with the child’s schooling than are parents of white children. Finally, higher-SES parents are most likely to be involved with the child’s school in more ways than lowerSES parents.

Table 2. Multi-Level Model Coefficients for Parents’ School Involvement. Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Estimate

S.E.

Estimate

S.E.

Estimate

S.E.

4.59

0.08

4.60

0.08

4.60

0.08

Social Statuses Girl Black Hispanic Asian Other SES

0.06 0.29 0.20 0.53 0.20 0.49

0.02 0.05 0.04 0.06 0.06 0.02

0.07 0.23 0.20 0.56 0.22 0.50

0.02 0.05 0.04 0.06 0.06 0.02

0.09 0.23 0.19 0.56 0.22 0.50

0.03 0.05 0.04 0.06 0.06 0.02

Controls Step Parents Single Parent Siblings Full Time Part Time Foreign-Born Parent Father Respondent Other Respondent

0.40 0.35 0.06 0.05 0.18 0.19 0.21 1.16

0.04 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.04 0.06

0.41 0.34 0.06 0.06 0.18 0.19 0.21 1.15

0.04 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.04 0.07

0.41 0.34 0.06 0.06 0.18 0.19 0.21 1.15

0.04 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.04 0.07

School Level Variables Public School Midwest South Northeast Urbanicity

0.50 0.02 0.06 0.17 0.02

0.04 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.02

0.50 0.03 0.06 0.17 0.03

0.04 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.02

0.50 0.02 0.06 0.17 0.02

0.04 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.02

0.01 0.01 0.00 0.13 0.07 0.26 0.12 0.12 0.05

0.03 0.08 0.07 0.10 0.10 0.05 0.05 0.06 0.07

0.01 0.02 0.08 0.11 0.04 0.26 0.12 0.11 0.05 0.05 0.25 0.14 0.12

0.03 0.09 0.07 0.11 0.10 0.05 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.10 0.09 0.12 0.13

0.17 0.70 1.57 0.12

0.02

0.17 0.70 1.57 0.12

0.02

Intercept

Interaction Effects GirlSES Black-SES Hispanic-SES Asian-SES Other-SES Black Girl Hispanic Girl Asian Girl Girl of Other Races Black Girl-SES Hispanic GirlSES AsianGirlSES Girl of Other Races-SES Random Effects Coefficients Between Schools Proportion explained Between Individuals Proportion explained

0.17 0.70 1.58 0.12

– Log Likelihood

(N ¼ 12,218). po.05, po.01, po.001.

41191.60

0.02 0.02

41196.4

0.02

41196.7

0.02

15

Cultivating Gendered Talents?

Model 2 shows interaction effects for gender and race/ethnicity, indicating the extent to which gendered patterns of concerted cultivation are consistent across families of different racial/ethnic statuses. Race/ ethnicity has a steeper effect on involvement among parents of Black and Hispanic girls compared to parents of white boys. Separate group analysis (not shown) indicates that parents of Black and Hispanic girls are less involved compared to parents of white girls. There are no statistical differences in the level of involvement between white boys and girls. Fig. 1 illustrates these differences with predicted effects holding other characteristics besides gender and race/ethnicity at their mean. Parents of white girls and boys have the highest levels of involvement at 4.26 and 4.25 respectively (not statistically significant). Parents of Black girls are typically involved in 4.2 activities compared to 3.9 activities for Black boys. Parents of Black boys show the lowest levels of involvement compared to all other racial/ ethnic-gender groups. Parents of Hispanic girls participate in 4.1 events on average compared to 4.0 events for Hispanic boys. Model 3 shows a significant three-way interaction, where controlling for gender, levels of involvement for Hispanic children’s parents varies by socioeconomic status. Predicted effects indicate that the parents of Hispanic girls have the most involvement at high levels of SES compared to all other groups.

5.00 4.50

4.26 4.25 4.16*** 3.90

School Involvement

4.00

4.12* 4.00

4.06 4.01 3.76 3.64

3.50 3.00 2.50 2.00 1.50 1.00 0.50 0.00 White

Black

Hispanic Girl

Fig. 1.

Asian

Other

Boy

Predicted Parental School Involvement by Gender and Race. po.0.5, po.0.1, po0.01. Source: ECLS-K.

16

CATHARINE H. WARNER AND MELISSA A. MILKIE

GENDER, INTERSECTIONALITY, AND CULTIVATION THROUGH STRUCTURED EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES Table 3 indicates the multi-level coefficients for gender and children’s participation in extracurricular activities. The ICC is smaller at 0.18 for extracurricular activities. Coefficients in Model 1 show that girls and high SES children are involved in more extracurricular activities compared to boys and low SES children. Given the limitations with the measure of extracurricular activities, we conducted additional logistic analyses on each type of activity. Boys are more likely to participate in sports compared to girls, while girls are more likely to participate in all other types of extracurricular activities. Black children participate in more extracurricular activities compared to white children, while Hispanic and Asian children are less likely to participate in extracurriculars compared to white children. Previous research suggests that additional school-level controls eliminate racial/ethnic differences in participation (Covay & Carbonaro, 2010). Model 2 includes interaction effects, which indicate the intricacies of race and class in addition to gender in determining children’s participation in extracurricular activities. Here, Model 2 is separated into three models – 2A, 2B, and 2C – since interactions showed some multicollinearity. Model 2A shows that SES has stronger effects on the extracurricular activities of girls compared to boys. Girls’ level of involvement in extracurricular activities increases more steeply as SES rises compared to a flatter slope for boys by SES. For example, predicted effects show that boys participate in 40 percent more activities at high SES compared to low SES, while girls participate in 120 percent more activities at high SES compared to low SES. This is illustrated in Fig. 2. Model 2B illustrates that the effects of race on participation in extracurricular activities vary across gender. Girls of color are less likely to participate in extracurricular activities than boys of color, with the exception of Asian children who show no racial/ethnic differences by gender. For example, African-American boys participate in significantly more activities than white boys, while African-American and white girls participate in similar levels of activities. Hispanic boys are more likely to participate in extracurricular activities compared to Hispanic girls; separate group analyses (not shown) indicate that the negative coefficient for Hispanic girls compared to white girls (0.27) is twice that of Hispanic boys compared to white boys (0.13). There are racial/ethnic and socioeconomic

Table 3.

Multi-Level Model Coefficients for Children’s Extracurricular Activities. Model 1 Estimate

Model 2A

Model 2B

Model 2C

Model 3

S.E.

Estimate

S.E.

Estimate

S.E.

Estimate

S.E.

Estimate

S.E.

1.93

0.06

1.93

0.06

1.93

0.06

1.92

0.06

1.91

0.06

Social Statuses Girl Black Hispanic Asian Other SES

0.39 0.09 0.18 0.16 0.02 0.52

0.02 0.04 0.04 0.05 0.05 0.02

0.39 0.09 0.18 0.16 0.02 0.52

0.02 0.04 0.04 0.05 0.05 0.02

0.39 0.08 0.18 0.16 0.02 0.52

0.02 0.04 0.04 0.05 0.05 0.02

0.39 0.05 0.19 0.15 0.02 0.52

0.02 0.04 0.04 0.06 0.05 0.02

0.38 0.05 0.19 0.15 0.02 0.52

0.02 0.04 0.04 0.06 0.05 0.02

Controls Step Parents Single Parent Siblings Full Time Part Time Foreign-Born Parent Father Respondent Other Respondent

0.20 0.08 0.04 0.04 0.12 0.06 0.00 0.08

0.04 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.06

0.20 0.09 0.04 0.05 0.11 0.06 0.00 0.07

0.04 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.06

0.20 0.08 0.04 0.04 0.12 0.06 0.00 0.08

0.04 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.06

0.19 0.09 0.04 0.03 0.13 0.05 0.00 0.09

0.04 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.06

0.20 0.09 0.04 0.03 0.12 0.06 0.01 0.09

0.04 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.06

School Level Variables Public School Midwest South Northeast Urbanicity

0.25 0.09 0.18 0.11 0.00

0.04 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.02

0.24 0.09 0.18 0.10 0.00

0.03 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.02

0.25 0.09 0.18 0.11 0.00

0.04 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.02

0.25 0.09 0.18 0.11 0.01

0.04 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.02

0.25 0.09 0.18 0.11 0.00

0.03 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.02

0.33 0.35 0.18 0.20

0.07 0.06 0.09 0.09

0.30 0.16 0.12 0.12 0.13 0.18 0.09 0.04 0.22 0.13 0.02 0.21 0.33

0.03 0.08 0.06 0.09 0.09 0.05 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.09 0.08 0.10 0.11

0.08 0.72 1.23 0.10

0.01

Intercept

Interaction Effects GirlSES Black-SES Hispanic-SES Asian-SES Other-SES Black Girl Hispanic Girl Asian Girl Girl of Other Races Black Girl-SES Hispanic GirlSES AsianGirlSES Girl of Other Races-SES Random Effects Coefficients Between Schools Proportion explained Between Individuals Proportion explained – Log Likelihood

0.32 0.03

0.09 0.01 0.71 1.25 0.02 0.09 38243.10

(N ¼ 12,260). po.05, po.01, po.001.

0.08 0.01 0.71 1.23 0.02 0.10 38090.70

0.09 0.01 0.71 1.24 0.02 0.09 38201.9

0.17 0.10 0.03 0.22

0.05 0.04 0.05 0.06

0.08 0.72 1.25 0.09

0.01

38233.8

0.02

38082.6

0.02

18

CATHARINE H. WARNER AND MELISSA A. MILKIE 3

Extracurricular Activities

2.5

2

1.5

1

0.5

0 Low SES

Avg SES Girl

Fig. 2.

High SES

Boy

Predicted Participation in Extracurricular Activities by Gender and SES.

status interactions in Model 2 C. SES has a greater effect on white children’s participation in extracurricular activities compared to children in other groups. Model 3 shows three-way interactions. SES has less of an effect on Asian girls’ and girls of other race’s participation in extracurricular activities compared to white boys.

GENDER, INTERSECTIONALITY, AND CULTIVATION THROUGH CULTURAL OUTINGS Table 4 provides multi-level models for children’s cultural outings with family members. The ICC is 0.09 for cultural outings, suggesting that nonschool characteristics play a substantially greater role in shaping children’s outings. How does gender relate to concerted cultivation in the form of parents’ orchestration of cultural outings? Again, girls and high SES children are more likely than boys and low SES children to take cultural outings with their parents. Black children are more likely to make these

Table 4.

Multi-Level Model Coefficients for Children’s Cultural Outings. Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Estimate

S.E.

Estimate

S.E.

Estimate

S.E.

Intercept

1.34

0.05

1.33

0.05

1.33

0.05

Social Statuses Girl Black Hispanic Asian Other SES

0.08 0.09 0.01 0.04 0.02 0.27

0.02 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.04 0.01

0.08 0.05 0.03 0.02 0.02 0.27

0.02 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.04 0.01

0.08 0.05 0.03 0.02 0.02 0.27

0.02 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.04 0.01

Controls Step Parents Single Parent Siblings Full Time Part Time Foreign-Born Parent Father Respondent Other Respondent

0.01 0.06 0.02 0.02 0.09 0.06 0.02 0.03

0.03 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.03 0.03 0.05

0.01 0.06 0.02 0.02 0.09 0.07 0.02 0.03

0.03 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.03 0.03 0.05

0.01 0.06 0.02 0.02 0.09 0.07 0.02 0.03

0.03 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.03 0.03 0.05

School Level Variables Public School Midwest South Northeast Urbanicity

0.09 0.00 0.06 0.01 0.02

0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.01

0.09 0.00 0.06 0.01 0.02

0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.01

0.09 0.00 0.06 0.01 0.02

0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.01

0.02 0.01 0.08 0.02 0.02 0.09 0.06 0.01 0.04

0.02 0.06 0.05 0.07 0.07 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.05

0.02 0.00 0.08 0.04 0.02 0.10 0.06 0.01 0.04 0.07 0.05 0.10 0.08

0.02 0.06 0.05 0.07 0.07 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.07 0.06 0.08 0.09

Interaction Effects GirlSES Black-SES Hispanic-SES Asian-SES Other-SES Black Girl Hispanic Girl Asian Girl Girl of Other Races Black Girl-SES Hispanic GirlSES AsianGirlSES Girl of Other Races-SES Random Effects Coefficients Between Schools Proportion explained Between Individuals Proportion explained

0.04 0.48 0.81 0.02

– Log Likelihood

(N ¼ 12,239). po.05, po.01, po.001.

32771.60

0.01 0.01

0.04 0.49 0.81 0.02 32794.1

0.01 0.01

0.04 0.49 0.81 0.02 32804.7

0.01 0.01

20

CATHARINE H. WARNER AND MELISSA A. MILKIE

outings than white children. Though Model 2 indicates that white boys are more likely to take these outings compared to Black girls, the gender and racial/ethnic differences are minimal. Finally, some significant results among control variables across all three outcomes are worth noting. Family structure affects concerted cultivation across each of the dependent variables. Two-parent families have greater involvement with the child’s school and facilitate more extracurricular activities than step- or single-parent families. Children in single-parent families are more likely to take cultural outings than children in twoparent families. Children with more siblings received less concerted cultivation, underscoring research on the additional time spent with first-born children (Price, 2008). Mothers’ employment matters: part-time employed mothers are more likely to facilitate all three types of concerted cultivation compared to non-employed mothers. Parents born outside of the United States were less involved with their children’s school and less likely to take cultural outings compared to U.S.-born parents. Parents whose children attend public school volunteer less on average than parents whose children attend private school, and children at public schools are less likely to participate in extracurricular activities and cultural outings compared to children at private schools. Last, there were some geographical differences in participating in extracurricular activities and parents’ school involvement.

DISCUSSION We find consistent gender differences in parenting practices across all three forms of concerted cultivation, but an intersectional approach to parenting logics reveals greater complexity. Findings reveal that parenting logics are shaped at the intersection of children’s identities, not only in terms of gender, or class, or ethnicity alone. We offer two key results to advance the literature on gender differences in family processes. First, there are independent gender differences in parenting practices across the three outcomes. Second, children’s multiple social locations matter in different ways across the concerted cultivation parenting practices explored in this paper. Our process-centered approach to intersectionality using survey data shows that the context in which the parenting practices occurs affects the importance of different social statuses for outcomes. We discuss each of these contributions in turn below.

Cultivating Gendered Talents?

21

Gender is a strong predictor of all three aspects of the concerted cultivation of third grade children. Parents, perhaps quite subtly, make decisions about engaging with the larger social community on behalf of a child’s futures based on a child’s gender. Parents of higher socioeconomic status tend to engage children in more structured activities and emphasize self-direction and complex thinking (Kohn & Slomczynski, 1990; Lareau, 2003). The findings indicate similar patterns based on the child’s gender; parents are more involved in girls’ schooling, enroll girls in more different kinds of activities, and take more outings with girls compared to boys. In many ways, elementary-aged girls receive more attention and ‘‘concerted cultivation’’ from parents compared to their male counterparts. The meaning behind this difference is more difficult to interpret. Perhaps parents worry more about daughters’ success (Grolnick et al., 1997; Raley & Bianchi, 2006) and therefore work harder to build cultural and human capital in their daughters. However, parents may save more money for boys’ college education compared to girls, expecting higher returns on the human capital investment (Freese & Powell, 1999). Dumais (2002) finds that female adolescents receive a greater return on participation in cultural outings in terms of grades. Parents may also believe that daughters need this additional attention so they do not have to rely on finding a husband or partner for financial support (Carter & Wojtkiewicz, 2000; Dumais, 2002). Given the extent to which parents still promote gendered activities and displays in children through toys and clothing (Demo & Cox, 2000), these findings may represent an extension of gendered parenting behaviors. Our second key finding focuses on the intersectional nature of parents’ concerted cultivation of girls. We have argued that employing survey research in a categorical approach to intersectionality (McCall, 2005) improves our understanding of differences in parenting approaches at the nexus of children’s social status identities. The paths that parents pursue for and with children as they engage with social institutions and beyond are shaped by not only their gender, but by race and class locations as well. Some parents and children (particularly those of color or low-income) may have a greater awareness of oppression and structural limitations that shape their lives (Harnois, 2005). Such inequalities are likely to be reflected in the cultural logics of parenting. Moreover, incorporating a process-centered approach (Choo & Ferree, 2010) indicates the unique importance of different identities across interactional contexts. Even within a middle-class parenting logic like concerted cultivation, relationships vary according to the interactional locations in which the parenting occurs. We discuss these contributions below.

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In the school setting, gender and race together influence parenting practices. The level of parental involvement in schooling is significantly different among Black and Hispanic boys and girls. The parents of Black and Hispanic girls are more likely to be involved in their daughters’ education compared to the parents of Black and Hispanic boys. These racial/ethnic differences in gendered parenting practices may account for a significant portion of the gender differences noted in parental involvement in schooling in the literature. This finding also has significant implications for the educational inequalities facing men of color in the U.S. school system. Parents of Hispanic or Black boys may feel less power to change the course of their education or perhaps are rebuffed by an educational system that favors white boys. These parents may have a long history of experience with oppression in the educational system, and this disadvantage may have long-term consequences for children’s outcomes. Findings here show that the relationship with the school for Hispanic parents is further complicated by intersections with social class. The school involvement of parents of Hispanic girls is also more sensitive to increases in socioeconomic status compared to those of white boys. Perhaps the parents of Hispanic girls wish to provide more oversight in their daughters’ schooling, but do not feel comfortable when they have lower levels of education or income compared to teachers and school authorities. When navigating extracurricular activities for children, gender combines with socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity as central to parenting. First, socioeconomic status is particularly important for girls’ participation. Parents with daughters are more sensitive to an increase in socioeconomic status compared to parents with sons. Girls participate in six percent more activities than boys at low levels of SES, but 40 percent more activities than boys at high levels of SES. While some gender differences in participation may be associated with measurement, this finding also suggests that girls’ activities may require additional financial investment or class status to make participation a possibility. Team sports may be more accessible for a broader base of families than art or music lessons. However, art and music lessons may be more highly valued in the educational system and more available for wealthy girls (Dumais, 2002). Additionally, girls of color are much less likely to participate in extracurricular activities in comparison to boys of color. Though white and Black girls participate in a similar number of activities, and Black boys participate in more activities than white boys, other racial/ethnic groups of girls are at a disadvantage. Hispanic, Asian and girls of other races/ethnicities participate in significantly fewer activities than white girls and in comparison to boys of the same race/ethnicity. Class

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(and perhaps income especially) are important predictors for participation in extracurriculars, but participation is complicated by less measurable factors that shape parental preferences and options across gender and racial/ ethnic statuses. An understanding of these parenting logics has implications for educational attainment and the nature of the values and skills children may attain through extracurricular activities. For parents navigating ‘‘high culture’’ institutions with elementary aged children, parenting logics are less likely to vary at the intersection of social statuses, but rather through main effects of gender and class. Overall, less variation is explained in this model, suggesting that there are additional factors at play in fostering cultural outings. These findings may reflect the short reference period (one month) associated with this measure that limits capturing the variation in children’s cultural outings. Additionally, perhaps parents of color do not sense the same exclusionary atmosphere from institutions outside the educational system, and so this parenting practice is less susceptible to the complexities of social location. This study has several limitations. First, the measures of concerted cultivation have some weaknesses. For school involvement, certain items, such as participating in fundraising for a child’s school are more distally related to cultivating a child’s individual success than others, although they do signal efforts to improve the quality of the educational setting of one’s child. Future research should attempt to disentangle some of the various aspects of school involvement by race and class location. Additionally, this measure does not capture the nature of parents’ interactions with staff at children’s schools, perhaps a key component of parental school involvement. Extracurricular activities do not count multiple activities within the same category, such as participating in two sports teams. It is unclear how a count of all activities, even multiple ones within the same category, would affect differences. A second limitation is although a nationally representative sample can show racial patterns net of social class and provides information on Asian and Hispanic parenting in the U.S., the study cannot show the specific meanings related to parenting logics. Some studies touch on racial socialization and children’s success (Lacy & Harris, 2010). This is an area ripe for future research, particularly at the highest and lowest SES levels. Such research should examine the logics of childrearing for references to discrimination in sites children are expected to traverse through formal education and activities. Third, the racial/ethnic categories used are those defined in large survey data collection. Families within these categories may not define themselves

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as the categories indicate. While race/ethnicity is a shifting category in the United States, socially constructed rather than based on biological differences, the limitations of analysis with large surveys necessitate a consideration of race according to these dominant cultural terms. Finally, some of the groups available for examining interaction effects are relatively small in size. The continuous measure of SES helps in this respect, but findings may be conservative in estimating the statistical differences among AsianAmericans or children of two or more races. In summary, our findings have significant implications for understanding gendered processes within the family. The practice of concerted cultivation is dependent not only upon a child’s gender, but in conjunction with his or her other key social statuses. Furthermore, that dependence varies across spheres of parenting, such as engagement on behalf of children in educational institutions or orchestrating their outside activities. Intersectional theory suggests that the salience of particular identities varies across social context (McCall, 2005), and that the paths on which individuals find themselves are often based on their experiences of oppression and privilege over the life course (Harnois, 2005). The unique ways in which gender, race, and class combine to shape the cultural logics of parenting support these assertions. Parents shape family life based on their awareness of key identities, and these identities take on different levels of importance within the school, when engaging in extracurriculars, and when setting off on cultural excursions. Parenting practices during children’s early childhood have several implications for family life: parenting choices shape the contours of family life on a daily basis, and parenting logics influence the values and beliefs children will express in their later lives (Correll, 2004; Correll, Benard, & Paik, 2007) as well as the level of success they experience (Cheadle, 2008; Jeynes, 2007; Kaufman & Gabler, 2004). Future research could address the intersectional nature of working class logics to highlight other parenting practices across multiple social locations. Such research would further document power differentials involved in engaging with social institutions that might perpetuate the social reproduction of inequality. Parenting within each social location can also be an individual experience that requires some guesswork as to which approaches to take, which activities to engage in, and which of these will produce ‘‘results’’ for a child’s current and future life. The intricacies of these decisions are tied to the meanings, constraints, or opportunities associated with a child’s gender, race, and class. In turn, these parenting logics can have dramatic implications for daily lived experiences in family life.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank anonymous reviewers for their comments. We also thank Suzanne Bianchi and Annette Lareau for comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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BLOCKED OPPORTUNITIES AND GENDERED POWER: INABILITY TO ATTAIN PREFERRED GENDER ROLES Kathryn A. Sweeney and Delores P. Aldridge ABSTRACT Purpose – This chapter explores which factors women see as limiting their ability to achieve preferred traditional and egalitarian gender roles. Design/methodology/approach – Data from 25 in-depth interviews and questionnaires with Black and White wives in same-race and interracial Black/White marriages are used. Analysis relies on an intersectional framework to illustrate how gendered power, race, and resources create obstacles in realizing gender ideology. Findings – Wives who were unable to fulfill egalitarian ideals faced gendered power issues. Wives who desired ‘‘traditional’’ gender roles encountered structural limitations related to class position and racial discrimination in the workplace. Research limitations – This study is limited to the perspectives of Black and White women living in the Atlanta, GA metropolitan area. Future

Notions of Family: Intersectional Perspectives Advances in Gender Research, Volume 17, 29–47 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-2126(2013)0000017005

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research should look further at how socialization that gives men greater power than women affects intimate relationships while taking into account how the experiences of gender are influenced by other aspects of status, including class, race, and location. Originality/value – Findings from this study add to sociological knowledge of gender by conveying the intersectional nature of race, class, and gender in the family and by further illustrating the importance of applying theories of intersectionality to empirical research in this area. Keywords: Gender and family intersections; division of labor; gender roles; racial discrimination Researchers have found that while young people more than ever want a balance between work and family that is shared by their spouse or partner, they are not sure that it can actually be attained (Gerson, 2009). Yet, little research has focused on the obstacles and limitations people face in attaining their preferred gender roles in families and how those obstacles may differ by class and race. Theories of intersectionality explain inequality by taking into account variation across multiple dimensions. For example, to understand gender inequality we need to look not just at gender, but also recognize that the experiences of being a man or a woman differ based on other characteristics such as race, class, sexual orientation, nationality, and religion (Collins, 1990). One way to view intersectionality is ‘‘a focus on seeing multiple institutions as overlapping in their co-determination of inequalities to produce complex configurations’’ (Choo & Ferree, 2010, p. 131). Intersectional frameworks focus on various social identities and the power associated with them (Collins, 1990; Shields, 2008). This perspective requires research that takes these variations into account, in this case by looking at how societal inequities related to class, race, and gender influence the ability to attain preferred gender roles within heterosexual marriage. Past studies often measure gender ideology based on overarching ideas about gender within society (e.g., acceptance of women working in the paid labor market and issues of pay equity) as opposed to personal role preference (Brines, 1994; Greenstein, 2000; Kamo, 1988; Zuo & Tang, 2000). However, desiring gender equality in general or not opposing egalitarian roles for others does not mean that women prefer balanced roles in their own relationships (Condor, 1996; Kroska, 2002). Hochschild’s (1989) typology of traditional, egalitarian, and transitional ideology remains relevant as a model to understand gender dynamics in relationships. A ‘‘traditional’’ ideology places the

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husband in the paid labor market with the wife focused on the home having less power than her husband. An egalitarian ideology is one of equality in both paid labor and the home with equal power for both spouses. The third gender ideology, transitional, is where the husband and wife do not have an equal focus. The husband is in the work force and the wife, whether in the paid labor force or not, remains responsible for the home sphere (Hochschild, 1989). Instead of looking at views about gender in general, we use an intersectional approach along with Hochschild’s (1989) concepts of traditional and egalitarian gender ideologies to understand the ability of women to achieve their preferred gender roles. We draw on data from 25 in-depth interviews with Black and White women in heterosexual same-race and interracial marriages to understand how societal inequities related to class, race, and gender limit the ability of women to achieve their desired gender ideology.

GENDER SOCIALIZATION, NORMS, AND GENDER IDEOLOGY There is a tension between powerful dominant norms and socialization into ‘‘traditional’’ gender roles and the ability for women to choose their roles (Cowdery et al., 2009; Halrynjo & Lyng, 2009). Societal gender privilege and oppression are internalized through socialization; therefore people do not always recognize how patriarchy is expressed within relationships (Komter, 1989; West & Zimmerman, 1987). Gender ideology enacted as gender roles and examined in terms of the division of labor is often used as a measure of power and assumes that if a wife does more of the female gendered chores (e.g., childcare, cooking, cleaning, and laundry) then she is being oppressed (Brines, 1994; Greenstein, 2000; Kamo, 1988; Yodanis, 2005). However, there is a tension between socialized expectations for gender roles that uphold patriarchy and the agency of women to choose their own roles (Ammerman, 1987; Condor, 1996; Davidman, 1991; Ecklund, 2003). Women have strived for choices, yet research on marital dynamics often relies on the division of household labor as a measure of power, which tends to recognize choice only if women choose relationships that balance career and family life. If women prefer their role in the home and with children then even though unequal power may be present, it may not be problematic. We recognize this tension while focusing on understanding what gets in the way of women fulfilling their ideal roles using an intersectional approach.

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Ability to Fulfill Gender Ideology Much of the research on the gender dynamics in marriage has focused on the division of labor: more specifically factors that contribute to the division (e.g., relative income, race, hours worked, etc.), perceptions of fairness, marital satisfaction, and relation to free time (Brines, 1994; Cunningham, 2007; Greenstein, 1996; Lee & Waite, 2010; Sayer, 2005). Research on the limitations to achieving preferred roles is lacking, particularly research that includes an intersectional framework. Using this theoretical perspective ‘‘reflects the reality of lives. The facts of our lives reveal that there is no single identity category that satisfactorily describes how we respond to our social environment or are responded to by others’’ (Shields, 2008, p. 304). In this section we draw some connections between various areas of research to better understand what is already known about how gender, class, and race might limit the ability of women to achieve desired gender ideology.

Gendered Work Choices England (2010) argues that while women have been shielded from some discrimination in education and the labor market which enabled greater access to careers, cultural ideas of ‘‘men’s’’ work and ‘‘women’s’’ work continue to restrict mobility making changes uneven and gender still relevant. Work that is considered ‘‘women’s work’’ continues to be undervalued, creating inequality in wages and little incentive for men to shift focus (England, 2010). The resulting inequality in wages in the labor market contributes to most women earning less than their spouses, which has implications for dynamics within marriage and wives continuation in the paid labor market (Shafer, 2011). Women’s employment rose in the 1900s until it hit a plateau in the 1990’s and slightly decreased in the early 2000s; men have not left the workplace in anywhere near the same numbers as women have entered (England, 2010). While there has been a plateau in the number of women in the paid labor market there have not been great numbers of women leaving the workforce, a phenomenon labeled as the ‘‘opt out revolution.’’ Regardless, understanding why some women leave their careers sheds light on the continued importance of gender within marriage and the labor market. Relative earnings and the relative number of hours worked between husband and wife have been found to have positive effects on leaving the paid labor market; having a husband who worked longer hours and a wife earning a

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lower proportion of the household income made women more likely to leave the work force (Cha, 2010; Shafer, 2011). Research has found that high socioeconomic status mothers who leave careers, for the most part, have egalitarian ideologies. Yet they may take on traditional roles when they are ‘‘shut out’’ of their careers from a lack of flexibility at work and the shortage of assistance with the division of labor from their spouses at home (Halrynjo & Lyng, 2009; Stone, 2008). Highly educated women are leaving careers not due to individual desires or goals, but in part because they are unable to balance having a family and a career due to dynamics at work and home.

Gender as Raced and Classed Intersectional frameworks note the importance of examining how gender operates across dimensions such as race and class (Collins, 1990; Choo & Ferree, 2010). While the attitudes of men and women regarding the division of labor have become more similar over time, class differences remain (Lang & Risman, 2007). For low-income families, financial constraints affect whether choices regarding gender roles are available or realistic possibilities. Women in higher socioeconomic status families are able to reduce their contribution to the division of labor by paying others, not because their husband’s contribution is greater (Gupta, 2011). Without the perspective of intersectionality, the varied ways that finances affect gender would be lost. Along with class, intersection theories focus on the importance of considering how the experiences of women differ based on their racial identity because of the varied histories and opportunities across race lines in the United States (Dill, 1988). Black women have historically been in the work force longer and continue to work at higher rates compared to women of other racial groups, particularly White women (Roos, 2009). Focusing on gender role attitudes, research has found variation along race lines with Black Americans being more critical of gender inequality compared to Whites (Kane, 2000). In addition, for women of color, roles may center on maintaining families in the face of adversity related to their racial status (Cowdery et al., 2009). Black women and lower socioeconomic status women of all races have historically not had the option to work solely as caretakers of home and family, therefore this part of traditional gender ideology may not be as culturally prevalent as it is for Whites (Billingsley 1968; hooks, 1984; Roos, 2009). Some scholars have argued that the idea that the male is the breadwinner and the female focuses on expressive or emotional needs (labeled

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traditional ideology) does not apply for Black families in the same way that it may for Whites due to the need in Black families to place a primary focus on overall family well-being (Billingsley, 1968; Cowdery et al., 2009). Collins (2004) argues that ‘‘job flight, mechanization, poor schools, and lingering job discrimination all mean that Black men and Black women still cannot achieve the norms of hegemonic masculinity (strong men who support their families) and femininity (dependent women who rely on male income)’’ (p. 202). Women who have the ability to choose to stay home with their children can do so only because of their spouse’s economic support (Gerson, 1985). Gender ideologies and lived gender roles thus differ by both class position and race (Cowdery et al., 2009; Roos, 2009). This chapter expands on past research to focus on women’s perception of what limits their ability to attain their preferred gender roles. In this chapter we explore the reasons wives give for being unable to fulfill ideal roles, drawing on an intersectional framework to better understand how racial identity and class standing shape gender dynamics in marriage.

METHODS This chapter draws from in-depth interviews and short questionnaires with Black and White women in same-race and interracial Black/White heterosexual marriages living in the greater metro Atlanta, GA area. Interviews allowed women to convey opportunities and restrictions, ideals, inequality, and marriage thoroughly in their own words without the limitations of existing categories. The measures in this study rely on one point in time and reflection on past and present relationships, which is useful when parsing out gendered power versus structural inequities. Even if preferences change, or obstacles differ over time and throughout relationships, issues of power imbalance at any point in the marriage are important to explore because they reveal how social inequities affect relationships.

Participants Black and White couples are investigated because of the long history of oppressive relationships between White and Black people. Black and White people have been at opposite ends of the perceived racial hierarchy in the United States, whether viewed as a dichotomy or as the more nuanced emerging tri-racial system that Bonilla-Silva proposes (2002). 25 women

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were interviewed who were either Black or White, currently married to a man of the same-race or were in interracial Black/White marriages, and lived in the Atlanta, GA metropolitan area. Interracial couples were included because they provide unique information on the role of race. In this sample, nine of the women were White and married to White men (see Table 1 for sample demographics). One had previously been married to a White man. Eight women were White and were married to Black men. One had previously been married to a White man. Six of the women were Black and married to Black men. Two had been married before; one to a Black man and one to a White man. Two of the women were Black and married to White men (with the additional experiences of another Black woman among

Table 1. Marriage Typea

Mary Jamila Kasinda Sharon Nichole Tonya Wendy Helen Amy Linda Tracy Megan Natalia Rebecca Leah Erin Lynn Bonnie Elizabeth Connie Lisa Andrea a

BWBH BWBH BWBH BWBH BWBH BWWH BWWH WWBH WWBH WWBH WWBH WWBH WWBH WWBH WWBH WWWH WWWH WWWH WWWH WWWH WWWH WWWH

Sample Demographics.

Years Number Married of Children 13 17 þ 20 þ 20 23 8þ 12 20 4 30 þ 5þ 12 12 21 4 5 14 14 30 þ 35 34 33

3 2 3 4 3 0 2 2 0 2 2 2 3 4 0 1 2 2 3 2 3 8

Ageb

30–39 30 40–49 50–59 50–59 30–39 30–39 50–59 30–39 60 30–39 30–39 30–39 50–59 29 30–39 41 42 50–59 50–59 50–59 50–59

Education

College Some college High School College College PhD Associates High School PhD College College College College PhD, MBA Masters Masters College College MFA MA College College

Household Income ($)

60–69,000 40–49,999 60–69,999 70–79,999 80–89,999 120–139,999 100–119,999 10–30,000 90–99,000 70–79,999 80–89,999 Over 200,000 160,000–179,999 Over 200,000 40–49,999 100–119,000 90–99,999 180–200,000 70–79,999 Over 200,000 180–200,000 89–99,000

Religion

Methodist Muslim Christian Catholic Catholic n/a Presbyterian Muslim n/a Mennonite Methodist Muslim Muslim Episcopalian Christian Methodist Christian n/a Catholic Jewish Catholic Methodist

BWBH, Black wife Black husband; BWWH, Black wife White husband; WWBH, White wife Black husband; WWWH, White wife White husband. b Respondents were asked to provide ranges for income and age. These are used unless additional information was provided during the interview.

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the 25 who had been married to a White man). Those who were previously married discussed their experiences from both marriages. Respondents ranged from age 26 to 60. All but five were in their first marriages. They had been married for six months to over 30 years and all but four had children. Six had children who were grown-up and no longer living in their homes. Seven of the women had children under five and two of the women were pregnant at the time of the interview. The majority of those interviewed worked in the paid labor market, with five of the women having no formal involvement in the labor market. Six of the women worked part time and one was retired. Women were predominantly Protestant Christian with a few who identified as Catholic. Four were Muslim, one was Jewish, and eight did not identify with any religion.

Procedure To recruit respondents, advertisements were placed in several local newspapers asking for Black and White married women in same-race and interracial marriages to talk with a researcher regarding how they balance their various roles, career, family, and decision making. The women were not paid beyond a cup of coffee or lunch during the interview. A semi-structured interview schedule was used as a guideline. Interviews lasted between 45 minutes to over two hours and were audio-recorded with permission. Questions were asked regarding: typical day, racial ideology, gender ideology, the division of labor in the home, childcare, the role of race in their relationships, decision making, child-rearing, and how they balanced career and family as well as how this has changed over time. Questionnaires were also used and included questions regarding work, division of labor, education, age, and religion.

Analysis Interviews were transcribed word-for-word by the researcher or a paid transcriptionist into Word documents. Data was stored and analyzed in a software program designed for qualitative storage and visual management (Atlas.ti). Each transcript was analyzed using a constant comparison analysis approach where portions of data were coded using deductive and inductive codes, then compared for similarities and emerging codes (Berg, 2009). For example, portions of data were identified for codes such as

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division of household labor (i.e., any mention of who did which tasks in the home) and gender ideology/preferred roles (i.e., any mention of preferred or ideal gender roles). Other codes included any mention of same-race or interracial couple, decision making (i.e., how decisions were made and who made them), and ideas about race. The findings for this chapter draw on segments of transcripts coded as ‘‘gender ideology/preferred roles.’’ Responses that fit the criteria were examined in the display stage in the network view tool in Atlas.ti, which allowed for axial coding by systematically going through each of the statements associated with the ‘‘gender ideology’’ code and visually sorting responses into subcategories or themes to examine perceived limitations in achieving their preferred gender roles (Attride-Stirling, 2001; Maxwell, 1996; Ryan & Bernard, 2003). Analysis continued as findings were examined by comparing across racial groups and marriage type (i.e., same-race vs. interracial). Extracts used in the findings represent examples of each theme. All names and identifying information have been omitted or changed to protect participant confidentiality.

RESULTS The ideal gender roles of women in the sample fit into Hochschild’s (1989) differentiations of traditional and egalitarian except for one who preferred what we label as a reverse traditional relationship where she wanted to have greater power than her spouse and to work in the paid labor market while her husband was in charge of the home sphere. Those who preferred focusing on the ‘‘home sphere,’’ represent traditional ideology and included those that displayed putting children and family first, ideally spending more time at home than at a job in the paid labor market, and preferring to have a job and not a career. An example of preference for the home arena was from Lynn, a former nurse turned stay at home mother of two who was a White woman married to a White man whose preferred and actual roles matched. Lynn always knew that she would focus her attention on children and the home and to fulfill her preferred role she would leave her job when she had children. Lynn said: And then I knew that I was going to leave [my job] once Charlie was born and stay home and then Julia was born two and an half years later. And I’ve never been back to work, I’ve just stayed home.

While preferring a traditional ideology was conceptualized as focusing on the home sphere (whether also in the paid labor market or not), the ideal of

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egalitarian relationships was about equality in roles (Hochschild, 1989). Women with an egalitarian ideology may want both her and her husband to identify with paid labor, or both to focus on the home, or they may want both spouses to share the home and paid work sphere. Respondents may have wanted to focus on the paid work sphere along with their husband doing the same or wanting a mix of home and work sphere. Three women in the sample wanted the focus of both her and her spouse to be on the paid labor market, while the other women who preferred egalitarian roles wanted to share the home and paid work sphere. Our findings demonstrate why women think they are unable to fulfill their preferred gender roles, that is, their gender ideology, by highlighting the intersections of gender and the family and looking at the ways in which race and class shape gender dynamics. Wives in this sample focused on how: (1) structural constraints forced women to work in the paid labor market or work in a job that is not flexible and did not accommodate preferred gender roles, and (2) how societal gendered power dictated traditional roles giving men greater control within marriage. Structural Boundaries Women who were not able to achieve their preference for traditional roles encountered structural societal inequity. Structural limitations were expressed in two ways (1) by having to work in the paid labor market because of family resource needs (the role of class status, which is also raced), and (2) experiencing blocked opportunities, particularly racial discrimination in the labor market (the role of race). Women whose husbands had low paying jobs or faced discrimination in the workplace (mostly men of color) were more likely to feel that they had to work outside of the home to contribute to the family finances. These findings correspond to Dill’s (1988) account of historical differences in opportunities and discrimination that have led various women of color to reject or reconfigure traditional gender roles modeled after upper-class Whites. Traditional gender norms are often not accessible to Black men and women because of historical, political, and structural limitations (Collins, 2004; Stainback & Tomaskovic-Devey, 2009). Financial Necessities Women who identified mainly with the home sphere (i.e., had traditional ideologies), perceived the need to work in the paid labor market as an

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obstacle in attaining their preferred gender ideology. They did not see other options besides working because their family could not survive without their income. Tracy, a White woman married to a Black man, prefers what is labeled here as reverse traditional roles: she would like one person to focus on the home sphere, but thinks it should be her husband because she has greater earnings potential. I would like it if one of us could stay home. Probably my husband, he’s more patient than I am, but that’s what I would like.

But she also said: I just can’t picture my family being able to function with just one person working, especially with the salary that my husband has. [His job area] stuff isn’t uh really a lot of money. It [one person staying home] was never really something we really even thought of. I never thought it would be an option not to have a career.

This response is an example of the need for women to work for their family to get by financially and illustrates how class dynamics shape gender roles. Helen, a White woman married to a Black man whose children were in high school at the time of the interview, provides another example. She was able to remain the main childcare provider for her children by being creative with her employment. I never took my kids to daycare. They were in my care all the time. That was one of the things that was important to [my husband] and important to me too. When I taught martial arts and earned money that way they were with me. They were educated by me; they were home schooled until middle school. Sometimes the work that I did would take place in the parks so we would go to the park. I would teach [martial arts] they would play. I also made money managing an apartment building where we lived so we would get the rent off. I would work to paint or clean or do things like that. And the kids were always with me. So, I went into work where I could always have my kids with me.

Even though Helen demonstrated a strong traditional ideology, in order for her family to make ends meet and pay the rent, she needed to contribute to the family income. This example highlights how people use creativity to fulfill their gender ideology despite their class status. Yet even in this creativity, Helen had to participate in the paid labor market. Just as not having money limits opportunities, higher socioeconomic status allows others to stay home with their children, and/or pay other people for childcare and to perform some of the division of labor, as past research has found (Gupta, 2011). An example is from Nichole, a school nurse and Black woman in a same-race marriage.

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KATHRYN A. SWEENEY AND DELORES P. ALDRIDGE My husband did not like the idea of me wanting to go back to work, but I couldn’t stand it anymore [laughs]. Max, my youngest was about seven years old and was well into school. The only way my husband would agree [with my decision to return to paid work] was that I had to be there to see the child off to school and I had to be there when he came back from school. And I had to be there when my big kids came back from school. And the only job that would afford me that kind of liberty in nursing was a school nurse.

Nichole was able to use her class status to pay for in-home childcare and for household chores to be done by someone else. After staying home with the children for some time, she was able to return to the paid labor market and have her ideal mix of work and home spheres by taking a job that allowed her to be home to send kids off to school and be home when they returned. She did not want to rely on paid help to take care of her children because as Nichole said ‘‘they [nanny’s and house help] can’t raise your children.’’ According to Nichole, she and her husband both wanted her to be the main person raising their children so she arranged her life to be able to do so. Nichole’s husband’s views were not presented as mere preferences, but as gendered power. However, her class status gave her the financial resources to pay for additional help, which allowed Nichole to focus on her children and her job without worrying about the home.

Blocked Opportunities Along with class status obstructing attainment of preferred gender ideology, racial discrimination in the workplace and resulting lack of opportunities were also factors. The gendered experiences in marriage differed by class and race. Sharon was a Black woman and school teacher married to a Black man; they had two teenage boys living at home at the time of the interview. Sharon talked about her desire to have an occupation that allowed her the flexibility to achieve her traditional ideology. When we first moved here I tried to get a job [teaching in one of the local counties]. But that was in lean times and the school system was still really racist in how teachers were allocated. And, so, it was very difficult to get a job because in order for you to get a job you had to get a job in a Black school. I wasn’t able to get a job. And so, at that time I couldn’t afford to teach at the [religiously affiliated] school. I would have chosen that.

This example stresses the need to sustain a certain income, which fits with the first category of the need to work, but also of having opportunities blocked by larger societal racial inequalities. Sharon wanted a job that allowed her more time with her family to fulfill her traditional ideology, but was not able to do so because of the restriction in job opportunities from

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racism. Limited opportunities from racism prohibited some women from making preferred choices, regardless of their class position, illustrating the intersections of race, class, and gender. This corresponds with past research showing unequal opportunities and outcomes in the labor market for men and women of color due to their racial status (Browne & Misra, 2003).

Unequal Marital Power Unlike wives who wanted traditional roles, none of the women who expressed wanting shared roles pointed to structural inequities limiting their options. Instead, the opinions and actions of their husbands – labeled here as gendered power – prevented women from living out their egalitarian preferences. The ability to have egalitarian relationships often occurred through change in roles over time where wives worked against their husband’s preferences/socialized norms, which are given more power and credence in our society. For example, Kasinda, a Black woman married to a Black man, said: When we first got married it was almost like things were expected of me: I did all the bills, I did all the housework, I took care of the kids. And now, about the only thing I do with the one teenager I have left [living at home] is the chauffeuring and the running around. I did all the school activities, which [my husband] really doesn’t do too well, and the doctor appointments and stuff. As far as the household things, we pretty much share all that fifty-fifty [now]. Even when my older ones were younger I used to do all the little school activities. All the little teacher’s conference meetings and all that stuff. But now it’s kind of more split fifty-fifty. Being together as long as we have, it’s like, you’re going to have to share [laughs]. I can’t do it all.

She then says: We had to lay down the law; I’m not going to cook every day. So it gets to the point, I guess if I want to eat I’ll cook. So, he started to cook too. He doesn’t cook as many days as I do, but he cooks because he knows it’s not fair for me to work outside the house all week and then have to come home and cook every night too.

Here we see the tension between socialized gender roles for both men and women and personal choice. Kasinda demonstrates how socialization into gender roles is prevalent when she said that ‘‘it was almost like things were expected of me.’’ It is often difficult to maintain egalitarian relationships because to create and maintain egalitarian gender roles requires conscious effort to go against societal norms. This was similar for women regardless of their class status, their race, or the race of their spouse.

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Unequal marital power was also evident with those that held transitional roles (Hochschild, 1989). Women with transitional ideologies want a mix of home and work spheres, while their husbands maintain control (Hochschild, 1989). This ideology, as outlined by Hochschild (1989), describes women desiring more egalitarian ideologies – it is not a category that describes those moving from egalitarian to traditional ideologies. None of the women in this sample preferred a transitional ideology, but for some it was the reality of their situation. Many of these women preferred a mix of home and work – an egalitarian ideology – that was shared with their spouse, yet they were not able to achieve this. Connie, a White woman married to a White man, met her husband in college before he went on to get his medical degree. She discussed how she wanted a mix of both the family and work spheres, however, she ended up staying home full-time until her two daughters, now adults, reached high school. Connie said: I wanted to work. I knew that I wanted to work even after I had kids. I have two sisters older than I am and both of them worked after they started their families so it was something that was compatible with my way of thinking.

She went on to say: I didn’t work for a while, I was out of work for longer than I would have wanted and then I started to work when they were in high school.

Women may prefer to identify with both the home and paid labor regardless of actual circumstances. Connie always knew she wanted to work, but her husband’s career was given priority and she was left in charge of the home sphere. Once the children were older she was able to maintain a balance between work and the home by working part time. However, she, like many other women, still took on the home sphere even when she worked in the paid labor market. Connie preferred a balance, but she took on (or was left with) the responsibilities of the home. This example is part of a pattern of women, regardless of class, race, or the race of their spouse, who continued to take on the ‘‘second shift,’’ which is the work in the home sphere in addition to working outside the home in the paid labor market (Hochschild, 1989). Findings convey how transitional wives were women who wanted shared egalitarian relationships, but had not been able to fulfill them because of gendered power and expectations. Because men have greater power in society, their power is not just about a preference, but it is institutionalized and upheld by socialized gender norms for both men and women. Overall, our findings indicate that the inability to fulfill preferred egalitarian roles

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was based on gendered power dynamics within marriage as opposed to limitations related to class position and race that limited the ability of women to achieve traditional roles.

Contribution to the Intersection Literature This study builds on past research to show how social inequities of race, class, and gender influence ability to achieve desired roles within marriage; findings which would be lost without the framework of intersectionality. As Shields (2008) states: ‘‘the individual’s social location as reflected in intersecting identities must be at the forefront in any investigation of gender’’ (p. 301). While past research has used this perspective to examine various topics related to the family, such as the intersections of work and family (Cunningham, 2007; Roos, 2009), gender, race, and work (Browne & Misra, 2003), and gender attitudes and race (Kane, 2000), few focus on how various social locations influence lived gender roles in the family. Using intersection theories as a foundation, we find that along with the social location/identity of being a woman, the power associated with identities (Collins, 1990) of class and race are important in determining how gender manifests within the family. Some women in the sample are able to fulfill preferred traditional roles because of their class position and their husband’s earnings in the labor market. Others are able to fulfill traditional roles because their privileged racial position does not interfere with opportunities. Structural systems of inequality and socialization into dominant roles benefit some women and interfere with others’ abilities to achieve their desired gender roles within marriage depending on their position in the social structure and their overlapping characteristics of race, class, and gender. Findings support the need to use intersectional frameworks to address larger societal inequality related to resources and race (along with gender) when looking at marital dynamics.

DISCUSSION This chapter has focused on what women in heterosexual marriages perceive as limiting their ability to fulfill their preferred gender ideology. We used an intersectional framework to compare findings across racial groups while taking into account the impact of class. We find that both structural limitations in society related to class and race (of self and spouse)

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and gendered power are important factors. Race is tied to the inability to make actual roles meet ideal roles as structural inequalities result from financial necessities – limitations in husband’s income and opportunities – and blocked opportunities from racism that limited opportunities for the women to hold flexible employment in the paid labor market. Black women in society are more likely to experience these structural limitations because of the history of racial oppression in the United States (Dill, 1988), racial discrimination in educational opportunities and within the labor market, and the continuation of White men and women earning more in the labor market than Black men and women (Aldridge, 1999; Stainback & Tomaskovic-Devey, 2009). More White women married to Black men than White men in the sample also experienced structural limitations in the form of financial necessities. This finding corresponds to the financial location of Black men in our society. Many Black women, whether married to Black or White men, do not experience discrepancies between ideals and actual roles. This may be related to the history of Black women working in the labor market, which has shaped ideas about family dynamics and may influence socialized gender role preferences (Bronzaft, 1991; Collins, 2004; Dill, 1988). The women who preferred egalitarian roles were not able to achieve them because they were working against dominant norms of women maintaining the home sphere and societal power that men hold. This connects to previous research that shows how a lack of assistance at home leads women who desire egalitarian roles to leave high-powered careers (Stone, 2008). Here we see how societal gendered power works its way into marriage relationships. It is difficult to solve the tension between socialization and agency. Traditional relationships incorporate gendered oppression because women are socialized into traditional roles that give men greater power within relationships, which is often institutionalized. However, the agency of women to choose their own roles, whether traditional or not, is important. Egalitarian roles are not necessarily superior to traditional roles and traditional roles do not necessarily indicate marital inequality or gender oppression (Ammerman, 1987; Davidman, 1991). Future examinations of gender inequality (particularly research that extends issues of gendered power to the family) need to address the tension between socialization and agency along with the effects of other societal inequalities. If women are to achieve equality in this society, they need to have the option to choose any role preferred without assumptions that oppression accompanies that choice. Researchers should continue to investigate how socialization that gives men greater power than women

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affects intimate relationships, however, future research must also focus on the agency of women without assuming that choosing traditional roles is equated with gender oppression while taking into account how the experiences of gender are influenced by other aspects of status, including class and race.

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WOMEN OF COLOR PARTICIPATING IN PERSONAL ADVERTISING: DATING, MATING, AND RELATING IN A ‘‘POST’’ RACIAL, GENDERED, AND MODERN SOCIETY Pamela Anne Quiroz ABSTRACT Purpose – Using a framework of intersectionality, this chapter makes visible the realities of women of color who try to form relationships through the use of personal advertising. Methodological/approach – A discursive analysis of race and social class in personal ads using Phrase Tokens, and in-depth interviews with 14 women of color who participated in various forms of personal advertising, present the synergism of race and racism, sex and sexism, and sexuality and heteronormativity, and how these systems continue to pervade interpersonal relations.

Notions of Family: Intersectional Perspectives Advances in Gender Research, Volume 17, 49–66 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-2126(2013)0000017006

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Finding – Patterns found in both texts and narratives illustrate how establishing relationships among women who are members of heterogeneous collectivities continues to be located in systems of inequality. These data also illustrate how ad placers are unique individuals whose markers of race, class, gender, and sex identity, produce commonalities, yet how their narratives reflect diverse goals, experiences, and responses to those experiences. Women of color convey how personal advertising remains rooted in modern society where people choose their individual affiliations and continue to be defined by their group affiliations. Originality/value of chapter – Though the structural factors and social processes involved in personal advertising are relevant to the formation of interpersonal and social relationships, the phenomenon of personal advertising as a form of courtship has received relatively little attention by sociologists. In rethinking the intersections of race, gender, and social class in personal advertising this chapter includes participants’ voices to more fully understand the motivations for personal advertising, how women ‘do’ identity, and how they experience personal advertising. Keywords: Personal advertising; dating; multiple identities African-American Goddess Waiting to Exhale Full-figured, artistic, creative, adventure, Lonely but not desperate, seeks SBM, 35 þ , Who can appreciate all of the above. Unclaimed Treasure looking for love SHF 29 attractive, mother of two, refreshing, sweet and classic. Enjoys movies, dining out, beach, church and quiet times. Seeking modern SW/HM, 30-40 James Bond. Intelligent, cool and funny! Dancing, grown up discussions or just hanging out, mixed w/romance, NO droopy pants, N/S, N/D, N/Drugs.

INTRODUCTION Post racial ideology, the idea that systemic racism no longer exists and racial discrimination is now a matter of individual tastes or beliefs, has resulted in privatizing the discourse on race, defining racial problems as private ones. In a similar vein, we can also talk about a postfeminist ideology that

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assumes gender equality has been achieved and sex discrimination is also idiosyncratic, making public discussions of sex and sexism increasingly difficult to engage. These difficulties are exacerbated in arenas not typically viewed as social ones, such as the formation of interpersonal relationships. Still, the privatization of race and gender discourse remains embedded within a hierarchically arranged society that relies on the vectors of race, gender, class, and sexuality to define not only institutional relationships, but also personal relationships. One of the modern ways that personal relationships are established is through personal advertising, the public marketing of the self through conscious emphasis on different modalities and involving the exchange of money to access potential mates. How better can extreme individualism be characterized than through the multiple modalities of consumer-oriented marketing of the self, where private beliefs, values, and behavior are assumed to be the only factors involved in forming personal relationships? Participation in personal advertising is seen as reflecting individual identification, lifestyle, and tastes. In this context, race, gender, ethnicity, social class, and sexuality are divorced from economics, politics, and power, and the intersections of these social dimensions with the institutional arrangements in which they are embedded (see Hutchinson, 2001). Instead, participants in personal advertising are seen as their own agents of self-fulfillment operating in a romantic market free from social restraints. Indeed, research has typically addressed personal advertising as the trading of individual traits, or what qualities women and men are looking for in each other, instead of the ways that gender, race, class, and sexual orientation structure relationships between people (Child, Low, McCormick, & Cocciarella, 1996; Smith, Waldorf, & Trembath, 1990; Deaux & Hanna, 1984; Gonzales & Meyers, 1993). However, such a complex social process demands attention to the ways in which identities are mutually constructed, how the markers of identity intersect in these constructions, and how these processes continue to be situated within a larger matrix of domination (i.e., the intersectionality of race, class, and gender oppressions existing in social institutions) (see Hill Collins, 2000). In personal advertising, race and gender representations are privately negotiated in public spaces that include print media, the Internet, and other opportunities for dating and mating. Internet websites, magazine, and newspaper personals sections portray the ultimate market-based experience providing boundless opportunities for individuals to pursue romantic and sexual self-interests. Perhaps nowhere is the reality of multiple positioning and shifting identities better exemplified than in personal advertising, with

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its practices of inclusion and exclusion, desire and rejection, and efforts to exercise and reproduce privilege at a primal level. Experiences in the act of mating can have lasting impressions, and few of us fail to recall at least one of these moments, whatever its outcome. In this way, personal advertising provides a unique illustration of women’s struggle to establish relationships and how their heterogeneous identities are located within intersecting institutional inequalities. This chapter uses a framework of intersectionality to present a discursive analysis of print ads and interviews with participants, to make visible the realities of women of color who try to form relationships through the use of personal advertising. In attempts to establish intimate relationships through personal advertisements, women of color describe how experiences with strangers are situated within macro level social processes. A microanalytic read of the discursive patterns of race in personal ads, and in-depth interviews with 14 women of color who participated in various forms of personal advertising, present the synergism of race and racism, sex and sexism, and sexuality and heteronormativity, and how these systems continue to pervade interpersonal relations. Participants contradict the discourse of color-blindness and gender equality by offering racialized, gendered, and class-based experiences in the marketplace of romance. Private exchanges highlight the legacy of racism and the current culture of sexism that continue to order, marginalize, and devalue women of color, affecting their attempts to establish the types of relationships that form the foundation of a society. Regardless of their preferences or stated positions, women who dated through personal ads were often required to negotiate racial and gender stereotypes and confront the inequities of physical and social power when meeting men. Together these data remind us of how ‘‘race is gendered and how gender is racialized’’ (Davis, 2008) and how both interact with social class. At the same time, participants also recognize and exercise privilege as they shape identities on and offline. That is to say, women of color occupy categories of difference and yet individually confront the processes of differentiation.

INTERSECTIONALITY AND PERSONAL ADVERTISING Though the structural factors and social processes involved in personal advertising are relevant to the formation of interpersonal and social relationships, the phenomenon of personal advertising as a form of

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courtship has received relatively little attention by sociologists (for exceptions, see Gonzales & Meyers, 1993; Goode, 1996; Jagger, 1998; Montini & Ovrebro, 1990; Phua, 2002). Instead, the majority of studies have focused on traits sought by persons of different sexual orientations, genders, or races through the use of classified or online ads. Until recently, few studies devoted attention to race and ethnicity and those that did also addressed the trading of traits (Blackwell & Lichter, 2000; Phua & Kaufman, 2003; Yancey & Yancey, 1998). However, relegating our most intimate associations to little more than resource exchanges fails to capture the intersectionality of these identities and the larger context within which these exchanges are embedded. Expanding on social exchange theories, Robnett and Feliciano (2011) analyzed personal ads as a mechanism to understand race relations in our contemporary stratification system and found a racegender dynamic (i.e., Asian males and black females were more highly excluded from cross racial relationships than were other groups). This work called for rethinking the intersections of race and gender in personal advertising. I would also add that to more fully understand the motivations for personal advertising, how women do identity, and how they experience personal advertising, it is necessary to include participants’ voices.

HISTORY OF PERSONAL ADVERTISING For hundreds of years, people in the United States and elsewhere have relied on personal ads to deal with circumstances that limited opportunities to meet prospective mates (Enss, 2005). Early immigrants who wanted European brides to maintain ethnic homogamy, secure inheritance, and keep loneliness in abeyance, often sent written requests for spouses to Europe since few women initially migrated. Subsequent migration westward, combined with proscriptions against race-mixing (i.e., marriage with Native Americans), prompted many men to advertise for mail-order brides from the East. Asian immigrants who came to the United States to work on railroads, in agriculture and mining, or on the sugar plantations of Hawaii relied on the exchange of photographs and letters to secure what became known as ‘‘picture brides.’’ Japanese men in America also arranged marriages by proxy for meeting prospective mates. Proxy marriages were legalized in Japan and brides often arrived in the United States only to discover that their reportedly rich handsome husbands in America were in fact significantly older, not handsome, and rarely property owners (Lee, 2003). In fact, the history of personal advertising typifies how women’s

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bodies have occupied transnational spaces, marked by their race, ethnicity, and social class (Tolentino, 1996). In the 21st century, personal ads stretch across multiple modalities to include print and digital media. Online personal ads emerged in the 1990s and matchmaking services currently number in the thousands. These services are targeted at a general audience along with particular racial/ethnic groups (blacksingles.com and jewishdating.com), sexually oriented persons (allthingslesbian.com), working-class persons (bluecollardates.com), and people with specific hobbies or tastes, such as pet lovers (datemypet.com). Even members of anomalous groups can find like-minded persons, such as Positive Singles (for persons with a known sexually transmitted disease), Wealthy Men (for rich men and girls who want to date them), and wives who want to cheat on their husbands (www.Lonelycheatingwives.com). There has been a literal explosion of variations on the theme of personal advertising, with print and Internet personals now accompanied by matchmaking services such as ‘‘Just Lunch’’ and ‘‘Speed Dating,’’ as these activities also involve the impersonal public marketing of the self to strangers in a circumscribed space or place.

METHODS/ANALYSIS Despite the proliferation of personal advertising on the Internet, personal ads placed in a newspaper were chosen for two reasons. First, the newspaper provided a way of recruiting women to interview locally. Though there was minimal overlap between interviews and print ad analysis, I hoped that drawing both samples locally would assist in maintaining some degree of isomorphism between the two sets of narratives. Research has determined that although cyberspace offers more flexibility to present the self, personal advertising in both media share enough commonalities to generate similar analyses and outcomes (Phua, 2002). With the exception of one person, all of my participants who advertised in print media also advertised on the Internet, suggesting that populations of personals advertisers are probably not mutually exclusive. In-depth interviews with 14 heterosexual women of color who participated in personal advertising, and who were solicited through the newspaper in which my sample of print ads were taken, offer a glimpse at the experiences of those who try to establish interpersonal relationships using this approach, and the ways that multiple identities intersect as part of this process. In addition to interviews, the discursive patterns of

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52 personal ads placed by women of color illustrate how language is more than a mode of communication; it is also a source of naming, sorting, reifying, and reconstructing ‘‘difference.’’ One example of this focuses on race. Unlike the current pattern of silence about race in society, personal advertising explicitly marks race and allows both advertiser and ad respondent to mentally and socially map one of the most enduring criteria for dating and mating. Through an intersectional framework that relies on the use of Phrase Tokens (phrase patterns about race, sexuality, gender, social class, or personal tastes) as opposed to discrete markers of identity, such as a single or explicit focus on gender, analysis of the scripted selves found in personal ads reflects the various ways that racial identity interacts with gender, class, and sexual identities in attempts to establish intimacy. Interviews with participants were part of a larger set of projects focused on personal advertising and that included men and women, heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual participants. However, this particular project was intended to focus explicitly on people who engaged in personal advertising and who were members of racial/ethnic minority groups. These participants were solicited at two points in time and no minority males responded. Solicitations for participants were made from print ads (1 local newspaper, 1 local magazine, and 1 weekly reader) in a Midwest City. They also consisted of strategically posted flyers. Though more than 25 people responded to recruitment, 14 women of color had engaged in both print and online advertising. Interviews were scheduled by initiating contact with respondents and offering two options for interview: face-to-face or telephone. Each of the women in the sample was interviewed in-person and interviews ranged from an hour to an hour and a half. Participants had placed personal ads in print and online, and three women also participated in at least one other type of activity or matchmaking service, such as It’s Just Lunch, Speed dating, or eHarmony. Interviews included questions about motivations for advertising, types of relationships sought, the processes involved in identity construction and performance (both online and offline), strategies used to select persons to date, experiences with advertising (e.g., meeting others), and the meanings ascribed to these activities and their outcomes. Participants were also asked to provide basic background information (i.e., age, job, and sexual orientation). Table 1 provides brief profiles of each of the 14 heterosexual female participants who were interviewed and shows that 8 of the women in this sample were African American, 4 were Latinas, and 2 were identified as Asian. In addition, personal ads placed by women of color were also taken from a weekly reader, The City. The City was chosen because personal ads had

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Table 1. Psuedonym Joanne Jean Maria Arnetha Janice Carmen Sanji Marta Brenda Janet Josie Verna Meredith Anita

Profiles of Interview Participants in Personal Advertising (The City). Age

Race/Ethnicity

Occupation

27 38 24 31 38 29 26 34 27 39 38 36 46 43

Asian Black Latina Black Black Latina Asian Latina Black Black Latina Black Black Black

Designer Teacher Student Massage therapist Student Teacher Medical technician Admin. assistant Mom Cosmetologist LPN (nurse) Consultant Nurse Administrator

been placed in it for more than 20 years and the format of the paper was regarded as encouraging responses from people with a variety of relationship objectives (restrictions on ad placers were minimal and the available codes were suggestive of a variety of possible associations). Ads were extrapolated at two time points in the spring of 2008 (2 months apart). Only those women whose identification included ‘‘Black,’’ ‘‘Hispanic,’’ or ‘‘Asian’’ were included in the sample. Interviews were conducted during this same year. Categories supplied by The City included symbols, letters, and codes for race/ethnicity, sexual orientation or interest, and a host of other relevant specifications. These codes framed the written discourse of ads as they reduced ambiguity and allowed shared construction of meaning. These are the master categories that direct attention to an additive process of seemingly discrete identities. Most analyses of personal ads have typically focused on the master category of gender by asking what women look for in men and what men look for in women. Because the majority of these studies have used simple statistics to assess the salience of traits, traits have been addressed in isolation from one another. As media specialist Dana Boyd (2001) suggests, master categories force people to ‘‘mentally overgeneralize.’’ Boyd argues that because both ad placers and ad readers live in a complex social environment, the use of coarse categories often results in conjuring stereotypes that must be overcome, not only when constructing meaningful identities online, but also when meeting people in person. As

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Table 2.

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Personal Ads Placed in Weekly Reader.

Black Female Heterosexual Black Female Lesbian/Bisexual Hispanic Female Heterosexual Hispanic Female Lesbian/Bisexual Asian Female Heterosexual Asian Female Lesbian/Bisexual Total # Personal Ads

27 6 10 3 5 1 52

such, the frames provided by personal advertising venues (i.e., newspapers or other print media, the Internet) personify the hegemonic domain of language, codes, profiles, images, tastes, and values, and implicitly reproduce the cultural sphere of influence, even as they shape the interpersonal domain. Because ads were precoded (‘‘Black Female Professional Non-Smoker’’) the focus of interpretation was the intersectionality of interests and attempts by participants’ to present complex identities through the use of Phrase Tokens. Phrase Tokens consist of meaningful expressions and patterns about race, sexuality, gender, social class, or personal tastes, found in ad texts. These Phrase Tokens constructed a presentation of self that included multiple identities and communicated information about the participant as she chose to exist in society (Platt & Fraser, 1998). The initial coding scheme focused on two master categories (race and social class) to standardize the coding process. A subsequent coding focused on other ‘‘mutually constitutive relations among social identities’’ (Warner, 2008). The underlying assumptions that guided the analysis were that women of color have many similar but also some qualitatively different experiences in personal advertising than do white ethnic women. Second, was an assumption of the importance of power in establishing interpersonal relationships, particularly at a time when some domains are believed to have diminished in their salience. Finally, the analysis is grounded in an assumption that the intersection of race, sex, and class produce qualitatively different experiences for women who engage in personal advertising beyond the explanatory power of any single identity marker.

PRINT ADS A first read of ads focused on the preferences of women of color. Results were similar to other studies of personal ads that focused on the master

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category of race, as African American women tended to seek racial homogamy while Latina and Asian women expressed an openness to dating racial/ethnic others (Robnett & Feliciano, 2011; Wilson, McIntosh, & Insana, 2007). However, the objective of this study was to interpret participants’ discursive strategies in personal advertising as a total presentation of self in which intersecting markers of identity were made explicit, as opposed to discrete traits either presented about the self or desired in others. Therefore, a second read centered on Phrase Tokens used in ads. Much in the way that Platt and Fraser (1998) marked the letter writing of Civil Rights participants, the use of Phrase Tokens also presented the ‘‘identity talk’’ and discursive strategies of ad placers. Identity markers (i.e., race, sex, sexual orientation, social class) provided the tools used to construct similar yet distinctive ads. These Phrase Tokens also reflected the ad placer’s awareness and perceptions of how ad readers would react to her information, and ultimately, her effort to attract a particular or ideal ‘‘other.’’ Samples of Phrase Tokens in Table 3 allow us to see how identity markers intersect.

Table 3.

Word and Phrase Tokens in Women of Color’s Personal Ads.

Race ‘‘race unimportant’’ ‘‘BF w biracial features seeking M of any race for relationship’’ ‘‘Brown/Black Latina’’ ‘‘Caribbean Black Female’’ ‘‘Good looking BF with hazel eyes’’ ‘‘Asian, very pretty, clean, disease free, and discreet’’ ‘‘I’m a generic female sought by all races and types!’’ Class ‘‘college educated professional with many interests seeks appropriate counterpart ‘‘ ‘‘seeks man who can enjoy the finer things in life like I do’’ ‘‘executive seeks professional, classy and sophisticated, no local yokels PLEASE’’ ‘‘likes music, muscles, movies, the mall, and board games’’ ‘‘enjoys opera, concerts, fine dining, and restoring cars/planes’’ ‘‘like to read good books, spend time on my boat, and good wine and good company’’ ‘‘Me-professor, loves: knowledge, space, travel, am cultured, educated, athletic’’ Relationship orientations ‘‘A waitress seeks AM [Asian Male] for relationship and to improve my English’’ ‘‘grown up discussions or just hanging out, NO droopy pants’’ ‘‘I am self supporting and want you to be too y I don’t want to be your momma! No weirdos or drugs!’’ ‘‘I’m the box of chocolates that your mom talked about!’’

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Print ads present cultural scripts that reflect the diversity of race, class, sexual orientation, and tastes. The utility of intersectionality theory is to help us recognize how these cultural scripts represent more than the idiosyncratic tastes of ad placers or discreet markers of identity. They also represent the confluence of sociocultural circumstances. One example of how identities are situated within existing status and power relations is social class. Perhaps least discussed in studies of personal ads, but always implicit, is social class. Juxtaposed with race identities, such Phrase Tokens as ‘‘no local yokels,’’ ‘‘classy and sophisticated,’’ and ‘‘very attractive, intelligent, educated mulatta’’ provide indicators of social class in ad discourse. These Phrase Tokens make explicit how race, gender, and social class present simultaneously as participants’ discursive strategies rely upon the use of cultural interpretations since interaction is not possible until at least some meaning has been assessed. [HF seeking WM] ‘‘I’m a dark skinned, but very pretty, nice figure, spontaneous, and professional F’’ [BF seeking ‘‘Any race’’] ‘‘BF w biracial features seeking M of any race for relationship. Executive, 5’10’’, great figure. I’m the box of chocolates that your mom talked about!’’ [BF-race unimportant] ‘‘Very attractive, intelligent, educated ‘mulatta’. Must be 6’2’’ & over, 40 þ , professional w. good sense of humor. Race unimportant’’

Phrase Tokens that describe social class provide a good example of how meanings vary within cultures and between subcultures, thus complicating exchanges. These tokens represent the participant’s perception of class and his/her location within this construct rather than any objective index of economic or social class. The ad placer’s conveyed meaning may or may not be the potential mate’s received meaning. Nevertheless, social class is presented alongside race, gender, sexual orientation, and general interests (e.g., ‘‘intelligent educated mulatta’’). In fact, it is a critical aspect of personal tastes. A second read of mutually constitutive identities occurs as women presented their willingness to date racial/ethnic others and highlighted some aspect of identity interpreted as having cross cultural or cross racial appeal, or that situated the self as acceptable. At the same time that race of the potential mate was stated as irrelevant, Phrase Tokens strategically identified some aspect of the participant’s race that was designed to either mitigate the importance of race (e.g., ‘‘dark skinned but very pretty’’ or

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‘‘BF with biracial features’’) or market it (‘‘I’m the box of chocolates that your mom talked about!’’). Implicit in these discursive strategies is recognition of the social circumstances in which ad placers live and try to form relationships as tokens demonstrate the complicity of domains of oppression and their impact on identities (Warner, 2008). Clearly, ad contents are the consequence of living in our society with its cultural imperatives, messages, cues, and values, that men and women, heterosexual and homosexual, Christian and Muslim, Asian and Latino, working class and middle class, are taught to know are important to each other. From these cues we know when we look good and when we don’t look good; and we are able to produce those provocative phrases that attract people who don’t mind and may even appreciate the ‘‘Rubenesque’’ or ‘‘thick’’ woman or man, or the ‘‘single mother who is grounded, spiritual, and spontaneous.’’

INTERVIEWS Participant interviews embellish on the lexicon of written ads and amplify our understanding of the multidimensionality of identities. In so doing, they contradict images of ad placers cynically presented as despondent failures of modern society and its concomitant changes – the sexual revolution, radical feminism, careerism, growth, and impact of media and technology (Hollander, 2011; Kass, 2002). Just as white participants in an earlier project described construction of multiple ads, women of color also described placing multiple ads in different venues simultaneously (Quiroz, unpublished). Though identities are not viewed here as discrete, the notion of an existing hierarchy of identity markers becomes relevant in personal advertising as several participants acknowledged having highlighted a single identity or particular aspects of identity in relation to a particular context, such as a website or magazine. Because personal advertising exemplifies courtship situations that are often structurally isolated, placing multiple ads and highlighting different features of the self, was regarded as a utilitarian exercise to enhance chances for success. When I began using personal ads, I really worked on writing what I thought would be the perfect ad. I was so caught up in how I presented myself. Then I decided to use a couple of ads to see if one would work better than the other. I think it’s okay. I mean I regard it all as a learning experience. So I usually have a couple of places where I’m placing ads, you know, one paper in the – [neighborhood] and one on the Internet. The Internet is fun because you can play with it more. Change it. The problem there is

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picking a site! There are so many! y Later I learned to focus more on who I wanted. But I also learned that I need to be a bit more open. If you maintain this fantasy male image, you’re going to be sitting around very disappointed. Earlier I was very specific. You need to be clear about who and what you want but you have to also be open to meeting people. If you want to meet people, you have to be prepared to meet a lot of men that don’t fit your ad or your fantasy.

Disclosure of placing multiple ads was viewed as nothing more than engaging a variety of ways to meet people. These multiple identity constructions did not ignore particular markers in favor of others. In other words, race and gender were not changed, denied, or elided in other ads placed by participants. Rather, here is where tastes, the audience, and other identities merged. I don’t see any difference between having multiple ads and meeting men playing tennis or at some other place. It’s all the same. I do use different sites and I try to make the ads different. I don’t want to place the same ad on different sites, you know. So I’ll talk about some things in one ad and some things in another. But the basic things stay the same. I mean I’m not one of those kinky people who play with, you know, what it’s like to be a man and pretend I’m someone else. And I’m certainly not going to say I’m a white girl! Right?! That wouldn’t make any sense and isn’t what I’m looking for anyway.

Participants also conveyed how identities were created, modified, and navigated based on interactions or anticipated moments with potential mates. Strategies associated with gender, such as a heightened awareness of risk maintenance (i.e., how to schedule and exit dates and assure physical safety during first dates) were spoken about at length, as women expressed equivocations and fears, and arrangements made when meeting men. [emphatic] I never EVER meet anyone at night on a first or even a second date. I insist on picking the place. Always in daytime. Always a safe place. Somewhere where people know me, you know, like my local Starbucks. I’m really careful about those things because you just never know. I know some women who use ads and they do the same thing. You have to be careful, safe, you know.

When it came to risk maintenance the salient marker was gender, as each of these women described a sense of vulnerability that accompanied awareness of the differences in physical and social power between men and women. Race also figured in women’s personal advertising experiences as a lens through which they viewed themselves, as well as who they desired in potential mates. Without exception, each of the participants described what they interpreted to be racialized experiences in personal advertising. Regardless of stated interests, participants inevitably received inquiries from men who did not fit ad requests and who subscribed to racial/ethnic stereotypes.

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PAMELA ANNE QUIROZ I know what I want and what I don’t want, and so I was careful to state that in my ad. But I still received responses from men that were absolutely insane! To be honest with you, I’m always suspicious when I see an ad by a white man who’s specifically looking for a black woman. I figure the guy’s into some type of Master-Slave thing, you know? Especially those ads that say things like, ‘‘knows how to treat a man!’’ I don’t think you find that too often but I have seen it y or things like that. Anyway, this man responded to my ad saying he’d like a little taste of chocolate! Can you believe it?! [indignant] To some extent it doesn’t matter how I see myself. Well, I’ve always known that. You can’t be Black and not know that.

Despite such incidents, most women (11 of 14) reported being satisfied with their lives and elected to ignore the ‘‘downside’’ of personal advertising. You know, I like to think I’m an adventurous person. I mean I have a job that I like. I make enough money. I get to travel all over the world, sometimes more than I want to, because of my job. I admit I do get lonely sometimes, but I’m certainly not desperate. So placing a personal ad was not that big a deal. In fact, it’s been enjoyable. Until I met my boyfriend, I still dated in the so-called ‘‘normal’’ ways and so this was just another way to maybe meet some interesting men.

For one Latina participant placing an ad represented ‘‘starting over.’’ Even though I’m the mother of three children, I haven’t had any luck with men. Certainly not with their father! I know that I’m older but people tell me I’m attractive. I think I am. I still want a relationship with a man, a good relationship, with a man of my age who recognizes and values a woman who’s maybe learned a few things about life! [laughs]. If he’s a good man I don’t mind if HE has kids! If I can do it this way, even better. I like getting men to respond and choosing which ones I’ll look at or talk to. It’s much better than waiting for a man to come over to you at a bar, have this long conversation, only to learn that he’s a loser!

Several interview participants (5) characterized themselves as privileged with privilege linked to class (e.g., education, financial security, job satisfaction) or personal experience (e.g., opportunities to travel, having many friends). A couple of participants juxtaposed privilege as a comparative view of self with family members, friends, or members of her racial/ethnic group. One woman even linked privilege to her ability to participate in personal advertising. I’m a Latina who makes a pretty good living. I have a condo. I have a respectable job. I have friends and family who love me. I can afford to join eHarmony and look for a man. Not that it’s that expensive but I have a lot of friends who couldn’t afford it. So I feel like I’m one of the lucky ones.

These data illustrate how ad placers are unique individuals whose markers of race, class, gender, and sex, produce commonalities, yet how they also reflect diverse goals, experiences, and responses to those experiences.

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Personal advertising provides a unique illustration of the intersectionality of identities as they impact attempts to achieve intimacy. Patterns found in both texts and narratives illustrate how establishing relationships among women who are members of heterogeneous collectivities, continues to be located in systems of inequality. However, they also suggest agency and resilience among women who present identities innovatively and engage in pursuing relationships that transcend these systems. These women did not suggest ‘‘despondent people who were missing out on one of life’s greatest adventures’’ because of any single master status (i.e., married) (see Kass, 1997 or Hollander, 2011). They stated quite clearly that personal advertising was regarded as a value-added experience in the dating arena – an adventure and celebration of independence. While some women perceived their ability to engage in these activities as privilege, most described awareness of the societal parameters within which they were required to form relationships. Through these written and verbal narratives, we are able to examine ad placers individually, and to highlight how identities oscillate because of context, social location, and desires. In short, as Leah Warner (2008) observes, identity is a ‘‘moving target’’ and this is particularly evident in online advertising. Certainly personal advertising is rooted in modern society where people choose their individual affiliations and yet continue to be defined by their group affiliations. As such personal advertising reflects the politics of sexual desire and romance, race and gender relations, and social class position and tastes, as these occur simultaneous to, rather than independent of one another. Comparable to earlier forms of courtship, personal advertising provides opportunities to learn about ‘‘others’’ in a form suited to its particular ‘‘historical’’ moment.

CONCLUSION Demographic trends in the United States indicate that the number of unmarried people has increased significantly. This population is characterized as more connected, caring, and politically engaged, yet it continues to be ignored in discussions of family issues (Gerstel, http://www. contemporaryfamilies.org/). Women of color comprise a significant part of this population and as Virginia Rutter (2011) suggests, diversity and mating are complex. Personal advertising confounds a process focused on generating intimacy by simultaneously conflating identities that are private and public, ascribed, and achieved. Therefore, examinations of this increasingly

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prominent approach to dating and mating in the 21st century, also require a more holistic and complex analysis. Cultural anthropologist Susan Frohlick observes that personal advertising has now become hypermainstream (McCarthy, www.washingtonpost. com) as dating online is part of the mix with dating offline. Scholars and pundits discuss the ‘‘post’’ nature of our current social reality, as we are now supposedly beyond being identified or discriminated against according to our membership in sexual groups and orientations (‘‘Post Gay,’’ see Ghaziani, 2011), races (‘‘Post Racial,’’ Bonilla-Silva, 2001) and genders (‘‘Post Feminist,’’ see Faludi, 2006; McRobbie, 2004). Indeed, postmodern society is said to be comprised of multiple, fragmented, and dynamic identities that defy categorization and simple binaries, and move us into transnational and transcendent spaces. Nevertheless, written contexts of personal ads and the narratives of these participants indicate that master categories and their interactions remain salient to participants, not because of personal idiosyncrasies, or because of the codes made available by different ad venues, but because they are embedded in culturally meaningful institutional categories and systems. In the Purchase of Intimacy (2007) Viviana Zelizer challenges the idea that markets undercut the maintenance of interpersonal relations and reminds us that all social relations, even intimate ones, entail economic transactions and rely upon culturally meaningful institutional supports. Zelizer’s array of examples illustrates how economic activity is inextricably linked to negotiating and maintaining a variety of intimate relations (e.g., providing personal care for loved ones that may include the elderly or child care, adoption, subsidizing college education, wedding presents). As an old social practice that has evolved into a postmodern form of courtship, personal advertising can be included in Zelizer’s list, as commercial transactions and multimodal communications combine to expand the boundaries and opportunities for intimacy in ways consonant with a new social structure that, albeit elasticizing our powers of individual choice, has yet to leave behind the multiple dimensions that continue to organize relationships. Analysis of women of color who engage in personal advertising allows us to explore the multidimensionality and multilevel aspects of establishing personal relationships in the 21st century. Ad placers are unique individuals whose social statuses produce common experiences and yet who respond to their social statuses differently. At a time when race and gender are believed to have diminished in their salience, participants reveal how the privatization of race and gender discourse should not be mistaken for having transcended their impact, as these markers of identity, along with sexuality

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and social class, continue to set the parameters within which institutional relationships and personal relationships are formed. Borrowing from the argument of Kathy Davis (2008), I suggest that Intersectionality theory provides a lens perfectly suited to examine the complexities of dating and mating in the 21st century, as the multiple identities that impact ad placers demand a theory that encourages complexity, stimulates creativity, generates new questions, and explores new territory. The use of discursive analysis and interviews to examine personal advertising is just one of many ways to explore the multidimensional and multilevel realities of establishing intimate relationships through personal advertising.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the participants in the study for sharing their time and their stories. Also, I need to thank Jonathon Carroll, Rita Duarte, and Gaia Guirl-Stearly, and the reviewers for their assistance and comments on this chapter. The chapter would not have been possible without the support of the Foundation for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. However, I alone, am responsible for the contents of the article.

REFERENCES Blackwell, D. L., & Lichter, D. T. (2000). Mate selection among married and cohabiting couples. Journal of Family Issues, 21, 275–302. Bonilla-Silva, E. (2001). White supremacy and racism in the post Civil-rights era. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers. Boyd, D. (2001, June). Sexing the Internet: Reflections on the role of identification in online communities. Paper presented at the meeting of Sexualities, Medias, Technologies, University of Surrey. Child, M., Low, K. G., McCormick, C. M., & Cocciarella, A. (1996). Personal advertisements of male-to-female transsexuals, homosexual men, and heterosexuals. Sex Roles, 34, 447–455. Davis, K. (2008). Intersectionality as buzzword: A sociology of science perspective on what makes a feminist theory successful. Feminist Theory, 9, 67–85. Deaux, K., & Hanna, R. (1984). Courtship in the personals column: The influence of gender and sexual orientation. Sex Roles, 11, 363–375. Enss, C. (2005). Hearts West: True stories of mail-order brides on the frontier. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press. Faludi, S. (2006). Backlash: The undeclared war against American women. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press.

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Gerstel, N. (2011). A fact sheet prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families in honor of unmarried and singles week, September 18–24. Retrieved from http://www.contempor aryfamilies.org/marriage-partnership-divorce/0110915. Accessed on September 19, 2011. Ghaziani, A. (2011). Post-Gay collective identity construction. Social Problems, 58(1), 99–125. Gonzales, M. H., & Meyers, S. A. (1993). Your mother would like me: Self-presentation in the personal ads of heterosexual and homosexual men and women. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19, 131–142. Goode, E. (1996). Gender and courtship entitlement: Responses to personal ads. Sex Roles, 34(3/4), 141–169. Hill Collins, P. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York, NY: Routledge. Hollander, P. (2011). Extravagant expectations. Plymouth, UK: Ivan R. Dee Publishers. Hutchinson, D. (2001). Identity crisis: Intersectionality, multidimensionality, and the development of an adequate theory of subordination. Michigan Journal of Race and Law, 285, 285–317. Jagger, E. (1998). Marketing the self, buying another: Dating in a post modern, consumer society. Sociology, 32(4), 795–814. Kass, L. R. (1997). The end of courtship. The Public Interest, 126(Winter), 39–49. Lee, C. (2003). Prostitutes and picture brides: Chinese and Japanese immigration, settlement, and American nation-building, 1870–1920. Faculty Working Paper No. 70. The Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California, San Diego, CA. McCarthy, E. (2010). Marriage-minded do better online that at bars, survey claims. Washington Post, April 25. Retrieved from www.washtingtonpost.com. McRobbie, A. (2004). Post feminism and popular culture. Feminist Media Studies, 4, 255–264. Montini, T., & Ovrebro, B. (1990). Personal relationship ads: An informal balancing act. Sociological Perspectives, 33, 327–339. Phua, V. C. (2002). Sex and sexuality in men’s personal advertisements. Men and Masculinities, 5, 178–191. Phua, V. C., & Kaufman, G. (2003). The crossroads of race and sexuality: Date selection among men in Internet personals ads. Journal of Family Issues, 24(8), 981–994. Platt, G. M., & Fraser, M. (1998). Race and gender discourse strategies: Creating solidarity and framing the Civil Rights Movement. Social Problems, 45(2), 1–19. Robnett, B., & Feliciano, C. (2011). Patterns of racial-ethnic exclusion by Internet daters. Social Forces, 89, 807–828. Rutter, V. (2011). How color blind is love? Interracial dating: Facts and puzzles. Retrieved from www.contemporaryfamilies.org/marriage-partnership-divorce Smith, J. E., Waldorf, V. A., & Trembath, D. L. (1990). Single white male looking for thin, very attractive!. Sex Roles, 23, 675–685. Tolentino, R. (1996). Bodies, letters, catalogs: Filipinas in transnational space. Social Text, 48, 49–76. Warner, L. R. (2008). A best practices guide to intersectional approaches in psychological research. Sex Roles, 59, 454–463. Wilson, S. B., McIntosh, W. D., & Insana, S. P. II. (2007). Dating across race: An examination of African American internet personal advertisements. Journal of Black Studies, 37, 964–982. Yancey, G., & Yancey, S. (1998). Interracial dating: Evidence from personal advertisements. Journal of Family Issues, 19, 334–348. Zelizer, V. (2007). The purchase of intimacy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

MARRYING FOR THE KIDS: GENDER, SEXUAL IDENTITY, AND FAMILY IN SAME-SEX MARRIAGE Katrina Kimport ABSTRACT Purpose – Historically, the gay and lesbian community has been divided over same-sex marriage along gender lines, with gay men its most frequent supporters and lesbians its most frequent critics. In recent years, however, in localities where same-sex marriage has been available, the gender polarity around same-sex marriage has reversed, with lesbian couples constituting the majority of those married. Although same-sex marriage is framed in a gender-neutral way, the higher rate of lesbians marrying suggests that gay men and lesbians may have different stakes in, demand for, and benefits from access to marriage. Methodology – Drawing on interviews with 42 participants (24 women; 18 men) in the 2004 San Francisco same-sex weddings, I qualitatively analyze how and when gender comes to be salient in the decision by samesex couples to marry. Findings – Explicitly attending to the intersections of gender, sexual identity, and family, I find that lesbians and gay men did not systematically offer different narratives for why they married, but parents did offer

Notions of Family: Intersectional Perspectives Advances in Gender Research, Volume 17, 67–88 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-2126(2013)0000017007

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different meanings than childfree respondents: the apparent gender gap is better described as a parenthood gap, which has a demographic relationship to gender with more lesbians than gay men achieving parenthood in California. Scholarship on the gendered experience of reproduction suggests that the importance of gender in the experience of queer parenthood may persist even if parity in parenthood were reached. Originality/value – Findings attest to the importance of attending to the intersections of gender, sexual identity, and family for scholars of samesex marriage. Keywords: Marriage; gender; sexual identity; parenthood Historically, the gay and lesbian community has been divided over same-sex marriage along gender lines, with gay men its most frequent supporters and lesbians its most frequent critics (E. A. Andersen, 2005). In recent years, however, in localities where same-sex marriage has been available, the gender polarity around same-sex marriage has reversed, with lesbian couples constituting the majority of those married (Gates, Badgett, & Ho, 2008; Greenberger & Dedman, 2004; Herel, Marech, & Lelchuk, 2004). Although same-sex marriage is framed in a gender-neutral way, the higher rate of lesbians marrying suggests that gay men and lesbians may have different stakes in, demand for, and benefits from access to same-sex marriage. Scholarship on the complexity of intersecting identity characteristics has argued for the importance of analyses that simultaneously attend to race, class, and gender, recognizing how all three are interrelated and mutually constituted through systems of oppression (e.g., M. L. Andersen, 2005; Collins, 1990). Less research has engaged sexual identity as a structure of oppression that, in conjunction with gender, class, and race, produces unequal social locations (Schilt, 2008; Stein, 2008). Evidence of gendered practices in same-sex marriage illustrates the importance of an analysis that takes into account the simultaneity of gender and sexual identity. In this chapter, I offer such an analysis. Further, I argue for the importance of considering how parenthood status is implicated, in parallel with gender and sexual identity, in the desire for marriage. Drawing on interviews with participants in the 2004 San Francisco same-sex weddings, I find that the apparent gender gap may in fact be better described as a parenthood gap, with parents recognizing the particular social and legal benefits of legal marriage. Nonetheless, the parenthood gap does have a demographic relationship to gender with

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more lesbians than gay men achieving parenthood across the United States (Simmons & O’Connell, 2003). Scholars have argued that the experience of marginalization must be read through social location, that is, the specific positions produced through relations enacted at the individual, interactional, and institutional levels (Collins, 1990). These findings illustrate the complex role of the law in the experience of sexual identity-based marginalization. I argue that, through these narratives, we see how the law is both an agent of oppression, excluding some relationships from the status of ‘‘family,’’ and a tool that can facilitate access to the social label of ‘‘family’’ (Bourdieu, 1998). Moreover, individual relationships with the law, as a mediator of marriage, are informed by gender, sexual identity, and parenthood status. I close with a discussion of how the importance of gender may persist even if parity in parenthood between lesbians and gay men were reached.

Queer Critiques and Endorsements of Same-Sex Marriage In a frequently reprinted essay, Paula Ettelbrick (1992) asked the question: since when is marriage a path to liberation? Picking up on discussion in the gay community about marriage, Ettelbrick reminded her readers that marriage has a well-documented history as a patriarchal institution. As historians have documented (see, e.g., Cott, 2000), marriage has been used to regulate gender and sexuality, among other things, in the United States. Uniformly, women have been on the losing end of these regulations in terms of their rights and liberty. As a civil right, marriage is not something Ettelbrick is against, but she explains that she cannot, from a personal standpoint, endorse it: achieving a civil right is not the same as justice. For Ettelbrick, far from being liberating, the institution of marriage is constraining. Ettelbrick argued from a social location informed both by her gender and her sexual identity. As Ettelbrick’s focus on women’s experience of marriage suggests, the suspicion with which she and other lesbian activists initially greeted calls for same-sex marriage had its roots in a feminist critique of marriage that identified marriage as both oppressive and oppressing (Atkinson, 1974; Finlay, Clarke, & Wilkinson, 2003; Firestone, 1979; Jeffreys, 2004; Pateman, 1988). The feminist critique of marriage characterized marriage as a fundamentally patriarchal institution, dependent on the subjugation of women. In her seminal analysis of this phenomenon, Bernard (1973) argued that men gain freedom and power from participation

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in marriage but women’s participation limits them and puts them at risk of abuses of power by their husbands. In the years since Ettelbrick’s essay was printed, other lesbian activists have expressed their suspicion of marriage as an institution and challenged its utility for organizing society (Duggan, 2002; Kandaswamy, 2008; Valverde, 2006; Walters, 2001). At their most pointed, these critiques call for the abolition of marriage (Auchmuty, 2004). There is no similar critique of marriage forwarded by gay men, and so the position on marriage favored by gay men is, in its own way, the product of both gender and sexual identity. The essay by Thomas Stoddard (1992) that accompanied Ettelbrick’s came down firmly in favor of same-sex marriage. Stoddard acknowledged that marriage has traditionally been oppressive of women, but he argued that the participation of same-sex couples in the institution would transform it. Moreover, he suggested that marriage held the potential to end discrimination against gay men and lesbians. In the years since, other gay men have taken up this torch and endorsed same-sex marriage as a goal of the gay liberation movement (Eskridge, 1996; Eskridge & Spedale, 2006; Sullivan, 1996, 1997; Wolfson, 2004).

His and Her Marriage? Same-Sex Marriage by the Numbers Despite the long-running feminist critique of marriage as an institution, lesbians have lined up alongside gay men to get married when same-sex marriage is available. And despite the endorsement of marriage by gay men, on these occasions, lesbians usually outnumber their male counterparts nearly two to one (Badgett & Herman, 2011). This imbalance has been in place since the first large-scale instance of legal same-sex marriage in the United States: in the month of same-sex marriages in San Francisco in the winter of 2004, 57% of those married were lesbian couples (Teng, 2004). Attention to national data on same-sex coupled households deepens the significance of this gender imbalance. According to the 2000 Census, male same-sex coupled households outnumbered female same-sex coupled households in the United States (Simmons & O’Connell, 2003). In raw numbers, there are roughly 301,000 gay coupled households (51% of samesex unmarried coupled households) compared to approximately 293,000 lesbian coupled households (Simmons & O’Connell, 2003). An even greater disparity is found in California. Specifically, 54% of same-sex households in 2000 were male partnered households while only 46% were female partnered households. Since 91% of those married in

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San Francisco lived in California (Teng, 2004), we cannot explain the participant gender imbalance in the San Francisco weddings as an artifact of population demographics. Instead, the higher rate of lesbian marriages is particularly striking in light of their overall lower numbers in the population; the percentage of lesbian marriages in fact over-represents the lesbian population in California. Of course, it is easy to view this demographic gap as a difference between the participation of women and men, implicitly drawing a broader distinction between women (of any sexual identity) and men (of any sexual identity). Extensive work by gender scholars does point to ways in which women and men experience the world in different ways (Delphy, 1984, 1993; Lorber, 1996, 2006; Wittig, 1981, 1992), but other scholars have pushed on this generalized finding to suggest that more than just gender matters in developing an individual’s social position. Following the work of scholars of gender, race, and class (M. L. Andersen, 2005; Collins, 1990; Crenshaw, 1993) and of gender and nation (Mohanty, 2003) that has emphasized that gender alone offers insufficient explanation for many social phenomena, I argue here that thinking about the demographics of participation in the San Francisco weddings as simply a gender gap erases the intersection of gender and sexual identity. Just as the initial critique of the push for same-sex marriage was informed by lesbians’ gendered and sexual identities, we must ask, to what extent did the intersectional identity of lesbians, as both women and gay, contribute to their participation in the San Francisco weddings? The practice of same-sex marriage demands an intersectional approach (M. L. Andersen, 2005, 2008; Collins, 1990) to the gender gap that takes account of both gender and sexual identity (Schilt, 2008). Below, I investigate, first, the extent to which lesbians offered meanings for their participation in marriage that were distinct from those gay men offered and, second, how any differences can be understood through attention to respondents’ social locations.

METHOD To think through these questions, I draw on in-depth interviews with 42 participants in the 2004 San Francisco same-sex weddings. Between February 12, 2004 and March 11, 2004, 4,037 same-sex couples received marriage licenses from the City and County of San Francisco. The weddings began at around noon on February 12, 2004, after newly elected Mayor Gavin Newsom directed the county clerk to begin issuing marriage licenses

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to same-sex couples, and ended on March 11, when the Supreme Court of California ordered the county to cease issuing licenses, pending review of the constitutionality of the Mayor’s actions. Five months later, that same court ruled that the Mayor had overstepped his authority and the licenses were not valid. Nonetheless, at the time they wed and in the months that followed, many of these couples considered themselves legally married and, ostensibly, were legally married in the eyes of the state. Their actions as married persons support this understanding: one woman I interviewed, for example, described using her marriage license to change the surname on her social security card to that of her wife. Respondents were found through snowball sampling and all but two resided in the greater Bay Area. Interviews were conducted between May and December of 2006. They were semi-structured (Taylor & Blee, 2002) and ranged in length from 40 minutes to two-and-a-half hours, averaging about 90 minutes. Relevant to this analysis, interviewees were asked to tell the story of their wedding day, explain how they decided to marry, and describe what marriage means to them. All interviews were taped and transcribed. My sample included 24 women and 18 men. This breakdown of 57% women and 43% men mirrors the overall demographics of the population of couples married in San Francisco (Teng, 2004). At the time of their 2004 wedding, interviewees ranged in age from 27 to 68, with a median age of 41, and had been committed to their partner for anywhere from one-and-a-half to 50 years, with an average of 10 years together before the weddings. Nearly three-quarters (N ¼ 32) had previously held a commitment ceremony. Just under three-fifths of the respondents (N ¼ 26) had no children and no plans to have children. Twelve respondents currently had children and four respondents planned to have children in the future. In terms of parenthood, there was a distinct gender split among the couples I interviewed. Of the 12 respondents with children, 11 were lesbians; only 1 gay man in my interview sample had children and they were adults themselves. All names have been changed to ensure anonymity.

RESULTS Respondents offered four primary meanings for their San Francisco marriages. In what I term individualistic meanings, respondents described marriage as a personal act of commitment to their partner, cementing their relationship and proclaiming their love. The outside world – politics and

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discrimination – did not figure into this understanding of marriage. In direct contrast, respondents’ political meanings for marriage explicitly cited the public, political context of marriage wherein same-sex couples are precluded from marrying. They characterized same-sex marriage as an act of civil disobedience. Respondents also invoked legal meanings for marriage, noting the extensive federal and state-level rights and responsibilities that accrue to married couples, and characterizing their marriage as a means to receive those benefits. Finally, respondents offered what I call social meanings for marriage that drew on its cultural status as a normative rite of passage; they talked of marrying because that’s what they grew up thinking was a normal stage in the life course. Some respondents offered just a single meaning for marriage but most offered more than one over the course of the interview. Overall, it does not appear that women systematically offered different meanings for marriage than men, but there are important distinctions in their use of legal meanings.

Patterns of Meaning-Making There was no outstanding trend by gender among the respondents in terms of characterizing marriage as a personal commitment (see Fig. 1). While 38% of lesbian respondents cited such individualistic meanings for marriage, only a slightly lower 33% of gay men offered such meanings. Using much the same language, respondents of both genders explained that marriage was about love and commitment. Pierre, a 43-year-old project development director, explained, simply, that marriage is ‘‘[a] question of love, a question of being together.’’ Addy, a 31-year-old customer service representative, also used the language of love to explain what marriage meant to her: I had absolutely no idea what love was and Julie kind of had to teach me what love was. Through that process I realized that I became a better person by being with her y I think that itself talks about what marriage really is. It’s about the love. It’s not about class. It’s not about race. It’s not about any of that kind of stuff. It’s just about love and two people doing what you should be able to do and that’s love each other.

Keith, a 47-year-old lawyer, described marrying Tim, his partner of 17 years, as meaningful in terms of the love and commitment it symbolized – as having a personal meaning. Marriage, he said, was a way to really touch into that intimate space of looking someone in the eye and saying I really do love you, I’m going to commit to you and to take that responsibility in public.

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Women Individualistic, 38% Political, 63%

Social, 54% Legal, 42%

Men

Individualistic, 33%

Political, 72%

Social, 56%

Legal, 67%

Fig. 1. Comparison of Meanings of Marriage by Gender.

Similarly, Janet, a 53-year-old nurse, explained that marriage was about taking her commitment to Cynthia after 12 years together to a deeper level. She said, ‘‘There was a personal commitment factor to it.’’ The difference between men and women in their usage of social meanings was even smaller; 54% of women and 56% of men gave social meanings for marriage (see Fig. 1). These respondents identified marriage as a rite of passage and a standard social institution into which they had expected to

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enter at some point in their lives. For example, Susan, a 49-year-old librarian, said, ‘‘I know as a kid I thought I would get married and have kids. I had all those fantasies.’’ Olivia, a 40-year-old programmer, summed up what marriage meant to her: Marriage is something that our society tells you you’re supposed to want. From day one, what you’re supposed to do is grow up and get married. Maybe not immediately, but eventually: you’re supposed to grow up and get married.

For both Susan and Olivia, marriage was a normal part of the life course that mattered in a larger cultural context; it was what they’d always been taught would happen. Steven, a 39-year-old non-profit director, saw marriage in much the same way. He said: There’s always been this sense [in our families] of weddings and marriage and family and bringing those people in and working out whatever it takes to work out from that point forward. It was something that I always assumed growing up that I was going to get married at some point and settle down.

Others identified the importance of marriage in establishing recognition by the broader public, not just friends and family. For instance, Frank, a 70year-old retiree, summed up why he and Henry married in a simple sentence: ‘‘For acceptance [and] acknowledgement, to be acknowledged by people.’’ There were larger differences between men and women in the rates of invoking political meanings for marriage. Among my respondents, 63% of women offered a political meaning for marriage while 72% of men did. These interviewees saw their participation politically, as civil disobedience, because of their historical exclusion from marriage (see also Taylor, Kimport, Van Dyke, & Andersen, 2009). Robert, for example, a 36-year-old physical therapist, said of his marriage to Brian after 11 years of commitment: Certainly, for most people, the idea of being married has no connection whatsoever with making a political statement. But for us, obviously, it’s unavoidable, inescapable. You definitely are aware of that. It’s civil disobedience – you’re doing what society’s been telling you you can’t do.

For several, like Kelly, a 39-year-old professor, the weddings made ‘‘normal’’ gays and lesbians more visible and opposed negative constructions of homosexuality. Kelly said, I saw what we were doing as a form of political protest, too, because it was, you know, counter to all the hegemonic messages of society that say queer people are queer in the bad sense and you know. So I thought that it was challenging all kinds of images about [gays and lesbians].

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More than the other findings discussed here, however, I am cautious about generalizing this finding, given Lewin’s (2008) call to attend to the specificity of location in analyses of same-sex marriage. Political meanings were the most frequently invoked meaning overall – for both men and women – with two-thirds of all respondents attributing a political meaning to marriage. This is not surprising, given that San Francisco has a history of gay and lesbian activism (Armstrong, 2002) and most of the participants had activist backgrounds (Taylor et al., 2009). Further, as accounts of the mayor’s initial decision make clear (Chasnoff, 2004), many expected that the weddings would be halted immediately. The fact that City Hall stayed open after regular business hours for the first few days the licenses were issued and opened on the weekends and a federal holiday during that first week suggested an urgency to the marriages – many believed they would not last. This, too, may have contributed to participants seeing the events as slightly outside the law and thus as contestation. There was an even larger difference in the rates of invoking legal meanings for marriage by gender, and one that is likely more generalizable to same-sex marriage broadly. Forty-two percent of women respondents ascribed a legal meaning to marriage, compared to a much higher 67% of men. In general, the legal benefits of marriage were a highly enticing motivation for many of the people I interviewed. For instance, Raine, a 45-year-old disabled retiree, explained, it was the legal rights that persuaded her to travel from Northern California and wait 11 hours in line, not the desire to make a commitment: I just wanted the legal opportunity but it didn’t change how I felt about what I was doing with this woman and this family that we’ve raised. Heck, if it took that [legal sanction] to change it, it wouldn’t’ve made it this far.

Respondents recognized the value of these benefits and frequently mentioned them in explanations of how they decided to get married. As Steven, the non-profit director, explained about marriage: That’s really where people get their rights. Married couples having so many more rights than single people or same-sex coupled people. Really it’s where all these other rights kind of come from.

Jeffrey, a 63-year-old physician, summed it up, saying, ‘‘Actually, I didn’t need so much marriage, but I wanted all the 1,138 whatever,’’ referring to the number of federal rights and responsibilities associated with marriage. But despite the apparent across-the-board marriage benefit of legal rights, men more frequently invoked this meaning for marriage than women.

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Insight into this pattern can be gleaned through examination of which legal rights they were interested in. Men cited legal benefits related to hospitalization and dying more frequently than women. For example, Ernesto, a 58-year-old health educator, said marriage is ‘‘the legal protection that you need if someone’s sick.’’ He elaborated: We’ve been together for many years and we’ve seen people that have had encountered some real, real bad situations from family and things like that because they did not have the strength of the legal document that said, you know, these people belong together, what belongs to one belongs to the other.

Jeffrey offered a similar framing that emphasized the protections of legal marriage, drawing from his own experience with the family of his previous partner. When Jeffrey’s previous partner died of AIDS, his family contested his will, despite playing little role in his life and, Jeffrey pointed out, failing to support him during his illness. This experience helped Jeffrey see the importance of legal marriage. Frank, too, felt the absence of legal protections acutely when Henry, his partner of 50 years, died. Frank was barred from accessing Henry’s social security benefits or pension, leaving him in an extremely precarious economic position. Were it not for a sympathetic friend who invited Frank to sleep in an extra bedroom, Frank would have been homeless. The focus on legal protections after the death of a partner makes sense given the significant impact of AIDS on the gay community. As Chauncey (2004) argues, HIV and AIDS caused a dramatic spike in deaths of gay men in the 1980s and 1990s, bringing the gay community into contact with medical and legal systems that were structured to serve heterosexual couples. Gay men were regularly prohibited from visiting their partners in hospitals and the courts often followed the strict letter of the law, considering even estranged blood relatives to be the legal next-of-kin over a committed life partner. These experiences, and stories about them, were the direct consequence of sexual identity-based structures of oppression and they impacted men most significantly. The law and culture conspired to treat gay men unequally. In addition to exposing the marginalized social position of gay men based on their sexual identity, these events drew attention to the benefits of the legal protections of marriage. Women, too, offered legal meanings for marriage that drew on concerns over hospitalization and dying. Sandra, for example, worried about where her failing health would leave Olivia, should she need to be hospitalized for extended periods. But most of the legal meanings women cited related to

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parental rights. There was, in other words, a notable divergence between the legal concerns men described desiring and the legal benefits women sought. Women often cited parenthood-related legal rights, but men never did. It is important to remember that 11 of the 12 parents in my sample were women; the focus on parenthood-related legal concerns among women may be a result not of gender but of parenthood status. The apparent gender gap in usage of legal meanings for marriage, as well as the lack of gendered patterns in the usage of individualistic and social meanings, may be better understood as a parenthood gap.

The Parenthood Gap Parents and childfree respondents offered individualistic meanings for marriage at notably different rates (see Fig. 2). While a relatively low percentage of parents described marriage as having an individualistic meaning (23%), a much higher percentage of respondents without children saw marriage in those terms (41%). These childfree respondents framed marriage as meaningful in terms of their relationship to their partner. In contrast, the few parents who did use individualistic meanings usually framed these personal meanings in reference to their children. Kelly, the professor, is one example. She talked of how her marriage was meaningful as an act that communicated her love and commitment to Michelle, but also because it offered Andrew, their 2-year-old son, a state-recognized family. Across the interviews, parents only rarely offered individualistic meanings for marriage, suggesting these meanings were less salient to parents than to childfree respondents. Fig. 2 illustrates additional differences between parents and childfree respondents. Parents were more likely to offer a social meaning for marriage than their counterparts. Respondents without children framed marriage as a ritual of social importance about 48% of the time, compared to parents who drew on such a meaning a full 67% of the time. Social meanings for marriage clearly have greater resonance among parents than non-parents. There was a similar disparity in the use of legal meanings for marriage, with 67% of parents offering legal meanings and only 45% of childfree respondents doing so. The salience of legal rights for parents came through in my interview with respondents with children. Deirdre, a 37-year-old writer and mother of two children, put it simply: ‘‘Our relationship isn’t missing anything, but our family’s legal stability is.’’ With marriage, complex legal protections such as

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Parents Individualistic, 23% Political, 62%

Social, 67%

Legal, 67%

Childfree Individualistic, 41% Political, 69%

Social, 48%

Legal, 45%

Fig. 2.

Comparison of Meanings of Marriage by Parenthood.

second-parent adoption and rights of inheritance are made noticeably easier—and more robust. Parents were aware of these benefits of marriage, often as a result of their entry into parenthood. Sophie, for example, saw marriage differently when she became pregnant. A 40-year-old student, Sophie had long been intellectually opposed to marriage. She critiqued it as a patriarchal institution and nursed her own

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wounds as a child of divorce. But as she and Lal made plans to welcome their daughter, she became increasingly aware of how vulnerable they were as a family – and how vulnerable their child was – without the state protection of marriage. She said: Because I was pregnant and we were planning to have a kid, I was really aware that we were really, really, really at risk as a lesbian couple preparing to have a child. We had to go through so many routes to approximate adoption stuff. It sucks. Our daughter was born upstairs in a birth tub in our house and my partner was inside the birth tub and delivered her. [Our daughter] opened her eyes and looked into my partner’s eyes. There’s no way that she is not a totally, full, hundred percent parent to our little girl. But from a legal perspective she was absolutely zero parent when [our daughter] was born and we had to go through second-parent adoption and we had to pay almost a thousand dollars to change our names so that we could be seen as a family.

As Sophie saw it, legal marriage offered both legal and social benefits. Legally, with marriage they would be able to avoid spending time and money on paperwork to establish shared parenting rights. Culturally, marriage would address Sophie’s desire to ‘‘be seen as a family’’ and make clear that Lal and Sophie were equal parents. Sometimes, the push for marriage was not for the children, but from the children. Diana and Mia were driving back to their Northern California home from a weekend get-away when the San Francisco weddings occurred. Diana, a 51-year-old administrative assistant, called her teenage daughter on their way to let her know when they expected to be arriving. Her daughter insisted that they change course and drive to San Francisco instead to get married and make their family official. Diana and Mia, together eight years at the time, followed those directions. Hours later, with Diana’s daughter there by phone, Diana and Mia were married in City Hall: We just had her on the cell phone and had her listening to the ceremony. And they pronounced us married, I get back on the phone to listen to my daughter, see if she heard all of it, and all I could do was hear her crying because she was so happy she was there with us.

Although Diana and Mia were very happy to marry, were it not for the outside insistence of Diana’s daughter, they might not have actually done it. In this case, it was because they were parents that they married. Children mattered to Isabel’s feelings about marriage as well. Isabel and Raine had been committed for six years at the time of the San Francisco weddings and shared parenting responsibilities for both Isabel’s daughter from a previous marriage and Raine’s daughter from a previous marriage. Despite this committed living arrangement, Isabel always felt that Raine’s

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daughter never fully accepted her as a parent. Marrying Raine changed that. Isabel explained: It changed my relationship with my partner’s daughter. I don’t know what happened but it affected both of us. It became a more legitimate I’m your step-mom, you’re my stepkid sort of thing after marriage y I don’t even know how to explain it or what happened, it’s just like something opened in both of us that wasn’t able to open before y It’s just a beautiful thing. And I don’t think that would’ve happened without the actual marriage.

As Isabel’s story demonstrates, the cultural power of marriage extended beyond the couples who married to affect their children. Isabel could not explain it, but she felt it, pointing to the invisible normative power of marriage to orient relationships. State-sanction had clear social impacts, especially for parents. More than anything, these respondents’ stories demonstrate the tight association between marriage and family. In practice, marriage made them (official) families. It is important to recognize that this accomplishment occurs both legally and culturally. As scholars of gay and lesbian family formation have shown, same-sex households are uniquely positioned (Badgett, 2009; Lewin, 1993; Mamo, 2007; Mezey, 2008; Sullivan, 2004). For one, they must engage in complex legal contracts to establish themselves legally as families (Dalton, 2001). Badgett (2001) points out that this is especially complicated for gay and lesbian parents, as the law is written under the presumption that children have one mother and one father. Same-sex couples with children must engage with heterosexist legal assumptions to ensure for their children the legal protections afforded to children of different-sex marriage. It is not difficult to imagine that the precariousness of the legal rights of same-sex parents operates to discourage lesbians and gay men from entering parenthood. Research suggests that gays and lesbians desire children at the same rate as heterosexuals (Weston, 1991), but the particular legal challenges may conspire to reduce the rate at which gays and lesbians become parents, illustrating how the law acts as an agent of sexual identity oppression. For two, lesbian and gay parents experience a complex set of cultural identifications since homosexuality is rarely associated with family in mainstream society. Same-sex couples and their children face social assumptions of their non-existence, based on the premise that homosexuality is non-procreative. As they work to establish the validity of their families, such heteronormative assumptions about parenthood are acutely felt (Weston, 1991) and the power of the state to authenticate ‘‘family’’ revealed.

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A brief examination of the meanings offered by currently childfree respondents who are considering having children makes clear that it is the lived experience of parenthood that matters, not the plan for future parenthood. In my sample, two men reported that they might have children in the future and two women said they intended to have children. Just one of these four offered a legal meaning for marriage and just two described marriage as having a social meaning. I am cautious, of course, about generalizing from such a small sample, but point out that these respondents share a closer profile with other childfree respondents than with parents. This suggests that it is not the desire to have children that makes gay men and lesbians aware of the legal and cultural import of marriage; it is the actual experience of having children. Arnett’s (2004) study of the emergence of adulthood among straight women and men offers support for understanding the experience of becoming a parent as transformative. In his study, parents reported different understandings of adulthood than nonparents and, further, different understandings than non-parents anticipated of parents. In essence, Arnett finds that the experience of parenthood matters in unexpected ways. For same-sex couples, it likely increases awareness of the social and legal benefits of marriage.

DISCUSSION The Continuing Importance of Gender Returning to the motivating question of this analysis, how does an increased interest by parents in legal and social meanings for marriage and, by implication, in marriage itself help explain the higher rate of participation by lesbians than gay men in the San Francisco weddings? The relationship is actually quite straightforward. Nationwide, lesbians are more likely to have children than gay men (Simmons & O’Connell, 2003). In California, 34.4% of lesbian same-sex coupled households have children under 18, compared to just 20.2% of gay male same-sex coupled households (and compared to 50.9% of different-sex married coupled households; Simmons & O’Connell, 2003). In seeking to understand this rise in lesbian motherhood and the absence of a rise in gay fatherhood, scholars have suggested several causes (Lewin, 1993; Mamo, 2007; Mezey, 2008). They have pointed out that pregnancy and parenthood are biologically easier to accomplish for women, especially with the advent of reproductive and conceptive technologies. In order to become pregnant, lesbians need a sperm donor; gay men need at least one

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other body. In addition, they have highlighted social beliefs about parenthood, including greater comfort with women as sole parents than with men. Finally, some have pointed to lesbian motherhood as an intentional celebration of life in reaction to the HIV/AIDS epidemic (Mezey, 2008; Weston, 1991). These factors have combined to produce what some have described as the lesbian baby boom (Chauncey, 2004; Mamo, 2007; Mezey, 2008). In the last several decades, as the path to parenthood has become easier for lesbians, the same has not been true for gay men. Even as gay men have expressed equivalent interest in parenthood (Weston, 1991), their inability to carry and bear their own children (McKinney, 1987) as well as exclusionary adoption laws (Infanti, 2007) have produced significant obstacles to their achievement of parenthood. Further, policies that conflate sexual identity with HIV risk have meant that most sperm banks will not accepted donated sperm from gay men, placing limits on gay men’s ability not only to be parents but also to anonymously father children (Mamo, 2007). In these ways, biology, normative expectations about parenthood, and the law operate as agents dually of sexual identity and gender oppression to prevent the realization of gay men’s desire for parenthood. Together, these features lead to the parenthood gap in the gay and lesbian community we see today (Mezey, 2008; Weston, 1991).

CONCLUSION These narratives from participants in the 2004 San Francisco same-sex weddings highlight how marriage law has operated as a means of sexual identity oppression. Simultaneously, they expose lesbians’ and gay men’s hopes that that very law can be used to contest sexual identity-based marginalization. Understanding this apparent contradiction requires attention to gay men’s and lesbians’ lived experience not only as members of an oppressed sexual minority, but also as gendered bodies. Their gendered bodies have different relationships to sexual identity oppression, relationships that have been informed by gendered history – such as the AIDS epidemic for gay men – and by social assumptions about gender – such as beliefs that women can solely parent the children they bear. The effect of law and the practice of same-sex marriage are only fully understood when the intersections of gender, sexual identity, and parenthood status are taken into account, contributing research on the intersections of gender and sexual identity to the expansive scholarship on race, class, and gender (Schilt, 2008; Stein, 2008).

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I have argued that the apparent gender gap in participation in same-sex marriage may be better understood as a parenthood gap, which, in turn, relates back to gender. I do not find that lesbians more frequently cited individualistic or social meanings for marriage than gay men, but I do find that parents offered social and legal meanings for marriage at a notably higher rate than childfree respondents, and individualistic meanings for marriage at a markedly lower rate. Parents were particularly aware of the legal and social challenges their exclusion from marriage produces and took advantage of the brief opportunity in San Francisco to claim the rights and responsibilities of marriage. Since over 50% more lesbians are parents than gay men, the imperative among parents to marry translated into a higher level of participation by women. Nonetheless, we should not overlook the ongoing relevance of the intersection of gender, sexual identity, and parenthood status. Even if gay men and lesbians parented at the same rate, there are reasons to expect the experience of gender would continue to matter in the desire for marriage. In general, gay men and lesbians achieve parenthood in different ways, with many lesbians able to become pregnant. The experience of pregnancy and the attendant negotiation of identity is unique to women and, in the case of queer women, has complex social components. Lesbians who get pregnant with reproductive assistance must experience the medical status of being a patient in ways that are both gendered and heterosexed (Mamo, 2007). Their gender distinguishes lesbians’ experience of the achievement of parenthood from that of gay men and their sexual identity differentiates their experience from that of heterosexual women. Although some of these distinctions owe to physical bodies, some are strictly the result of social discourse. For example, insemination for lesbians is technically equivalent to insemination for straight women, but the discourses that make meaning of it draw a distinction, tending to require a diagnosis of individual infertility. Such framing formally accommodates only heterosexual women, as lesbians are more likely to experience couplelevel infertility. This distinction between lesbians and straight women is not required by the technology but instead generated by the social apparatuses that surround it (Murphy, 2001). Beyond pregnancy, lesbian motherhood itself is associated with a specific set of legal challenges (Mezey, 2008), including the complexities stemming from what Mamo (2007) terms ‘‘achieving pregnancy,’’ such as negotiating the rights of the donor. Legal marriage would facilitate the smooth establishment of parental rights in these situations, mooting the question of donor rights, as parental rights are legally based on marital status

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(Mamo, 2007). Gay men who parent do not face the same issues (although they certainly face their own unique set of legal challenges) nor do married straight women who use donated sperm. Lesbian motherhood entails a unique social position as well. Given the social assumption that motherhood requires heterosexuality, Lewin (1993) finds that lesbian mothers experience an erasure of their sexual identity. If the experience of parenthood, in specific, contributes to this social disappearance of lesbians’ sexual identity, we may find that lesbian mothers will continue to be interested in marriage for its capacity to publicly establish the validity of their non-normative families. In practice, same-sex marriage is tied to social understandings of – and contestation over – sexuality, gender, and social definitions of the family. Although this chapter has focused on gay and lesbian couples, these insights as to the discursive relationship between gender, marriage, and family have applications to straight couples as well, elucidating the normative construction of marriage and family across sexual identities and the competing ways law can be used as an agent of oppression and as a means to contest marginalization. Our understanding of marriage and its social impacts is deepened through attention to how gender matters in the contemporary push for legal same-sex marriage. Centrally, this in-depth consideration of the meanings of marriage offers an endorsement of intersectional analyses. Such analyses, attending to both gender and sexual identity, call attention to the ways in which these multiple identities interact, thickening our understanding of how same-sex marriage matters and to whom.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT I would like to thank Verta Taylor, Jennifer Earl, Leila Rupp, and Barbara Tomlinson for their helpful feedback on this project.

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WHY DO YOU THINK WE DON’T GET MARRIED? HOMELESS MOTHERS IN SAN FRANCISCO SPEAK OUT ABOUT HAVING CHILDREN OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE Anne R. Roschelle ABSTRACT Purpose – To assess the unrelenting argument made by conservative social theorists that low-income women of color have high rates of out-of-wedlock births because they are anti-marriage and have deviant family values. Methodology – Based on a four-year ethnographic study of homeless mothers in San Francisco, this research examines whether or not Latinas and African Americans do in fact denigrate marriage and unabashedly embrace unwed motherhood. Findings – The major contribution of this research is the recognition that low-income African American women and Latinas do value the institution of marriage and prefer to be married before they have children.

Notions of Family: Intersectional Perspectives Advances in Gender Research, Volume 17, 89–111 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-2126(2013)0000017008

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Unfortunately, the exigencies of poverty force many of them to delay marriage indefinitely. A lack of financial resources, the importance of economic stability, gender mistrust, domestic violence, criminality, high expectations about marriage, and concerns about divorce are common reasons given for not getting married. Research limitations – Although San Francisco is a unique city, and I cannot generalize my findings to other locales, the experiences of homeless women in the Bay Area are analogous to what was happening throughout urban America at the end of the twentieth century. Originality – For homeless mothers in San Francisco, having children without being married is a consequence of poverty in which race, class, and gender oppression conspire to prevent them from realizing their familial aspirations, pushing them further into the margins of society. Using intersectionality theory, this research debunks the Culture of Poverty perspective and analyzes why homeless mothers choose to remain unmarried. Keyword: Gender and family intersections; intersectionality theory; homeless families; poverty

THE RACIALIZED DISCOURSE OF POVERTY AND FAMILY DYSFUNCTION There is a long history in the social sciences of arguing that poor women of color share a common disdain for marriage and traditional family values. This body of literature dates back to the late 1800s and early 1900s when scholars began to characterize poor African Americans as inherently pathological. High rates of poverty, unemployment, and low educational attainment were blamed on out-of-wedlock births and the rejection of marriage, rather than on structural inequality (Frazier, 1939). During the 1960s proponents of this pathological approach (Moynihan, 1965) applied their analysis to Latina/o families as well (Lewis, 1959; Madsen, 1964). These theorists argued that low-income Latinas/os have distinctive values, aspirations, and psychological characteristics that inhibit their achievement and produce behavioral ‘‘deficiencies’’ that keep them impoverished. Moreover, they contend that these deficiencies result in a perpetual cycle

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of poverty (Zinn, 1989) and a fundamental rejection of marriage (Andrade, 1982; Mirande´, 1985; Ybarra, 1983). After two decades of scholarly work refuting this fallacious perspective, the Culture of Poverty approach, which argues that poor families of color are responsible for their own poverty as a result of pathological values, made a searing comeback in the 1980s and 1990s (Mead, 1992; Murray, 1984). Much of the research during this resurgence focused on teenage and nonmarital pregnancy, welfare dependency, and a lack of normative family values. Poor Latina/o families were once again vilified as pathological, welfare reliant, and most importantly as opposed to the sacred institution of marriage. Conservative policy analysts such as Charles Murray and Lawrence Mead pointed to the decline in marriage among impoverished women and the concomitant increase in nonmarital childbearing to promote their racialized anti-welfare agenda. These analysts argue that the increase in female-headed families and out-of-wedlock births among women of color over the last thirty years reflects an endemic disregard for normative family values. Although poor women of color do have higher rates of nonmarital births and single parenthood, characteristics that are often associated with poverty and welfare recipiency (Aassve, 2003), this reflects structural inequality, not deviant family values. Subsequently, having children outside of marriage has now become the norm for economically disenfranchised families, regardless of race (Roschelle, 2011; Ventura & Bachrach, 2000). Nonetheless, Culture of Poverty theorists continue to focus exclusively on the reproductive behavior of African American women and Latinas. More recently, sociologists have once again begun to focus on cultural indicators of poverty in their examination of urban life (Cohen, 2010), recreating controversy over the role of culture as an antecedent to poverty (Steinberg, 2011). It is true that there has been an increase in female-headed families and out-of-wedlock births in the last thirty years. However, childbirth among unwed teenagers, often the focus of public vitriol, has decreased since the 1990s. Nonetheless, nonmarital childbearing among women in their twenties has increased (Aassve, 2003). On the surface it may seem that the Culture of Poverty perspective is primarily about class. However, Culture of Poverty theorists have focused their vitriol exclusively on poor African American and Latina/o families. Proponents of this perspective have a long history of disregarding welfare recipiency, teen pregnancy, and out-of-wedlock births among low-income white women. Given the racialized nature of the discourse and their fetishization of deviant cultural norms among African Americans and Latinas, it should be clear that Culture of Poverty theorists typically conflate race and poverty.

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There is strong support for marriage across racial ethnic and class boundaries and most people say that they intend to marry (Lichter, Baston, & Brown, 2004; Mauldon, London, Fein, Patterson, & Sommer, 2004). Among welfare recipients an overwhelming majority (70%) indicated that they expected to get married (Mauldon et al., 2004) and they shared the same values about marriage as non-welfare recipients (Ciabattari, 2006). Similarly, there are very few racial ethnic differences in marriage norms (South, 1993), although Latinas, African Americans, and low-income women actually express the most traditional views on marriage (Bulcroft & Bulcroft, 1993; Ciabattari, 2006; Kaplan, 1997; Mauldon et al., 2004; Oropesa, 1996). Contrary to the prevailing discourse that poor women of color devalue marriage, there is overwhelming evidence that in fact the opposite is true; pro-marriage values clearly transcend racial and economic inequality. For example, research on marriage expectations among unmarried cohabitating couples indicates that young men and women who have just given birth expect to marry as soon as they are economically able. However, despite their desire to wed, the majority of these couples remain unmarried and often break up within a year of giving birth (Lichter et al., 2004; Smock, Manning, & Porter, 2005). This research provides compelling evidence that poor women and women of color do value the institution of marriage and prefer to be married before they have children. Fallacious arguments about the lack of family values among poor women and women of color reflect racist and classist ideologies that are deeply embedded in American culture and are not supported by the empirical evidence. Nevertheless, given the wide-ranging evidence that poor mothers do want to get married, the question remains as to why they do not marry. Intersectionality theory will guide the analysis and help explain why poor women of color have children outside of marriage.

IF ONLY THEY’D JUST GET MARRIED! Research has recently identified a variety of economic and social barriers to marriage that explain why poor women of color do not marry before giving birth This research focuses on Latinas and African American women as a corrective to the habitually specious racialized discourse of conservative policy makers. A lack of financial resources, the importance of economic stability, sexual jealousy, fears about infidelity (called gender mistrust), domestic violence, high expectations about marriage, and fear of divorce all

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contribute to declining marriage rates, particularly among poor women of color (Cherlin, Cross-Barnett, Burton, & Garrett-Peters, 2008; Coley, 2002; Edin, 2000; Edin, Kefalas, & Reed, 2004; Edin & Reed, 2005; Gibson-Davis, Edin, & McLanahan, 2005; Harkett & McLanahan, 2004; Smock et al., 2005; Waller, 2001). This research overwhelmingly demonstrates that lowincome African American women and Latinas do not denigrate marriage and do not have values that conflict with mainstream society, despite their high rates of nonmarital births (Edin, 2000; Edin & Reed, 2005; Edin et al., 2004; Gibson-Davis et al., 2005). Low rates of marriage among poor women of color are the result of structural inequality that creates barriers to successful marriages. Racial discrimination, economic disenfranchisement, and gender inequality all contribute to a lack of opportunities for lowincome women in urban America. The majority of research on attitudes toward marriage and motherhood among impoverished women of color focuses on urban life. Although the qualitative work provides invaluable insight into the complicated structural barriers to marriage, it focuses on specific communities or neighborhoods. As a result we cannot make comparisons between communities. However, much of the quantitative research is comparative and includes women from across a variety of urban settings. This research provides generalizable findings that bolster the results of the qualitative research and reinforce the findings of my research in San Francisco. Nonetheless, we know very little about the experiences of Latinas and African American women living in rural America. Although previous research tells us a great deal about why welfare recipients and low-income couples have children outside of marriage, it does not include the experiences of homeless families. My research extends this body of work by focusing specifically on homeless women and their marital decisions. My research refutes the Culture of Poverty perspective, illustrating that even the most destitute mothers in America, facing extraordinary physical and emotional hardships, do not vilify marriage or articulate deviant family values. In addition, this research utilizes the intersectionality perspective to analyze the choices women make about having children outside of marriage. Previous research has often focused on race, class, and/ or gender as separate categories of analysis. This research examines the interlocking features of race, class, and gender (Kohlman & Dickerson, 2008) to highlight the interrelationship between social structural inequality and motherhood. By giving voice to these women and analyzing their stories from a race, class, and gender perspective, my research further confirms that homeless mothers in San Francisco actually have traditional attitudes about marriage and motherhood.

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RACE, CLASS, AND GENDER: MAPPING THE INTERSECTIONS Over the last three decades feminist scholars have been theorizing about the centrality of race, class, and gender in daily life (Amott & Matthaei, 1991; Anderson & Collins, 1992; Collins, 1990, 1998; Dill, 1983; Glenn, 1985, 1999; hooks, 1981; Roschelle, 1997, 2008; Smith, 1983; Zinn, 1990). Although theorizing about the interlocking nature of race, class, and gender oppression has resulted in exciting new epistemological frameworks, feminist researchers have yet to articulate concrete strategies for capturing this intersectionality empirically. As a result, recent scholarship on intersectionality theory has called for a more analytic and concrete approach to theorizing (Davis, 2008; McCall, 2001; Roschelle, Toro-Morn, & Facio, 2010) and analyzing empirical data (Choo & Ferree, 2010; Ken, 2010). Black feminist scholars were the first to examine the interlocking nature of race, gender, and class oppression (Collins, 1990; Davis, 1981; Dill, 1983; Lewis, 1977). The crux of black feminist thought is predicated upon the simultaneity of oppression. Minimizing one form of oppression, although essential, may still leave Black women subjugated in other equally dehumanizing ways (Collins, 1986). Analysis of the interlocking nature of oppression shifts the investigative focus from merely explicating elements of race, gender, or class oppression to determining what the links are among these systems. Past approaches typically prioritized one form of oppression as primary, and then examined remaining types of oppression as less important variables. This more integrative approach treats the interaction among multiple systems as the object of study. Instead of simply adding to existing theoretical paradigms by inserting previously excluded variables, Black feminists aspire to develop new theoretical interpretations of the interaction itself (Collins, 1986; Roschelle et al., 2010). Because other women of color are also similarly disadvantaged (Smith & Tienda, 1988), this theoretical perspective, with its focus on the linked nature of oppression (Collins, 1990), is also applicable to the experiences of Latinas (see Andrade, 1982; Glenn, 1985, 1999; Romero, 1992; Zinn, 1989, 1990). In addition to theorizing about race, class, and gender, proponents of the intersectionality perspective assert that when building and testing empirical models, race, class, and gender must become the center of the analysis, not simply another set of variables to be examined. However, intersectionality theory has remained elusive and can be somewhat difficult to apply to one’s research findings Therefore, feminist scholars have advocated for a more

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coherent and systematic theoretical paradigm to guide research (Choo & Ferree, 2010; Davis, 2008; Ken, 2010; McCall, 2001). One such scholar is Ivy Ken who sees race, class, and gender as fundamental organizing principles of society. She argues that because of the ways in which race, class, and gender structure our lives, they become the source of both oppression and of privilege. She suggests that race, class, and gender are not merely demographic categories, nor are they simply categories of identity. Rather, race, class, and gender organize social practices, institutions, and social structural arrangements. These practices, institutions, and arrangements socially construct race, class, and gender in mutually constitutive and interdependent ways. Race, class, and gender shape social structures but are also themselves social structures. Ultimately, Ken argues that race, class, and gender influence social reality which in turn shapes subsequent events in a particular social context. San Francisco provides an excellent context for understanding how marriage is constrained by poverty and homelessness. Although San Francisco is a unique city, it has undergone parallel macrostructural transformations found in other major cities. Subsequently, the experiences of homeless women of color in the Bay Area are analogous to those of women living throughout urban America at the end of the twentieth century. My goal is to illustrate how socially structured race, class, and gender inequality influences the daily lives of homeless women in San Francisco and how their subsequent experiences are then shaped by race, class, and gender inequality in an interactive process.

METHOD A Home Away From Homelessness Between 1995 and 1999, I conducted ethnographic research at an organization in San Francisco called A Home Away From Homelessness. A Home Away From Homelessness is a non-profit organization that provides services to homeless families in San Francisco living in low-income housing, residential motels, transitional housing, family shelters, and foster care. Programs include a Beach House in Marin county, shelter support services, a crisis hotline, a family drop-in center (called the Club House), a mentorship program, and an afterschool educational program. During my four-year ethnography nearly 1,000 children and their parents participated in Home Away Programs.

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My fieldwork consisted of participant observation at the Beach House, the Afterschool Education Program, and the Family Drop-in Center. In addition, I attended meetings at a variety of social service agencies, attended welfare reform workshops, and conducted observational research at transitional housing facilities, residential motels, and homeless shelters throughout the Bay Area. In addition, I conducted thousands of hours of informal interviews with parents and kids. I spoke my field notes and my interpretations of the day’s events into a tape recorder immediately after working with the families. Throughout this process I would critically analyze and synthesize the material as it unfolded. Finally, I conducted formal interviews with 97 homeless and formerly homeless parents and their children. The racial ethnic breakdown of homeless families participating in Home Away programs is 40 percent African American, 30 percent White, 20 percent Latino, and 10 percent multiracial. All formal and informal interviews were taped and transcribed word for word. All names have been changed to ensure anonymity. The methodological design underpinning this research is a systemcentered approach to race, class, and gender inequality. This approach allows me to examine interconnections between institutional structures and individuals at both the micro and macro levels of analysis. Intersectionality is a complex system in which race, class, and gender are embedded in social institutions. Furthermore, race, class, and gender influence social reality which in turn shapes subsequent events in a particular social context. By examining how race, class and gender shape social structures, but are also themselves social structures, I subvert hegemonic relations and call attention to the unmarked categories of power and privilege. My research explicates how intersecting hierarchies of power relations impact homeless mothers by highlighting how public discourse and power relationships exist at different levels of the social structure. A system-centered approach explains intersectional processes through the analysis of the data (Choo & Ferree, 2010; Ken, 2010). Therefore, I examine how socially structured race, class, and gender inequality influences the marital decision making of homeless women in San Francisco and how their subsequent experiences are then shaped by race, class, and gender in an interactive process. This research presents a variety of experiences among homeless women from different racial-ethnic backgrounds. Although homeless families share a similarly devalued social position, they do not experience that social position uniformly. It is the unique storytelling of each individual that conveys the nuances of their experiences. With that in mind I selected excerpts from women who were representative of the overall sample. Among

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homeless mothers in San Francisco, there were similarities in their desire to marry and the reasons they gave for abandoning marriage. The only inconsistent findings were among older women who, after years of unhealthy relationships, were fairly cynical about marriage. The voices of these women are also presented.

RESULTS Why Do You Think We Don’t Get Married? Support for Marriage Homeless mothers in my sample were among the poorest residents in San Francisco. Despite their grinding poverty and the often contentious relationships endemic to impoverished communities, homeless African American, white, and Latina mothers articulated traditional values about matrimony, although some of the older women had become more cynical about their prospects for happy marriages. Nonetheless, even the most pessimistic women supported the institution of marriage. While sitting around the dinning room table at the Club House, Alma, Shaleema, Rochelle, Ashley, and Marisol expressed their support for and optimism about marriage. The following conversation illustrates that despite being homeless all five women believed in the institution of marriage and aspired to (re)marry someday: Alma: I’ve always wanted to get married and share my life with someone. To me marriage is supposed to be forever. When you get married you make a commitment to stay together and you stick to it. Once you get married you know you can always count on your husband to take care of you and your kids no matter what. The idea of having someone to be with until you are old and tired is what marriage is supposed to be. Shaleema: I agree. Marriage is sacred and should be forever. I want to get married someday and have someone to be with forever. I want a husband who will love and respect me and take care of me and my kids. Alma: My grandparents in Mexico have been married for 33 years and I always dreamed that I would have a marriage like theirs – solid and forever. Even though my life is hard – real hard – I believe that one day I’ll meet the right guy and get married and be happy. I do believe in happily ever after, I mean if my grandparents can have that why shouldn’t I? Shaleema: That is what family is all about. Getting married and being together forever and being happy. It’ll happen someday I just know it will.

Like many of the women in my study who were in their twenties, Alma and Shaleema were still fairly optimistic about their prospects for marriage,

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despite being poverty-stricken. Clearly, both women internalized the prevailing norms about marriage as a sacred institution that provides stability, emotional support, and ultimately happiness. Ironically, the valorization of an institution that is often oppressive to women seems to be universal. When I spoke to homeless mothers who were over 30, they were less optimistic and had become cynical about their prospects for fulfilling marriages. Many of them expressed disillusionment with the men in their lives who had consistently disappointed them. This finding was particularly salient for women who were divorced or separated from their husbands. Nonetheless, these women still supported the institution of marriage and even aspired to someday (re)marry. Rochelle: I definitely want to get married too – ever since I was little I dreamed of marrying my ‘‘Prince Charming’’ but after years of getting dogged by men I realize there is no such thing as ‘‘Prince Charming.’’ At this point all I am looking for is a man I can trust and share my life with who won’t cheat on me or beat the crap out of me, but even that isn’t so easy. Ashley: I hear you sista. There ain’t no such thing as ‘‘Prince Charming’’ – except in those Disney movies. I don’t believe in that shit no more, not after all the fucked up men I been with. Still, I wanna get married someday. I think I am just more realistic about it then Alma and Shaleema. You know those Chicas – they still got stars in their eyes. We know better. Rochelle: I’m tired of being on my own. Life is so hard I just want someone I can trust to help me survive. Ashley: I agree! Marisol: I got married when I was 19 and stayed married for 13 years. It was great at first but then my ex stared to beat me. I couldn’t take it so I took my two kids and left. I got divorced a couple of years ago and swore I’d never get married again. But now I feel like I would give it another try. I believe in marriage – not the romantic bullshit they tell us when we are kids but the practical part of it. I want to have a man to share my life with, one who is willing to make a commitment to me and be a family.

When I asked Rochelle, Ashley, and Marisol why they still believed in marriage despite spending years in deplorable and often violent relationships, they responded by saying that marriage was sacred and represented stability, family, and lifelong companionship. The ideals that all five women expressed about marriage, whether overly romantic or more pragmatic, represent the same ideals that mainstream women throughout the United States articulate. The collective attitudes of Alma, Shaleema, Rochelle, Ashley, and Marisol bolster previous research indicating that poor women of color and poor white women do in fact value marriage. Despite a life of painful romantic relationships, these homeless women still aspire to get married and expect to do so eventually. Paradoxically, in the context of

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marriage, men are privileged when compared to their female counterparts. Women are often subjugated by the very structure of the institution itself, which accords men power, and requires that women be primarily responsible for home labor and child care. This patriarchal structure translates into inequitable gendered interactions between spouses. Nonetheless, most women, regardless of class, express a desire to marry. Yet, it is poor women of color who are systematically denied the opportunity to marry the fathers of their children. Structural inequality in the form of higher rates of familial homelessness, underemployment/employment, and low wages results in more significant economic barriers to marriage than among white women. Homeless mothers in San Francisco are oppressed racially because they are unable to fulfill their cultural role as wives and mothers. Race, class, and gender inequality converge to deny homeless mothers the opportunity to marry, resulting in their continued stigmatization in the popular discourse and their further economic disenfranchisement. Economic Stability In addition to articulating traditional values about marriage as an institution, African American, European American, and Latina mothers expressed the importance of economic stability and of marrying a man that could contribute financially to the household. Flora stated: When I got pregnant my boyfriend Jose´ asked me to marry him – but I said no way. I did want to marry him but we had no money and our future looked dark. Jose´ works from time to time but he is not good at keeping a job. He worked at a car wash for a while but he got fired for being late to work. I can’t marry someone who can’t help support me – that’s crazy – If we get married and he has no job, I’ll be stuck with him. We decided to live together first and wait until he had a steady paycheck before getting married. That never happened!

Similarly, Aixa said: When I got pregnant I wasn’t homeless. Horatio and I both lived with our parents. We knew we couldn’t get married because we were broke. Horatio and I both worked but we never made very much money and neither one of us was good at keeping a job for very long. We decided to wait to get married so we could save some money. We talked about having enough money to get a decent apartment, to buy some new furniture, and maybe even put some in the bank. We talked a lot about our future and how important it was for Horatio to have steady work and for us to start saving money. He seemed like he really wanted to take care of us. As you can see that plan didn’t work out too well.

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LaToya added: After I told Lamar I was pregnant he said we should get married. I wanted to but I didn’t think that he would be able to support us for very long. Lamar worked in so many jobs over the last few years that I didn’t believe he would stay put. You know how it is, 6 months in one job, 3 months in another, out of work for a year. If I thought he would keep a job and support us I would have married him, but I knew better. I loved Lamar but I knew I couldn’t count on him. Good thing too because about 6 months after Lamar Jr. was born, he got fired and took off.

Many of the women in my research were wary of marrying men that could not contribute financially to their household. Several of the women told me that their boyfriends were out of work or had low-paying jobs in the service economy. These women knew that marrying a man with little or no resources would lead to conflict and could potentially end in divorce. Elisa told me: My boyfriend Eduardo asked me to marry him – but I said no way. He works sometimes – when he can find work, but he always seems to get in fights with his boss and get fired. When he is working he hardly makes any money. He gets really angry when he has no money and I hate to be around him when he is like that. How can you be married to someone like that? Fighting all the time – that’s too fucking stressful and I know that could split us up – If we are going to break up – I don’t want to be married and get divorced Marriage is forever.

Women who participated in Home Away programs lived in extreme poverty when they became mothers. Their lives were filled with chaos, uncertainty, and enormous stress. Women often felt they had nothing to lose by having a child outside of marriage and for many of them motherhood was their only chance for an emotionally fulfilling life. Although it seems irresponsible to outside observers, putting motherhood before marriage makes sense in a social context in which homeless women have no other means of achieving social status, recognition, or success (see also Anderson, 1999; Bourgois, 1995; Edin & Kefalas, 2005; Hays, 2003; Hill, 2005). In keeping with the methodological goal of ‘‘denaturalizing’’ hegemonic relations by examining unmarked categories of power and privilege (Choo & Ferree, 2010, p. 147), we must also interrogate the idea that having children outside of marriage is irresponsible. This viewpoint is not equally applied to all women. Rather it is systematically imposed on poor women of color. The denigration of nonmarital motherhood is a discursive strategy meant to demonize poor women and has been used to radically reform the welfare state and eliminate social services. Mainstream Americans seem to be less horrified by poor white women having children without the benefit of marriage (Roschelle, 1999). Clearly, race, class, and gender structure

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institutions as well as individual lives, acting as the source of both oppression and privilege. Poor white women are rarely demonized publically for reproducing, regardless of their marital status, while impoverished black and Latina mothers are vilified for the same behavior. Black and Latina single mothers are socially constructed as symbols of racial-ethnic inferiority signified by their uncontrollable sexuality (Hays, 2003; Roschelle, 1999). The racialized discourse of poor women of color as uncontrollable breeders maintains their social, political, and economic disenfranchisement, resulting in social policy that further marginalizes them. This discursive strategy also privileges powerful white men who promote this discourse to further their academic, journalistic, and political careers. Emotional Stability In addition to economic barriers, homeless mothers also faced myriad social and relational barriers to marriage. I heard numerous stories of deceit, infidelity, criminality, domestic violence, and drug and alcohol abuse. Women courageously recounted painful stories of failed relationships with the fathers of their children, many of whom betrayed their trust. Women spoke poignantly about men cheating on them and their unwillingness to be faithful. Women expressed concern about fathers who engaged in illegal behavior or were periodically incarcerated. Drug and alcohol abuse was rampant among the men in these women’s lives. In addition, domestic violence was a significant problem for homeless mothers in San Francisco. Given the brutal conditions of poverty it is not surprising to find romantic relationships fraught with so much conflict; conflict that contributed to women’s decisions not to marry the fathers of their children. As Vilma put it: In the projects where I’m from things are really bad. There is a lot of violence and craziness. Most of the guys I know didn’t finish high school and can’t find steady work. A lot of them sell drugs and do all kinds of illegal shit. I know so many guys who are either in prison or dead. Sometimes it seems like there aren’t that many guys even living here anymore. It’s hard to have a good relationship when you’re forced to live like this. When I got pregnant I let Ernesto move in with me but I made him swear that he wouldn’t step out on me. He promised to get a job and help pay the bills. He wanted to get married but I thought we should wait and live together first. I wanted to make sure he would be a responsible father and do right by me. He never got a job and he sold drugs when I was at work. After I found out he was selling drugs I kicked his ass out. A couple of months later I found out he was cheating on me with some coke whore while he was living in my apartment. I am so thankful I didn’t marry him. I guess I knew deep down that I couldn’t rely on him to take care of me and my baby. Now – I don’t believe anything a guy tells me – you know how they are. They all say whatever they think you

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want to hear to get what they want. I don’t fall for that shit anymore. I have to be the responsible one – and even though I’m homeless right now – I’m still a good mother and I take care of my child. My daughter is the most important thing in my life – the best thing I ever did.

Cecilia shared a similar experience: You know how guys are, they sweet talk you – convince you they love you and want to be with you forever. Once they get you into bed they stop talking about being together forever. How can I marry someone like that? I can’t trust that he will really stick by me forever and that he won’t cheat on me. That’s what happened with Diego. When I first got pregnant we didn’t have any money and he didn’t have a job. Diego started selling drugs to make money even though I begged him not to. I was afraid he would get shot or end up in jail. At first he made pretty good money and we were able to buy diapers, a stroller, and some other stuff for the baby. Even though we were able to buy the stuff we needed I didn’t like him selling drugs. After the baby was born Diego started staying out all night selling and partying. I’m pretty sure he was cheating on me with some skanky bitch. He started coming home high all the time. I told him he was being disrespectful to me and that my family thought he was a loser. He kept saying that we should get married – that if we got married my family would respect him. I told him that my family would only respect him if he got a real job and stopped selling drugs. I mean, how is being married to a drug dealer respectable? We started fighting all the time and then he started hitting me. He beat on me pretty bad and even sent me to the hospital a couple of times. This went on for almost three years. Finally, it got so bad that I took Carlos and left. I went to a battered women’s shelter first and then I ended up in Hamilton Family Shelter. I guess being homeless is better than being a punching bag!

When I asked Cecilia if she was disappointed that she never married Diego she said ‘‘hell no.’’ From the beginning of their relationship Cecilia was skeptical of Diego’s ability to provide economic stability and emotional support to their family. Like Vilma and other mothers in the study, Cecilia expressed deep gender mistrust about Diego and did not think he would make a reliable and emotionally supportive husband. Ultimately, her fears were realized as they are for so many impoverished women whose dreams of happy marriages rarely materialize. Like Cecilia, many of the homeless women in my study were victims of domestic violence. I met several women who were ravaged physically and psychologically by years of poverty and violence. Although these women aspired to marry the fathers of their children, they were hesitant to make a legal commitment to untrustworthy and abusive men. The following impromptu conversation illustrates this point: Laura: When I first got pregnant Miguel started hitting me. At first he slapped me around then after the baby was born he really beat the shit out of me. I figured I would stay with him but I wasn’t gonna marry him. Good thing I didn’t – he never stopped beating me.

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Anna: Yeah, Candido beat me too. I know what you mean about not wanting to get married right away – you think if you hang in there long enough they’ll stop beating you. I’ve always wanted to get married and I thought we would get married after he stopped hitting me. Of course it only got worse over the years – I finally left after I couldn’t take it anymore – that’s how I became homeless – but at least I finally left the bastard.

Over several years, Laura and Anna expressed, in poignant detail, the painful relationship experiences they endured. Each of them hoped for happy marriages and fulfilling family lives. Unfortunately, because of their disenfranchised economic position, those hopes were never realized. Despite claims by Culture of Poverty theorists and conservative analysts that poor women denigrate marriage and have deviant family values, it is clear that even the most destitute mothers believe in the institution of marriage and aspire to someday be married. Unfortunately, the violence of poverty affects women like Laura and Anna in profound ways. We know that women are infinitely more likely to be victims of intimate partner violence than men, regardless of class. Yet, we also know that rates of domestic violence are highest among low-income African American women and Latinas (Hill, 2005). According to Shirley A. Hill (2005) historical and contemporary racial inequality stripped black and Latino men of their economic resources and power, which resulted in them directing their rage against women. Other scholars have also documented the ways in which disenfranchised men of color exert their masculinity by physically and sexually abusing their intimate partners (Anderson, 1999; Bourgois, 1996). In a society in which achievement is measured by wealth and power, low-income men are demoralized by an emasculating social structure. One way for disempowered men to assert their dominance is through violence toward women. Racism and economic inequality foster physical and sexual violence, which is highly gendered. Although domestic violence exists in all social classes and among all racial-ethnic groups, it is more often reported in low-income communities of color (Davis, 1999; Hill, 2005). In addition, middle-class and affluent women who do experience intimate partner violence have access to more resources to cope with their trauma (Brandwein, 1999; Davis, 1999). Clearly, race and class inequality result in the most severe violence being experienced by the most disenfranchised citizens. We can see how race, class, and gender are fundamental organizing categories of society. Examining the physical and sexual violence associated with poverty reveals that race, class, and gender are indeed social practices, institutions, and social structural arrangements. These practices, institutions, and arrangements structure the lives of homeless women and impact their marital decision making in profound ways.

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DISCUSSION In order to understand the realities of marriage for extremely poor women we must examine the interlocking nature of race, class, and gender oppression. Racial stratification influences family resources and subsequent patterns of family organization (Zinn, 1990). In addition, patriarchy is inextricably linked to class, race, and gender inequality. Cultural norms and social-structural conditions constrain poor women’s choices about marriage and family life. Most of the mothers in my study valued marriage as an institution and aspired to traditional marital arrangements. Homeless mothers are oppressed both culturally and economically: they are unable to live by the values essential to their cultural survival because they are economically disadvantaged. Women in my study often chose motherhood over marriage because of the exigencies of poverty. My findings provide additional support to existing research that illustrates that impoverished white women and impoverished women of color not only aspire to marriage but some, in fact, have very traditional family values. Ultimately, these findings negate pejorative stereotypes that poor women have deviant family values. Refuting these stereotypes allows us to undermine the racialized discourse that demonizes the poor and to develop more humane social welfare policies. Only by giving voice to homeless women of color and examining similarities and differences between women can we deconstruct the previously unmarked category of marriage as a male identified, heterosexual, white, middle-class institution (Choo & Ferree, 2010). By continuing to represent traditional heterosexual marriage as the quintessential norm, however, we are ultimately reinforcing a highly patriarchal societal institution. In our desire to move poor women of color from the margins of public discourse into the center, we are unintentionally reproducing hegemonic notions of marriage and the role of women. Of course there are many ways that women undermine the constraints of patriarchal marriage and transgress conventional gender norms. Although disenfranchised women do aspire to traditional families they also engage in creative strategies to obtain autonomy within and outside of marriage (Collins, 2005; Hurtado, 2003a; Toro-Morn, 2008). Feminists point to the ways in which women of color resist subordination in their everyday lives (Anzaldu´a, 1990; Collins, 2000, 2005; Hurtado, 2003b; Toro-Morn, 2008). A fundamental way of subordinating women is by controlling their sexuality (Collins, 2000; Hurtado, 2003a). One way that women in my research exerted their agency was through having children before getting married.

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Because mothering is a central role for Latinas and African Americans, and because women in my study had bleak marital prospects, their decisions to have children outside of marriage, may reflect their resistance to patriarchal domination. Unfortunately, this resistance strategy sometimes had the unintended consequence of reinforcing women’s disenfranchised economic position and miring them further in poverty. In addition, this form of resistance perpetuates the racist discourse of conservative policy analysts who point to high rates of unwed motherhood as a proof that women of color are devoid of mainstream values and are, in fact, overly sexualized. This racialized discourse has deep historical roots in the development of American society. Throughout the nineteenth century, African American slave women and dark-skinned Mexican women were often defined as sexual predators. The representation of Black and Latina women as whores served to legitimate sexual violence by white men against them. In addition, the social construction of Latina and Black women as sexually dangerous served as the foundation for their depiction by white elites as out-of-control breeders (Almaguer, 1994; Collins, 2000). These women of color were defined by their unrestrained sexual appetites and supposedly high levels of fertility, legitimating their sexual exploitation. With the advent of mass media, particularly film and television, the historical image of the overly sexualized black and Latina proliferated and became part of the cultural fabric of contemporary American life. These historical images are prevalent in contemporary mass media and form the subtext of much neoconservative theorizing. Sexualized Black and Latina bodies are ubiquitous in contemporary mass media (Collins, 2005; hooks, 1992) and in public policy debates. As a result gendered and racialized representations of women of color as sexual deviants resonate with an American public that has internalized these pejorative images. Constructing and maintaining images of Latinas and Black women as promiscuous provides ideological justification for race, gender, and class oppression. Black and Latina single mothers have now become common symbols of racial ethnic inferiority signified by their uncontrollable sexuality (Roschelle, 1999). The racialized discourse of poor women of color as out-of-control breeders maintains their social, political, and economic disenfranchisement, resulting in social policy that further subordinates them. Ultimately, racialized gender ideology is used to justify patterns of oppression and discrimination that have significant economic ramifications (Almaguer, 1994; Collins, 2005) as evidenced by the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) that, among other things, aims to curtail poor women’s fertility and encourages

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them to marry the fathers of their children. Encouraging women to marry men with whom they have contentious and often violent relationships and who may be a drain on their already meager resources is appalling. Low marriage rates among poor mothers reflect social structural obstacles to successful relationships, not deviant family values. Nonetheless, the pernicious image of Black and Latina single mothers as out of control breeders continues unabated and leads to the infuriatingly ubiquitous question ‘‘why don’t they just get married?’’

CONCLUSION Using data from a four-year ethnographic study of homeless families in San Francisco, this research aims to provide an accurate depiction of why poor women of color chose to have children outside of marriage. My research illustrates that, in fact, homeless African American women and Latinas do value the institution of marriage and prefer to be married before they have children. Unfortunately, the constraints of poverty force many of them to delay marriage indefinitely. A lack of financial resources, the importance of economic stability, gender mistrust, domestic violence, criminality, high expectations about marriage, and concerns about divorce are common reasons given for not getting married. In addition, this research seeks to deconstruct the racialized and often fallacious discourse proffered by Culture of Poverty theorists. By examining the marriage decisions of homeless mothers in San Francisco, I have demonstrated that African Americans and Latinas in my sample do not have values that conflict with mainstream society, despite their high rates of nonmarital births. For these women, low rates of marriage are the result of structural inequality that creates barriers to successful marriages. Racial discrimination, economic disenfranchisement, and gender inequality all contribute to a lack of opportunities for homeless women in San Francisco. This chapter contributes to a growing body of literature that examines marital decision making among low-income women of color. My research extends this work by focusing specifically on homeless women and their marital decisions. Of major importance is the finding that even the most destitute women in society value the institution of marriage and prefer to be married before they have children. Like other poor women, most of the mothers in my research were very pro-marriage and were extremely opposed to divorce. Nonetheless, homeless women in San Francisco preferred to delay marriage until they were sure their partners could help support them,

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would not cheat on them, would not engage in illegal behavior, and would not become abusive. For homeless women in San Francisco, their disenfranchised economic position prevented them from realizing their dream of putting marriage before motherhood and presented significant obstacles to creating stable families, pushing them further onto the margins of society. In addition, my research contributes to the literature on intersectionality and the family. The methodological design of this research was a systemcentered approach to analyzing race, class, and gender inequality. This research design allowed me to continuously examine interconnections between institutional structures and individuals at both the micro and macro levels of analysis throughout the research process. The guiding principle was that intersectionality is a complex system in which race, class, and gender are embedded in social institutions. Furthermore, race, class, and gender influence social reality which in turn shapes subsequent events in a particular social context. By examining how race, class, and gender shape social structures, but are also themselves social structures, I undermine hegemonic relations and call attention to the unmarked categories of power and privilege (Choo & Ferree, 2010; Ken, 2010). My research illustrates how intersecting hierarchies of power relations impact homeless mothers by highlighting how public discourse and power relationships exist at different levels of the social structure. In my interpretation of the data I examine how socially structured race, class, and gender inequality influences the marital decision making of homeless women in San Francisco and how their subsequent experiences are then shaped by their race, class, and gender in an interactive process. According to intersectionality theorists, race, class, and gender are impacted by social structural arrangements which in turn socially construct race, class, and gender in mutually constitutive and interdependent ways. My research on marital decision making among homeless women in San Francisco provides empirical evidence for how race, class, and gender are impacted by and impact social reality in a particular social context. Because San Francisco has undergone macrostructural shifts concomitant to other large central cities, it provides an excellent context for understanding how marriage is constrained by poverty and homelessness. Clearly, the experiences of homeless women of color in the Bay Area are analogous to those of women living throughout urban America. Ultimately, this research illustrates how socially structured race, class, and gender inequality influences the daily lives of homeless women in San Francisco and how their subsequent experiences are then shaped by race, class, and gender inequality.

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Because this research is ethnographic, it cannot be generalized to other homeless women outside of the Bay Area. However, residents of San Francisco experienced similar socioeconomic transformations that were occurring throughout the nation at the end of the century. In addition, my research findings are similar to both quantitative and qualitative research on why poor mothers don’t get married. Therefore, it is appropriate to argue that homeless mothers do value marriage despite their propensity not to marry the fathers of their children. Future research should continue to examine marital decision making among homeless mothers throughout the United States.

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EXAMINING STATUS DISCREPANT MARRIAGES AND MARITAL QUALITY AT THE INTERSECTIONS OF GENDER, RACE, AND CLASS Tracey A. LaPierre and Shirley A. Hill ABSTRACT Purpose – This study examined the impact of educational differences between married women and men on marital quality at the intersections of gender, race, and class. Methodology/approach – Guided by an intersectional perspective we analyzed data for 4,835 black and white married couples from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH; 1987–1988). Dyadic multigroup models were estimated using structural equation modeling to examine how status differences affected four latent dimensions of marital quality: happiness, stability, perceived fairness, and disagreement. Findings – Our findings highlight how multiple dimensions of marital quality vary according to intersections of gender, race, and class, and reveal how these intersections moderate the impact of status on marital quality.

Notions of Family: Intersectional Perspectives Advances in Gender Research, Volume 17, 113–136 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-2126(2013)0000017009

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Research limitations/implications – To our knowledge, the NSFH is the most up-to-date, nationally representative dataset available with couplelevel data; however, the data were collected in the late 1980s and are insufficient for extending our analysis to other race-ethnic groups. Our findings demonstrate a strong need for more comprehensive contemporary data collection that has adequate numbers of respondents/couples at the intersections of gender, race, and class to facilitate further quantitative studies using an intersectional perspective. Originality/value – Our study is innovative in using education, an arena where women are currently outpacing men, as an indicator of status, and in embracing an intersectional perspective. By doing so we advance literature on status discrepant marriages, and contribute to the fields of gender and family studies which seek to understand how the changing roles of women may be affecting marital quality. Keywords: Marriage; gender; education; inequality; intersectionality Although individuals tend to marry others who have characteristics similar to their own, there has been a historic and nearly universal tradition of women ‘‘marrying up’’ (hypergamy), essentially marrying men whose status is higher than their own (Blossfeld, 2009). Typically, this has meant that husbands, based on occupational status, educational attainment, and/or economic resources, have had a higher status than their wives, thus enabling them to fulfill the expectation of being the family wage earner. The wageearning advantages of husbands, however, reinforced male-dominated marriages by making wives economic dependents and ultimately giving men greater marital power than women. Feminist scholars argued that the breadwinner-homemaker family model constituted the linchpin for perpetuating gender inequality in other arenas of life (Risman, 2004; Thorne & Yalom, 1982). Research on African-American families seemed to support this premise: The prevalence of dual-income black families arguably resulted in greater gender equality and more independence and autonomy for black women (Collins, 1990; Dill, 1988). African-American wives often had as much or more education and/or status as their husbands, but the impact of these status factors on marriages is unclear. Some researchers argued that it resulted in more egalitarian marriages (Landry, 2000; Scanzoni, 1977), but it is also the case that African Americans have had much higher rates of divorce and marital separation than other racial groups (Franklin, 2000).

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Landry described employed African-American wives as pioneers of a revolution that is now affecting most married women – the integration of labor market and family work (Landry, 2000). Many white, middle-class married women were drawn into the labor market largely by the rise of the post-industrial economy that undermined the wage-earning abilities of men and created a proliferation of female-typed jobs. This gendered occupational hierarchy continues to exist, yet women have made great strides in breaking (cracking) the glass ceiling, largely because of a persistent feminist challenge of discriminatory employment practices. As a result, women have entered high-level professional, managerial, and political positions (England, 2010) and, in recent years, have surpassed men in earning fouryear college degrees. In 1960 women received 35% of all the bachelor’s degrees awarded, compared to 58% of those awarded in 2004 (Buchmann & DiPrete, 2006). The gap in college attainment is even higher among African Americans, with women earning nearly 66% of all bachelor’s degrees conferred to blacks in 2009 (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2010). This gender gap in educational attainment has increased the number of status discrepant marriages in which wives have a higher status than their husbands – a transgression of the gender expectation that women will ‘‘marry up.’’ This trend has important implications for marital quality, yet research on status discrepant marriages has been scarce and has yielded contradictory findings, perhaps because most of it has failed to consider gender, race, and class differences among married couples. We argue that status discrepancies impact couples’ perceptions of marital quality, and that the impact is moderated by multiple inequalities. We also believe that, given the educational gains of women in recent years, using education as a measure of status can help us understand how status discrepancies affect marital quality.

HYPOGAMOUS MARRIAGES: A REVERSAL OF TRADITION The historic trend of women ‘‘marrying up’’ was a key element in forming breadwinner–homemaker families; however, by the late 1960s feminist scholars were criticizing this family model for perpetuating gender inequalities, and research on working-class and racial-ethnic minority families was beginning to highlight the fact that such families had never been typical of their experiences (Dill, 1988; Zinn & Dill, 1996). This research contributed

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to a multicultural or intersectionality perspective on women and families that highlighted family diversity and how gender norms were affected by race and social class position. Although people in less privileged social positions often embraced the breadwinner–homemaker family ideology (hooks, 1989), social inequalities and barriers usually made it impossible for them to realize that ideology, and they found themselves stigmatized as weak and/or dysfunctional families (Frazier, 1948; Moynihan, 1965). Today, however, the majority of married women work outside of the home and the breadwinner–homemaker family model has given way to dualearner couples. As white women began to enter the labor market in historic numbers during the 1970s, the divorce rate also soared, suggesting a link between women’s economic independence and their refusal to tolerate inequitable, unsatisfying marriages. Status gains, based on educational and economic attainment, have placed women in a better position to demand relationships that meet their emotional needs and men who respect them as equal partners. One important indicator of marital fairness, and a prominent source of marital conflict, has been the extent to which married couples share housework and child care. The entry of women into the labor market can be seen as revolutionary in upending the traditional gender bargain, but achieving equity in household work has resulted in a ‘‘stalled revolution’’ (Hochschild, 1989). Men do more housework than in the past, but much less than women (Sullivan, 2006), even in marriages where wives earn more than their husbands (Tichenor, 2005). Status gains by women and the demand for more equity in their marriages has set the stage for more marital discord and divorce. This has resulted in an increase in research on status discrepant marriages favoring women, but progress in understanding the issue has been meager. The extent to which status inequalities between wives and husbands affect marriages is still a matter of some debate, with some arguing that it heightens marital stress (Pearlin, 1975) and other studies finding that it strengthens marital stability – at least when husbands have a higher status and greater earning power than their wives (Samblanet, 2009; Wilcox & Nock, 2007). A recent study found that status discrepancies between married couples (with status measured by occupational prestige, hours worked, and educational attainment) had little impact on marital quality or global happiness, even among couples with traditional gender ideologies (Gong, 2007). But another study found that while husbands may be unaffected by having higher status wives, marital happiness was greater for women when their husbands had a higher status than their own

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(Samblanet, 2009). Research investigating how race moderates the relationship between status discrepancies and marital happiness has also produced contradictory results. One study found that status discrepancies had no impact on the quality of married life for African-American couples (Creighton-Zollar & Williams, 1992), but another concluded that having a higher status wife increased marital satisfaction for black husbands, but not for white husbands (Morris, 2001). Clearly, race and gender do matter in sorting out the impact of status discrepancies on marriage, although research has not sufficiently explained how. One problem has been the tendency of studies to focus on status inconsistencies between husbands and wives as differences in earnings (e.g., Brennan, Barnett, & Gareis, 2001; Rogers & DeBoer, 2001). We argue that focusing on earnings or even occupations may not capture the full impact of status discrepant marriages, given the gender gap in earnings and the fact that most employed wives still earn less than their husbands (England, 2010). Many wives may have a lower status than their husbands based on income, especially since they are more likely to work part time and in a gendered labor market where male-typed jobs (e.g., landscaper, doctor) pay more than comparable female-typed jobs (e.g., housekeeper, nurse). In many cases, however, women have higher levels of education than their husbands and jobs that connote status, despite having lower pay. Moreover, we argue that education is an important form of ‘‘status’’ that influences marital and gender expectations and competencies (Tynes, 1990). Educational attainment influences attitudes about how children are reared, how money is spent, how housework is divided, and support for marital equality – all issues that affect couples’ perceptions of marital fairness, disagreement, and overall satisfaction. Thus, when there are significant gaps in the educational attainment of spouses, especially gaps that favor women, we argue that it will have an impact on marital quality.

EDUCATIONAL DISPARITIES AND MARITAL QUALITY Educational attainment has an important impact on marriage; for example, having a college degree positively correlates with marital success (Raley & Bumpass, 2003). Our specific interest in status discrepant marriages is based on our belief that a closer examination of educational heterogamy is warranted, given the recent trend of women outpacing men

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in terms of educational attainment. African-American women historically have had higher rates of educational attainment than black men (Rury & Hill, 2012) and that trend is now spreading to other groups (Buchmann & DiPrete, 2006). The result of this has been an increase in status discrepant marriages, defined here as those where wives have a higher level of education than their husbands. We argue that these educational discrepancies have an impact on marital quality, yet only a handful of studies have explored the issue. One such study was conducted by Tynes (1990), who tested three competing models of the impact of educational heterogamy: complementary roles, high resource–high satisfaction, and high resource–low satisfaction. The complementary roles model assumes traditional gender roles and attitudes. In this model, women marrying up (hypergamy) would be related to higher levels of marital satisfaction for both spouses, while women marrying down (hypogamy) would be related to lower levels of marital satisfaction for both spouses. A high resource–high satisfaction model would award higher satisfaction to the partner with higher levels of education because this partner would have more power and status in the relationship and be more likely to have their needs met. Conversely, the high resource–low satisfaction model predicts that the spouse who is marrying down will have lower levels of marital satisfaction because they could have made a better match and more attractive options may exist outside of the relationship. The spouse who married up, on the other hand, would be more satisfied because they made a good match. Surprisingly, the findings from this study, based on data collected from 144 married couples living in Tucson, Arizona in the early 1980s, were not consistent with any of these models. When husbands in this study reported more education than their spouse both partners reported lower levels of marital quality, while the opposite was true when women had higher levels of education. Tynes speculates that relationships where wives have more education than their husbands are more egalitarian in their distribution of family responsibilities, resulting in greater satisfaction for both partners. Gong (2007) found similar results for men but the opposite for women. When wives had higher levels of education than their husbands, their husbands reported lower levels of marital instability, marital problems, and marital disagreement. However, the women in these marriages reported higher levels of marital instability and disagreement and lower levels of marital happiness and interaction. Despite this research on the relationship between educational heterogamy and marital quality, this relationship is still poorly understood. Exploring

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hypogamous marriages (where women marry down educationally) at the intersections of gender, race, and class may provide a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding. The intersectional perspective has been useful in studying other aspects of married life, such as the relationship between household labor and marital satisfaction. Demonstrating the importance of the unique gender–race locations, Dillaway and Broman (2001) found that women and black individuals were less satisfied with marriage than men and white individuals, but black women were less satisfied than white women, and black men had higher rates of marital satisfaction than white men (provided they are not doing high levels of housework). These gender–race differences could potentially be due to status discrepancies; indeed, Dillaway and Broman (2001) note that intersections with class are also likely but they were unable to detect them in their study due to the nature of the class composition of their sample. Our emphasis on educational attainment as an important indicator of status and marital expectations, our use of a nationally representative quantitative data source to explore this issue, and our embrace of an intersectionality framework will enable us to advance current literature on the relationship between status discrepant marriages and marital quality. In this chapter we focus on how intersections of race, class, and gender modify the impact of educational hypogamy in marriages on multiple indicators of marital quality including marital disagreements, perceived fairness, relationship instability, and marital happiness. In doing so, our study will enhance understanding of how marital quality is shaped by structural inequalities, which can contribute to building new models to explain the complexities of these dynamics. Based on previous research, conventional gender, and marital ideologies, and differences in marital patterns between race–ethnic groups, we expect the following patterns. First, couples in hypogamous marriages will experience more marital disharmony and less marital happiness. But gender matters: Wives in hypogamous marriages will experience less marital happiness than their husbands. We also predict that the relationship will be affected by race: Given that African-American women have historically had education levels that were equal or higher than black men, we do not expect to find that hypogamous marriages will lead to higher levels of marital disagreement or discord. Consistent with previous literature, we do expect to find overall levels of marital quality lower for blacks than for whites. Social class matters: Since lower class families historically have had more difficulty in achieving the male-breadwinner model, we expect that they will be less sensitive to deviations from it.

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METHODS Participants Data for this study came from the first wave of the National Survey of Families and Households (1987–1988; NSFH) and is based on a national, stratified, multistage area probability sample of the non-institutionalized population aged 19 and older, living in the contiguous United States (Sweet, Bumpass, & Call, 1988). Information on marital disagreements, perceived fairness, relationship instability, and marital happiness was collected via self-reported questionnaires. Spousal questionnaires were given to the husband or wife of the primary respondent if they were married. The response rate for the primary sample was 74.3% and the response rate for the married secondary respondent questionnaire was 83.2%. We further restricted our sample to racially homogeneous couples with valid measures of years of education completed for both spouses. This resulted in a final sample of 9,670 individuals belonging to 4,318 white couples and 517 black couples.

MEASURES Independent Variables Status (intersections of race, class, and gender) A categorical variable with eight categories representing each race/class/ gender combination was created at the individual and couple level. Race was either black or white and gender was either husband/male or wife/female, and these categories remained consistent at the individual and couple level. Educational status was used to represent class and was dichotomized to represent those with a high school diploma or less than high school, versus those with more than a high school education. At the individual level the respondent’s own educational level was used, whereas at the couple level if either the husband or the wife had more than a high school education the couple was classified in the high education group. The eight status categories representing intersections of race, class, and gender were (1) high education white husbands, (2) high education white wives, (3) high education black husbands, (4) high education black wives, (5) low education white husbands, (6) low education white wives, (7) low education black husbands, and (8) low education black wives.

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Educational status differences Educational status differences were calculated based on husband’s and wife’s reports of completed years of schooling which ranged from 0 to 20. A dummy variable was created indicating whether or not the wife reported more years of completed education than the husband (1 ¼ yes). Dependent Variables Marital disagreements Respondents were asked how often, if at all, in the last year they had open disagreements about each of the following: household tasks, money, spending time together, sex, having a(nother) child, in-laws, and the children. Responses were categorized as never, less than once a month, and several times a month or more. Levels of disagreement about children were only reported for respondents with children. Perceived fairness Respondents were asked how they felt about the fairness in their relationship in each of the following areas: household chores, working for pay, spending money, and child care. Responses were categorized as very unfair to the husband, somewhat unfair to the husband, fair to both, somewhat unfair to the wife, or very unfair to the wife. In the individual level analysis the very and somewhat categories were collapsed. Perceived fairness of childcare was reported only for respondents who had co-resident children. Relationship instability Three indicators of relationship instability were used in this study. The first indicator reported whether or not the respondent felt that their marriage might be in trouble during the past year. Responses were categorized as no, in the past year but not currently, and currently. A second variable indicated whether the respondents and their spouses discussed the idea of separating in the past year (1 ¼ yes). Finally, respondents were asked what they thought the chances were that their relationships would experience separation or divorce. Responses were categorized as very low, low, about even, and high or very high. Marital happiness Three variables were used as indicators of marital happiness. Respondents were asked ‘‘taking things all together, how would you describe your marriage?’’ Responses were indicated on a scale from 1 (very unhappy) to 7

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(very happy). The same scale was used to answer the question ‘‘taking things all together, how would you say things are these days?’’ Because of small cell sizes at the unhappy end of these scales, responses 1 to 4 were collapsed for both variables. Respondents were also asked how their overall happiness would be impacted if they were to separate from their spouse. Responses were categorized as much worse or worse, same, better, or much better.

Statistical Procedures Our study contends that the impact on martial quality of hypogamous marriages will be shaped by class (measured by educational attainment), gender, and race-ethnicity. We draw on these factors to create eight distinct status categories (e.g., higher education white husbands, higher education black wives, etc.) and then analyze their responses to questions about four dimensions of marital quality: level of disagreement, perceived fairness, relationship instability, and marital happiness. We began our analysis by creating an individual-level dataset and looking at the distributions of hypogamous marriages (wife having higher education) and marital quality indicators by status (intersections of race, class, and gender). Bivariate chisquare tests were performed to determine if there was a relationship between status and the various dependent variables. Post-hoc multiple comparisons were made using chi-square tests (analyses not shown). The data were adjusted to account for the nonindependence of husbands and wives and to be nationally representative of married couples by using the svyset command in STATA. In order to examine the impact of a wife having more education than her husband on various dimensions of marital quality we then moved to a dyadic analysis using structural equation modeling. Standard statistical methods assume that individual observations are independent from each other and are unable to capture the complex interdependent responses that occur in couples (Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006; Wendorf, 2002). The best way to handle data from multiple family members is to conduct a dyadic analysis (Kenny, 2011). This requires all of the data to be analyzed in one analysis (rather than separately for each family member) and the dyad to be explicitly considered, thus allowing the nonindependence of responses of family members to be correctly modeled. In order to do this, more complicated statistical techniques are necessary (Kenny, 2011; Wendorf, 2002). While both SEM and HLM can be used for dyadic analyses, it has been noted that SEM offers a number of distinct advantages that allow for more

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appropriate model specification (Wendorf, 2002). The use of SEM to conduct dyadic analysis will therefore provide more accurate estimates than alternative techniques. In this study, dyadic multigroup models were estimated separately for each dimension of marital quality (marital happiness, disagreements, fairness, and instability) using Mplus. In each of the models, the latent constructs for husbands and wives were correlated in order to capture the nonindependence of observations within couples (see Fig. 1). Factor loadings for the indicators of the latent variables representing each dimension of marital quality were constrained to be equal for all groups, ensuring that the latent variables in this analysis had the same meaning for all respondents (Kenny, 2011). One exception was the latent variables for husbands’ and wives’ perceptions of fairness which produced poor model fit when constrained to be equal. As a result the factor loadings for these latent variables were allowed to vary between husbands and wives, but remained constrained within genders. This limits the between gender comparisons that can be made but preserves within gender comparisons across race and class. All measurement and structural models reported in this study achieved acceptable levels of model fit using conservative thresholds of minimally acceptable fit on the comparative fit index (CFIZ.95), Tucker–Lewis index (TLIZ.95), and root mean-squared error of approximation (RMSEAr.05) (Hu & Bentler, 1999). All analyses were conducted using sample weights. Weighted least square parameter estimates using a diagonal weight matrix with standard errors and mean-adjusted chi-square test statistic that use a full weight matrix and THETA parameterization were used because of the categorical indicators of the latent constructs. Missing data were handled using full information maximum likelihood (FIML; Buhi, Goodson, & Neilands, 2008). Statistical significance was based on 95% and 99% confidence intervals with bootstrapped standard errors using 1,000 resamples. Significant differences in the impact of the wife having more education than her husband on the latent constructs of marital disagreements, perceived fairness, relationship instability, and marital happiness for each spouse by intersections of race and class were assessed using model constraints in Mplus.

RESULTS Table 1 reports the distribution of a wife having more education and the different marital quality indicators by intersections of race, class, and

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Fig. 1. Example of the general dyadic SEM approach used for each of the dimensions of marital quality. The ellipses represent the latent construct of marital instability as perceived separately by the husband and the wife in each couple. Both latent constructs were estimated using three identical indicators of marital instability. The factor loadings of these indicators were constrained to be equal across all groups. The double sided arrow between the two latent variables models the correlation between husbands’ and wives’ perceptions of marital instability. This parameter was allowed to vary for each of the four groups that were modeled simultaneously (high education white (HW); high education black (HB); low education white (LW); low education black (LB)). The arrows going from the variable indicating that the wife has more education than the husband (compared to couples with equal education or the husband has more education) represent the effect of this status discrepancy on reported marital instability for wives on the left and husbands on the right. These separate effects on husbands’ and wives’ perceptions of marital instability were allowed to vary between the four groups. It is these parameter estimates that are reported in Table 2, and significant differences between them indicated in Table 3.

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gender. Chi-square tests for each variable revealed significant differences by the race, class, gender categories for all variables (po.0001). We found that highly educated black wives were the most likely to be in hypogamous marriages (66.2%), while highly educated white husbands were the least likely (6.8%). Among wives, black wives were more likely to be in a hypogamous marriage than white wives, and within each racial group highly educated women were more likely to be in a hypogamous marriage than less educated women. Among husbands, the less educated were more likely to be in a hypogamous marriage than the highly educated, and black husbands, were more likely to be in a hypogamous marriage than white husbands in similar status marriages. White wives report higher marital happiness and a stronger negative impact of separation on their happiness than black wives. Within each racial group less educated women report higher marital happiness but less of an impact of separation on happiness than highly educated women. Among husbands, less educated white husbands report the highest levels of marital happiness followed by highly educated black husbands, highly educated white husbands, and finally less educated black husbands. The impact of separation on happiness for husbands is most negative for whites compared to blacks, and within each racial group the highly educated report a more negative impact than the less educated. When examining fairness, husbands generally reported more equity than wives of the same race and educational level. Among wives, the highly educated were more likely to report household chores and childcare as being unfair or very unfair to the wife compared to the less educated. Fairness with money differed along racial lines, with white wives reporting more equality than their black counterparts. White husbands were more likely to report that current marital arrangements for working for pay and spending money were fair to both spouses than black husbands, and within each racial group the less educated were more likely to rate things as fair to both than the highly educated. When it came to fairness with household chores and childcare, white husbands were more likely than black husbands to rate things as unfair or very unfair to the wife, and among the white husbands the highly educated were more likely to rate things as unfair or very unfair to the wife. There were very few significant differences between husbands and wives of the same race and educational level. One exception is disagreements about the children, which women report more frequently than men. For both husbands and wives, blacks reported more frequent disagreements than whites across all categories except for disagreements about in-laws

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Table 1. Percentage Distributions of Wife with Higher Education and Marital Quality Indicators by Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender. HWH HWW HBH HBW LWH LWW LBH LBW Unweighted Sample Size Wife Has Higher Education

1362 1156 90 109 2973 3179 433 414 6.8 39.5 14.0 66.2 35.9 22.1 51.9 40.5

Happiness 1 – Relationship 4 5 6 7 (Very Happy)

9.2 14.9 30.2 45.8

10.4 8.6 11.5 16.7 31.0 25.6 47.1 49.2

19.5 15.7 36.7 28.0

8.8 10.7 28.3 52.2

11.2 11.8 24.7 52.3

11.2 14.0 26.9 48.0

17.7 14.3 25.1 42.9

Happiness 2 – Impact of Divorce Much better Better Same Much worse or worse

4.1 13.7 40.1 42.2

5.2 12.5 33.6 48.6

14.8 23.5 42.1 19.6

12.2 19.9 37.8 30.0

5.0 18.0 41.0 36.1

7.0 15.1 34.2 43.7

12.1 25.6 37.5 24.8

18.2 27.3 32.3 22.2

Happiness 3 – Overall 4 5 6 7 (Very Happy)

13.2 25.6 38.5 22.8

12.8 21.2 38.8 27.3

13.2 26.5 35.3 24.9

21.4 24.6 26.4 27.7

18.1 22.0 28.5 31.4

18.6 20.5 28.4 32.6

20.4 23.1 26.3 30.2

21.5 23.9 23.3 31.3

Fairness 1 – Household Chores Very unfair or unfair to husband Fair to both Very unfair or unfair to wife

4.2 66.6 29.2

4.3 6.8 62.6 74.6 33.1 18.6

8.4 54.2 37.3

2.6 75.7 21.8

3.1 70.4 26.5

5.1 82.8 12.1

4.9 67.0 28.1

Fairness 2 – Working for Pay Very unfair or unfair to husband Fair to both Very unfair or unfair to wife

7.0 85.1 8.0

8.3 11.2 82.7 76.1 9.0 12.8

6.3 85.3 8.5

5.1 87.7 7.1

6.7 84.4 8.9

5.7 86.6 7.6

5.8 84.7 9.5

Fairness 3 – Money Very unfair or unfair to husband Fair to both Very unfair or unfair to wife

7.0 88.0 5.0

6.3 7.4 86.1 78.4 7.6 14.2

9.5 77.2 13.3

6.5 88.1 5.4

5.7 85.8 8.5

7.5 86.5 6.0

6.3 81.2 12.5

Fairness 4 – Child Care Very unfair or unfair to husband Fair to both Very unfair or unfair to wife

2.9 70.2 26.7

3.2 6.4 70.8 86.8 26.0 6.9

3.6 62.5 33.9

2.7 78.2 19.1

2.5 75.7 21.8

3.5 87.3 9.2

3.4 80.7 15.9

Disagreements 1 – Household Tasks Never 30.2 Less than once a month 52.0 Several times a month or more 17.8

29.6 41.0 49.7 33.7 20.7 25.3

35.5 35.1 29.4

46.2 37.0 16.8

46.9 35.5 17.6

49.3 27.1 23.6

43.8 30.4 25.7

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HWH HWW HBH HBW LWH LWW LBH LBW Disagreements 2 – Money Never Less than once a month Several times a month or more

35.6 44.9 19.5

32.7 35.8 47.4 32.2 19.9 32.0

34.4 39.3 26.4

45.2 34.4 20.4

43.4 37.2 19.4

47.5 28.7 23.7

34.6 33.1 32.3

Disagreements 3 – Time Together Never 42.0 Less than once a month 38.0 Several times a month or more 20.0

46.1 30.6 35.7 40.8 18.3 28.9

37.3 37.0 25.8

52.5 26.7 20.9

55.4 26.5 18.1

49.1 23.1 27.8

46.2 23.5 30.3

Disagreements 4 – Sex Never Less than once a month Several times a month or more

55.6 56.6 32.7 25.2 11.7 18.3

50.4 30.7 18.9

60.9 24.1 15.0

63.5 24.9 11.7

62.2 15.5 22.3

59.6 16.5 23.9

Disagreements 5 – Having A(nother) Child Never 89.3 89.3 83.3 Less than once a month 8.3 8.2 13.7 Several times a month or more 2.5 2.5 3.0

88.9 4.3 6.8

90.5 6.9 2.6

93.3 5.2 1.5

87.6 7.2 5.2

89.1 6.0 4.9

Disagreements 6 – In-laws Never Less than once a month Several times a month or more

63.7 28.5 7.8

65.6 77.3 25.4 20.2 9.0 2.5

72.0 16.9 11.1

70.4 20.9 8.7

71.4 21.2 7.4

79.6 12.9 7.5

78.7 13.4 8.0

Disagreements 7 – Children Never Less than once a month Several times a month or more

25.8 47.0 27.2

22.6 50.0 44.3 38.9 33.1 11.3

44.6 25.8 29.6

35.7 37.8 26.6

29.4 40.7 29.9

55.3 21.3 23.4

45.3 27.1 27.6

Instability 1 – Marriage In Trouble No 78.5 During the past year but not now 15.8 Currently 5.7

72.6 71.9 18.9 16.7 8.5 11.5

61.7 28.2 10.2

82.3 13.2 4.5

78.2 14.8 7.0

81.9 10.3 7.8

78.0 11.2 10.8

Instability 2 – Discussed Separation Past Year No 89.0 86.8 80.6 Yes 11.1 13.2 19.4

79.7 20.3

90.4 9.7

89.1 10.9

88.4 11.6

83.3 16.8

Instability 3 – Chances of Separation Very low 76.0 Low 18.3 About even 4.5 High or very high 1.2

59.8 25.2 8.9 6.2

78.4 14.3 5.9 1.5

78.1 15.0 5.7 1.2

70.0 16.3 9.5 4.2

64.3 18.3 12.5 4.9

50.0 36.6 13.4

75.8 66.8 16.1 19.6 6.0 10.6 2.1 3.1

Notes: HWH ¼ Highly educated white husbands; HWW ¼ Highly educated white wives; HBH ¼ Highly educated black husbands; HBW ¼ Highly educated black wives; LWH ¼ Less educated white husbands; LWW ¼ Less educated white wives; LBH ¼ Less educated black husbands; LBW ¼ Less educated black wives. po.001.

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and children. For in-laws and children, highly educated women report more frequent disagreements than less educated women and within these two groups whites reported more frequent disagreements than blacks. A similar trend was observed for men with disagreements about in-laws, but for disagreements about children whites report more frequent disagreements than blacks, and among whites the highly educated report more frequent disagreements whereas the opposite is true for blacks. For both husbands and wives disagreements about sex and having a(nother) child were most frequent among less educated blacks, followed by highly educated blacks, highly educated whites, and finally less educated whites. This same pattern held for wives’ ratings of disagreements about money. For both husbands and wives, the frequency of disagreements about household chores and time together were more frequent among blacks than among whites, and within each racial group they were more frequent among the highly educated than the less educated. The same pattern held for husband’s reports of frequency of disagreements about money. Race and class differences in ratings of marital instability displayed similar patterns for husbands and wives. Blacks were more likely than whites to report discussing marital separation and reported higher likelihood of future marital separation, and within each racial group the highly educated reported more marital instability than the less educated. The highly educated were more likely than the less educated to report that their marriage was in trouble in the past year or that it is currently in trouble and within each educational status group blacks were more likely to report marriage trouble than whites. The data in Table 1 highlight the dramatic differences in the proportion of hypogamous marriages by race, class, and gender. In addition, indicators of marital happiness, fairness, disagreements, and instability demonstrated intricate hierarchies that were influenced by race, class, and gender and varied by type of outcome being examined. Table 2 reports the results of the dyadic structural equation models predicting global measures of marital disagreement, perceived fairness, relationship instability, and marital happiness. The purpose of these models was to determine the extent to which the wife having more education contributes to differences in these global measures of marital quality. It is important to remember that for these analyses the classification of high or low education is based on the highest level of education in the couple. In Table 3 significant differences between the coefficients reported in Table 2 are displayed. When considering marital disagreement in Table 2, the significant positive coefficient for white wives in highly educated couples indicates that in highly

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Table 2. OLS Parameter Estimates of the Impact of Wife Having More Education on the Latent Constructs of Marital Disagreement, Perceived Fairness, Relationship Instability, and Marital Happiness by Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender. Race

White

Gender

Black

Dependent Variable

Husband

Wife

Husband

Wife

Education

High Low

0.051 0.230

0.163 0.191

0.167 0.575

0.058 0.411

Marital Disagreement

Education

High Low

0.144 0.219

0.044 0.042

0.199 0.199

0.113 0.016

Perceived Fairness

Education

High Low

0.295 0.191

0.154 0.086

0.054 0.049

0.315 0.194

Marital Happiness

Education

High Low

0.269 0.525

0.411 0.636

Relationship Instability

0.145 0.128

0.446 0.194

Note: Significance based on confidence intervals from 1,000 bootstrapped samples. po.05, po.01.

educated white couples wives report higher levels of marital disagreement when they are in hypogamous marriages, compared to when the wife has equal or lower levels of education than the husband. This is significantly different than the impact of a wife having more education on husbands’ reports of marital disagreement in these marriages, which was not significantly influenced by the wife having more education. The impact of hypogamy in highly educated white couples for husbands and wives was significantly different from their less educated black and white counterparts. In less educated white and black couples, both husbands and wives report significantly lower levels of marital disagreement when the marriage is hypogamous, compared to when the wife has equal or less education than the husband. Among husbands in less educated couples, the impact of hypogamy on reducing marital disagreement was stronger for blacks than for whites. There were fewer significant effects of a wife having more education when examining perceived fairness, marital happiness, and relationship instability. In less educated white couples, husbands in hypogamous marriages rated fairness as being more unfair to the husband than when the wife had equal or less education, whereas hypogamy had no impact on wives’ ratings of fairness in these couples. When it came to marital happiness, hypogamy had

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Table 3. Significant Differences in the Impact of Wife Having More Education on Latent Constructs of Marital Disagreements, Fairness, Instability, and Happiness by Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender. Comparison Groups HWH HBH LWH LBH HWH HWH HWH HBH HBH LWH HWW HWW HWW HBW HBW LWW

HWW HBW LWW LBW HBH LWH LBH LWH LBH LBH HBW LWW LBW LWW LBW LBW

Disagreements

Fairness



Instability

Happiness









 

  

 

Notes: HWH ¼ Highly educated white husbands; HWW ¼ Highly educated white wives; HBH ¼ Highly educated black husbands; HBW ¼ Highly educated black wives; LWH ¼ Less educated white husbands; LWW ¼ Less educated white wives; LBH ¼ Less educated black husbands; LBW ¼ Less educated black wives. po.001. Significance based on confidence intervals from 1,000 bootstrapped samples. po.05, po.01.

a positive impact on the marital happiness of white husbands in highly educated couples. This was significantly greater than the impact of hypogamy on their wives’ ratings of marital happiness. In addition, the coefficient for white husbands in less educated couples was significantly greater than for their wives. Hypogamy had a significant impact on relationship instability only for white wives in highly educated couples, where wives in these marriages reported higher levels of marital instability than wives with equal or less education than their husbands. This is significantly greater than the impact of hypogamy on their husband’s perceptions of marital instability, and the impact of hypogamy on wives’ reports of marital instability for black and white wives in less educated couples. While the coefficient for black wives in highly educated couples was not significant it was also relatively large and in the positive direction.

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DISCUSSION We find that the level of marital happiness is shaped by race, class, and gender. While previous research (Dillaway & Broman, 2001; Harknett & McLanahan, 2004) has found that whites are generally more happily married than blacks, and men are more happily married than women, our findings show a more nuanced hierarchy, with less educated white husbands and wives demonstrating the highest levels of marital happiness, followed by less educated and highly educated black husbands, then highly educated white husbands and wives, and finally less educated and highly educated black wives. Thus, the higher levels of marital happiness for whites is most prominent among couples with less education, and the higher levels of marital happiness for men is most prominent in black couples (regardless of education). Previous research has found that black married couples have more dissimilarities than white married couples (Clarkwest, 2007), and our research suggests some of the outcomes of such dissimilarities, such as greater dissatisfaction among African Americans over time spent together and the distribution of housework. In fact, African Americans had more frequent disagreements in nearly every aspect of marriage, such as sex, having another child, and money, than do whites. The intersections of race, gender, and status were also evident in our research. For example, our findings reveal that black wives are less satisfied with the fairness in their marriages than white wives, but status also matters: Highly educated wives have lower levels of marital happiness than less educated wives of the same race and are more likely to see the division of housework and child care as unfair. Husbands were generally more happily married than wives, and they perceived more equity in the marriage relationship. But here again, status and race mattered: The highest level of marital happiness for men was found among less educated white husbands and the lowest among less educated black men. Marriages were simply not working as well for less educated black men, who were more likely to report disagreements over sex and having children and indicate marital instability. Education also tended to affect black and white men in different ways. White husbands were more likely than black husbands to report that how working for money was arranged in their relationship was fair to both spouses and to see the distribution of household chores and child care as unfair to their wives. However, less educated black and white husbands were more likely to report arrangements for household chores, working for pay, and childcare were

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fair to both spouses than their higher educated counterparts. For how money was spent there were no education differences in rating of fairness among whites, but among blacks the less educated reported more fairness to both spouses. The impact of being in a hypogamous marriage on marital quality differed by race, class, and gender, and the type of marital quality indicator being examined. Our findings qualify results reported by Tynes (1990) who found that husbands in hypogamous marriages reported higher levels of marital satisfaction, by specifying that for men marrying up in terms of education has a positive impact on overall marital happiness among white husbands but not black husbands. Status discrepancy was also an important predictor of perceived fairness for white husbands in less educated couples, with those in hypogamous marriages reporting significantly lower levels of perceived fairness for the husband than men married to equal or less educated wives. Overall, our results indicate that the strongest negative impact of being in a hypogamous marriage on marital quality is experienced by white women in highly educated couples. For highly educated white wives, hypogamy contributed to an increase in marital disagreements. Among these high education wives who were in hypogamous marriages, the level of marital instability was also significantly higher than for wives in high education marriages who had equal or less education than their husband. These findings suggest that highly educated wives in hypogamous marriages are more likely to consider leaving unfulfilling marriages than their less educated counterparts. In less educated hypogamous couples, the wife may have more education than her husband, but it may not be enough education for her to feel that her prospects are better elsewhere. Conversely, for white husbands in high education couples, those in hypogamous marriages report significantly higher levels of marital happiness, and both black and white husbands and wives in lower education couples report fewer marital disagreements in these marriages. These findings demonstrate that hypogamous marriages are associated with marital quality benefits for some groups, relative to their peers in homogamous or heterogamous marriages.

LIMITATIONS The status gains of women have resulted in research on how status discrepancies between married couples affect marital quality; however, the findings have been contradictory, possibly because of the failure to examine

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the impact of intersecting multiple inequalities on marital quality. By using an intersectionality framework, the current study advances research in the field, but it is not without limitations and is exploratory given the absence of previous research using an intersectionality perspective. First, while the dataset we used was optimal for exploring gender, race, and class differences, it is based on data collected in the late 1980s, and much has changed since then. Today, marriages in which the wife has more education than the husband are more common than in the past, and more couples are accustomed to marriages where husbands and wives are of equal status. The impact of these changes on the relationships observed in this study is an empirical question that can only be answered with more recent data. To our knowledge, however, we are using the most up-to-date, nationally representative dataset with detailed marital quality indicators for couples that also included specific information on educational attainment. This demonstrates a strong need for more comprehensive contemporary data collection. Particularly important in this endeavor is ensuring adequate sample sizes from minority populations. We did not have sufficient sample sizes to extend our analyses to additional racial-ethnic groups, and we would have benefited from a larger sample of African Americans, particularly those of higher status. Quantitative analyses from an intersectionality perspective require adequate numbers of respondents at the intersection of each race, gender, and class category in order to have the statistical power necessary to identify significant effects. Future data collection efforts should consider these intersections during sampling in order to facilitate further studies using this approach.

CONCLUSIONS Despite these limitations, our use of an intersectionality perspective yielded important insights about how status and multiple inequalities affect marriage. Our research captures how marital quality varies among couples based on race, class, and gender position and, more importantly, the intersection of those positions. In larger context, it reflects continuing inequality in access to the resources and ideologies that enhance marital satisfaction. Such inequalities explain why marital quality is lower for wives than husbands and lower for blacks than whites. We have shown that status, as measured by education, further explains the impact of inequalities and have delineated the specific areas of marital discord. We contend that education shapes marital expectations, especially as they pertain to issues of

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gender equity. Educated women bring to their marriages greater expectations of equity, and are less satisfied with their relationships than less educated women. Couples in hypogamous status discrepant marriages, but especially educated women, also experienced more unfairness and marital disagreements. Most educated black women (66%) were in such marriages, so status, gender, and race affected their marital dissatisfaction. While our intersectionality perspective and national dataset have enabled us to delineate how multiple inequalities shape important aspects of marital quality, research on this topic would benefit immensely from follow-up studies using qualitative approaches. Such research would enable us to understand the social processes that underlie these trends (e.g., the decisionmaking processes of women who enter hypogamous relationships, their marital expectations) and the dynamics of how couples seek to achieve marital happiness or negotiate marital discord.

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CULTURAL CONTRADICTION OR INTEGRATION? WORK–FAMILY SCHEMAS OF BLACK MIDDLE CLASS MOTHERS Paul Dean, Kris Marsh and Bart Landry ABSTRACT Purpose – While existing literature on work–family schemas has focused on white middle-class mothers, we examine how race, class, and gender shape black middle-class mothers’ work and family life. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing upon 31 in-depth, semistructured interviews with mothers (and their husbands), this chapter utilizes an intersectional approach to explore distinct cultural schemas for work and family. Findings – We document two schemas that define conceivable and desirable roles for black motherhood, work, and family. Some black middle-class mothers interpreted work and family roles as contradictory following the schema of family devotion (Blair-Loy, 2003). However, most mothers interpreted work and family as complementary roleidentities, following a schema we call work–family integration. They enacted dual roles of mother and worker, integrating them into a meaningful, multi-dimensional view of black womanhood. Notions of Family: Intersectional Perspectives Advances in Gender Research, Volume 17, 137–158 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-2126(2013)0000017010

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Research limitations/implications – The findings emphasize the need for a more intersectional approach to research on work and family. Given existing literature documenting racial variation in work–family conflict, it also suggests that this may be explained by racial variation in cultural schemas. However, because our sample was limited to black middle-class, heterosexual couples with children, we were unable to make comparisons or generalizations to other groups. We recommend future research that draws comparisons across race, class, sexuality, gender, and/or family structure. Originality/value – This chapter introduces a new cultural schema, work– family integration; provides empirical research on an underexplored group, black middle-class families; and adds further nuance to cultural theories of work and family. Keywords: Work and family; motherhood; intersectionality; work– family balance; black middle class; culture

Scholarship on work and family has expanded significantly in recent years (Bianchi & Milkie, 2010), and understanding how men and women make meaning out of their work and family roles is one central part of this research agenda. Important theoretical and empirical advances have been made in this area by identifying ‘‘cultural models’’ or ‘‘cultural schemas’’ that define these roles and their inter-relationship. For example, Blair-Loy (2003, p. 1) defines work–family cultural schemas as ‘‘the conceivable, the moral, and the desirable [that] help sculpt the capitalist firm and the nuclear family, shape personalities, and create work-family conflict.’’ Through in-depth interviews, she identified ‘‘competing devotions’’ between work and family, where women interpreted each role as demanding a single-minded focus, which inevitably leads to feelings of guilt and irreconcilability. In earlier interviews with mothers, Hays (1996) documented an ideology of ‘‘intensive mothering,’’ which leads to a ‘‘cultural contradiction of motherhood’’ making it impossible to meet expectations of both the family and workplace. However, studies of these cultural schemas have been limited to nearly homogenous white samples of women (Blair-Loy, 2003; Hays, 1996; Potuchek, 1997) and, in some cases these schemas are portrayed to be ‘‘universal’’ ideologies (Barnett & Rivers, 1996; Moen & Yum, 2000). The fact that they ignore the implications of racial differences among women, such as African-American experiences, is particularly striking, given the fact

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that scholars have long noted that family formations vary by race. For example, research has shown that black families have emphasized broader roles for women (Collins, 1994; Daniel Barnes, 2008; Hill, 1972/2003; Hill, 2011; Lacy, 2007; Landry, 2002; Marsh, Darity, Cohen, Casper, & Salters, 2007; Roehling, Jarvis, & Swope, 2005; Shaw, 1996) and experience less work–family conflict than whites (Taylor, Funk, & Clark, 2007; Voydanoff, 2005b). Nonetheless, there remains a significant gap in our knowledge of racial differences in work–family practices (Bianchi & Milkie, 2010) and, in particular, there have been no systematic studies that empirically examine the ‘‘cultural schemas’’ of child rearing, family, and work for black mothers. This research suggests that instead of depicting cultural schemas as ‘‘universal’’ ideologies, that we adopt an intersectional approach to work and family schemas. An intersectional approach (Andersen & Collins, 1998; Collins, 1994) examines how the structural locations (gender, class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, family structure, etc.) intersect to co-produce unique social experiences and interpretations of parenting and womanhood. Given the lack of empirical work on these intersecting categories (Marks & Leslie, 2000), this chapter attempts to fill this gap by examining the cultural schemas of work and family within black middle-class families. Specifically, we ask: (1) how do black middle-class couples conceptualize the wife’s motherhood role in relationship to work and family, and (2) what cultural templates or schemas do they draw upon in their work and family practices?

CULTURAL SCHEMAS FOR WORK AND FAMILY Cultural schemas for work and family give meaning and purpose to people’s lives (Blair-Loy, 2001, 2003; Blair-Loy & DeHart, 2003). They provide conceivable ways to live one’s life, delineate moral boundaries, influence the desirability of various possibilities, and in doing so, help shape dispositions and guide action. In her study of women in elite careers, Blair-Loy identified two ideal-typical work–family schemas. The ‘‘family devotion schema,’’ traditionally prescribed to women, gave meaning to marriage and parenting, and required that an individual spend a great deal of time caring for their children, household, and spouse. The ‘‘work devotion schema,’’ traditionally prescribed to men, promoted a narrow focus on career and emphasized breadwinning for the family. Each schema prescribes a meaningful life with a clear reward structure for family (intimacy, creativity, family fulfillment, and community with other parents) and work devotion (advancement, financial security,

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status, interesting work, collegiality, and intensity). According to Blair-Loy, these are ‘‘competing devotions’’ or ‘‘seemingly irreconcilable commitments’’ with each demanding a single-minded focus. Women attempt to meet both sets of expectations but become torn in both directions, thus experiencing guilt in not being able to sufficiently satisfy either set of demands. Hays (1996) presented a similar cultural configuration in what she described as the ‘‘ideology of intensive mothering.’’ Like the family devotion schema, it requires that mothers devote huge amounts of time, money, and effort into raising their children. Hays (1996, p. x) argued that working mothers, therefore, face cultural contradictions in contemporary work and family life. Mothers have a choice in that they can either be stay-at-home mothers or transform into a ‘‘supermom’’ that juggles both career and household (Hays, 1996) by adopting strategies to meet demands of both spheres (Garey, 1996). However, our market-oriented society presents stayat-home mothers as ‘‘mindless and bored’’ and working mothers as not sufficiently meeting their obligations in the home. Hays argues that both cultural images ‘‘portray all women as somehow less than adequate in their daily lives’’ (p. 133). These templates are viewed as ‘‘cultural models’’ that are each ‘‘first and foremost an interpretive structure, a meaning system’’ where ‘‘[a]ctual relationships are not dictated or determined by the model, but rather experience is anticipated, interpreted, and evaluated in light of it’’ (Holland & Eisenhart, 1990, p. 95 cited in Townsend, 2002, p. 3). They serve as powerful, shared cultural means of interpreting experiences and moral commitments, thereby shaping the individual’s ‘‘deepest social and personal identities’’ of who they are as men and women, parent and worker (Blair-Loy, 2003, p. 4). The point here is not that most women actually adhere to these ideal types, but rather that they recognize them as the normal social roles for mothers (and fathers) and interpret their own expectations and experiences through these sets of meaning. Despite their existence largely as myth, and feminists’ contrarian voices, numerous studies show that these schemas continue to be a driving force in the contemporary imagination and are reproduced continually in the media (Barnett & Rivers, 1996; Coontz, 1992; Holcomb, 1998; Townsend, 2002). This image of the ‘‘traditional’’ family, however, has always been based on a white middle-class (and usually married heterosexual couples with children) ideal (Marks & Leslie, 2000). And as Orbuch and Custer (1995, pp. 334–335) put it, these ‘‘role attitudes’’ are ‘‘embedded within the context of a racial/ethnic culture, consisting of norms and expectations’’ unique to different racial/ethnic groups, which have not been examined in the existing literature (Voydanoff, 2002).

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BLACK’S WORK AND FAMILY PATTERNS The notion that work–family cultures vary by race is rooted in the historical legacy of racism. As the traditional ideology of the family took shape in mid-19th century within the white middle class, black families were excluded. Freed from the constraint of the emerging restrictive gendered family norms, black middle-class wives gradually forged a more egalitarian ideology of the family, which included membership in the labor force as part of their identity (Hill, 2011; Landry, 2002). Long before the 1970s when white women began returning to the workforce, black professional women were ‘‘having it all and doing it all’’ (Shaw, 1996). In black families, husbands and wives were ‘‘co-breadwinners’’ where’s women’s employment was not as likely to threaten their husband’s manhood or violate black community norms (Landry, 2002). Unlike their white counterparts, black wives had work roles compatible with mothering and were not stigmatized for it. The degree to which this cultural schema remains today, however, is unclear. On the one hand, several studies document persistent black–white variation in work and family patterns (Blee & Tickamyer, 1995; Dixon, 2009; Cowdery et al., 2009; Harris & Firestone, 1998; Hill, 2011; McLoyd, 1993; Orbuch & Custer, 1995). Most recently, the Pew Research Center conducted a nationally representative poll in 2007 that showed ‘‘black mothers are more likely than white or Hispanic mothers to consider employed moms – especially full-time working moms – ideal for children’’ (Taylor et al., 2007, p. 5). Other researchers have found that compared to white husbands, black husbands participate in more household activities and childcare (Hossain & Roopnarine, 1993; Kamo & Cohen, 1998; Willie, 1985; Maret & Finlay, 1984) with black families having less genderdifferentiated tasks more generally (Broman, 1988; Hill, 2011; Taylor, Chatters, Tucker, & Lewis, 1991). Black families are also considered to have greater values of communalism including stronger family ties and a greater orientation to children (Roehling et al., 2005; McLoyd, 1993; Wilson, 1989). On the other hand, as the black middle class has grown, they may be adopting the dominant cultural ideologies from the American mainstream. In one of the only existing studies to examine work and family among the black middle class, Daniel Barnes (2008) spoke with mothers about how they ‘‘conceptualize and respond to perceived work-family conflict.’’ She found that the young black mothers she interviewed were more likely to stay home than their own mothers. Through detailed case studies of five mothers (four stay-at-home mothers and one mother who worked part-time), her

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results showed that these black mothers responded to work–family conflict by investing more heavily in their marriages, becoming more familycentered, focusing on child-rearing, challenging and reinventing community expectations for their individual career achievement while instilling ‘‘middleclass blackness’’ within their children (Daniel Barnes, 2008; Lacy, 2007). This study seeks to build upon this work by speaking with black middleclass husbands and wives about their work and family lives. Using an intersectional approach, we examined the cultural schemas, or models, which they drew upon to interpret the mother’s work and family roles (Landry, 2007). By analyzing the meanings and expectations that respondents attribute to particular roles and role configurations, we explored the degree to which black middle-class couples experience competing devotions, or cultural contradictions of motherhood. How do black middle-class mothers conceptualize their mothering in relationship to work? What cultural templates or schemas do they draw upon in their work and family practices?

METHOD This analysis is part of a larger study of the black middle-class in Prince George’s County, Maryland. With the largest concentration of black wealth in the United States, Prince George’s County has been recognized as an ideal location to study this group (e.g., Lacy, 2007). Our data consists of indepth, semi-structured interviews with 31 married black, heterosexual mothers (and their black spouses for a total of 62 respondents), conducted in 2007. We began by identifying initial respondents who were familiar with the community, and asked them for referrals, thus getting respondents through snowball sampling. While this technique made them less representative of the national population (or even Prince George’s County), it is a highly effective procedure for collecting qualitative data and allowed us to effectively obtain interviews with married couples with at least one child, where at least one spouse had a professional or managerial occupation. In most cases, both parents held a professional or managerial occupation at some point in their career and all couples owned their own home. Both parents had bachelor’s degrees or higher, with a few exceptions. All families had a combined income of at least $140,000. They had between one and five children, with an average of 2.1 children per family. At the time of interview, wives were aged 35–55, with an average of 44.2 years. Husbands were between 35 and 61 years of age, with an average of 44.4 years. In the context of this study, this sample was selected for theoretical purposes in that both

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parents had advanced in their careers, had children, and were middle class or upper-middle class. This technique of gathering ‘‘extreme cases’’ is consistent with other methodological approaches used in the study of women’s work–family schemas (Blair-Loy, 2003), and allows us to examine how husbands and wives conceptualize the mother’s roles in the family. Interviews took place in the respondents’ home with one or two interviewers, including one of the authors and in most cases, a trained graduate student. Husbands and wives were interviewed together. Interviews were from one hour and three minutes to three hours and thirty-eight minutes with an average length of one hour and fifty-three minutes. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and respondents were given pseudonyms to maintain confidentiality. Questions relevant to this study focused on the mother’s and father’s work history, including workplace experiences; work–family schedules (hours worked, scheduling, child care, potential conflicts, and ideal situations); child-rearing; decisions concerning maternity leave (timing, motivations, and ideal situations); and the household division of labor. In each of these cases, interviewers probed respondents about how they interpreted their work and family lives to better understand their meaning-making processes, and the cultural frameworks that shaped their desires and motivated their actions. Data analysis consisted of analyzing interview data through several stages of inductive and deductive coding. Following the principles of grounded theory (Charmaz, 2004; Corbin & Strauss, 2008), we used the first stage of line-by-line, open coding to identify what themes emerged from the data in relation to respondents’ work and family. After recognizing emergent themes and patterns in the data, we began crafting memos linking data to theory, and proceeded with a second round of focused coding. This more focused coding entailed systematically coding all transcripts based on our initial themes (e.g., attitudes about integrating work and family roles, preferences for limited maternity leave, attitudes about outsourcing childcare, etc.). All focused coding was completed by both of the first two authors on this chapter, either by coding together or by working independently, then checking for consistency and resolving discrepancies. This process improved validity and facilitated inter-coder reliability. The final data analysis was a more deductive process using a data matrix. The data matrix was organized as a table (i.e., a spreadsheet) in columns and rows, and is an established and highly effective tool for organizing and analyzing qualitative data (e.g., see Miles & Huberman, 1994). Each quote, or cell, is essentially a ‘‘data point,’’ or an ‘‘instance,’’ that may or may not support the proposed schema. By evaluating the relative strength of

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confirming and disconfirming evidence, this final step permitted falsifiability and increased validity.

RESULTS We found that while black middle class mothers in our sample all drew upon a class-based strategy of concerted cultivation (Lareau, 2003), they tended to draw upon two different cultural schemas for work and family. We begin by documenting the cultural schema of work–family integration, which has not been documented in the literature, but has its roots within generations of black families. Under this schema, mothers believed their career was equally as important as their husband’s career, returned to full-time work after childbirth, held the dual identities of worker-mother, and relied heavily upon others for childcare to facilitate this arrangement. In contrast, under the cultural schema of family devotion that has been documented among studies of white mothers (Blair-Loy, 2003), women believed their ‘‘natural’’ place was in the home and became full-time stay-at-home moms. They were not comfortable allowing others to care for their children. These cultural schemas are ideal types that we construct below by drawing upon interview data from mothers that clearly fit predominately in one or the other type.

Work–Family Integration This section consists of the majority of our sample (23 mothers) that returned to work after a standard amount of maternity leave (usually between six weeks and six months, and in a few cases up to a year). After having children, these mothers enacted cultural frameworks that integrated work with their family lives, acknowledging the importance of each, and returning to their career (and often the same job) they had temporarily left. In doing so, they drew upon interpretive schemas through which they made sense of work and family, and which shaped their perceptions of various resources – including family, friends, child care providers, flexible workplace policies, domestic workers, and ideological resources – which were mobilized to resume their careers, sometimes blurring the boundaries between work and family. We refer to the cultural schema guiding the actions of these mothers as work–family integration. At first glance, many mothers in this group appeared to follow the schema of family devotion. For example, Dyonne, a Program Analyst and mother

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of two, emphasized the importance of children when we met with her and her husband: ‘‘I wanted four children y I love children y it was just important to me to have kids – that’s one of the reasons I got married.’’ For Dyonne and other mothers guided by the schema of work–family integration, having children – indeed many children – was an essential part of marriage and her identity as a woman. Like mothers guided by the family devotion schema (Blair-Loy, 2001, 2003), they received fulfillment, meaning, and intimacy with their children and husbands. However, unlike mothers guided by the family devotion schema (see below), these mothers did not believe that motherhood and children demanded a singular focus. Instead, they interpreted children and motherhood as one component of a multi-dimensional schema of womanhood, which also included dedication to, and rewards from, a career. This was reflected by Megan, a financial entrepreneur and mother of two, when she explained ‘‘we realize that [our 2 kids] are our responsibility so we’ll do whatever we have to do y [but] I integrate work, community service, whatever else we have going on with family’’ (emphasis added). Like Megan, mothers motivated by this cultural schema sought to ‘‘integrate’’ work with their family life, but did not feel that one came at the expense of the other. To better evaluate how mothers made meaning of their work and family, we asked the mothers about their decisions about maternity leave and what their ideal scenario would have been. In general, we found that under this schema, mothers desired to return to work and did not believe that, as the biological mother, they were the only morally acceptable caregiver for a supposedly fragile child. For example, we spoke with Chelesa who held a master’s degree and worked as a physician’s assistant, earning about $100,000, in addition to her husband’s income as a lawyer. Chelesa took six to eight weeks for her older daughter and almost three months for her younger daughter. When we asked her if she wanted more time for maternity, she responded: No. I was ready to go back to work. It’s tough being at home all day. When I would pick them up from the daycare center I would say to them, ‘‘I don’t know how you do it every day with these kids, but thank you very much. Here’s my check.’’ [laugh] So no, I was ready to go. (Chelesa, Physician’s Assistant, mother of two)

This response was typical among mothers in this group. Like Chelesa, Toni, a mother of a twelve-year old son when interviewed, also mentioned ‘‘after six weeks I was ready to go back to work.’’ These mothers were fully prepared to return to work, and expected to remain actively employed even with young children.

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When we asked Jacqui if she wanted more maternity leave than the four to five months she took, she suggested she might have wanted up to a year, but that staying home ‘‘never entered my mind.’’ Cultural schemas partially shape actions by defining what is possible or reasonable (Blair-Loy, 2003), and this expectation was common among working black middle-class mothers. Their mothers often worked full-time and they, too, were raised to be successful in careers. Out of all the husbands and wives that we interviewed, our respondents’ mothers were 31% more likely to graduate from college than their fathers. Given the educational and occupational attainment of their parents, these black women were more likely to have strong female models – especially successful black professional women (Shaw, 1996). It makes sense, therefore, that the women above always expected to have children but never thought that this would come at the expense of their work. Through their cultural framework for integrating work and family, these mothers never questioned if their careers would be interrupted when having children. It is necessary, then, to consider how their beliefs and attitudes about children and child-rearing fit within their cultural schema of work and family. Given that all but one of the fathers in our study worked full-time, couples with wives motivated by the schema of work–family integration also had to ensure child care for their children while they were at work. For these mothers, decisions about child care had to match their cultural expectations for what was moral and desirable in child-rearing. Consider Tia, a media consultant and mother of two. When asked about the six months of maternity leave she took for each child, she felt it was acceptable for her in the context of her child care options: Interviewer: Did you feel like you needed more time to stay at home? Tia: Nope, I felt like that was a good amount of time Husband: She was dying to get back to work y Tia: So I felt like, yeah, it was a good amount of time and I was ready to go back and we didn’t have like the whole childcare issue. I wasn’t at work thinking ‘‘oh my gosh – is he in a corner somewhere crying?’’ And I think that, for a lot of women, that is part of the struggle. (Tia, Media Consultant, mother of two)

Tia and her husband drew on a broad ‘‘network of friends and family to help out’’ to ensure their children received proper care. This included frequent help from the child’s grandparents, and the occasional help from a friend or neighbor, whose children went to the same school. Tia believed parents struggle most with the child care issue but because of her broad

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support network, she was able to rely on others for help with child care, enabling her to return to work full-time and not feel guilty about leaving her children. For parents with mothers guided by the schema of work–family integration, it was very common – indeed necessary – to rely upon others (paid and unpaid) for child care duties. In these cases, parents almost always relied on other family members if they lived in the area, arguing that ‘‘without our family we couldn’t have done it.’’ Rather than interpreting child care as solely the parents’ responsibility, these couples expected other family members to help out. For example, they believed that ‘‘you need like grandmothers and aunts, people to pick kids up from the schools when there’s emergencies and you can’t get home’’ (Sheri, Computer Scientist, mother of two). In the absence of nearby family, or in cases when family could not help, most couples drawing upon the schema of work–family integration also relied on unrelated, paid child care providers to return to their careers. These included the use of child care centers, family child care providers, and inhome services (nannies, au pairs, etc.). For example, Belinda was in the medical field with three children. When their first child was two, she and her husband put the son in an ‘‘early child learning center’’ that ‘‘was really good for him,’’ and later hired after school care providers until he was ‘‘mature’’ enough to ‘‘let him come home alone’’ (age 11 or 12). While reflecting on what was best for her children, Belinda stated ‘‘I think they’ve done okay with me not staying at home.’’ In general, these couples felt ‘‘comfortable’’ leaving their children in the ‘‘good hands’’ of their child care provider. They commonly relied upon nannies, babysitters, and other care givers because ‘‘we gotta get it done.’’ These expectations were shaped by their cultural schema, and for these couples, these caregiving arrangements were just a fact of life: when both parents are working, you simply find dependable providers and you rely on them to make work and family integration work. They took it for granted that they needed to find someone for child care, and the central issue was just about finding someone ‘‘dependable.’’ When couples had bad experiences with external providers, they often interpreted this as unusual: ‘‘we had apparently just picked the wrong place’’ (Natalie, Journalist, mother of one). They blamed it on bad luck, rather than attributing the problem categorically to external care providers. The cultural schema of these parents suggests that people other than family and friends (i.e., ‘‘strangers’’) could participate in some degree of childrearing. In general, these mothers were ‘‘very pleased’’ with their daycare and emphasized its educational dimensions (including teaching writing, counting, using a computer, and social skills). As we show below, this was very

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different from the stay-at-home mothers who saw such child-rearing practices as ‘‘unnatural’’ and morally reprehensible. In describing their rationale for having limited maternity leave, mothers operating within this schema often reported wanting to get back to work, invoking meanings about work and family that extended beyond child care issues. Specifically, mothers sought the gratification and material rewards that their middle-class careers offered them. For example, Tia’s work as a Media Consultant carried a special significance: I really do enjoy what I do and in all honesty, no one ever says to me in this house, ‘‘oh my gosh, mom, thanks so much for making dinner. It was great – you did just a stellar job on that chicken, oh my gosh!’’ But in the workplace, you know, that’s where you get your gratification where people actually thank you and recognize you for doing a good job. I just think, as humans, we kind of need that. I know that I need it personally, but I do enjoy what I do. And it’s also nice to have that interaction with other working adults and y and I think I would probably throw myself off the roof if I was just like a total stay at home mom. (Tia, Media Consultant, mother of two)

In the cultural schema of work–family integration, reward structures were not focused entirely on children and the family, but also on work. These mothers simultaneously attained fulfillment, validation, and a meaningful life both as mothers and through interesting, gratifying work. They did not believe that motherhood or work demanded single-minded focus as other cultural schemas suggested (Blair-Loy, 2003; Hays, 1996), but instead saw themselves as enacting dual roles of mother and worker, integrating the two roles to form a meaningful, balanced life. To these mothers, the notion of staying at home seemed so one-dimensional as to seem unthinkable. Beyond the meaning that work provided these mothers, it also provided material rewards necessary to maintain the household and allowed them to live an upper-middle class lifestyle. Several mothers noted that part of their motivation to take so little time off was because their family could not make it on one income. For example, Belinda believed ‘‘we just needed both salaries just to make sure [our 3 kids] were taken care of.’’ For this mother, her husband’s salary of $115,000–130,000 was not enough, and she therefore felt her additional $40,000–55,000 was needed to maintain the household. These mothers were more likely to view themselves as co-breadwinners (Landry, 2002), or as one husband put it: ‘‘we both are head of household.’’ Guided by the cultural schema of work–family integration, couples saw dual incomes as part of a meaningful way to support the family, even if this meant outsourcing child care or other domestic duties.

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However, despite the historical legacy of black women’s work and more egalitarian relationships (Landry, 2002), the cultural schema of our black middle class wives still functioned within a highly gendered society. The cultural schema of work–family integration for working mothers was constantly being reproduced through decision-making processes within these dual-earner couples. For example, Meisha had three children (13, 9, and 5 years old) and was a successful newspaper journalist. When asked about her choices for maternity leave and child care, she also situated her decision-making within a career-oriented perspective: ‘‘That was an assertion on my part that my career was every bit as important to me as [my husband’s] is to [him].’’ She reported that after having a child, she was just getting started in her career and ‘‘it was important to me in my career, to stay and learn my craft y if I can’t do what I do, I’m going to be resentful.’’ When the couple was asked about child care arrangements and domestic duties, the mother joked ‘‘I need my own stay-at-home wife.’’ Here, Meisha clearly meant to be humorous but it was interesting to note she needed her own stay-at-home ‘‘wife’’ rather than a stay-at-home ‘‘husband.’’ Instead of suggesting a role reversal because of the significance of her career, she actually constructed a nonsensical role configuration (from the perspective of a heterosexual relationship) to emphasize the significance of her own work and career. The notion that she needed a stayat-home wife suggested that if anyone was to stay at home, it would be the wife, thus reflecting broader gender ideologies more common among white middle class mothers. Of course, while women motivated by the schema of work–family integration saw family and career as entirely compatible, this does not mean that achieving balance between them was easy. While many mothers made no significant changes to their jobs and careers, Denise (Business owner, Real Estate Agent, and mother of four) and some other mothers guided by the schema of work–family integration believed they had to make some work and life adjustments. However, the important point is that it did not mean ending one’s career, as it did for mothers motivated by the schema of family devotion below. Again, for many mothers the notion of ending one’s career was unthinkable under this cultural framework. Instead, they enacted a variety of strategies to balance work and family (Becker & Moen, 1999; McLoyd, Toyokawa, & Kaplan, 2008; Moen & Yum, 2000). These included adjusting work schedules, reducing work hours, changing jobs to minimize commuting time, and in more extreme cases, changing careers or starting new businesses that allowed them to work from home.

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Family Devotion This section examines eight mothers (26% of our sample) who left the work force completely to focus on their families. In interviews, these mothers emphasized that their first and primary responsibility was to the family, in particular raising their children. They adopted an ideology of intensive mothering (Hays, 1996), where mothers saw a cultural contradiction between work and family. Rather than seeking to integrate work and family, they followed the cultural schema that Blair-Loy (2003) referred to as family devotion. It reflects a cult of domesticity (Landry, 2002) and a fully committed effort to segment, rather than integrate, work and family. Through their cultural schema, mothers invoked moral values of right and wrong – assumptions about the rightful place for mothers in work and family life. Unlike the mothers above who expected to continue working, the mothers in this group believed it was not ‘‘natural’’ to be a working mother. For example, La Toya, a mother of two children, who worked as a teacher (and was married to an attorney) before leaving the labor force, stated: Both of our parents’ mothers stayed home so that was more of y something that we do. You stay home and you raise your kids as opposed to bringing someone in to raise your children. Or daycare. That just, to me that just didn’t seem natural. (La Toya, former Teacher, stay-at-home mother of two)

This couple decided that the wife would quit her job instead of taking limited maternity leave. They had been socialized into a schema of family devotion through their parents, who also provided financial assistance to ensure that the wife could remain at home with their young children. Several mothers in this group corroborated this emphasis on the natural order of parents raising children. However, while working mothers were seen as unnatural, full-time employment for their husbands was a taken-for-granted fact of life. In some cases, mothers in this group invoked other cultural schemas in a negative light to describe their own work–family choices. For example, Kafayat, who ‘‘always wanted to be a stay home mother’’ was in information technology prior to becoming a mother. She and her husband both had advanced degrees and a combined income of over $200,000, but they thought it was very important for her to be at home: Before I even had a child I always wanted to be able to stay home with that child y And I notice a different kind of paradigm from a lot of my coworkers, my friends. They’re like ‘‘put that child in daycare, go about your business.’’ But I’m one of those people who feel like some things you can’t really delegate y because the bottom line is I hold

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him responsible for bringing home the money y it’s just the way I was raised. I was raised that the husband is still the head of the house, still provider for the house. And if I have to work outside of the home, this is a luxury. Working outside of the home was not my primary job. The home is my primary job. I still believe that. (Kafayat, former IT Professional, stay-at-home mother of one) .

While this mother expected her husband to be the breadwinner, she believed her primary role was in the home, adding ‘‘work outside of the home is a luxury.’’ Unlike the mothers motivated by a schema of work–family integration, these couples did not interpret the mother’s career as important as the father’s career. Work was not supposed to be a place where mothers sought gratification and meaning because this came at the expense of the child and the home. Her natural role was not both mother and cobreadwinner but solely as child care provider. This schema subsequently shaped their long-term family planning, with the wife noting that they ‘‘made a conscious effort to save y so that if I did ever have a child, that I could have the flexibility of staying home.’’ The husband, who was in full agreement with his wife, added that ‘‘it was y seven years that we planned.’’ They fully embraced the gendered notion that the mother’s natural responsibility was to stay home and raise their children. When further discussing their reasons for coming home and not working, mothers often reported issues around daycare and the formative years, invoking meanings about the crucial early stages in the life of the child. Specifically, mothers wanted to stay home with the child ‘‘until they got to a certain age.’’ For example, Kafayat, who lived in North Carolina prior to moving to Prince George’s county in 2001, clearly noted that a ‘‘personal desire of mine, [was] to spend some of those developmental years, those formative years’’ with her child. This mother continued by invoking more traditional mainstream ideals: ‘‘twenty years ago, women stayed home with their children, until they got to that school age, and then they were able to go back into the workforce.’’ She saw her need to be at home until the children reached school age. Another mother, Carla, discussed how she wanted to ‘‘be home with them when they start[ed] doing their first things.’’ By raising the child in their formative years, this mother sought to develop a stronger bond with her child by participating in key events in the child’s development. In general, mothers wanted to be home to escort their children to school while simultaneously having the privilege of seeing their children reach certain developmental markers, such as their first word and first steps. In the cultural schema of family devotion, these mothers received fulfillment and validation from bonding and focusing solely on their children. But this was not always immediately apparent to mothers we spoke with. For example,

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Shindana, who worked in the banking industry and had a premature child, described her attempt at putting her child in daycare and returning to work: I thought ‘‘I’m ready to go back to work,’’ [so I] took her to day care. And I cried all day, said I don’t know about this. I tried to stick it out until the end of the year, and I did, then I resigned. And I’ve been with her ever since y just the idea of someone else spending more time with my daughter and they were able to influence her more than I was, you know? That was a big issue for me. (Shindana, former Bank Processor, stay-athome mother of two)

Unlike mothers motivated by the schema of work–family integration, this mother felt guilt and remorse after placing her child in daycare. Not feeling comfortable having someone else raise their children, she ultimately quit her job to ensure that her family’s choices, expectations, and perceptions were aligned with the schema of family devotion. It also highlights the complex relationship between ideology and behavior, which is always full of contradictions. Nonetheless, cultural schemas of work and family do indeed provide coherent interpretive schemas for morally appropriate choices and actions. For mothers following the schema of family devotion, they believed that motherhood required single-mindedness (Blair-Loy, 2003; Hays, 1996). In contrast to the schema of work–family integration, these women had relatively little desire to integrate the roles of mother and worker. Their life had meaning and purpose in caring for their children, with the cultural schema continually reinforced through actions and decisions made around daycare. These mothers and fathers touched upon the ‘‘stranger anxiety’’ of turning the newborn children over to a nonfamily member for several hours out of the day (Glass, 1998). What was striking throughout these families was the notion that the mothers were the ones that have to make the decision to leave their jobs. It was taken as a given that the husband would continue to work and regardless of the mother’s decision to continue working, she was mainly responsible for the children and child rearing. This gender inequality was evident when we spoke with one husband and vice president of a major company who worked an average of 60–70 hours a week. When questioned about child care, he stated that, ‘‘I could have’’ picked-up my children if my wife was unavailable but added that ‘‘it was hard to keep a correct balance of work and family.’’ He noted that if he had taken a more active role in child care, ‘‘I don’t think I would have progressed in the company as I have. Promotional opportunities.’’ While cultural schemas of motherhood varied in regards to work and family, the husband’s role was consistent: work hard in a career and provide financially for the family.

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DISCUSSION While previous studies of cultural schemas for work and family have focused on white mothers (Blair-Loy, 2003; Hays, 1996), this analysis has revealed alternative cultural schemas common among black middle-class families. The schema documented here, which we call work–family integration, exists as a cultural alternative to the family devotion and work devotion schemas. In some ways, this alternative combines both the family devotion and work devotion schemas, but without either sphere demanding a unitary focus or being interpreted as contradicting the other. With these schemas patterned across race, class, and gender, they also suggests the need for an intersectional approach that emphasizes multiple, intersecting categories of experience that mutually constitute work and family arrangements and outcomes. Furthermore, we believe the racialization of work–family schemas has important implications for theorizing work and family, and the complex relationship between cultural schemas, action, and outcomes. On the one hand, much research has shown that women with children often decrease their work hours, and many women, both black and white, continue to show the same commitment to work after they become mothers than before motherhood (Bianchi, Robinson, & Milkie, 2006). However, white women continue to report higher levels of work–family conflict within these arrangements. For example, several studies based on nationally representative data (i.e., 1997 National Study of the Changing Workforce and 1996– 1997 National Survey of Midlife Development) have found that black respondents were significantly less likely to experience negative work-tofamily conflict and family-to-work conflict (Grosswald, 2003; Grzywacz, Almeida, & McDonald, 2002; Grzywacz & Marks, 2000; Voydanoff, 2004). These studies show that racial differences remained net of socioeconomic factors related to occupation (e.g., income, education, job autonomy, workload pressure) and the workplace (e.g., supportive workplace culture, supervisory support), family structure (e.g., marital status, presence of children under age six, age) and time use (e.g., number of hours worked, shift work, flexible scheduling, overnight travel). Past scholarship has attempted to explain differences in work–family conflict based on the ‘‘deficit model,’’ which assumes that ‘‘the taking on of multiple roles would generate role overload and role conflict’’ (Marks & Leslie, 2000, p. 411). This paradigm asserts that working mothers would have less time for their roles as mothers and wives, thereby generating conflict between work and family. This perspective focuses solely on the demands on one’s time and the resources used to meet those demands

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(Voydanoff, 2005a), and continues to be used explicitly in explanations of work–family conflict today (e.g., Paden & Buehler, 1995; Reynolds, 2005). However, such a model clearly cannot explain racial differences in work– family conflict. While our study cannot directly test these racial differences, we believe that they can be explained by cultural schemas at the intersection of race, class, gender, and family. Cultural schemas subjectively shape how work and family are perceived or not perceived to conflict with one another. The implication of this is that it is not only role accumulation and time demands that shape conflict, but that ‘‘the nature of the role or role configuration’’ is central to understanding work, family, and other outcomes (Marks & Leslie, 2000, p. 411). More specifically, schemas vary in how they define the significance of time (Thompson & Bunderson, 2001) and the cognitive meaning and time expectations (Orbuch & Custer, 1995) related to particular constellations of roles. These ‘‘cognitive appraisals’’ (Voydanoff, 2004) shape perceptions about the degree to which work or family hinders or enhances one’s performance in the other sphere. To unpack these differences, we can compare the cultural schemas documented among white middle-class mothers and black middle-class mothers. Studies of white mothers (Blair-Loy, 2003; Hays, 1996) were largely guided by cultural schemas that viewed work and family to conflict with another. Previous scholars found that mothers tended to interpret work and family decisions as having to choose between work and family, often feeling inadequate no matter which choice they made. Mothers perceived their work activities to take time away from their children and domestic duties, and to the extent that they worked, they believed their work to conflict with mothering activities. Many career-focused women even chose not to have children, further reflecting the belief that each demands a single-minded focus (BlairLoy, 2003). Mothers risked facing stigma for allowing strangers to care for their children (Holcomb, 1998) or feelings of inadequacy because they were not being self-reliant (Coontz, 1992). All of these factors suggest that these mothers are more likely to self-report higher levels of work–family conflict. Our research supports the idea that mothers within the black community have historically had different cultural alternatives for organizing their work and family roles (Daniel Barnes, 2008; Collins, 1994). On the one hand, they have drawn upon the schema of family devotion, albeit in different ways than white mothers. For example, Daniel Barnes (2008, p. 189) found that mothers devoting themselves to their family also had to ‘‘negotiate family and community expectations for educational and professional achievement while responding to the very real concern for the survival of black marriages

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and families.’’ On the other hand, black mothers have also been able to draw upon the schema of work–family integration, where mothers experienced their working and parenting roles as both vital components of their identity of black womanhood. Unlike the competing and contradictory schemas of ‘‘work devotion’’ or ‘‘family devotion,’’ work–family integration encourages a dual identity of worker and mother, where each role is complementary. And in contrast to the white mothers who have had to struggle to ‘‘reinvent’’ cultural schemas (Blair-Loy, 2003), this interpretive framework has been a viable option – even an expectation – for black women at early ages and throughout their careers. Such schemas would be less likely to lead to work– family conflict and negative emotions such as guilt and loss. By drawing upon the schemas of work–family integration, mothers were more likely to expect that some amount of time spent caring for children could (and should) be adequately fulfilled by other family members, and in many cases, external childcare providers. These mothers were less likely to see children as fragile beings who could only be properly cared for by their biological mother. Instead, they believed that a certain amount of child care could be fulfilled by both extended family (McLoyd, 1993; Wilson, 1989) and unrelated childcare providers, with the latter often providing important socialization and educational functions. Rather than having feelings of guilt, they were more comfortable raising children with the help of others, and interpreting this as a positive experience for their children. This is supported by nationally representative quantitative data which demonstrates that ‘‘black mothers are more likely than white or Hispanic mothers to consider employed moms – especially full-time working moms – ideal for children’’ (Taylor et al., 2007, p. 5). In addition, the meanings that mothers attributed to work were also vital for shaping how they viewed the relationship between work and family roles. For example, they experienced clear gratification from work, finding it to be a meaningful part of their identity and self-worth. Likewise, this work contributed in important ways to the development of the child and well-being of the family unit. For many mothers guided by the schema of work–family integration, they saw their income as necessary to providing a safe environment for their children and making it possible for them to attend private school, college, and participate in many other enriching activities characteristic of middle-class childrearing practices (Lareau, 2003). Accordingly, black middle-class mothers were more likely to see themselves as co-breadwinners (Landry, 2002), with their employment complementing, rather than conflicting with their family responsibilities.

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However, while several studies have found statistically significant variation in racial differences of work–family conflict (Grosswald, 2003; Grzywacz et al., 2002; Grzywacz & Marks, 2000; Voydanoff, 2005b), some research suggests this difference may be disappearing. For example, BlairLoy found that younger cohorts of white women were more likely to reject and reinvent the traditional white middle class ideals, interpreting work and family in new ways, and Daniel Barnes (2008) found that some young black mothers rejected their mothers’ emphasis on working through motherhood. Beyond these qualitative studies, little is known about whether or not generational differences exist between younger and older cohorts more generally.

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MOTHERING FOR CLASS AND ETHNICITY: THE CASE OF INDIAN PROFESSIONAL IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES Namita N. Manohar ABSTRACT Purpose – Informed by an intersectional perspective, this chapter examines how middle-class, immigrant Tamil (an Indian regional group) Brahmin (upper-caste) profess/ional women organize motherhood in the U.S., by identifying the arrangements of mothering they develop, and the conditions under which these emerge. Methodology/approach – Data is based on a year-long ethnography among Tamils in Atlanta, and multi-part, feminist life-history interviews with 33 first-generation, Tamil professional women, analyzed within a constructivist grounded theory method. Findings – Tamil immigrant motherhood emerges from the interplay of Tamil women’s social location as an immigrant community of color in the U.S. and their agency. Paradoxically racialized as model minorities who are also culturally incommensurable with American society, Tamil women rework motherhood around breadwinning and cultural nurturing to

Notions of Family: Intersectional Perspectives Advances in Gender Research, Volume 17, 159–185 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-2126(2013)0000017011

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mother for class and ethnicity respectively. They expand the hegemonic model of Tamil Brahmin motherhood beyond domesticity positioning their professional work as complementary to mothering, while simultaneously reinforcing hegemonic elements of mothers as keepers of culture, responsible for ethnic socialization of children. Mothering then enables them to engender integration into American society by positioning families as upwardly mobile, model minorities who are ethnic. This, however, exacts a personal toll: their limited professional mobility and reduced personal leisure time. Originality/value – By uncovering Tamil immigrant motherhood as structural and agentic, a site of power contestation between spouses and among Tamil women, and its salience in adaptation to America, this chapter advances scholarship on South Asians that under-theorizes mothering and that on immigrant parenting in which South Asians are invisible. Keywords: Immigrant women; mothering/motherhood; Asian Indian/ Tamil; ethnicity; gender; professional work

The growing scholarship on immigrant parenting in the United States (U.S.) is increasingly attentive to the shaping of this experience by immigrants’ social location and the structural conditions in sending and receiving communities (see Glick, 2010). While middle-class, South Asian immigrants have largely been missing from such accounts, the images of these families as ‘‘classically’’ patriarchal (see Khandelwal, 2002), with fathers conceptualized as providers and dominant, and mothers as domestic and subordinate continues to dominate. This raises interesting questions about how motherhood is actually experienced by Indian immigrant women in the U.S. This chapter fills this gap by examining how middle-class, immigrant Tamil (an Indian regional group) Brahmin (upper-caste) professional women organize motherhood in the U.S., by identifying the arrangements of mothering they develop, and the conditions under which these emerge. Here, I use the terms motherhood and mothering interchangeably to refer to ‘‘a socially constructed set of activities and relationships involved in nurturing and caring for people’’ (Forcey, 1994, p. 357). Informed by an intersectional perspective, I argue that Tamil immigrant motherhood is not merely culturally determined but emerges from the interplay of Tamil women’s social location as an immigrant community of

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color in the U.S. and their agency. Framed by their paradoxical racialization as model minorities who are also culturally incommensurable with larger American society, Tamil women rework motherhood around breadwinning and cultural nurturing to mother for class and ethnicity respectively. This involves expanding the hegemonic model of Tamil Brahmin motherhood beyond domesticity to position their work as complementary to immigrant mothering, while simultaneously reinforcing hegemonic elements of mothers as keepers of culture, responsible for ethnic socialization of children. Mothering then enables them to engender integration into American society by positioning families as upwardly mobile, model minorities who are ethnic. Motherhood also becomes a site of power contestation by which they negotiate household gender arrangements with their spouses, and by which they are accountable to other Tamil women to prove their worth as mothers.

THEORIZING MOTHERHOOD: AN INTERSECTIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON INDIAN IMMIGRANT MOTHERHOOD Central to the intersectional perspective are three core ideas: social structures such as race/ethnicity, class, nationality, gender, and sexuality constitute ‘‘mutually constructing systems of oppression’’ (Collins, 2000, p. 227–228) to position groups differently within society; power emerges from these intersecting oppressions; and human agency fashions viable lives within these structures (Collins, 2000; Zinn & Dill, 1996). In theorizing motherhood within this perspective, feminists of color emphasize its diverse, socially constructed and contextual character, wherein immigrants and/or women of color, historically excluded from the hegemonic model of American motherhood, develop alternate or contradictory forms of mothering (Arendell, 2000; Kinser, 2010). The relationship between paid work and motherhood is central to this and to understanding Tamil immigrant motherhood. For immigrants and/or women of color, mothering has always encompassed paid employment, necessary for their families’ economic well-being (Glenn, 1994; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1999; Moon, 2003). Mothering in this way shifts normative ideas about family, gender, and motherhood, both because these women can rarely be the exclusive, fulltime mothers that is idealized, but rely on various kith and kin arrangements to manage both work and family and also because their paid work affects household power relations (Arendell, 2000; Collins, 2000; Moon, 2003).

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Gender and migration scholars contend that while household dynamics change, there is a nonlinear progression from household patriarchy to parity in the context of immigrant women’s paid work in the U.S. To this effect, mediated by the racialized and sexualized American society, immigrant women might reinscribe motherhood, heightening family patriarchy in the service of creating families that are ‘‘bastions of resistance’’ (HondagneuSotelo, 1999, p. 568) to marginalization (Pessar, 1995; Zentgraf, 2002). Among middle-class, Indian immigrants, this is theorized as the retention of cultural expectations about mothering and household responsibilities by both immigrant women and men, such that women’s paid labor is always secondary to their mothering responsibilities (Balagopal, 1998; Devi, 2002; George, 2005; Shah, 1998). Feminists of color also contend that hierarchies of power (and powerlessness) within which they are located, prompt women to ‘‘assert their own standards of mothering to attain the resources necessary to sustain their children’s lives’’ (Glenn, 1994, p. 18). Motherhood is thus, fundamentally agentic. In particular, immigrant and/or women of color use mothering to resist structural assaults, especially the pressure for children to assimilate, by centering mothering on identity construction for their children, maintaining indigenous cultural traditions and family values in a context hostile to the same (Collins, 1994). For Indian immigrants, these efforts are largely centered on domestic activities such as maintaining culinary practices (cooking Indian food), linguistic patterns (speaking the mother tongue at home), practicing religion, and socializing children into ‘‘Indian’’ values (e.g., filial piety, no dating) (Kallivayalil, 2004; Khandelwal, 2002; Mukhi, 2000; Rangaswamy, 2000; Sheth, 2001). In these ways then, in the face of their structural powerlessness, motherhood becomes an act of power by immigrant and/or women of color. This does not however imply that motherhood is free from patriarchal control, because even as it used as a site of resistance, it often reinforces gender inequities. In developing mothering arrangements responsive to their structural location in America, Tamil women reference culturally specific models of Indian motherhood. While mothering varies along coordinates of caste, class, regional, and the rural/urban diversity of India, I focus on its middleclass, upper-caste expression (hereafter motherhood) that represents the hegemonic standard of Indian mothering in the post-colonial India (1950– 1980s) in which my participants came of age. Motherhood is foregrounded in the construction of ‘‘new womanhood,’’ which while affording middleclass, Brahmin women limited mobility into the public domain, especially in terms of acquiring education, retains their autonomy in the domain of the

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home (Chakravarti, 1993; Chatterjee, 1989; Sethi, 2002). A mother thus remains a ‘‘domestic paragon,’’ educated, but modest, respectable, virtuous, [and] chaste y presiding over her neat, disciplined home’’ (Ramaswamy, 2001, p. 45). The public domain, especially that of work, remains a potential threat to the sanctity of families, and, as such, is a masculine prerogative (Bagachi, 1990; Krishnaraj, 2008; Lakshmi, 1984, 1990; Sethi, 2002). Motherhood is also the only source of identity and individuality for women, institutionalized as a normative obligation, their ‘‘natural and primary destination and responsibility’’ (Dutta, 1990, p. 84). Further, mothers are glorified as the ‘‘guarantor of purity of progeny and authenticator of historical continuity’’ (Lakshmi, 1990, p. 73) – both, as the (physical) vessels of future generations (especially sons), and in the salience of their own behaviors and conduct to preserving the ‘‘authenticity’’ of culture and family traditions in the home. They are thus expected to embody an ‘‘unstinting affection and undying spirit of self-sacrifice for their family’’ (Bagachi, 1990, p. 65), and nurture the young, socializing them into traditions to ensure the longevity and sanctity of culture. These actions are sites of the power of motherhood, through which they can establish their worth as ‘‘good’’ mothers, and avoid being censured as deviants (Dutta, 1990; Krishnaraj, 2008; Lakshmi, 1990). Motherhood, therefore, legitimizes the continued patriarchal control of women using their bodies to mark caste and group boundaries and to promote the patriarchal organization of families (Chakravarti, 1993; Sethi, 2002). While contested by nonhegemonic groups, in this chapter, I examine how the very group who are representative of this experience of motherhood contest it in immigration.

TAMIL PROFESSIONAL IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES Tamils are a linguistic/regional group, hailing predominantly from the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu on the east coast of India. Tamils are internally stratified along caste, class, religion, and place of residence in India (rural/urban, Southern/Northern India), resulting in varied histories of migration. While British colonialism in India witnessed the emergence of a Tamil diaspora in the former British colonies in the Indian sub-continent, South-East Asia, Southern and Eastern Africa and the Caribbean (see Sivasupramaniam, 2000), in this chapter, I focus on middle-class, Tamil Brahmin immigrants from India and not from these diasporic communities.

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Tamil Brahmins, who occupy the upper echelons of the caste hierarchy in Southern India, have historically been the educated, priestly, and landowning caste. Commencing with British colonialism, they have transitioned into an urbanized, English-speaking, professional, middle-class group, overrepresented in occupations such as banking, education, administration, and information technology, which became the basis of their professional international migration (Fuller & Narasimhan, 2008). Accordingly, they comprise an important component of the increasing number of Indian professionals who have migrated to the U.S. following the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 that created a preference for highly skilled and family reunification migration from Asian countries (Rumbaut, 1997). This is reflected in the increase of Indian immigration to the U.S. from 31,214 between 1961 and 1970 to 176,800 between 1971 and 1980, and 262,900 between 1981 and 1990 (Devi, 2002). Like other Indian professional immigrants of the time, Tamil Brahmin immigration was motivated by the greater economic and employment opportunities in the U.S., as compared with the high levels of unemployment and poor salaries that characterized the socialist economy of postcolonial India until it liberalized in the early 1990s (Madhavan, 1985). Immigration to America also represented a means to circumvent affirmative action policies enacted in post-colonial India in favor of the lower castes, which they believed disenfranchised them as Brahmins by limiting their access to public and government-supported educational institutions and workplaces, thereby hampering their economic advancement in India (Madhavan, 1985). Tamil Brahmin immigration was also fundamentally gendered such that independent migration was a masculine domain bolstering men’s status as providers, while the movement of women was sanctioned only through their roles as wives and mothers in married migration (Fuller & Narasimhan, 2008).

METHOD The findings presented here are based on a year-long (2007–2008) ethnography in the Tamil community in the Greater Atlanta Metropolitan Area (hereafter Atlanta), Georgia. This involved participant observation at Tamil community sites and in my participants’ households, and 33 multi-part, feminist life-history interviews with first-generation Tamil professional women who immigrated to the U.S. between 1971 and 1995. They emigrated through three methods: the bulk, as wives of economic and/or student

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migrants; a smaller group as single students, and a few as families with spouses and children. The majority of my sample immigrated to various American cities prior to relocating to Atlanta in the mid-1990s and early 2000s, drawn by the growing economic opportunities for professionals and the Tamil cultural presence in the city. These women range in age from 31 to 65 years, are engaged in a variety of professions, with the bulk comprising families with toddlers and school-going children, and the rest with collegebound and/or married children. Data were analyzed using a constructivist grounded theory method that relied on initial, focused and theoretical coding, memoing and cross-case comparison to develop a narrative of Tamil women’s motherhood. In reporting my results below, pseudonyms have been used to protect participants’ identities, although age and profession are as reported. The professional group titled ‘‘Corporate America Executive’’ refers to the variety of management professional jobs.

RESULTS Valuing Motherhood in Migration With the exception of four participants, all Tamil women became mothers a couple of years after their immigration to the U.S. I noticed that motherhood, which was already a part of their gender socialization in India, assumed even greater salience in the U.S., influenced, in my opinion, by their structural location here (Moon, 2003). Despite being middle-class, skilled immigrants, Tamil women and their families are sociopolitically defined as a racial/ethnic minority in the U.S. and subject to racialization (Purkayastha, 2005a; Rudrappa, 2004). This takes the paradoxical form where, as middle-class Asian immigrants, they are characterized as model minorities – capable of social and economic success due to their cultural capital – while simultaneously being constructed as non-American due to that same culture. Accordingly, they are positioned precariously within American society: denied ‘‘full’’ belonging even as they strive to attain the economic success expected of them (Khandelwal, 2002; Purkayastha, 2005a; Shah, 1998). This structural marginalization, institutionalized in American workplaces, their neighborhoods and in the schools their children attend, and coupled with the loss of their caste-class privileged status in India, is alienating and isolating. Exacerbating this, is the loss of extended family networks in migration, which were crucial sites of social support and

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family assistance in India, now leaving Tamil women and their husbands to have to ‘‘manage on their own.’’ In this context, Tamil women emphasize motherhood as a buffer against marginalization, identifying it as their most significant responsibility in the U.S. They therefore become highly involved mothers, who engender strong familial bonds, to not only compensate for the lack of extended kin support, but also to create close families that can buttress against racialization: I think if I see families in India, I find that we spend a lot more time with the children here [U.S.]. I’m not saying that all of it [mothering] is completely enjoyable. But it’s also y time where you talk to your kids, you share things with them y really engage in our children’s lives. [And] I think it has made us as a family unit, pretty close. (Janiki Parathasarathi, 44, Professor)

Accordingly, as I will show, they use motherhood as a mechanism to mediate their families’ adaptation to the new social milieu, especially to mitigate threats of downward mobility, isolation, and ethnic loss. Needless to say, immigrant motherhood is not easy. Tamil women recount feeling lonely and afraid especially upon first becoming mothers in the U.S., considering both their unfamiliarity with motherhood and the demand to mother in a social context that is not only different from the one they are familiar with, but also one that constrains and marginalizes them. Integral to this is the recognition of the need to ‘‘chart their own course’’ – to develop mothering arrangements that are responsive to the exigencies of their immigrant lives. In the following sections, I outline the two mothering arrangements they construct – mothers as breadwinners, and mothers as cultural nurturers.

Professional Work and Motherhood: Complementary or Contradictory? Even as Tamil women emphasize motherhood in the immigrant context, I noticed that they do not conceptualize it as privatized and domestic – in the symbol of the homemaker – that was the normative standard of motherhood into which they were socialized (Dutta, 1990; Lakshmi, 1990; Ramaswamy, 2001). In the U.S., professional ambitions – one of their personal motives for migration – becomes coupled with the necessity of their professional work. Unlike their working-class counterparts for whom work is a necessity for survival in the U.S. (Pessar, 1995; Segura, 1994), as middleclass immigrants, Tamil women are more concerned with consolidating the upward socio-economic mobility of their families than mere survival,

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particularly as the bulk of them emigrated as wives of high-skilled economic migrants already working in the U.S. I argue that this emphasis on upward mobility is not simply their most important migrant goal (‘‘we came for the better quality of life’’), but more their strategic response to being an immigrant community of color here. Given their racialization, I find that they choose to appropriate racial imagery to embody the model minority – striving to be upwardly mobile, with professionally and economically successful families – and thereby counter-position themselves as successful (desirable) immigrants, worthy of being afforded ‘‘full’’ belonging in American society. While their skills, education, and English proficiency are intrinsic to their ability to do this, becoming upwardly mobile is threatened by the racialized and gendered American labor market (Browne & Misra, 2003). This includes the racialized immigration policy, especially enshrined in the H-1B visa program, implemented since the late 1980s, to recruit skilled Asian professionals to address labor shortages in the U.S., while attempting to retain white hegemony by restricting their employment to three-to-six-year contracts with no guarantees of permanency, and restricting the transfer of Indian credentials (Purkayastha, 2005b). These create difficulties for Indian professionals in finding well-paying professional jobs, channeling immigrants into low-wage work until such time as they acquire American credentials to transition to their current professional jobs (a time consuming process), or limiting them to temporary skilled work contracts that do not afford job security (Espiritu, 1999; George, 2005; Purkayastha, 2005b; Shah, 1998): See when we came here, no jobs were readily given [to us] because we don’t have U.S. qualifications. I [realized] that it’s not easy to get good jobs unless we do some [American courses]. So y there was a bank [where] the manager said for a year, he’ll keep me in the audit department. But I was not paid like others, because he took me as a trainee. [And] the money was not enough. (Avni Shankaran, 58, CPA)

Hierarchies of difference also organize their professional workplaces to limit their professional mobility (Browne & Misra, 2003). Further, the changing nature of the American economy since the 1970s, including reduced job security (especially in the nonunionized, white-collar work attracting these immigrants), and an eroded commitment between employers and employees, intensifies these factors, increasing the possibility of economic adversity against which they, without the extended kin networks they enjoyed in India, have no buffer. Given that the bulk of my participants, emigrating as wives of H-1B migrants, were initially legally ineligible to work in the U.S., these conditions highlighted the threat to their upward mobility especially in

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being single-income families, motivating them to re-credential themselves to access their current jobs. For them, being engaged in professional work becomes a critical means of providing what they call ‘‘economic security’’ to their families, which they conceptualize in terms of its dual-income, professional character. These families are better equipped to mitigate risks of downward mobility that could afflict single-income families and correspondingly enhance the probability of attaining upward mobility: I think my working directly translates to the [security] of the income of two people in the family. That just brings us additional financial freedom to do things we may not have [been able to] do [as single income families]. (Prema Devarajan, 38, Physician)

Accordingly, being homemakers in the U.S. is counterproductive to this goal resulting in them constructing work as one domain of motherhood by which they consolidate and enhance their families’ class status to become model minorities. Mothering for Class Tamil women, in mothering for class, identify the non-Hispanic, uppermiddle-class white majority group as the standard of ‘‘success and mobility.’’ They therefore seek to attain an upper-middle-class status for their families, materially and symbolically. As professionals, Tamil women construct themselves as co-breadwinners, whose financial contributions to their families are critical to achieving this class status (evinced in annual family incomes that range between $140,000 and $300,000), and the corresponding quality of life. They point in particular to their enhanced ability as dualearning households to acquire a variety of financial assets (property, investments, large homes in upscale Atlanta suburbs, etc.), engage in leisure travel and charity work. More important, is their greater ability to enhance academic and co-curricular opportunities for their children (see Moon, 2003). Because I was working y it was money to educate the kids. If it’s only one income, educating three kids is hard to do. We sent the kids all over the country for competitions, which was easy for us to do financially. With the second income [that she was contributing] we were living in a good neighborhood so the children could go to good schools. Two children went to private school, and one to public. I think if both of us are not working, we would not [have been able to] do all that. (Shanta Anand, 58, Teacher)

Tamil women recognize that their ability to transfer their own professional achievements and upward mobility to their children is key to being model minorities (Purkayastha, 2005b). Accordingly, their Indian middle-class valuation of education as a vehicle of improvement is intensified in the U.S. As they are unfamiliar with the means to facilitate this in the U.S., their

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generally white-dominated professional workplaces become sites where they network with upwardly mobile American mothers who similarly value academic success (Lareau, 2002). From them, they learn about educational opportunities essential to upwardly mobile families such as educational milestones to be achieved, schools and activities to enroll children in, and strategies to bolster college applications (e.g., extracurricular activities), to become knowledge-providers for their families. For most Tamil women, like Shanta cited above, this involves educating their children in the best private schools in Atlanta, enrolling them in a variety of ‘‘American’’ extracurricular activities such as sports, band, choir, spelling-bee competitions etc., and funding their college education at prestigious universities (rather than relying on student loans) – all of which is made possible through their work. Their professional work has a more subtle effect. As work interactions enhance their familiarity with American (read: white American) culture, Tamil women position themselves as cultural brokers, mediating between the larger American society and their Indian-American children. They believe that as mothers, this enables them to better understand the issues their American-raised children encounter. Janiki Parthasarathi, the professor, cited earlier, notes: So my older son is getting ready to go to college. And because of the profession I am in, I feel that I have a better understanding of what he is going through, especially in the transition y as they’re getting ready to sort of leave high school and come into college. For example, we just had a talk about this generation [to indicate her son] that’s just coming into college y what are the generational stereotypes [about them] y the issues [they face] and so forth.

Cultural mediation of this nature assists Tamil women in establishing close relationships with their children. In turn, this enables them to socialize their children into selected American values such as the American ‘‘work ethic,’’ – which having themselves learned and espoused through their workplaces, they describe as being ‘‘self-directed, independent, efficient, organized and a good communicator.’’ Many spoke of this socialization in terms of encouraging their children to be responsible for small household chores, for completing their homework assignments without requiring parental supervision, and teaching them ‘‘how to present themselves to get their point across.’’ Central to this is their acknowledgment that as racial minorities, their children have to be equipped with effective strategies (superior education, close bonds, American work ethic) to circumnavigate their own racialization to be economically and socially successful, and that these are afforded through their engagement with professional work.

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Furthermore, mothering for class provides Tamil women with greater leeway in negotiating gender relations in their households. This is evinced in two areas. First, their role as co-breadwinners changes gender expectations about household labor in families. Tamil women now negotiate with their husbands to be more involved in household labor than they would have been in India, where gender responsibilities were rigidly dichotomized (Chatterjee, 1989; Lakshmi, 1984), often premising their paid work (necessary for mobility) on a spousal understanding the same: See [traditionally] the husband goes out to work and the wife is the one who does everything [at] home. It’s not like that here [U.S.] because I go to work [too], so he has to help [at home]. It’s not like, ‘‘oh! You are the wife, you are supposed to do only these things, and I [husband] am not going to do these things!’’ It’s two of us contributing [financially] to the family, and so it’s not just one person to do everything at home. So I cooked today, he’s going to cook tomorrow. (Pushpa Hariharan, 39, Teacher)

In so doing, they are also influenced by changing American social expectations that men be ‘‘involved fathers,’’ reinterpreting this in their own families in the context of their paid work (see Gerson, 2006; Hochschild, 1989). While a detailed discussion of the ensuing division of household labor is not the purview of this chapter, my research indicates that the majority of their households are ‘‘husband-involved,’’ with men participating in ‘‘masculine’’ household tasks and being more involved in child care especially when their children are older (coaching sports, leisure activities, assisting with homework, etc.) (Hochschild, 1989). Although the division of labor is by no means equitable, especially since Tamil women continue to perform the significant proportion of routine and emotional work, the changes they have been able to institute are transforming the structure of their families. Furthermore, the relative success of these negotiations is also indicative of husbands’ changing ideas of gender, framed in part by their location in the U.S. Second, their ‘‘earning power’’ and commensurate ‘‘psychological power’’ enables them to arrive at a more egalitarian domestic decision-making structure (Zentgraf, 2002). Tamil women ensure that all decisions about family life – ranging from the best schools for children, disciplining children, finances, etc. – are taken jointly, with both partners providing ‘‘inputs’’: We make decisions together. We discuss and [then] decide. Like financial decisions. Like investments. If we have to do investments, then we both talk about it and see which is better y pros, and cons. And then we decide [to invest]. [Or like] buying the house. We [both] decided to buy the house, the budget y (Avni Shankaran, 58, CPA)

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Shared decision-making about finances is especially salient for Tamil women as this was a preserve for male-dominated decision-making in their parental homes, and for the few who lived married lives in India prior to emigration, in their marital homes there. In the U.S., although the actual labor of investing, banking, and paying family bills is generally undertaken by men as part of the negotiated division of household labor, this is done only after the couple jointly arrive at such decisions, so that most Tamil women are not only aware of what is being undertaken, but feel capable to take over if required. In these efforts at ‘‘egalitarian’’ household arrangements, I argue that Tamil women attempt to demonstrate their resemblance to their American counterparts (see Hochschild, 1989), thereby dispelling controlling images of Indian families as traditional and patriarchal and thus ‘‘different,’’ further consolidating themselves as model minorities. Even as Tamil women weave work and motherhood, professional work is also a source of a distinct personal identity. Despite the structural constraints, as skilled, middle-class migrants, Tamil women can access ‘‘intellectually challenging and demanding’’ professional work that enables them to develop their individual capabilities, be financially independent, experience personal fulfillment, and enhances their self-confidence, leading to their self-identification as professionals: It [professional work] defines who I am. My work gives me an identity of my own. It makes me a person in my own right and [without it] I [would] feel that I don’t have a [personal] identity. For me, it has been about giving me a sense of who I am and boosting my self-esteem. (Saraswati Vinayak, 44, Corporate America Executive)

They do not, however, perceive their personal identities as professionals as antithetical to mothering, but intrinsic to it such that being professionals makes them ‘‘better, stronger, [and] more assertive mothers,’’ capable of facilitating their families’ upward class mobility (Balagopal, 1998). This advances extant scholarship that theorizes South Asian immigrant women’s paid labor as oppositional and secondary to their domestic roles (Devi, 2002; Khandelwal, 2002; Purkayastha, 2005b; Rangaswamy, 2000; Shah, 1998). For Tamil women then, professional work is complementary rather than contradictory to mothering.

Cultural Nurturing and Motherhood Tamil women also appropriate, adapt, and reinforce elements of the hegemonic model of motherhood that associates it with cultural preservation

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in the face of encroachments from modernity (read: Westernization), especially through socializing children into cultural traditions (Chatterjee, 1989; Kallivayalil, 2004). To this effect, regardless of the newer arrangements of household labor they have affected, Tamil women assume sole responsibility for one aspect of child care – the organized, extracurricular, cultural activities of children – an area especially under-theorized in the extant scholarship on ethnic transmission by Indian immigrant women. They argue that it is a core component of their immigrant mothering, fundamentally connected to transmitting ethnicity, through which they position themselves as cultural nurturers in the U.S.: y We do 50–50, it’s [child care] definitely shared. But I take care of all the Indian activities part. I take care of the music, religion [religious instruction] y I am concentrating on those, and that’s completely on me. (Neelakshi Arunachalem, 42, Scientist)

As Purkayastha (2005a) argues, part of the racialization of Indians in the U.S. is the designation of Indian culture as traditional (i.e., not modern) and therefore incommensurable with its hegemonic American counterpart, especially on issues like individuality versus communality, religiosity, and rigid age/gender hierarchies. Coupled with being marked as nonwhite due to their phenotype, American-born children, like those of my participants’, are located in ‘‘racially liminal positions’’ (Purkayastha, 2005a, p. 27), even though they belong though to families valorized for their economic integration. Therefore, even as these children identify as Americans, they are not recognized as such (Mukhi, 2000). This most often occurs in the white-dominated upscale suburban Atlanta neighborhoods and private schools they inhabit as upwardly mobile, model minorities, where, often as the only families of color, Tamil children encounter challenges like being ridiculed for their cultural practices, their parents’ accents or dress, and called names: The other day he [her first-grader son Ravi] kept asking me ‘‘what are you going to wear when you come to school?’’ And I didn’t understand. I said ‘‘Ravi, what do you mean? I will wear what I always wear.’’ And he said, ‘‘no Amma, what are you going to wear? What are you going to wear? No sari Amma! No sari!’’ And then I realized y he didn’t want me to wear Indian clothes – a sari [which is her usual ‘‘formal wear’’] to his school. And you know he calls me Amma [mother in Tamil] at home. But when he’s in public, in school, it’s ‘‘hi Mom! Bye Mom!’’ no Ravi? [addressing Ravi who was playing near us]. [Researcher: Why do you do that Ravi?]. Ravi: They [school friends] laugh at me! (Shymala Devadas, 39, CPA)

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As Shymala notes, Tamil women fear that this structural marginalization creates pressures for their children to assimilate by underplaying their ethnic difference when in public, which can result in their children being embarrassed by, rejecting or denying their cultural origins, leading to a loss of ethnicity. In this context, as mothers, they are preoccupied by the need to transmit Tamil culture to their children, framed by their recognition that as Indian-Americans, their children are less likely to be afforded unconditional belonging and so have to be provided with mechanisms to resist racialization and pressures to assimilate. A key mechanism then, is to instill ethnicity – which they conceptualize in terms of knowledge, acceptance, appreciation, and comfort with being Indian/Tamil, which could afford children bicultural or multiple identities rather than monolithic American ones. An important reminder here, when talking about ethnicity, Tamil women often use Indian/Tamil interchangeably to mean Tamil (possibly due to our shared Tamilness), evidenced in that the ‘‘Indian’’ cultural practices they are attempting to transmit are Tamil Brahminical ones. Mothering for Ethnicity Intrinsic to mothering for ethnicity are questions about what culture Tamil women are attempting to preserve and how they socialize children into it. Corroborating extant scholarship on Indian immigrants in the U.S., my ethnography reveals that Tamil women construct a narrow, homogenized version of Tamil culture (Bhattacharjee, 1998; Kurien, 1999; Purkayastha, 2005a). Selected practices are emphasized, most notably religious observance (rituals, festivals), cultural expressions (dance, music, the arts); and selected family values are essentialized – such as, filial obedience, circumspect behaviors (no drinking, smoking), being family oriented rather than individualistic-characteristic of their middle-class, upper-caste social location in India. The Tamil culture they thus construct is middle-class, Hindu, and Brahminical in orientation, premised on their memories of the past. While this culture is, at best, ‘‘ethereal, imagined and stereotypical’’ (Kallivayalil, 2004, p. 539), they designate it as ‘‘authentic,’’ making it the hegemonic basis of the Tamil ethnicity they are attempting to preserve (Das Gupta, 1997). Needless to say, imbricating gender and sexuality (see Das Gupta, 1997), this ‘‘authentic’’ culture has gendered implications for secondgeneration women’s behavior and dress: ‘‘no wearing spaghetti strap at 15 or 16 y and no dating, because you know y that’s not a part of our culture.’’

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In so doing, Tamil women position Tamil culture as oppositional to American culture and even superior to it (premised largely on the ‘‘ancientness’’ of cultural and religious practices and strong community and family bonds among Indians) – and thus worthy of pride and emulation. It is this culture into which they work to socialize their children. To do this, they emphasize the need for what Lareau (2002) calls, the ‘‘concerted cultivation’’ of cultural and religious skills in their children largely through organized, extra-curricular activities. Our discussions revealed that their emphasis on formal ethnic learning (as opposed to reliance on only informal socialization within their families) is premised on the fact that unlike in India, where, as they put it, ‘‘the culture is all around you,’’ as a minority in the U.S., informal learning at home was insufficient and must be supplemented by more structured training. As nurturers of culture, Tamil women take responsibility for overseeing all aspects of this formal training, a labor and time intensive effort requiring them to assume several roles. First, Tamil women become the primary decision-makers about the types of skills that their children must acquire to be ethnic. This ranges from fluency in Tamil, proficiency in classical South Indian dance (Bharatnatyam) especially for daughters, skill in classical Southern Indian music (Carnatic music) in either vocal or instrumental form (for instance, violin, flute, mridangam), and knowledge of Hindu scriptures, festivals, and religious practices (Mukhi, 2000; Purkayastha, 2005a; Rayaprol, 1997; Sheth, 2001): y Like, music, dance, art, all these things I thought it is good for them [her daughters] to have knowledge about. So I had them given lessons [Indian English for formal instruction]. So when it came to all these things y I met people, talked to them, I made inquiries y and then came to the conclusions [about what the children should learn]. I had taken up the responsibility. (Avni Shankaran, 69, CPA)

Accordingly, at the time of my research, most school-going children were learning these skills at a host of language schools, dance and music studios, cultural organizations, and places of worship in Atlanta. For Tamil women, this decision-making power rests ideologically in the designation of mothers as keepers of culture and materially, in their socialization as girls in India, where many were taught classical dance, music, and religion in anticipation of their mothering responsibilities. As boys exempted from this socialization, Tamil husbands recognize their wives as ‘‘more suited’’ to organize the cultural activities of children – ‘‘I don’t have knowledge of these things y she does!’’ – acquiescing to their decision-making in this area. Mothers, thus, become gatekeepers of ethnicity for families.

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Although they have undergone cultural socialization as girls, Tamil women are unsure of how to undertake this in the U.S. Therefore, as explained by Avni earlier, they also become researchers, identifying the instructional opportunities available to them in Atlanta. While instructional facilities abound in Atlanta, they most often operate out of artists’ homes, and thus are not easily identifiable. Rather, information about them passes through word-of-mouth, requiring Tamil women to network with likeminded Tamil Brahmin mothers. Suneeti Pasupathi, a CPA in her mid-40s, is a case in point. Keen that her daughter be fluent in Tamil, she used her Tamil friends’ referrals to research two possible Tamil language schools, choosing to enroll her daughter in the one that offers written and conversational language training. Similarly, other women reported that researching instructional opportunities often involved them visiting schools/ studios, comparing options and costs, discussing options with Tamil mothers, and importantly, assessing the probabilities for their children to befriend similarly socialized Tamil children, thereby mitigating their perception of difference and reinforcing ethnic solidarity. Further, to facilitate what they consider to be holistic ethnic enculturation, Tamil women engage children in concurrent ethnic activities in addition to the curricular and American leisure ones mentioned earlier, all of which have to be scheduled for the week in an organized manner. The third role for women is to be schedulers of their children’s organized extracurriculars, assigning days of the week to either ethnic or American activities (Lareau, 2002). For instance, most Saturdays were spent on soccer fields or at band practice, while Sundays were devoted to visiting places of worship. Scheduling also involves coordinating and car-pooling with other Tamil mothers so that children attend cultural activities together, consulting with instructors about their children’s progress, and preparing for these activities (purchasing specialized costumes, packing snacks, etc.) Tamil women are also aware that the above efforts have to be supplemented in the domestic arena as well (Khandelwal, 2002; Mukhi, 2000; Sheth, 2001). To this effect, a fourth role they assume is that of supervisors of cultural acquisition especially within the home: reminding children to practice, assisting them in completing homework assignments (learning prayers, learning dance steps/musical scales, reading a page in Tamil), and teaching and discussing with them religious festivals, rituals and scriptures. This was especially apparent, when at a Hindu Sunday School Center in northern Atlanta that was organizing an upcoming prayer recitation competition for children, a convener (one of my participants) most frequently reminded mothers (although fathers had accompanied families

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to the Center) of the event, confirming they had registered their children and that they were ready for the competition. This exchange also highlights that mothers’ supervisory capacities includes the responsibility (one not expected of fathers) to involve children in events of the Tamil community and to showcase their children’s ethnic skills before the larger community. Thus, as supervisors, Tamil women not only transmit ethnicity to their children, but also, I argue, prove their worth as immigrant mothers to the larger Tamil community by their visible fulfillment of traditional mothering responsibilities. This in turn points to the final element of Tamil women’s mothering for ethnicity. Most Tamil women acknowledge that despite their childhood socialization into ethnicity, few of them as adults actively performed Tamil culture especially in the hegemonic form they prize in the U.S. Their absorption with this came only upon becoming mothers in America, where concern for raising ethnic children resulted in them becoming concerted practitioners of culture, privately and publicly. Nalini Kumaran, a 31-yearold Corporate America Executive, with two young daughters, epitomizes this: We were married for seven years before we had our first girl. In all those seven years, I never celebrated Navratri [a Hindu festival] y I never kept goolu [the feast of dolls celebrated by Tamils during Navratri]. The minute we had our daughter, that year [itself], I started keeping goolu. Because, at this stage [motherhood], I’m worried about how much Indian culture I’m imparting to my daughters. So in my mind, I have to do a little extra to give them Indian culture and goolu is a way to do that.

I argue that in so doing, Tamil women actively reinforce and embody hegemonic constructs of women, especially in their capacities as mothers, as ‘‘keepers of culture,’’ (Kallivayalil, 2004, p. 538) who through their own behavior, religiosity, and demeanor, transmit and retain ethnicity for the succeeding generations (Chatterjee, 1989; Kurien, 1999; Lakshmi, 1990; Sethi, 2002). While this includes a variety of things, of particular interest to this chapter is women’s concerted efforts to speak intermittently in Tamil at home, and to practice religious traditions within their homes. This includes daily recitation of prayers, cooking religious foods on festive occasions, performing rituals (lighting lamps at dusk, anointing deities), and organizing domestic festive celebrations, involving children in these, and thereby bolstering formal ethnic training. Tamil women are also far more visible and active than their husbands in places of worship and Tamil cultural organizations in Atlanta. They are the chief organizers and conveners of cultural and familial events and activities at these sites (such as prayer recitation competitions for children, communal festival celebrations,

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theatrical performances, etc.), comprise the bulk of Hindu Sunday School educators, are committed performers in classical dance and music associations (attending weekly practices, presenting at concerts) and also serve in administrative capacities (presidents, secretaries, treasurers) in these organizations (Rayaprol, 1997). I posit that this community involvement enhances their ability to mother for ethnicity, not only by affording them a support system of similarly oriented Tamil families within which their children can experience a sense of belonging, but also by being key venues for accessing formal instructional opportunities for their children. At the same time however, the resultant tight-knit Tamil community becomes a mechanism of social control, policing their mothering by creating the rigid expectations for them to be actively involved in preserving and transmitting culture, especially in light of their commitment to work. Illustrative of this, are their comments of not only being personally reprimanded if they absent themselves from these arenas – ‘‘I have missed every music practice this year, and my friends are peeved’’ – but also of being vilified as ‘‘bad’’ mothers if their children lack cultural skills. Mothering for ethnicity is not without its challenges, especially in some Tamil children’s resistance to the demand of learning and performing Tamilness. As one participant observed, her daughter routinely confronted her: ‘‘why are you making me learn classical dance? What is the point of this?’’ While theorizing this intergenerational tension (see Das Gupta, 1997; Kallivayalil, 2004) is not the purview of my project, I observed that for Tamil mothers, it appeared to reiterate, rather than diminish the need to explain their actions to each other and their children in terms of ‘‘instilling pride in their ancestry,’’ which, while undoubtedly difficult especially during adolescence, would benefit their children as adults in resisting their racialization. An important note is that, considering their classed/casted construction of Tamil ethnicity, raising ‘‘authentically’’ ethnic children is a substantial financial undertaking facilitated by being dual-income, professional families through Tamil women’s work. Therefore, even as mothering for class to become model minorities exacerbates the need to mother for ethnicity, in many ways, in also enhances and supports their ability to do so in the manner they deem to be authentic. In sum then, by assuming complete responsibility for the organized cultural activities of their children, Tamil women mother for ethnicity both directly through the transmission of culture, and indirectly, through the close bonds they construct with their children through this involved mothering. In so doing, they take pride in raising ‘‘authentic’’ Tamil children. In turn, they reinforce the hegemonic

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model of Tamil motherhood, preserving culture and instilling Tamil ethnic identity in children as a mechanism of resisting racialization, and in so doing, prove their worth as mothers.

Strategizing Breadwinning and Cultural Nurturing Framed by both the above-mentioned social expectations of mothering in the Tamil community in Atlanta and by the continued idealization of the unencumbered worker in their professional workplaces (see Acker, 1990), it becomes essential for Tamil women to strategize combining breadwinning and cultural nurturing in their mothering. They therefore adopt a two-part strategy. First, they make professional compromises by selecting familyfriendly job profiles and/or flexible work schedules (Becker & Moen, 1999). For most, this includes passing on demanding jobs that are travel-intensive, involve continuous supervisory responsibilities, and irregular work hours, which by their nature as high-prestige positions, and require unencumbered workers. Additionally, they make flexibility a condition of their work schedules, working shorter hours, arriving and leaving work earlier, or working out of home for a couple of days in the week, to organize work around their children’s schedules (Balagopal, 1998; Purkayastha, 2005b). Making these professional compromises then, enables Tamil women to mother for class, but not at the cost of mothering for ethnicity, since this strategy accommodates the labor and time demands intrinsic to overseeing their children’s extracurricular cultural activities: I look for flexible hours. The first thing I ask is whether the timing [of work] is flexible. So that I can work from home [for a couple of days] y and if my child has a concert, I can come back early. I would definitely work to compensate for it [leaving work early], but flexibility is important. (Shakuntala Mahadevan, 34, Corporate America Executive)

This strategy is often designated as ‘‘the mommy track,’’ reinforcing workplace ideologies of women as unreliable workers (Becker & Moen, 1999). In turn, Tamil women experience slower professional growth and mobility than their spouses, who, even as involved fathers are not responsible for providing and cultural nurturing. Further, the resultant earnings gap between Tamil women and their husbands, and the latter’s ‘‘more demanding’’ work schedules, hamper women’s negotiations for equitable division of household labor, despite their position as co-breadwinners. There is thus the risk of reinforcing patriarchal gender inequities.

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Second, they strive is to become ‘‘supermothers.’’ Revathy Venkatesh, a 32-year-old Corporate America Executive, with two young daughters explains: There’s a huge pressure to be everything and do everything, [and do it] perfectly. You see other working women, like I see other Tam working women and they all give me the impression of being very much on top of their game, very organized, very kind of, ‘‘we’ve got our act together.’’ [So] I put the pressure on myself. If I were to define super woman, it’s a phenomenal mom who does everything. I have to work and support the family and bring in the family income. And I still do all the things with the children. When there are classes, I will be the one who is carting them [to the classes]. Because it’s more important to me. For my husband, it’s not important enough for him. For me, it’s all these things that I have to get done.

With no model for this when coming of age in India, Tamil women reference what Dillaway and Pare´ (2008) call the American ‘‘mythic construct’’ (p. 445) of supermothers that emerged in the 1990s, to refer to ‘‘mothers who remain heavily involved in family work while also meeting the demands of paid employment’’ (DeMeis & Perkins, 1996, p. 777), ‘‘without sacrificing job or children’’ (Dillaway & Pare´, 2008, p. 445), to their particular situation of breadwinning and cultural nurturing. To this effect, Tamil women become highly efficient mothers – what Revathy calls ‘‘very much on top of their game, very organized.’’ This is especially illustrated in their superlative planning for their families. They expend considerable time and effort developing detailed family plans, charting the plethora of their professional and family activities, including household labor, child care and education, by which they are not only able to relegate selected activities to their husbands, but also to systemically execute their mothering responsibilities. Thus women plan and men, even as involved fathers, execute (Hochschild, 1989): I have to do a lot of different things you know [so] I have to make sure that I plan myself with what I want to do, which day what I want to do [what]. I generally don’t wait till the last minute. I think about it [mothering responsibilities] way ahead of time. Most important to me personally, I write down everything y I write out multiple steps involved in [performing] that [task] and try to see how I can to do it. (Manya Ramalingam, 51, Scientist)

Accordingly, as explained by Revathy earlier, supermothering also becomes a mechanism to prove to the Tamil community that they have not abrogated traditional mothering practices, even as they (are required to) assume newer responsibilities of breadwinning. This, in turn, creates pressures for them to conform, subjecting them to social control.

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While these strategies are similar to those adopted by their upwardly mobile, white counterparts, I submit that the case of Tamil women is distinctive in two ways. First, for Tamil women, such strategies emerge from their reconstitution of motherhood in the U.S. They are thus fairly novel arrangements for them, which they learn and accomplish through their interaction with the larger American society, including similarly positioned American mothers, and each other. More importantly, the imperatives that underlie these arrangements differ; the heightened salience of motherhood in America and the need to chart their integration by being upwardly mobile, model minorities who are still ethnic, all while proving their worth as mothers, are imperatives that their American counterparts do not encounter in a similar way. These strategies however, do not mitigate the personal toll that mothering for class and ethnicity has on Tamil women. This includes the emotional stress of being constantly cognizant of the demands of them, having to plan for it, and of a time-bind. Almost all Tamil women report being physically and mentally tired, both because they cut down on sleep, and experience significantly less personal leisure time than their spouses (Hochschild, 1989). Therefore, being mothers who are breadwinners and cultural nurturers, although symbolic of Tamil women’s agency in constructing and experiencing motherhood in America, is not an unalloyed position of power, but one accompanied by tensions, for themselves and within their families.

DISCUSSION This chapter addresses the dearth of scholarship on parenting among South Asian immigrants, to examine how middle-class, Tamil professional women organize motherhood in the U.S. Influenced by an intersectional perspective, it finds that motherhood is not merely culturally determined, as has been predominantly theorized by scholarship on Indian immigrants in the U.S. (see Balagopal, 1998; Devi, 2002; Kallivayalil, 2004; Khandelwal, 2002; Shah, 1998) but rather, emerges from the interplay of Tamil women’s social location as an immigrant community of color in the U.S., and their agency (Collins, 2000; Glenn, 1994). Tamil women are not passive performers of cultural norms regarding motherhood, but active creators of it, such that they construct motherhood to respond to their paradoxical racialization as model minorities who are culturally incommensurable, which denies them full belonging in American society. To this effect, far from statically transplanting models of motherhood into which they were socialized in

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India, they rework mothering around breadwinning and cultural nurturing to facilitate their families’ upward mobility and ethnic preservation, respectively. For Tamil women, this involves expanding the hegemonic model of Tamil Brahmin motherhood beyond domesticity, to position their professional work as complementary to their immigrant mothering, while appropriating, adapting, and reinforcing hegemonic elements of mothers as keepers of culture, to locate the overseeing of children’s organized, extracurricular cultural activities as a core component of their immigrant mothering (Krishnaraj, 2008; Lakshmi, 1990; Sethi, 2002). In so doing, I advance the gender and migration scholarship to reveal that motherhood becomes crucial to Tamil women’s facilitation of their families’ adaptation to American society. They deploy motherhood as a mechanism to engender integration, while resisting the structural marginalization that accompanies their racialization. By mothering through breadwinning and cultural nurturing, Tamil women bridge the domestic and the public, the ethnic and the American, to position their families as upwardly mobile, model minorities who are ethnic. Mothering for class, in their capacities as co-breadwinners, knowledge-providers and cultural brokers, enables Tamil women to identify the non-Hispanic, upper-middle-class white majority group as their standard of ‘‘success’’ and thus emulate them in the attainment of a similar upper-middle-class status for their families, while simultaneously reiterating the salience of raising ethnic children through their mothering for ethnicity as decision-makers, researchers, schedulers, and supervisors of skill acquisition and performers of culture. While the former involves appropriating racial imagery, and the latter resisting it, both become their strategic response to their marginalization, especially in affording their children effective strategies for survival and success (Collins, 1994). In using mothering to navigate adaptation and integration, Tamil women position their families as desirable immigrants – economically accomplished and resembling ‘‘Americans’’ – and yet, assert their ethnic distinctiveness as worthy of pride. In this way, mothering for class and ethnicity are fundamentally interconnected with the former exacerbating the need for the latter, while also bolstering it. Finally, I contend that immigrant motherhood becomes a site where power is negotiated and contested both between Tamil women and their husbands, and among Tamil mothers themselves thereby illustrating a principal tenant of intersectional theorizing, namely that power is structural, and privilege and disadvantage, simultaneously experienced (Zinn & Dill, 1996). Mothering for class and ethnicity affords Tamil women the privilege of developing personal identities as professionals to be ‘‘better and more

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assertive’’ mothers, successful in negotiating for changes in household labor patterns, egalitarian decision-making, and of being gatekeepers of ethnicity. At the same time however, their choice to emphasize motherhood in the immigrant context serves to reiterate the centrality of motherhood as the only source of women’s identity. While not personally disempowering to them, it complicates the material experience of privilege. In this, although my chapter corroborates the gender and migration scholarship about immigrant women’s gender negotiations being uneven, wherein gains in one area might be accompanied by strains in another (see Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1999; Zentgraf, 2002), I submit that Tamil women’s class status perhaps exacerbates this. Unlike their working-class counterparts, for whom, paid work was always a part of mothering, as middle-class, Brahmin women, paid work was a relatively novel arrangement, where, in the immigrant context, it is consolidated as integral to their mothering. Although affording them a personal identity that it does not working-class immigrants, it also constitutes an additional aspect of mothering over the traditional one that they continue to perform in the U.S. For Tamil women then, being breadwinners and cultural nurturers exacts a personal toll. This is evinced in their willingness to limit their professional mobility and ambitions given the demands of mothering in the U.S., thereby reducing their spousal bargaining power and inhibiting their personal goals for migration. Further, they embody supermothers to prove that they have not abrogated traditional mothering responsibilities, leaving them sleepdeprived and tired. They are thus subject to social control from their Tamil contemporaries (Bhattacharjee, 1998). Immigrant Tamil motherhood is thus complex: structural and agentic, a mechanism to simultaneously integrate and resist racialization and a site where power is dynamically contested.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My thanks to Caroline Arnold, Marla Kohlman, Bette Dickerson, and Dana Krieg for their comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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AFRICAN AMERICANS’ AND LATINAS’ MOTHERING SCRIPTS: AN INTERSECTIONAL ANALYSIS Karen Christopher ABSTRACT Purpose – This chapter explores mothering scripts among women of color and the intersection of race/ethnicity, social class, and family background in their narratives. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing from in-depth, semi-structured interviews of 24 African American and Latina mothers, this study analyzes the extent to which their narratives reflect more ‘‘intensive’’ or ‘‘extensive’’ mothering scripts. Findings – African American mothers typically drew from ‘‘extensive mothering’’ narratives, whereas Latina mothers’ scripts were more varied. Research implications – The findings point to the importance of and complexities in an intersectionality perspective: Latinas’ mothering scripts generally varied more across social class categories than those of African American mothers. However, African American mothers’ discussions of stress were mediated by their social class background.

Notions of Family: Intersectional Perspectives Advances in Gender Research, Volume 17, 187–208 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-2126(2013)0000017012

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Social implications – The chapter concludes with the implications of this research for scholarship on families, and for social policies surrounding caregiving and employment. Originality/value – While rich theoretical and empirical works explore women of color and their family lives, few to none ask mothers themselves to talk about their actual and ideal experiences of motherhood. This chapter fills this gap by exploring the mothering scripts of women of color from diverse class backgrounds Keywords: Intersectionality; intensive mothering; extensive mothering; employment; women of color; social class It is well-established that race/ethnicity, social class, and gender intersect and mediate our life experiences. Yet with important exceptions (Collins, 1994, 2000; Coontz, 2008; Hattery & Smith, 2007; Segura, 1994), the literature on intersectionality only rarely focuses on motherhood. In addition, while rich theoretical and empirical works explore women of color and their family lives, few to none ask mothers themselves to talk about their actual and ideal experiences of motherhood. This chapter seeks to fill these gaps by exploring the mothering scripts of women of color from diverse class backgrounds. It analyzes the extent to which their actual and ideal mothering and employment arrangements draw from or depart from the predominant ‘‘intensive mothering’’ script. It finds a consistent ‘‘extensive mothering’’ narrative among African American mothers, and more varied scripts among Latina mothers. The patterns in mothering scripts by race/ethnicity and social class reveal the complexities in an intersectional analysis: Latina mothers’ narratives varied according to their social class background, whereas African American mothers’ narratives were more consistent across social class. However, African American mothers’ narratives about stress were contingent on their social class location.

INTERSECTIONALITY AND MOTHERING PRACTICES For decades, women of color and feminist scholars have emphasized the need for an ‘‘intersectionality’’ perspective that explores how race/ethnicity, gender, social class, and sexuality intersect to create hierarchies in which

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certain groups receive advantages over others (Baca Zinn & Dill, 1996; Collins, 1994, 2000). While much work has been done to apply an intersectionality approach to family life (e.g., see Collins, 1994, 2000; Coontz, 2008; Hattery & Smith, 2007), important gaps remain in our knowledge of the family experiences of women of color. These gaps are apparent in the sociological literature on motherhood. Hays (1996) identified an ‘‘intensive mothering’’ ideology, according to which mothers should be the central caregivers of children and ideal childrearing is time-intensive and emotionally engrossing. Hays suggested that under intensive motherhood, Good childrearing requires the day-to-day labor of nurturing the child, listening to the child, attempting to decipher the child’s needs and desires, struggling to meet the child’s wishes, and placing the child’s well-being ahead of their [mothers’] own convenience. (p. 115)

Hays found that the expectations of intensive mothering left employed mothers ‘‘feeling pressed for time, a little guilty, a bit inadequate, and somewhat ambivalent about their position’’ (p. 151). Hays also showed that employed mothers justified their employment by pointing to its benefits for their children – not for themselves. There was a moderate degree of racial/ ethnic diversity in Hays’ sample; she found that intensive mothering was the predominant narrative across mothers’ racial/ethnic and social class backgrounds. While scholars have acknowledged competing ideologies surrounding contemporary motherhood (Collins, 1994, 2000; Duncan & Edwards, 1999; Garey, 1999; Gerson, 2010; Hattery, 2001; Johnston & Swanson, 2006, 2007; Lamphere, Zavella, & Gonzales, with Evans (1993); Segura, 1994; Stack & Burton, 1993), many have identified intensive mothering as the predominant ideology in the United States (Arendell, 2000; Avishai, 2007; Douglas & Michaels, 2004; Garey, 1999; Hattery, 2001; Macdonald, 1998). Recent research identifies an alternative construction of good mothering among employed mothers – ‘‘extensive mothering’’ (Christopher, 2012). Under extensive mothering, mothers are often employed long hours during the work week so delegate a significant amount of child care to others. Mothers still claim the title of ‘‘primary caregiver’’ because they organize their children’s time and identify themselves as ultimately responsible for them. Under extensive mothering, employed mothers also emphasize the benefits of employment for themselves, rather than solely for their children (as is the case under intensive mothering). In short, under extensive

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mothering, mothers’ tasks extend to more organizational and managerial ones, and the justifications for employment extend to mothers’ own needs. Very few, if any studies to date have focused on ‘‘intensive’’ or ‘‘extensive’’ mothering among African American and Latina mothers. This is an important gap, because within contexts of racial/ethnic and economic inequality, women of color and low-income women often experience and interpret motherhood differently than white, class-privileged mothers (Collins, 1994, 2000; Dill, 2008; Hattery & Smith, 2007; Lamphere et al., 1993). There are reasons to expect that African American women would feel less accountable to the demands of intensive mothering than white women. For instance, institutionalized racism in education and employment has historically required that African American women work for pay to support their families. Black women typically hold more integrative views of motherhood and paid work; Collins (2000, p. 184) suggests that ‘‘in contrast to the y the traditional family ideal y work for Black women has been an important and valued dimension of motherhood.’’ Mothering practices in African American communities – such as ‘‘other-mothering’’ (p. 178) provided by relatives or community members – also challenge traditional gender ideologies (Collins, 2000). More generally, in contexts of racial/ethnic and economic inequality, mothering can empower women of color to improve themselves, their families, and their communities (Collins, 1994, 2000). Recent empirical work supports Collins’ (2000) assertions. Damaske (2011) finds that almost all African American women in her sample, as well as most middle class white and Latina women, expected to work continuously in their adulthood. In contrast, white and Latina workingclass women often expected to work occasionally in their adulthood. Describing the latter groups of working-class women, she writes, ‘‘The structural pushes and pulls of workforce opportunities and constraints and the continuing prevalence of the traditional division of work and family spheres was much more present in their lives’’ (p. 425). While women of color historically had higher employment rates than white women, England, Garcia-Beaulieu, and Ross (2004) suggest that in recent decades, social class (including educational attainment) and motherhood are more predictive of women’s employment. They find that regardless of their racial/ethnic background, women with more education have higher employment rates. The current study thus explores the influences of education and social class in mothers’ narratives.

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Segura (1994) finds differences in how women of Mexican origin conceptualize motherhood and paid work. She identifies the prevalence of an intensive mothering script: Among Chicanos and Mexicanos the image of la madre as self-sacrificing and holy is a powerful standard against which women often compare themselves. The Chicana informants also seem to accept the notion that women’s primary duty is to provide for the emotional welfare of the children, and that economic activities which take them outside the home are secondary. (p. 219)

She suggests that the Mexican-born mothers were less ambivalent about employment than the U.S.-born Chicana mothers, in part because the former were more used to their own mothers contributing to the family economy. Baca Zinn and Wells (2008) emphasize that ‘‘Latinas’’ include diverse groups of women; while more Latinas work for pay over time, this has had varying effects on their power and status in the home. In understanding how women ‘‘mediate the contradictions of job and family’’ (p. 281), Lamphere et al. (1993) affirm the need for intersectional analyses. They stress the importance of the local political economy, as well as women’s ethnicity, social class background, marital status, and their husbands’ jobs. These studies illustrate the importance of mothers’ families, as well as their ethnic and social class backgrounds, in understanding their orientations to motherhood and employment, all of which are explored below. As suggested above, parenting in the face of institutionalized racial/ethnic inequality has often required mothers to develop support systems outside their nuclear families. The ‘‘compadrazgo’’ or godparent-relationships in many Latino families have been important sources of support (Dill, 2008). While immigration has complex and varying effects on mothers’ caregiving and employment decisions (Coontz, 2008; Read & Cohen, 2007), many immigrant women arrive in new countries without the extended family networks that contributed child care and household labor in their countries of origin; thus, they may be less able to engage in paid work (Man, 2001). This study explores the mothering scripts of a small number of immigrant mothers. To this rich literature, this chapter adds an intersectional analysis of the mothering and employment narratives of women of color from divergent social class backgrounds. Unlike any prior studies, it explores the actual and ideal mothering practices of contemporary African American and Latina mothers and the extent to which they are – and wish to be – more ‘‘intensive’’ or ‘‘extensive’’ mothers. It also examines one outcome of mothers’ caregiving and employment arrangements – their reported stress

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level – and complexities in how mothers report stress. Drawing from the research referenced above, this study explores how mothers’ family backgrounds (particularly the work history of their own mothers), racial/ ethnic and social class backgrounds, and partners (when present) influence their narratives. Under extensive mothering, mothers may spend long hours away from children while employed but still identify as primary caregivers, and they identify personal benefits of employment. Extensive motherhood is likely to be particularly salient for African American women, who have long incorporated breadwinning as an important component of motherhood. Extensive mothering may be less prevalent among Latina women, particularly those who draw from the more traditional views of motherhood described above. This chapter explores how mothers’ racial/ethnic and social class backgrounds intersect in their narratives of extensive or intensive mothering, a topic unexamined in prior research.

METHOD This research uses in-depth interviews to explore the caregiving and employment narratives of 24 women of color. This study draws from the author’s interviews of 59 mothers with young children – with at least one child under age five, when children’s caregiving needs are typically greatest. The interviews took place between 2007 and 2009. This chapter focuses on the 24 mothers of color in the sample. Ten were African American; fourteen were Latina. Three mothers lived in Canada and twenty-one lived in the United States.1 Respondents were recruited by advertising the study in poor, lowermiddle, upper-middle, and high-income neighborhoods. The study also used snowball sampling, through which respondents gave the researcher names of other mothers. Snowball sampling was limited to three women from the initial contact person in order to ensure a diverse sample. Interviews were semi-structured: there was an interview guide and all mothers were asked several questions about their actual and ideal mothering and employment arrangements, but they were given leeway to discuss topics most important to them. Interviews were conducted in public places like coffee shops, libraries or in respondents’ homes. Interviews lasted between 45 minutes and over two hours, most in the 90-minute range. All mothers and other family members were given pseudonyms.

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Table 1 provides demographic information on the respondents. Mothers self-identified their racial/ethnic background as African American/Canadian or Latina/Hispanic. Table 1 places them in rough social class categories based on family income (see Table 1 for the income categories), but as seen below, mothers’ educational attainment and occupations were salient in their narratives and constitute other important dimensions of social class.

Table 1.

Mothers’ Nationality, Racial/Ethnic Background, Occupation, and Family Income. Nationality

Race/Ethnicity

Erika Delia Elena Karina Sofia Selena Clara Eliana Paoloa Anita Bianca Alexa Alana

U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S.

African African Latina Latina Latina Latina Latina Latina Latina African African African Latina

American American

Isabela Jimena Rosalina Cecilia Ana

U.S. U.S. U.S. Canada Canada

Latina Latina Latina African Canadian Latina

U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. Canada

African African Latina Latina African African

American American American

Occupation

Family Incomea

Professor, full-time Herbalist, Full-time Local govt. policy, full-time Grantwriter, full-time Govt. consultant, part-time Professor, full-time At home At home At home Administrative asst., full-time Administrative asst., full-time At home Clerical/accounting work, full-time Nanny, full-time At home Janitor, part-time Cashier, part-time Personal trainer (leave, return part-time)

UM UM UM UM UM UM UM UM UM LM LM LM LM

Nurse, full-time Program coordinator, full-time Call center operator, full-time Child care worker, full-time Call center worker, full-time Cook, part-time

LM LM LM Low Low Low

LM Low Low Low Low

Single: Jana Jasmine Monica Alma Jordana Salma

American American

American Canadian

Note: Upper-middle income families had incomes between $75,000 and $200,000; lower-middle income families between $30,001 and $74,999, and low-income families $30,000 and under. a UM, upper-middle income families; LM, lower-middle income families; Low, low-income families.

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Seventy percent of the employed mothers worked full-time. Most mothers were married; for a more in-depth discussion of the influence of marital status on mothers’ narratives, see Christopher (2012). This sample of mothers has higher fertility than the average in the United States and Canada, particularly because a relatively large number of mothers (eleven) had three or more children. After tape-recorded interviews were transcribed, the author read the transcripts multiple times over. A ‘‘focused coding’’ (Charmaz, 1995) analytic strategy was used: respondents’ narratives were compared to one another, and to themes in the past literature on motherhood, race/ethnicity, and class.

RESULTS African American Low-Income Mothers The three low-income African/Canadian mothers (Jordana, Salma, and Cecilia) all worked for pay, and while two wanted more time with their children, none wanted to be stay-at-home mothers. Jordana, a call-center worker and single mother of one, said early in the interview that she would ‘‘rather be at home’’ than working her job. But at the end of the interview she said, ‘‘I could never be a stay at home mom y I see me being a workaholic like my mother.’’ I reminded her that earlier she said she’d rather be at home, and she said that her ideal situation would be to work for pay, but ‘‘from home.’’ All three of these lower-income mothers had no choice but to engage in more delegatory or ‘‘extensive’’ mothering, given they all worked at least 30 hours a week. Salma had her children in an on-site child care at the community center where she worked. Cecilia relied on their husband for child care, but stressed that she was the primary caregiver. She worked part-time on the night shift so they wouldn’t have to pay for child care. Unlike the other three, Jordana relied a good bit on her own mother for child care and said, ‘‘Families always got each other’s back. I know my mom has mine.’’ While Jordana did not identify many of the benefits of work for herself in addition to ‘‘feeding and clothing’’ her son, Salma spoke about how her job as a cook provided her with a needed break for her children, as well as showing her children ‘‘the value of work.’’ She says: I mean as a single mom, it’s tough. And y I have an education, and I’ve had quite a few sort of emotional breakdowns that have really forced me to get I think some insight into

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what life is and for me to be able to challenge it. So the fact that I’m a Black woman y with three young kids, it’s like that’s put me in a pretty small box y if I take it for what traditionally that means. But I say, ‘‘to hell with that.’’ You know, I’m just gonna make it something else.

As Collins (2000) suggests can be the case for African American mothers, the integration of employment and motherhood empower Salma. Cecilia said she worked as a cashier for the money, because ‘‘it’s not too good to be dependent on one person,’’ and because her husband might not be around for the long-term. She said, ‘‘he’s not gonna be there forever, and just in case, cause I know he can manage alone, but what about me?’’ Thus, consistent with an extensive mothering narrative, several of these mothers justify employment according to personal benefits – confidence and empowerment for Salma and economic independence for Cecilia. All three women had mothers who worked for pay, though Cecilia’s was at home while she and her siblings were young. Salma spoke of the importance of her parents in modeling the importance of ‘‘hard work’’ for her and her siblings; Jordana said that she would probably always be a ‘‘workaholic’’ like her mother. All three mothers experienced significant stress in combining motherhood, employment and running a household, particularly the single mothers (Salma and Jordana). Salma said her life was ‘‘very stressful,’’ and Jordana said, ‘‘I’m exhausted. And by the time I wake up it’s like I just laid down, and it’s time to start all over again. So, it’s stressful. It’s very stressful, because you can’t balance, you [sic] always on the go.’’ While Jordana concluded she would prefer to work from home, none of these mothers expressed conflict over working for pay, probably because they always expected they would – particularly the single mothers, both of whom said they had no choice in the matter. African American Low-to-Middle Income Mothers Four of the low-to-middle income mothers (Anita, Jasmine, Bianca, and Jana) worked full-time and had to delegate a good deal of child care to others. All said they would prefer to work part-time. Alexa was an unemployed, low-to-middle income mother. She was recently laid-off from her job as an escrow assistant, which she loved. While she was initially excited to be a stay-at-home mom, the thrill faded fast; she said, ‘‘after I got laid off, I was like, ‘oh my God – I can’t stay home with him all day, he is going to drive me crazy!’’’ She wanted more time away from her children,

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but was also not satisfied with the ‘‘terrible’’ daycare experiences she’d had given she couldn’t afford ‘‘higher quality’’ daycare. While all of these mothers said they wished they had more time to spend with their children than their full-time schedules allowed, all five of the mothers also said that employment provided needed breaks from their children. Anita, who had five children, was the only one to express ambivalence about employment. She had recently returned to employment after about two years off (during which time she had her two younger children). She started off the interview saying: I love my children don’t get me wrong, but in the house everyday, all day long with a one and two year old – it was tough for me. I guess because I have been a working mom for so long, I have always worked. Um, it came to a point where all my laundry was done y I mean I re-organized my cabinets, and you know, I had that junk drawer in the kitchen cleaned out. I mean, there was nothing else left for me to do. And I think I was actually going stir crazy.

But later in the interview she said her ideal would be to be at home full-time with them. I asked her about what she had said earlier about going ‘‘stir crazy’’ at home, and she laughed and replied, ‘‘I did say that, didn’t I?’’ She went on to say that while her two youngest children were young she experienced post-partum depression, and she felt guilty about that. In the end, it was hard for me to assess Anita’s ideal situation, perhaps because she did not seem clear on what it was. She ultimately did not have a choice in the matter; she said, ‘‘I don’t have the luxury of saying, ‘I’m staying at home,’ I mean just couldn’t do that, I can’t afford that.’’ Anita was the only mother in the sample who expressed deeply ambivalent feelings about her ideal employment situation. In contrast, the other four African American mothers in this group clearly stated they wanted to work for pay and spoke about the personal benefits they received from their jobs (in addition to paychecks): their need for ‘‘breaks’’ from their children, the need for ‘‘adult conversation,’’ the need for ‘‘me time’’ that work provided. For example, describing her maternity leave from her nursing job, Jana said, ‘‘I was having cabin fever, I was ready to get back to work and take her to the babysitter and get a break.’’ All spoke in glowing ways about their children – Jasmine said her kids were ‘‘her world’’ and Jana said ‘‘this type of love – I’ve never experienced this.’’ But they all said they would work for pay even if they did not have to for financial reasons. Thus, these mothers draw more from extensive mothering than intensive mothering because they preferred paid work over staying at home with children, and they emphasized the personal benefits they themselves received from employment.

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Three of these five African American women had mothers who worked full-time to support their families; these women talked about the importance of learning a ‘‘work ethic’’ from their mothers and fathers. For example, Bianca said, My mom, she worked. And she had to work and that was the only way of survival. So I think that’s kind of the reason why I never want to just totally not work, because I think that’s the survival instinct that I have in me y that’s the way you live – you work.

Jasmine also talked in glowing terms about her mother’s ability to send her five children to college as a single mother, and Jana said, ‘‘I know my mother has great work ethic, she has been on her job for 45 years, and she volunteers and everything y she is a positive role model. And that made me strive to want to do, to achieve more.’’ These comments suggest that these mothers live in a world where employed mothers were the norm. In contrast, Anita’s mother did not work for pay until all of her children were in middle school, which she envied. She said, ‘‘I’m envious of my family life when I was a kid because my father was the only one who had to work at that time, and my mother had the opportunity to [be involved with our] schooling and everything else.’’ Alexa’s mother died when she was eight and she did not remember whether she worked outside of the home. Alexa was more stressed by her husband than her children; when I asked about her stress level, and she replied, ‘‘it’s very stressful because at times you just want to be by yourself. Like, I love it when he is away, I really do.’’ I asked if she was referring to her young son being away, and she replied, ‘‘No! When [my husband] is away.’’ The other four mothers all said that it was ‘‘stressful’’ or ‘‘very stressful’’ combining employment, motherhood, and housework.

African American Upper-Middle Income Women While there were only two women in this category, their narratives overlapped considerably in two areas: their love of their jobs, and their respect for the hard struggles of their parents. Dalia and Erika loved their jobs, and both were glad to be pursuing them full-time. Describing her job as an herbalist, Dalia said, ‘‘This is my passion and it’s my purpose, and I would do it for free. And I have done it for free for a very long time y It’s just been a double blessing that I get to do the thing that I love most in the world as a profession.’’ Likewise, Erika said her full-time job as a professor satisfied her ‘‘thirst for

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knowledge and intellectual curiosity that needs to be fed.’’ Because of this, she said she would be ‘‘extremely unfulfilled’’ as a stay-at-home mother. In practice, both of these mothers were delegatory in their parenting – Dalia had her aunt look after her daughter who was not yet in school, and Erika had her youngest daughter in full-time preschool. Both Dalia and Erika’s narratives draw from an extensive mothering script because they preferred delegating a good deal of child care to others while they worked for pay. They also discussed many personal benefits of paid work. Dalia and Erika also said that their parents’ work lives had a significant impact on their own. Dalia’s father was a mechanic who owned his own business, and when Dalia was an older child she learned he couldn’t read. She said: He is a genius, and he can’t read! [But] there wasn’t nothing he couldn’t build, that he couldn’t fix – he ran a business. And so that translated to me that this man is a genius and he can’t read, so that means that I have all of these other things – I can read, so there is really nothing I can’t do.

Dalia said that her mother worked in child care center for several years, and then at a skating rink. She said her mother ‘‘loved her work,’’ and that it had just occurred to her (during the interview) that her mother may have taken those particular jobs in order to be closer to her kids. Erika said her mother grew up in a Caribbean community, where women’s parenthood and employment are both valued. Her mother was at home with Erika and her siblings when they were young, but she went back to work and opened a small business after Erika’s step-father died suddenly. Through this experience, Erika said she learned about women ‘‘having to take care of things y Maybe that’s why I’m the controller in my home!’’ (Laughs.) Erika also said that her mother enjoyed her paid work; she said, ‘‘I didn’t respect that when growing up, but now I realize she was happier doing business.’’ Neither Dalia nor Erika reported high levels of stress in their lives. Dalia said that her life ‘‘can be stressful,’’ but every morning she reserved an hour of personal time that helped her manage stress. Erika said her level of stress depended on her work deadlines and that she would identify her life as ‘‘somewhat stressful,’’ but not terribly stressful. Neither of these mothers spoke of the monotony of jobs and child care, as did some of the lowerincome African American mothers. This is probably because both of these mothers enjoyed their jobs, and both had help in the home from their husbands.

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Latina, Low-Income Mothers Of the four low-income Latina mothers, one worked full-time (Alma), one was on leave and planning to return part-time (Ana), one worked very short part-time hours (Rosalina), and one was a stay-at-home mom (Jimena). Thus, only Alma delegated a good deal of child care to others – her son attended the child care center where she worked. Three of these mothers– Alma, Ana, and Jimena – said their ideal would be to work part-time. Rosalina worked short part-time hours as a janitor, around five hours a week in the evenings after her husband was home from work. She drew most heavily from an intensive mothering script, saying that while she liked the small amount of money she earned, she felt it ‘‘was kind of my responsibility to raise them at home, as a stay-at-home mom,’’ because she didn’t ‘‘want to miss the things from their life.’’ Jimena was a stay-at-home mom, but wanted to work part-time to earn money and have some control over household finances. Referring to her husband, she said, ‘‘sometimes I have to go ask, like he is my daddy too! You know, I have to go ask him, can I have some money so I can y take the kids over here, or I am going to do this, or I am going to buy them that, so yeah, that [being employed herself] would be better.’’ An emerging theme from these mothers’ narratives was that their employment was circumscribed by two factors: their desire to spend lots of time with children and their lack of education. Alma, a single mother, wanted to work for pay and said she would even if she didn’t have to, because she needs to ‘‘get out as well.’’ However, she did not enjoy working 40 hours a week at the daycare. Three different times in the interview she brought up her inability to cook her son a hot breakfast in the morning. She said: I wish that his first years, that I would be able to spend more time with him y to give him his breakfast. It’s too early in the day for me to provide breakfast, because I have to be here at 6 in the morning. And so I have to bring him and wake him up at 5 o’clock in the morning, to come with me to go to work. And so [instead he has] juices with all this sugar in it, I don’t feel that he is getting the nutrition that he needs, I mean, I could do so much.

Alma clearly wanted to be a more ‘‘intensive’’ mother than she currently was. She said, though, that she had worked at this child-care center (that her youngest son also attended) for 13 years because she had little education. She said, ‘‘I don’t get paid good here y the only reason I stay here is because I have my high school diploma, but y I read to a second

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grade level.’’ She was tested for learning disabilities and did have them, but never received any treatment for them. Similarly, Jimena, the stay-at-home mother, said she would have a better time finding a job if she had more education; she said, ‘‘I think I would have qualified for other stuff, computers and all that. You know, where I could do my work at home, but like, I don’t have no skills or nothing.’’ Ana moved to Canada from Brazil, and while she loved her job as a personal trainer and looked forward to going back to it after her leave, she said she needed more education to earn more money. Rosalina also did not graduate from high school. Thus, all of these women’s job prospects were hampered by their lack of education. In contrast to the African American mothers, these four Latina mothers did not speak of their mothers as positive role models. Ana’s and Rosalina’s mothers were not employed when they were young, and both had little to say when asked how their parents’ work lives affected their own. Alma and Jimena, however, spoke about their mothers as models to avoid. Describing her mother’s more traditional attitudes, Alma said, ‘‘she chose that when you get married, that’s your husband and no matter what he does, he is your husband, you need to stay there. I didn’t feel that way. I said, ‘Why?’ If that person is not making you happy, I need to move on.’’ Jimena spoke of her need to leave her family of origin given issues of alcohol addiction and fighting; she had little to say about the fact that her mother worked outside of the home. Another way these Latina mothers differ from lower-income African American mothers is that the former expressed less stress in taking care of your children and the household. The one exception was Alma, who was very stressed out as a single parent who worked full-time. However, the other three Latina, low-income mothers said that they did not find their home lives very stressful. Ana had an infant and was on paid leave and did not find caring for her daughter taxing; she said, ‘‘For me, it’s not so difficult. It’s not stressful. I really enjoy taking care of her, and the house isn’t bad.’’ Rosalina said, ‘‘It’s not stressful. There are days when it’s harder.’’ Even Jimena, who wanted more independence from her husband and wanted more help from him around the house, said, It’s not stressful. I just think, always plan out your schedule y your day, if it don’t work out y at the end of the day, you know it’s going to be alright. And then once you see their faces and they are happy, that makes everything even better, because you know that they are happy, even though sometimes they ruin your day.

Thus, these three Latina women did not find their lives very stressful. All said they had always wanted to have children and many expected to be the

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primary caregivers of children. While these low-income, Latina women were unhappy with some element of their work situation or educational background, they generally were not stressed out by motherhood.

Latina, Lower-Middle Income Mothers All three Latina, lower-middle income mothers worked full-time, but they differed in their ideal work arrangements. Isabela, a full-time nanny, said she loved her job but drew from intensive mothering in saying she would prefer to be at home with her two-year old daughter. She said, ‘‘If I could, I think I would have quit by now y I am in a point where I am ready to be a mommy, and not a nanny and a mommy at the same time.’’ She expected to re-enter the workplace once her children were older. Alana, a clerical worker in an accounting firm, and Monica, a call-center worker, preferred to work part-time. Both said they liked their jobs – and Monica said, ‘‘believe it or not, I love my job’’ – but both said they worked out of economic necessity. This was particularly true for Monica, who had left her husband the week before the interview. Both Alana’s and Monica’s youngest children attended daycare. Alana wanted more time during the work week particularly with her youngest son who was three, but did not want to stay at home with her four children; she said she would find that ‘‘too boring.’’ Monica also preferred to work outside the home and would like more time with her kids during the work week, but ‘‘less time’’ with them on the weekends. Thus, both of these women reflect extensive mothering in that they prefer at least some degree of delegatory mothering. In contrast, Isabela was more of an intensive mother who preferred to be a stay-at-home mom, at least while her children were young. Isabela was very stressed out and tired by the end of the day. She said, ‘‘The stress y by 6:00 I am exhausted, and there should be the time for the three of us, to have our time, some time together, and by 6:00 I am in the couch like barely wanting to get up to cook dinner, you know?’’ It seemed to me that part of her stress was from having to work full-time when her preference was to be at home with her daughter (though she did emphasize that she loved the family for whom she worked). Neither Alana nor Monica reported being too stressed out by paid work and parenting; Alana said she took ‘‘deep breaths’’ and would ‘‘pray’’ when she got stressed out and reminded herself that she ‘‘wanted four children.’’ Monica was not stressed out about her job or her kids per se; she said her husband – who had been

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unemployed for many years and did not help much around the house – ‘‘that was my biggest stress.’’ These women had varying reports of how their mothers affected their employment. Isabela spoke in glowing terms about her mother’s ability to be an involved mother and also re-enter the workforce when she separated from her husband; ‘‘she taught me everything can work out if you try hard enough.’’ Monica’s mother did not work outside the home until she was around 10. While Monica said she initially did not understand why her mother went back to work, she said that ‘‘now I understand that.’’ In contrast, Alana’s mother did not work outside of the home and sometimes tried to make Alana guilty. Alana said her mother was more ‘‘old style’’ and had ‘‘bad communication’’ with her husband, and Alana said she didn’t want that in her own life. Latina, Upper-Middle Income Mothers The seven Latina, upper-middle class mothers had various work-family arrangements, and they held a range of opinions about integrating motherhood and paid work. Three of them – Clara, Eliana, and Paoloa – were staying at home with children while their children were young, and this was the ideal situation for all three of them. In contrast, Elena (profiled in-depth in Christopher, 2012) was quite work-identified, as were Sofia, Selena, and Karina; all preferred to work full-time, though the latter three said they would also like more time with their children during the work week. In order to highlight common themes within these two orientations, I will focus on the narratives of Sofia and Clara. Sofia had two children and worked in local government. When asked about the main reasons she was drawn to employment, Sofia said the following: I love my work y I like the issues I work on, I like the mental challenges, I like working with people – having an idea or issue and problem and addressing it. And I guess it gives me a purpose. (Laughs) And as much as I believe that there is great purpose and reason to children and doing all kinds of things and teaching them, it’s not a good fit for me. And what I realized is that I was much happier and a better parent when I could model for them my being happy for my work.

Sofia drew from intensive mothering in justifying her work by its benefits to her children; but, she also violates a primary tenet of intensive mothering when admitting that she does not want to be the full-time caregiver of her children. While delegating a fair amount of childrearing (about 35

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hours a week) to preschool, she identified as the primary caregiver of her children because she ‘‘organizes everything’’ – their preschool, after-school activities and play-dates, and their weekend schedules. Sofia’s childrearing strategy had grown more delegatory as her youngest child has gotten older. She now drew more from an extensive motherhood script, in which others cared for her children the bulk of the work week and in which she emphasized the benefits she got from employment. However, while Sofia preferred full-time work, she also talked about how ‘‘tired’’ she was working full-time and completing a PhD program. She said she felt bad that she did not always give her kids her full attention. Given this, she said her ideal would be to be with them after school (around 3 pm) until bedtime (around 8 pm); she said, ‘‘I would like to have more undivided attention time with them.’’ Sofia’s opinions were echoed by Selena and Karina; all three loved their paid work and received many personal benefits from it, but also wanted more time with their children during the work week. Sofia, Selena, and Elena spoke about the importance of their parents of instilling a ‘‘work ethic’’ or an ‘‘expectation that we would work’’ from a young age, even though Sofia and Selena’s mother did not work when they were young. Karina, on the other hand, saw her stay-at-home mother as a model to avoid, suggesting that she was someone who ‘‘complained a lot,’’ and ‘‘didn’t do something for herself.’’ Clara, Eliana, and Paola spent their early childhood in Mexico, and they all referred to how this influenced their ideas about motherhood and employment. All reflected an intensive mothering script with their stress on the importance of being home, especially when children were young. All had family and friends still in Mexico and compared their experience of motherhood to those back home. One woman called it ‘‘culture shock’’ to have children in the United States without an extended family network, and without relatively inexpensive nannies and housecleaners hired by families in Mexico. For example, Clara had two young children, and she wanted to be staying at home with her children while they were young. But she also could not work for pay if she had wanted to, given her husband’s work visa allowed only him and not his ‘‘dependents’’ to be employed. She described the importance of her culture, saying I hang out with Latin friends, which have the same culture and the same Visa status, and the same things and reasons why we came here is because of our husbands having a job. So many of them, I mean, some of them work, but they work part time or as a teacher y and we don’t have this family network [like they do back home]. So we end up staying with our kids.

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All three said that many of their friends stayed at home with children, but that back home in Mexico mothers had more help from extended family, nannies, and housecleaners. All three also said their own mothers stayed at home with them. Eliana, who had a child only after she finished her MFT degree, was eloquent in describing the lack of a role model of how to balance paid work and motherhood, and how that affected her life: It was like an all or nothing. If I had kids, I have to stay home, so I better not have kids, so I can finish my career, you know – I am not just going to graduate and not do anything with it y I was raised with those two views, very split. It was either black or white, it wasn’t a combination y And I have to constantly remind myself, I can do both, you know? I don’t have to neglect one or the other. Um, but I have to say it is a constant struggle.

Unlike the African American women above, almost all of whom saw their own mothers engage in paid work and mothering simultaneously, many Latina women did not experience this in their families of origin. These three mothers all said they were stressed out by motherhood – and many compared their own situation unfavorably to that of family of friends ‘‘back home’’ in Mexico.

DISCUSSION This chapter affirms the need for an intersectionality perspective exploring the interlocking effects of race/ethnicity and social class in mothers’ narratives about parenting and employment. An extensive mothering script – in which mothers say they do not want to stay at home with children and in which they identify personal benefits from working for pay – was prevalent among all African American mothers in this sample, regardless of their social class background. Even the African American mothers who referred to an intensive mothering script at some point in the interview (like Jordana and Anita) drew from an extensive mothering script when saying they needed breaks from their children. African American mothers in this sample discussed their own mothers – almost all of whom worked for pay – as role models. While the lower-income African American mothers in particular were stressed out by the everyday struggles involved in raising children and working, they did not express conflict over their decisions and all said they always expected to combine motherhood and

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employment; one concluded, ‘‘that’s the way you live – you work.’’ This supports Collins’ (2000) and Damaske’s (2011) claims about the distinctive mothering experiences of African American women, and suggests that race remains important in understanding contemporary mothers’ narratives of caregiving and employment. In contrast, Latina mothers’ narratives were more divergent both within and across social class groups. As expected given the literature reviewed above, many Latina mothers drew more from an ‘‘intensive’’ mothering ideology that emphasizes the importance of mothers spending long hours with children. But some Latinas, particularly those who had jobs they loved, drew more from extensive mothering scripts. As found by Damaske (2011), several Latina mothers described ways their employment options were circumscribed by varying factors. This research adds that in this sample, these factors varied by mothers’ social class background: low educational attainment limited the employment of lower-income mothers, and the lack of support networks and visa limitations curtailed the employment of higher-income mothers. More Latina mothers did not see their mothers as role models; several viewed them as models to avoid. Interestingly, many Latina mothers – across social class location – expressed less stress surrounding motherhood than African American mothers, perhaps because fewer were employed full-time, or because they always expected to be primary caregivers of children. But the three uppermiddle income Latina mothers who grew up in Mexico compared themselves to their counterparts back home who had more help from extended family, hired caregivers, and cleaners; these Latina mothers were stressed out in the absence of such support. This confirms the importance of family networks in promoting immigrant women’s employment (Man, 2001), and adds that this very small sample of immigrant mothers suggest that immigration policies restricting married women’s employment deserve more attention. This research adds that for many Latina mothers, multiple constraints on their employment – such as not having employed mothers themselves, low educational attainment, or restrictive immigration policies – may require that Latina mothers be more committed to employment than African American or white mothers who do not experience these constraints. Indeed, the Latina mothers in this sample that drew from more extensive mothering scripts all talked about the importance of higher education in their lives, and all expressed passion for their jobs. This research also suggests that the ‘‘intensive mothering’’ norm identified by Hays (1996) is not uniformly experienced by all women; race matters in

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women’s mothering scripts. African American mothers in this sample rarely drew from an intensive mothering narrative, but Latina mothers were more likely to do so.

CONCLUSION Taken together, these findings suggest that while racial/ethnic background, social class, and one’s own family background are all important in understanding mothers’ actual and ideal work/family arrangements, differences by social class were generally more apparent in Latina mothering scripts than in those of African Americans. One exception to this trend was that the level of reported stress of ‘‘doing it all’’ was greater for lower-income African American mothers than higher-income mothers, the latter of whom were more satisfied with their jobs and generally had more help from husbands/extended family. Thus, this chapter suggests that racial/ethnic, family, and social class background intersect in complex ways in the mothering narratives of these women of color. Future research with larger samples of African American and Latina mothers could assess the extent to which this is a pattern in the larger population. There was one gender effect that occurred among several African American and Latina lower- and lower-middle income mothers: frustration with husbands. These mothers said they were more frustrated by their husbands than by their children or jobs. One mother’s frustration had grown to the point that she left her husband the week before the interview. The upper-middle income mothers did not have stress-free relationships with husbands; several said they wished their husbands did more around the house or with their children, but none expressed the frustration that some less privileged women did. There are several policy implications of this research. Social policies that bolster mothers’ and fathers’ ability to be involved caregivers and workers – like paid leaves and subsidized child care – will be especially important for mothers without support networks, and for mothers with incomes too low to pay for high-quality child care. These policies could also help the mothers who were frustrated by their husband’s lack of help in the home. This research also shows that some immigrant married women could not work outside of the home given visa restrictions, a point typically neglected in research on work/family arrangements among Latina mothers; these mothers need more progressive immigration laws before they can engage in paid work at all. This research also points to the importance of

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educational attainment – or the lack thereof – in many of the lower-income Latina narratives. In order for more women to attain their ideal work/family arrangements, more progressive work/family, educational, and immigration policies are necessary. The complex ways that race/ethnicity, social class, and gender intersect to influence mothering narratives and experiences suggest that one social policy is unlikely to help all women; rather, social policies need to be designed around mothers’ complex experiences at the intersections of their racial/ethnic and social class backgrounds.

NOTE 1. Canadian mothers were interviewed to explore how Canadian paid leaves influence mothers’ narratives; a separate chapter from this study analyzes mothers’ attitudes about and experiences of paid leaves.

REFERENCES Arendell, T. (2000). Conceiving and investigating motherhood: The decade’s scholarship. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 64, 1192–1207. Avishai, O. (2007). Managing the lactating body: The breast-feeding project and privileged motherhood. Qualitative Sociology, 30, 135–152. Baca Zinn, M., & Dill, B. T. (1996). Theorizing difference from multiracial feminisms. Feminist Studies, 22, 321–331. Baca Zinn, M., & Wells, B. (2008). Diversity within Latino families: New lessons for family social science. In S. Coontz (Ed.), American families: A multicultural reader. New York, NY: Routledge. Charmaz, K. (1995). Grounded theory. In J. Smith, R. Harre & L. Van Langenhove (Eds.), Rethinking methods in psychology. London: Sage. Christopher, K. (2012). Extensive mothering: Employed mothers’ constructions of the good mother. Gender & Society, 26, 73–96. Collins, P. H. (1994). Shifting the center: Race, class, and feminist theorizing about motherhood. In E. Glenn, G. Chang & L. Forcey (Eds.), Mothering: Ideology, experience, and agency. New York, NY: Routledge. Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Coontz, S. (Ed.). (2008). American families: A multicultural reader (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Damaske, S. (2011). A ‘‘major career woman’’? How women develop early expectations about work. Gender & Society, 25, 409–430. Dill, B. T. (2008). Fictive kin, paper sons, and compadrazgo: Women of color and the struggle for family survival. In S. Coontz (Ed.), American families: A multicultural reader (pp. 2–19). New York, NY: Routledge.

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Douglas, S. J., & Michaels, M. T. (2004). The mommy myth. New York, NY: Free Press. Duncan, S., & Edwards, R. (1999). Lone mothers, paid work, and gendered moral rationalities. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. England, P., Garcia-Beaulieu, C., & Ross, M. (2004). Women’s employment among Blacks, Whites, and three groups of Latinas: Do more privileged women have higher employment? Gender & Society, 18, 494–509. Garey, A. (1999). Weaving work and motherhood. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University. Gerson, K. (2010). The unfinished revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hattery, A. (2001). Women, work, and family: Balancing and weaving. London: Sage. Hattery, A., & Smith, E. (2007). African American families. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Hays, S. (1996). The cultural contradictions of motherhood. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Johnston, D. D., & Swanson, D. H. (2006). Constructing the ‘‘good mother’’: The experiences of mothering ideologies by work status. Sex Roles, 54, 509–519. Johnston, D. D., & Swanson, D. H. (2007). Cognitive acrobatics in the construction of workermother identity. Sex Roles, 57, 447–459. Lamphere, L., Zavella, P. & Gonzales, F. with P. B. Evans. (1993). Sunbelt working mothers: Reconciling family and factory. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Macdonald, C. L. (1998). Manufacturing motherhood: The shadow work of nannies and au pairs. Qualitative Sociology, 21(1), 25–53. Man, G. (2001). From Hong Kong to Canada: Immigration and the changing family lives of middle-class women from Hong Kong. In B. J. Fox (Ed.), Family patterns, gender relations (pp. 420–435). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Read, J. G., & Cohen, P. N. (2007). One size fits all? Explaining U.S.-born and immigrant women’s employment across 12 ethnic groups. Social Forces, 85(4), 1713–1734. Segura, D. (1994). Working at motherhood: Chicana and Mexican immigrant mothers and employment. In E. Glenn, G. Chang & L. Forcey (Eds.), Mothering: Ideology, experience, and agency (pp. 211–233). New York, NY: Routledge. Stack, C., & Burton, L. (1993). Kinscripts. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 24, 157–170.

A CAMPAIGN FOR GOOD MOTHERHOOD? EXPLORING MEDIA DISCOURSE ON SARAH PALIN, HILLARY CLINTON, AND MICHELLE OBAMA DURING THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN Heather E. Dillaway and Elizabeth R. Pare´ ABSTRACT Purpose – Within cultural discourse, prescriptions for ‘‘good’’ motherhood exist. To further the analysis of these prescriptions, we examine how media conversations about Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and First Lady Michelle Obama during the 2008 presidential election campaign illustrate existing notions of good motherhood. Methods – Using qualitative content analysis techniques, we review media discourse about Palin, Clinton, and Obama during this campaign. We use existing feminist literature on motherhood and an intersectionality Notions of Family: Intersectional Perspectives Advances in Gender Research, Volume 17, 209–239 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-2126(2013)0000017013

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perspective to ground our analysis, comparing and contrasting discourse about these political figures. Findings – The 2008 campaign represented a campaign for good motherhood as much as it represented a campaign for the next president. Discourse on Palin, Clinton, and Obama creates three very different characterizations of mothers: the bad, working mother and failed supermom (Palin), the unfeeling, absent mother (Clinton), and the intensive, stay-at-home mother (Obama). The campaign reified a very narrow, ideological standard for good motherhood and did little to broaden the acceptability of mothers in politics. Value of paper – This article exemplifies the type of intersectional work that can be done in the areas of motherhood and family. Applying an intersectionality perspective in the analysis of media discourse allows us to see exactly how the 2008 campaign became a campaign for good motherhood. Moreover, until we engage in an intersectional analysis of this discourse, we might not see that the reification of good motherhood within campaign discourse is also a reification of hegemonic gender, race, class, age, and family structure locations. Keywords: Motherhood; Sarah Palin; Michelle Obama; Hillary Clinton; discourse; intersectionality A growing social science and communications literature examines the impact of and discourse on Republican Vice-Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin, Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton, and the potential First Lady Michelle Obama, because of their prominence within the world of U.S. politics in recent years. While Hillary Clinton has been an important figure within national politics for several decades, Palin and Obama are relative newcomers to the political spotlight. As Edwards and McDonald (2010, p. 313) note, the 2008 campaign was ‘‘noteworthy for heightening the profile of women candidates’’ in the United States, even though neither Palin nor Clinton won her race. We argue, along with Greenlee (2010), Carlin and Winfrey (2009), and Elder and Greene (2008), that this campaign was also noteworthy for its reification of good motherhood. We believe that this reification was heightened because three mothers with very different social locations were simultaneously front and center. While Palin, Obama, and Clinton held very different positions with the 2008 election campaign (a presidential nominee, a vice-presidential

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candidate, and a potential first lady), the discourse surrounding their political prominence is comparable specifically because of the gendered discourse about motherhood within this campaign. Nonetheless, there is a lack of in-depth academic analysis in existing literature about how these three women are portrayed as mothers. Most attempts to analyze the discourse on these candidates centers more fully on sexism, feminism, and the effects of these candidates on female voters, not on motherhood. (Carlin and Winfrey (2009), Greenlee (2010) and Elder and Greene (2008) are the only authors we have found who pay any substantial attention to motherhood during this campaign; thus they are important exceptions here.) In this conceptual paper we attempt to document varying constructions of motherhood in the campaign discourse to show how a hegemonic, ‘‘intensive’’ motherhood is characterized more positively than any other version of motherhood. A comparison of the separate yet simultaneous discourses on these three women as mothers results in a better understanding of the parallel and connected constructions of good and bad motherhood, and the ways in which deviancy discourses help to uphold only one true womanhood and motherhood (Arendell, 1999, 2000). The portrayals of Palin, Obama, and Clinton also highlight the ways that cultural discourse surrounding these mothers maps onto very specific constructions of gender, race, class, age, and family structure. This think piece is meant to be preliminary in nature, with the goal of initiating more theoretical and empirical research on the influence of hegemonic mothering ideologies on contemporary cultural discourse. We attempt to show how an intersectional lens can elicit more comprehensive understandings of both the discourse on motherhood and families and the effects of this discourse on individual women’s lives.

INTERSECTIONS OF GENDER, RACE, CLASS, AGE, AND FAMILY STRUCTURE While motherhood literature forms an important backdrop for this article, literature on the intersections of race, class, gender, age, and family structure also provides an important lens through which to analyze how these mothers were constructed within the 2008 presidential election campaign. Patricia Hill Collins suggests that an intersectional analysis: explores and unpacks relations of domination and subordination, privilege and agency, in the structural arrangements through which various services, resources, and other

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social rewards are delivered; in the interpersonal experiences of individuals and groups; in the practices that characterize and sustain bureaucratic hierarchies; and in the ideas, images, symbols and ideologies that shape social consciousness. (as cited by Dill & Zambrana, 2009, p. 5)

Therefore, situating our research within an intersectional analysis allows us to ‘‘[flesh] out our understandings of how people experience and construct identities within intersecting systems of power’’ (Dill & Zambrana, 2009, p. ix). The main argument proposed by an intersections perspective is that individuals do not share equal opportunities or equal conditions of living (Dill & Zambrana, 2009; Weber, 2001). Individuals’ and/or groups’ access to resources and opportunities, decision-making ability, public image, and, ultimately, experience of privilege and oppression, is structured by a combination of their social locations defined by race/ethnicity, class, gender, age, sexuality, national origin, and other social background characteristics. When thinking about Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama, and Hillary Clinton, we must think about what it must have been like to be simultaneously female, a mother, and of a certain race, class, and age in the midst of the 2008 Presidential campaign, and how specific combinations of gender, race, class, and age characteristics led each woman to be defined, and to behave, differently within the national spotlight. Family structure as a social location – for example, age of children, marital status and marital stability, and how close a family mirrors a nuclear family ideal – also matters in the discourse about these women because we are all defined by how closely we resemble the ‘‘standard North American family’’ ideal (Baca Zinn, 1992; Smith, 1993).

MOTHERING IDEOLOGY IN THE CONTEMPORARY UNITED STATES The 2008 presidential election campaign is ripe for intersectional analysis because, for the first time, nominees for president, vice-president, and first lady included individuals of different racial-ethnic, gender, age, class, and family structure locations. In addition, Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Michelle Obama represented a diverse group of mothers – caring for a range of babies, young children, teens, and adult children, and carrying out their mothering in very different ways. For the purposes of this article a particularly salient social location is gender, in that we are analyzing three women who are defined by their attention to and participation in biological motherhood. However, we argue that looking at just gender (or any other social location, for that matter) would not allow us to truly see the

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differences in how each of these women experienced the campaign or was portrayed by the media during that time. Gender intersects with race, class, age, and family structure in the discourse surrounding Palin, Obama, and Clinton, and these intersections determine whether, how, and when these women are labeled good (or bad) mothers. In the next section we cover existing literature on good motherhood before presenting our data analysis. Existing feminist scholarship on motherhood already documents the existence of a steadfast and enduring ideology of good motherhood in the United States (Arendell, 2000). Hays (1996) explains that the dominant motherhood ideology in the United States is that of ‘‘intensive’’ mothering (see also Arendell, 1999, 2000; Johnston & Swanson, 2004). There are three tenets of intensive mothering, to which all women must adhere if they are to be viewed as good mothers: (1) childcare is primarily the responsibility of mothers; (2) childcare should be child-centered; and (3) children ‘‘exist outside of market valuation, and are sacred, innocent and pure, their price immeasurable’’ (Hays, 1996, p. 54). The good mother focuses exclusively on mothering her children and is committed to them in time, energy, and affection (Arendell, 1999; Hays, 1996). Furthermore, intensive mothering – as an ideology of child rearing guidelines – encompasses the view that child rearing should be ‘‘expertguided, emotionally absorbing, labor intensive and financially expensive’’ (Hays, 1996, p. 69; see also Macdonald, 1998, p. 30). Today’s good mother is not only at home with her children but also spending physical and psychological quality time with them each day to ensure their proper development (Hays, 1996; Macdonald, 1998). Intensive mothering is therefore also considered a full-time job – ‘‘a constant responsibility’’ – at least in a child’s early years (Thompson & Walker, 1989, p. 860). It also assumes that children require one primary caregiver: that is, the biological or social mother (Macdonald, 1998, 2011). Intensive mothering presupposes a psychological bond between young children and their mothers and that this ‘‘umbilical connection’’ remains ‘‘unsevered: that as the primary caregiver, the mother is ideally best suited to comprehend her child’s needs and can interpret and respond to those needs intuitively’’ (Macdonald, 1998, p. 30). In fact, children’s needs are mothers’ needs.

HEGEMONIC MOTHERHOOD Arendell (1999, p. 3) suggests that ‘‘the ideology of intensive mothering and its institutionalization in social arrangements and practices constitutes a

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hegemonic motherhood.’’ Dilapi (1989, p. 110) also argues that mothering ideology creates an ‘‘upper echelon’’ of mothers. This ideology produces ways of defining and viewing one’s own and other’s mothering, prohibits investigations of alternatives, and limits critiques of how it contributes to the reproduction of gender inequities (Blum & Deussen, 1996, p. 208). Hegemonic motherhood is a ‘‘patriarchal construction: it ties women’s identities to their roles as child raisers and nurturers of others, more generally’’ (Arendell, 1999, p. 3; Johnston & Swanson, 2004). Therefore motherhood, no matter how closely it matches ideology in practice, does not elevate women to the social and economic status experienced by men as a group because of the overlap between motherhood ideology and dominant ideology about the family. Hegemonic motherhood assumes and depends upon the existence of a father/male breadwinner who can engage in the paid work that would be necessary for the family to survive economically; thus good mothers are such because another (male) adult present in the family structure can assume other, non-caregiving roles. Gendered hierarchies remain intact and are even reinforced by this ideology as a result. ‘‘The ideology of intensive mothering and its institutionalization define women and promote standards by which they are judged, both as mothers and notmothers, in a gender-stratified society. Hegemonic motherhood regulates and controls women’s lives’’ (Arendell, 1999, p. 4). Woman, mother, and family become ‘‘synonymous identities and categories’’ (Arendell, 1999, p. 3), and women are continually constrained by and reminded of these three intertwined statuses. Furthermore, dominant ideologies and discourses of mothering and motherhood are racialized, racist, and classist, according to O’Reilly (1996, p. 88). That is, they represent only one experience of mothering: that of White, middle-class or upper-class, heterosexual, married, nonworking women, and position this experience as the real, natural, and universal one (ibid.). O’Reilly (1996, p. 89) details how throughout U.S. history, only some White and middle-class or upper-class women ‘‘could wear the halo of the Madonna’’ or be that ‘‘stay-at-home mom [baking] apple pie.’’ Because the ability to stay home with children depends on their or their families’ economic power (class) and the presence of a father who could earn a family wage, class, race, and family structure intersect and determine how accessible good motherhood is for individual women. As we discuss later, many women of color and poor women have always worked for pay, out of necessity, and therefore have had little access to good motherhood (O’Reilly, 1996, p. 89; see also Amott & Matthei, 1991; Collins, 1991). Nonetheless, through a complex process of intersecting forces – for example,

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patriarchy, institutionalized racism and economics – White, economically privileged, stay-at-home motherhood is ‘‘codified as the official and only meaning of motherhood’’ (O’Reilly, 1996, p. 88). At all times all women know who they must be to be a good mother even if that status is out of reach for entire groups of women (if not all women) (Hays, 1996; Johnston & Swanson, 2004; Macdonald, 1998, 2011; O’Reilly, 1996). Even when resisted or foregone, ‘‘mothering ideology forms the backdrop for action and evaluations of oneself’’ (Arendell, 1999, p. 3). Similar to what Wolf (1991) argues about beauty norms or what Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) argue about hegemonic masculinity, intensive motherhood ideology is a set of prescriptions for behavior, since women/ mothers must constantly prove their complete commitment to children and caregiving activities. They must also simultaneously demonstrate their lack of commitment to other non-caregiving activities (such as paid work) and negotiate other things that may lessen their motherhood image, such as age of children or type of children present, their own marital status, the ability of their partner to support the family economically, whether they look like they are stepping away from motherhood when they exit the home and venture into public settings, who helps them with caregiving, or how closely they appear to be following intensive motherhood ideology. O’Reilly (1996) suggests, however, that no mother (even race-privileged and class-privileged ones) can safely or continually live up to intensive mothering ideology, due to the combination of social structures and individual social characteristics that work to define people and their experiences in our society today. The pursuit of good motherhood is endless even for the most privileged of mothers because this status is unsustainable even if attained temporarily. Just trying to live up to hegemonic motherhood is a full-time job that takes women away from other, potentially more important activities; thus, this ideology becomes negative for all women. The standard of mothering taken for granted in the dominant ideology contributes to and is upheld by the social construction of and discourse about deviant and/or bad mothers (Arendell, 1999). Deviancy discourses are created to pinpoint and those who ‘‘for whatever reasons, do not conform to the script of full-time motherhood’’ (Arendell, 1999, p. 4). These discourses concerning who represents bad motherhood vary, then, by race, class, sexuality, marital status, national origin, and age. They also vary by how well mothering matches up with traditional family ideology (Arendell, 1999; Dill, Baca Zinn, & Patton, 1998; Smith, 1993). Thus, family structure becomes a major axis for defining good versus bad mothers too (Baca Zinn, 1992). Deviant mothers would include single mothers, working-class

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mothers and mothers of color (partially because of their employment but also because historical images of particular racial-ethnic mothers as ‘‘matriarchs,’’ ‘‘mammies,’’ ‘‘breeders,’’ and ‘‘welfare mothers’’ (Collins, 1991; O’Reilly, 1996)), lesbian mothers, teen mothers, adoptive, foster and step mothers (i.e., those without a biological connection to a child), and disabled mothers (Arendell, 1999, 2000; Collins, 1991; Fumia, 1999; Macdonald, 1998, 2011; O’Reilly, 1996; Smith, 1993). Employed women are characterized as deviant mothers as well because they defy the connection between motherhood and the physical space of the home (Arendell, 2000). At base, anyone who does not uphold all tenets of intensive mothering simultaneously can be considered deviant and therefore bad. Women only need to be defined as deviant via one of their social locations and their access to good motherhood will be denied. Below we give two examples of deviancy discourses on employed and racialized mothers.

EMPLOYED MOTHERS ARE BAD MOTHERS Cultural discourse suggests that employed mothers are not full-time mothers (Ranson, 2004, p. 89) and might even allow others to do a mother’s job (essentially outsourcing their natural responsibilities) (Crum, 2005; Johnston & Swanson, 2004; Macdonald, 1998, 2011). Working mothers are suspect because of their presumed lack of attachment or bond to their children; as they engage in activities besides mothering they are seen as putting aside caregiving responsibilities which, presumably, a good, stay-athome mother does not do. Within this discourse, physical location and, by default, time spent in particular activities defines all employed women as bad mothers. Based on histories of women’s paid work, certain women by race and class have automatically been denied good motherhood status because of employment and, by default, time spent in caring for their own children. Historically, staying at home was an unattainable luxury for most Black women and, instead, they relied on networks of extended family, other mothers, or (more recently) out-of-home daycares to provide care for their own children while they work (Blum & Deussen, 1996; Collins, 1991; Reynolds, 2001; Richards, 2012). In contemporary times, financial constraints might not always push Black women into the workforce, however; rather, Black women may have stronger expectations of paid work than White women or Latinas, and may choose to have careers (Damaske, 2011). Black women can also often gain better employment than their male

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counterparts because of long-standing race-gender stereotypes (and fears) about Black men as well as higher educational levels among Black women; thus contemporary Black women are often the primary breadwinners in their families (Amott & Matthei, 1991; Collins, 1991; Damaske, 2011; Reynolds, 2001; Richards, 2012). Longstanding stereotypes suggest that Black women (especially if they are single) must work (in order to stay off government aid), and that they should not be at home with their children (Arendell, 1999; Blum & Deussen, 1996; Collins, 1991; Reynolds, 2001; Roberts, 1997). Stereotypes of Black women (and poor women more broadly defined) reflect a racialized and classist history of paid work rather than just contemporary realities, however. The intersections of women’s race, class, and marital locations matter in the creation of our ideas about whether women should pursue good motherhood at all. In contrast, the White working mother is sometimes characterized as a ‘‘supermom.’’ Thus, Whiteness as a race privilege may allow at times for women to engage in paid work and still be a good mother. This supermom should be able to switch effortlessly from high-powered career woman to attentive mother/homemaker without sacrificing job or children (DeMeis & Perkins, 1996; Hays, 1996). Yet the very label itself suggests that, when women work outside the home, motherhood should still be their primary duty. While working mothers are skirting their natural responsibilities of full-time mothering, they are still supposed to try as much as possible to appear and act like good, stay-at-home mothers, as intensive mothering is not really optional (Dillaway & Pare´, 2008; Hays, 1996). Employed mothers must work harder at motherhood than stay-at-home mothers because they exit the physical location designated for childcare: the home. This image work is the responsibility of individual working women (Dillaway & Pare´, 2008) and is the ‘‘manic motherhood’’ reported by Quindlen (2005), wherein White, economically privileged, working mothers frantically attempt to carry out intensive motherhood despite working full-time outside of the home. Recent popular culture pieces also focus on women who leave the professional (i.e., primarily White, middle-class and upper-class) workforce and become motherhood-bound and home-bound – thus, those who contradict feminist perspectives on women’s work. This is evidenced in the tremendous media focus over the past decade on those elite, professional women in the United States who are ‘‘opting-out’’ of the paid workforce, at least temporarily, to concentrate on children and family life (Belkin, 2003; Stone, 2008; Story, 2005). This focus reifies the hegemony of the middleclass stay-at-home mother as the only real mother, as she exists in her

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original and most acceptable location and engages in activities that are gender-appropriate.

BLACK MOTHERS AS BAD MOTHERS Race (and class) helps construct gendered motherhood discourses because motherhood ideology still assumes in part that the best mothering practices reflect the American ideal of womanhood developed in the late 1800s and beyond (Fumia, 1999; Roberts, 1997). Roberts (1997, p. 10) states that attributes assigned to the ‘‘True Woman’’ ‘‘were precisely the opposite of those that characterized Black women’’ (see also Fumia, 1999). Grewal (1996, p. 27) explains that notions of beauty in the United States developed at the end of the 1800s focused on the face as the representation of good or bad moral character of a woman. Definitions of moral perfection were based on constructions of White, economically privileged women’s appearances. Poor women who ‘‘tarnished’’ their whiteness by working outside in the sun or inside dirty factories or women marked by darker skin color could not uphold true womanhood (Fumia, 1999; Grewal, 1996). The way in which many women of color entered the United States (in slavery and/or servitude) – and their continued patterns of employment over time – also contradicted the White American ideal that presumed a women’s place was in the home (and not in paid or forced work). Moral perfection and domesticity became hallmarks of true womanhood, which were then linked to the ability to reproduce, rear, and nurture children. Definitions of good motherhood derived from true womanhood and therefore excluded women of color and poor women (Arendell, 1999; Chodorow, 1990; Fumia, 1999). Over time, Black mothers have also been blamed for Black communities’ problems (Fumia, 1999; Roberts, 1997). For example, Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1965 publication, ‘‘The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,’’ constructed female-headed Black families – ultimately, Black mothers alone – as the primary problem in the Black community (and the reason for Black men’s failures, poverty within the Black family, the inability of the Black community to get ahead, and ultimately a ‘‘failing’’ nation) (Fumia, 1999). Terms used over time to categorize Black mothers are indicative of the images that Black women face as they mother: ‘‘welfare queen,’’ ‘‘deviant,’’ ‘‘matriarch,’’ ‘‘unwed,’’ ‘‘breeder,’’ ‘‘mammy,’’ ‘‘negligent,’’ ‘‘Jezebel,’’ and ‘‘immoral’’ (Collins, 1991; Roberts, 1997, pp. 10–18). Racialized concepts such as these are still applied to Black women who fail to meet the standard of respectable (White) motherhood. The assumption

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behind these terms is that Black mothers are unfit and unable to provide appropriate care for children. As Black women mother in contemporary times, they must negotiate these negative images because historically based stereotypes and assumptions have not dissipated (Collins, 1991; Fumia, 1999; O’Reilly, 1996; Roberts, 1997). A good Black mother would have to separate herself from these images and align herself very closely with White images of motherhood to receive any positive feedback about her mothering practices. In our previous work (Dillaway & Pare´, 2008), we document the continued hegemony of the White, economically privileged, stay-at-home mother despite empirical realities of mothers’ employment and the diversity of mothers in the United States. However, we have not yet analyzed specific cases of mothers within the media and how portrayals of diverse mothers might shape the discourse on good and bad motherhood. Examining discourse on Palin, Obama, and Clinton also allows us to examine the effects of motherhood ideology on women’s identities and experiences.

METHOD Using qualitative content analysis techniques, we review mainstream media coverage of Republican Vice-Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin, Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton, and the now current First Lady Michelle Obama during the 2008 presidential election campaign. We use existing feminist scholarship on motherhood and an intersectionality perspective described above to ground our analysis of this media coverage. The central media items discussed in this paper were chosen mainly from news sources that have high levels of readership such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, TIME, People, MSNBC, and similar mainstream news venues. Additionally, we chose a few more alternative news venues (e.g., The Huffington Post) to offer additional critiques of the mainstream discourse we analyze. We also completed general internet searches for media information on Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama, and Hillary Clinton using internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo to ensure a properly representative and comprehensive selection of recent, relevant media articles on these women during the 2008 campaign season. We selected media articles that we felt were representative of current-day, mainstream cultural debates about the portrayals of Palin’s, Obama’s, and Clinton’s motherhood and, therefore, can tell us about the ideas and imageries that individuals in the United States may confront about

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motherhood. We also did academic searches for existing literature on these three women as well as on social constructions of motherhood and women in politics to ground our analysis. In our presentation of results and discussion below, we first describe the differences and similarities in social location among Palin, Clinton, and Obama. Then we review and discuss the separate discourses on these women before we engage in a more comparative discussion to elicit the intersectional and overlapping nature of these discourses. In no way do we present this article as a systematic empirical piece or a thorough content analysis of the cultural discourse on motherhood during the campaign; in fact there would be no way to present qualitatively the overwhelming number of media pieces written on these three women during the 2008 Presidential election campaign in the space that we have here. Instead, we present this as a conceptual paper or think piece, with a goal of illustrating how an intersectionality perspective can be applied to an analysis of cultural discourse about motherhood and family, and what we can learn from the inevitable comparison of mothers in the media.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Differences in Social Location Palin, Obama, and Clinton were very different not only in the ways in which they ‘‘inscribed and performed’’ womanhood and motherhood on the campaign trail (Edwards & McDonald, 2010, p. 316), but they were also from varying backgrounds and social positions. Palin was in her mid-40s, from rural Alaska, Republican, married, White, reportedly ‘‘attractive,’’ had five children (ranging in age from a few months to 18 years of age at the time of election), had a ‘‘checkered educational history’’ (attending five colleges before graduating) and was from working class roots (Lind, 2008– 2009, p. 514). A lot of media coverage exists also on the fact that Palin’s newborn was a Down syndrome baby, her oldest daughter was pregnant out of wedlock, and her husband performed caregiving responsibilities on the campaign trail (Carlin & Winfrey, 2009). Obama was also in her mid-40s, an Ivy League educated lawyer and hospital administrator, a Chicago native, married, Democrat, African American, with two young children (ages 7 and 10 at the time of the election). While Obama was initially defined by her race and paid work experience on the campaign trail (especially before the start of Summer 2008

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and her husband’s candidacy for president), Obama consciously downplayed these locations over time and emphasized her dedication to the ideology of motherhood in order to facilitate positive discourse about their campaign (Anderson, 2009). Media discourse about Obama during the later campaign often focused on her choice to opt out of her career to raise her children and help with her husband’s career (Langley, 2008; Mohler, 2008). In the long term, the Obama campaign was noteworthy for its emphasis on traditional family imagery and intensive motherhood. Clinton was in her early 60s, an Ivy League educated lawyer, well-versed in the political realm because of her experience as a former first lady and senator, from the Chicago suburbs, married, Democrat, White, with one very successful adult child (age 28 at the time of the election) (Lind, 2008– 2009, p. 514). Clinton’s age, political experience, perceived negativity and emotionlessness (in front of both her daughter and potential voters), and troubled marriage (not to mention the influence of Bill Clinton on her campaign success) were often the focus of media discourse during the campaign (Hirshman, 2008; Lind, 2008–2009; McGinley, 2009). Whereas Palin aligned herself with (and was socially constructed as part of) the working class (Darling, 2009), Clinton and Obama were both characterized as coming from stable, if not very privileged, economic backgrounds (Langley, 2008; Lind, 2008–2009). Regarding family structure, Clinton’s marital instability and separate residence from her husband always formed a backdrop for the gendered evaluation of her candidacy, whereas Palin’s and Obama’s marriages were portrayed as fairly stable, ‘‘normal,’’ and even traditional (Langley, 2008; McGinley, 2009; Mohler, 2008). Obama’s marital status, young children, and deference to her husband’s career allowed her to come closest to representing a nuclear family ideal, allowing Obama to be the most appropriately gendered of the three. Clinton’s age was detrimental to her campaign (true women are younger than Clinton in our imaginations), but this was not the case for Palin and Obama. While Palin and Clinton experienced racial privilege and therefore were defined more neutrally by race (they represented the average woman), Obama was initially suspect for her Blackness until proven otherwise.

Motherhood as a Common Social Location Within intersectional analyses, it is important to explore potential commonalities as well as differences in social location. Like many politicians and

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first ladies before them (Greenlee, 2010), all three women employed mother and family identities when speaking about public policies and political agendas during the 2008 campaign, and these identities became part of their politics for better or worse (especially for Obama and Palin but to some extent for Clinton as well, as we describe below) (Carlin & Winfrey, 2009; Gibbons, 2010; Greenlee, 2010). Palin, Clinton and Obama all incorporated children into major campaign events as well – not a new strategy by any means (Belkin, 2010; Elder & Greene, 2008) – and both Palin and Obama applied the term ‘‘mother’’ to themselves to increase their (or their husband’s or running mate’s) support among various groups of swing voters. For instance, Sarah Palin frequently applied the term ‘‘Hockey Mom’’ to herself in a very personal way, attempting to recruit women and middle class voters to the Republican side as well as former supporters of Hillary Clinton, after Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination (Greenlee, 2010). Michelle Obama adopted the title ‘‘Mom-in-Chief’’ and ‘‘Sasha and Malia’s mom’’ in order to create a more traditionally feminine image of herself and recruit women voters and conservative voters; indeed, Warner (2010) agrees with a Salon.com post that Obama experienced ‘‘momification’’ because of how total her transformation from highpowered lawyer and hospital administrator to full-time mother was. From all reports, this momification was very purposeful from June 2008 on (beginning with an appearance on the television show, The View), to lessen the fear associated with Obama’s race and to align with a White version of intensive, stay-at-home motherhood and the nuclear family (Anderson, 2009). While Hillary Clinton was slower to pull on her motherhood identity on the campaign trail, she eventually focused on ‘‘issues of families’’ in her speeches and incorporated Chelsea, her daughter, into her campaigning to combat an image of toughness and the sense that she was just ‘‘one of the boys,’’ i.e., just another (male) politician (Jong, 2008). Carlin & Winfrey (2009) also describe how, later in the campaign, Clinton tried to incorporate a motherly image into campaign commercials (although it did not have a positive effect). Clinton’s delayed use of motherhood as a tool on the campaign trail led onlookers to question her gender (‘‘Does she even care about what other women are interested in?’’), her age (‘‘Could she still be a mother?’’), and the necessity of her mothering (‘‘Does Chelsea even need a mother?’’), but she still attempted to use it before the close of her campaign. Because of these women’s use of motherhood themes within their campaign – as well as because of the media’s tendency to characterize women politicians in a gendered, essentialist manner over time, with 2008 being no different (Carlin & Winfrey, 2009; Larson, 2001) – Elder and

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Greene (2008) document that the 2008 campaign represented a 56-year highpoint in election articles using mothers as a news frame. Reasons for an upward trend in the use of motherhood themes in political campaigns could be many, but there is evidence that swing voters became important for both Republican and Democratic tickets in the 2008 election and that both political parties sought to attract these voters to their side by mentioning motherhood, thereby appealing to these voters’ gendered sense of morality (Eagly, Diekman, Johannesen-Schmidt, & Koenig, 2004; Elder & Greene, 2008; Greenlee, 2010; Howell & Day, 2000; Tumulty, 2008). (Elder and Greene (2008) also note a rise in the amount of fatherhood discourse during the 2008 election which infers that we should be examining the framing of parenthood more generally. The characterizations of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Todd Palin, John McCain, and Bill Clinton as good and bad fathers and spouses is worthy of fuller analysis.) In addition, the very fact that these three women were mothering on the campaign trail – including Clinton, albeit less visibly – meant that motherhood was more frequently discussed in this election cycle than in previous ones. Finally, characterizations of all three women fit perfectly within broader cultural discourse on stay-at-home versus employed mothers, as both Palin and Clinton were trying to break through the glass ceiling in paid work (Lind, 2008–2009) and Obama eventually represented the stay-at-home mother who had opted out of paid work to attend to her children’s needs (Langley, 2008; Warner, 2010). We now turn to specific media portrayals of these three women.

Sarah Palin Competing constructions of Sarah Palin’s motherhood existed within the media discourse on the 2008 campaign. On the one hand, she was characterized as embodying the supermom, both high-powered career woman and mother. Yet, as within all supermom discourse, praise for Sarah Palin as a supermom quickly turned to discussions of whether a professional mother of five should be working full-time, particularly when she had an infant with Down syndrome (Carlin & Winfrey, 2009; Kantor & Swarns, 2008; Ranson, 2004). The fact that Palin returned to work three days after giving birth to this last child was reviewed in contradictory terms, illustrating both praise for her dedication to the job and condemnation of her motherhood practices (Bamberger, 2008; Carlin & Winfrey, 2009; Kantor & Swarns, 2008; Peretz, 2008).

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In what Michelle Goldberg called a ‘‘brazen attempt to flirt [her] way into the good graces of the voting public,’’ she waved and winked and smiled – even during the debate – and called herself ‘‘just your average hockey mom.’’ y [And] No sooner was Palin’s selection announced, Cocco said, than a CNN anchor asked, ‘‘Can she really have five children and run for president?’’ Never asked that of a man. (Fortini, 2008)

The contradictory response to Palin’s mothering choices was presented as evidence of the ‘‘Mommy Wars: Campaign Edition’’ – the Mommy Wars being the ongoing struggle between stay-at-home and employed mothers (Kantor & Swarns, 2008). Also in The New York Times, Palin’s mothering choices were second-guessed by women who wanted to support a supermom, but instead questioned her priorities (because motherhood should be one’s priority). ‘‘When I first heard about Palin, I was impressed,’’ said Pamela Moore, a mother of two from Birmingham, Ala. But upon reading that Ms. Palin’s special-needs child was three days old when she went back to work, Ms. Moore began questioning the governor’s judgment. Partly as a result, she plans to vote for Senator Barack Obama. (Kantor & Swarns, 2008)

Sarah Robertson was also quoted in the same article as saying, ‘‘A mother of a 4-month-old infant with Down syndrome taking up full-time campaigning? Not my value set’’ (Kantor & Swarns, 2008). These examples indicate that Palin’s choice to combine paid work and motherhood and try to do both equally meant a lack of support for her supposed lack of full attention to motherhood. Stories of Palin’s oldest daughter, Bristol, who was pregnant out of wedlock at age 18, also seemed to confirm the vicepresidential candidate’s inability to truly uphold the supermom image and her lack of attention to full-time motherhood (Carlin & Winfrey, 2009; Seelye, 2008). When news of the pregnancy broke in September 2008, McCain campaign strategists were asked whether ‘‘Ms. Palin would be able to juggle the demands of the vice presidency with her complicated family life’’ (Seelye, 2008, p. 1). In another New York Times article, Warner (2008) depicted Sarah Palin as the victim in the face of her vice-presidential nomination: ‘‘Sarah Palin has ‘‘Impostor Syndrome’’: ‘‘They [her admirers] know that she can’t possibly do it all – the kids, the special-needs baby, the big job, the big conversations with foreign leaders.’’ Others on CNN and ABC’s Good Morning America argued the same (Bozell, 2008; Carlin & Winfrey, 2009). These media reporters inferred that working mothers cannot be at work and at home at the same time; therefore, it is not possible to be both a good mother and good worker at the same time. Indeed, Warner (2008) claimed that it was callous to even have her run as the vice-presidential candidate because the

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Republican Party was just setting her up for failure. Thus, Palin was constructed as unable to do well in her paid work because of her already existing motherhood responsibilities. Especially because she was inevitably compared to Obama who opted out of paid work to attend to motherhood, Palin’s attempt to combine work and motherhood seemed doomed. Perhaps because of her working class roots she seemingly lacked the bourgeois sensibilities that supermoms need to be able to orchestrate both paid work and motherhood well. In a very public fashion, Palin’s gender identity and behavior worked against her in that she did not seem capable of performing either her motherhood or paid work roles. The discourse surrounding Palin became a deviancy discourse overall, in that it highlighted her inability to perform intensive motherhood (or paid work) well. The additional fact that Palin had a husband, Todd Palin, that assumed greater parenting responsibilities to accommodate her campaign activities (as well as an oldest daughter who sometimes assumed a caretaking role for her youngest brother, as evidenced by many pictures of the Palin family during the campaign) led to additional critiques of her supposed lack of attention to motherhood, womanhood, and family. Sally Quinn (2008), writer for The Washington Post, suggested in a CNN interview that, even with a supportive husband who was willing to take the caregiver role, Palin still had to (read: should) assume the burden of childcare as a mother. [E]veryone knows that women and men are different and that moms and dads are different and that women – the burden of child care almost always falls on the woman. y [W]hen you have five children, one a 4-month-old Down syndrome baby, and a daughter who is 17 y who is going to need her mother very much in the next few months and years with her own baby coming, I don’t see how you cannot make your family your first priority. And I think if you are going to be president of the United States, which she may well be, I think that’s going to be a real stretch for her.

When Palin did return to work after her fifth child, she took her newborn with her, breastfed at work, wore her child to meetings in a baby carrier, had her husband present to co-parent in the workplace, and talked openly about her status as a mother (Huffington Post, 2008b; Westfall, 2008). Open acknowledgment of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy also occurred in early Fall 2008. That her children did not remain at home (placing her children in a public space not designated for family), her children had imperfections, and her husband did not have independent work of his own, was jarring to many onlookers and led to more condemnation of her gender strategies. The underlying message within media discourse seemed to be for Palin to return home to her children and give the family her full attention – as good women know they should. Ultimately the condemnation of Palin’s public

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motherhood practices included the assumption that she had too many children (a working class choice?), visibly problematic children (something that more economically privileged mothers might try harder to hide from the public eye?), and did not prioritize the dominant family ideal (why wasn’t her husband more in charge?). Because Palin was White there was no mention of her race during the campaign but the racial privilege that she experienced probably offset her shortcomings on the campaign trail in part (perhaps buying her more time in the spotlight). While the strikes against her for her lack of intensive motherhood and political savvy led to her downfall, we suspect that if she had been a woman of color that her incompetence in motherhood and paid work would have resulted in a much earlier end to her campaign. That is, if she were a woman of color with exactly the same class, age, motherhood and family structure locations as Palin, she would have been unlikely to receive the vice-presidential Republican nomination. Indirectly, then, we believe we see evidence of her racial privilege during the campaign.

Michelle Obama To be fair, Obama was the wife of a presidential nominee and Palin was a vice-presidential nominee herself so Obama’s place in the spotlight was defined by her support role (a role that did not seem to take her away from her motherly duties). Palin’s political activities took her beyond motherhood and, thus, set the stage for a critique of her mothering practices. Very different from Sarah Palin, then, Michelle Obama reflected the classic example of a woman who opts out of a high-powered career to be at home with her kids. Perhaps the only difference is that she is Black, whereas most women who have been a part of this opting out trend are White (because of the race and class profile of women in high-powered careers (Belkin, 2003; Langley, 2008)). To opt out appears very fitting for a proper first lady; thus, her paid work and motherhood decisions appeared to be in line with the role she was hoping to secure, as well as with White American ideals. In fact, advice from Cherie Blair, the wife of the former British Prime Minister Toni Blair, published in The New York Times, proposes that opting out is an essential responsibility for the job of first lady (at least in the United States): ‘‘You have to learn to take the back seat, not just in public, but in private,’’ advised Mrs. Blair, who writes regularly for The Times of London. ‘‘When your spouse is late to put the kids to bed, or for dinner, or your plans for the weekend are turned upside down again, you simply have to accept that he had something more important to do.’’ y ‘‘It is

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something of an irony that in these days of pushing for equality those of us married to our political leaders have to put their own ambitions on hold while their spouses are in office and keep their views to themselves,’’ Mrs. Blair continued. ‘‘I, at least, had my career. That is not an option for Michelle Obama.’’ (Swarns, 2009)

Obama adheres to this view in presenting herself as a mother first and foremost. In an interview with Oprah after becoming First Lady, Michelle Obama explained that she still introduces herself to people as ‘‘Sasha and Malia’s mom, Michelle’’ (O, The Oprah Magazine, 2009), which implies that this has always been her practice. She was also deemed the ‘‘Mom-in-Chief’’ during the campaign and, as the title denotes, motherhood has been characterized as coming first in her life, clearly separating her from both Palin and Clinton. The Mom-in-Chief title also highlights the serious and full-time nature of the tasks associated with motherhood, and the fact that contemporary mothers are supposed to think of themselves as fulfilling the full-time job of mother (Dillaway & Pare´, 2008). In various write-ups about Obama in 2008 and 2009, we learn of her dedication to keeping normalcy for her family, her efforts to keep Barack Obama grounded (like a good wife would), her efforts to schedule campaign appearances around her daughters’ needs, her ability to be both ‘‘gracious hostess and loyal spouse,’’ and her own proclamations that her ‘‘first job’’ is ‘‘to make sure my kids have their heads on straight’’ and give them ‘‘snuggle time’’ (Langley, 2008; Mohler, 2008; Swarns, 2008). Unlike the characterization of Palin, the construction of Obama is of a very dedicated mother and wife first and foremost. In fact, in some write-ups in Ebony Magazine and various political blogs, Obama’s prioritization of motherhood (as well as her appearance and demeanor) were compared to that of Jackie Kennedy’s (Anderson, 2009; Andrews, 2008). The comparison of Obama and Kennedy illustrates Obama’s conscious effort to align with the hegemonic, race-privileged and classprivileged type of motherhood that is approved for a first lady, regardless of her own race-based location or other career desires. The comparison to Kennedy is also very telling in that Obama was able to align herself with a very unthreatening and traditional version of true womanhood, promoting the liberal White, gendered, familial, ‘‘Camelot-like’’ ideal (Anderson, 2009). While Obama’s race could never be forgotten, Obama and members of the campaign staff were able to steer discourse away from initial characterizations of her as an ‘‘angry Black woman,’’ too ‘‘stern and strict,’’ too ‘‘gloom-and-doom,’’ and ‘‘matriarchal’’ by downplaying her paid work experience, distancing her from racial conversations, avoiding negative language (when commenting about aspects of the campaign), and ‘‘softening’’ (feminizing?) her image (Anderson, 2009). Softening her image

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meant focusing in on her unwavering attention to motherhood, her complete support of Barack, and her ability to hold together a nuclear family – allowing her to model a very narrow, ideological, traditionally White, economically privileged version of femininity. Upholding this construction of femininity resulted in fairly positive discourse about Obama over the course of Summer and Fall 2008 (Anderson, 2009). Because of the campaign staff’s attempts to take the focus off of her previous paid work and distance her from racial conversations and a simultaneous new focus on her motherhood and family responsibilities, Anderson (2009) infers that she became less racialized and more gendered in popular discourse as the campaign wore on. Furthering this image of herself, Obama specifically discussed how she would make the White House a house filled with children, and would remain focused on very gendered duties after inauguration (Swarns, 2008). Skills learned in her previous work as lawyer and administrator translated nicely into a potential first lady role, and she could seemingly pull on paid work experience to manage her home, prioritize her roles of wife and mother, and support her husband’s position as the potential president. Her attention to motherhood, womanhood, and family shines through the following quote. [T]he disciplined, no-nonsense executive also comes through. While Mrs. Bush often hand-picked the silver, china and tablecloths for White House dinners, Mrs. Obama is more likely to focus on the broad themes of such events, delegating the details. y She wants a home that is gracious, with 20th-century art amid the antiques, but comfortable for children. As a former community organizer, she also wants the White House to be more accessible to ordinary Americans, envisioning picnics that might include local children as well as state dinners. (Swarns, 2008, p. 1)

As evidenced by the end of this quote, she, like other wives of contemporary presidential nominees, also began to take up her own social causes during the close of the campaign season, yet hers allowed for a continued focus on family and reified the equation of Obama with full-time motherhood and ultimately (White) womanhood. Without seemingly putting aside motherhood or wifely duties, ‘‘Mrs. Obama y pledged to use the first lady position as a bully pulpit to argue for better work-family balance and for military spouses, among other things’’ (Swarns, 2009, p. 1). Thus, her campaign work on special issues furthered the image of Obama as a capable and dedicated mother and wife and allowed her to continue to distance herself from the negative media images of Black motherhood. Interestingly, when she became more involved with policy work toward the end of the campaign, ‘‘tongues wagged’’ (Swarns, 2009, p. 1). Swarns (2009, p. 1) quotes Myra Gutin, a ‘‘scholar of first ladies,’’ as saying, ‘‘I don’t think we ever really imagined her edging toward public policy like this. y [I]t’s a little

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less neutral than some of the other things she’s focusing on.’’ Langley (2008, p. 1) discussed the ‘‘supercharged juggle’’ that Obama confronted, indicating that even Obama was characterized as being slightly too engaged in other things besides motherhood. As Obama edged into more publicly political activities, deviancy discourse redrew the boundaries surrounding intensive motherhood and showed her exactly how fleeting praise could be if women venture too far from ideal behavior. Obama was largely able to maintain the somewhat fictitious idea that she was at home with her children and her children (despite their young ages) appeared as model children in public during the few times they were part of the spotlight, which also affirmed the assumption that she was a good mother. That Obama’s children also did not appear on the campaign trail as much as Palin’s children was also important since Obama could uphold the idea that her children remained safely in the private setting (since good motherhood is defined by and through women’s connection to small children in the home (Dillaway & Pare´, 2008)). The fact that Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, contributed heavily to childcare responsibilities within the Obama household during the campaign and afterward (to accommodate Obama’s frequent campaign trail appearances outside the home) is often ignored or only discussed in passing in media discourse about the campaign – even though it is clear from Robinson’s presence with the Obama family in public that her caregiving is a central and valued dimension of family life (Berry, 2009). Perhaps because a grandmother’s caregiving is an accepted and appropriately gendered supplement to one’s mothering (especially within Black communities (Arendell, 2000)) and because Obama’s children appear to remain within the home most of the time (and not in the spotlight), Obama is not critiqued in the way that Palin is for handing over a portion of her caregiving to Todd Palin, her husband. While a father’s caregiving is unacceptable (not only because fathers are seen as incompetent caregivers but also because mothers are supposed to be the primary parents, Arendell, 2000), a grandmother’s caregiving remains supplemental and acceptable. Grandmothers can potentially ‘‘shadow’’ mothers in providing good caregiving and not usurp mothers’ good images (Macdonald, 1998, 2011) but fathers’ involvement in caregiving showcase mothers’ inability to carry out their gendered roles.

Hillary Clinton Hillary Clinton’s motherhood was not discussed as intensely by journalists as Palin’s or Obama’s was, during her bid for the Democratic presidential

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nomination. We chalk this up largely to Hillary Clinton’s chronological age and the fact that her one child, Chelsea Clinton, was an adult by the time her mother was on the campaign trail. The first author’s previous work on midlife motherhood has documented the ideological constructions of mothers as young, and children as young as well (Dillaway, 2006). Thus, Clinton’s motherhood may have been ignored (even forgotten at times) in part simply because we forget that midlife women are still mothers. We assume that real mothers have their children around them at all times and that children are young and in need of constant, everyday care (Dillaway, 2006). Because Chelsea Clinton no longer lived with or needed constant care from her mother, her absence from her mother’s daily life also reinforced the notion that Clinton was a non-mother of sorts – or at least too old, inactive, or absent from her daughter’s life to be a real mother. Nonetheless, ideologically based constructions of Clinton’s motherhood were present in the media during the 2008 campaign even if Clinton’s motherhood status was forgotten from time to time. Whereas both Palin and Obama’s motherhood was connected to the ongoing caretaking responsibilities they had (because they still had young children), Clinton’s motherhood was defined through characterizations of her relationship with her grown daughter or through how warm or caring she appeared in interactions with others on the campaign trail. For example, Clinton was described continually as a cool, distant, overbearing, and icy mother. CNN’s Jack Cafferty referred to her as a ‘‘a scolding mother, talking down to a child’’ (Cocco, 2008). Other journalists speculated that she only brought her daughter and mother on the campaign trail to combat this harsh, emotionless image, and some writers also supposed that she and her daughter did not have a warm relationship. Write-ups of Chelsea Clinton’s first campaign trip to Des Moines, Iowa, for instance, described the trip as purposeful and as an attempt to offer a softening presence and ‘‘humanize’’ her mother: ‘‘She was flying out to be a prop in a frigid airplane hangar y where she stood silently with her grandmother y. Chelsea Clinton’s presence was part of a last-minute push to humanize her mother before an electorate that sometimes needs to be reminded’’ of Clinton’s gendered identity and responsibilities (Smith & Frates, 2008). The image of Chelsea next to her mother did not help cast Clinton as a caring mother but, rather, only appeared to reinforce the image of a woman whose political and/or paid work aspirations had distanced her from being able to be a caring, attentive, full-time mother. Campaign attempts to align

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herself with a more motherly image were seen as further proof of her distance from good motherhood: [A]s the crowd filed in and many people didn’t have seats she [Clinton] asked Chelsea to give her chair up. The slightly annoyed but smiling Chelsea stood behind her mother for the two-and-a-half hour Q&A session. The interaction sparked a sweet and sincere mother-daughter-moment in a campaign desperately trying to humanize Clinton, who some say comes off as cold. (Chozick, 2008)

Clinton was seen negatively for having her daughter actively campaign with her as well, as evidenced by the negative comment from MSNBC news analyst David Shuster who claimed Chelsea was being ‘‘pimped out’’ by her mother (Chozick, 2008; Cocco, 2008; Huffington Post, 2008a; Smith & Frates, 2008). Lind (2008–2009, p. 546) suggests that because young women (maybe even Chelsea herself?) often ‘‘feel a sense of generational conflict with older feminists,’’ Hillary Clinton may have seemed like ‘‘an angry and disapproving mother,’’ especially in comparison to a slightly feminized, caring, attentive Barack Obama (McGinley, 2009). Yerman (2008, p. 1) also suggests that Clinton reminded younger female voters of a ‘‘hectoring mother’’ who did not match with the ‘‘soft feminism’’ of their generation (see also Lind, 2008–2009, p. 546). The intersection of Clinton’s age and gender locations created negative discourse. Finally, the longstanding image (however mistaken) of Hillary as a person who disrespects other women’s choices around motherhood and family remained a factor in the 2008 campaign. Specifically, Clinton’s comments during the 1992 election campaign that belittled stay-at-home mothers (when she suggested sarcastically that she should have baked cookies instead of working for pay) formed a backdrop for her more recent campaign (McGinley, 2009). Especially when poised against candidates that seemed more in touch with family (e.g., Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin), Clinton seemed to be more of a non-mother than a mother with her feminist leanings (Greenlee, 2010; Lind, 2008–2009). Greenlee (2010) infers that this non-mother status hurt Clinton’s campaign, as non-mothers are seen as thinking differently than mothers. Thus, when compared to Palin and Obama, Clinton seemed like a different entity, unfeeling, unattached, and almost manlike in her lack of everyday caregiving. While this seemingly unattached identity may have made her an ideal presidential candidate and paid worker (Williams, 2010), it called her gender identity into question. Her estranged relationship to Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton also made family structure interfere with her

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image. By all accounts, Clinton’s age, gender, and family structure locations worked against her campaign and meant that any discussion of her motherhood represented a discussion of her deviancy from the ideal. Privileges she gained from her race, class, and paid work experience, not to mention her marriage to a former president, most likely cemented her position as a Democratic candidate, but these privileges were not enough to erase her failures by gender, age, and family structure. In the end, her matronly, non-nurturing, and seemingly single status worked against her campaign. Clinton vied with Palin for the position of bad mother during the campaign and Clinton may have won this competition. Through the lens of media construction, appearing as an inactive, unfeeling, or absentee mother (Clinton) might be worse than appearing as an incompetent mother (Palin).

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS No matter the historical moment, discourse on women in politics has always been gendered and therefore focused on women’s motherhood and family statuses (Edwards & McDonald, 2010; Elder & Greene, 2008; Greenlee, 2010; Larson, 2001). Thus, that motherhood is a theme in popular discourse about the 2008 presidential election campaign is not surprising at all. Yet because of the simultaneous prominence of Palin, Obama, and Clinton in the 2008 campaign, we can read popular discourse for its prescriptions for motherhood and for the ways in which specific intersections of women’s social locations determine who could be a good mother. Overall, the discourse on Palin, Obama, and Clinton result in three very different characterizations of mothers: the bad, working mother and failed supermom (Palin), the good, stay-at-home mother (Obama), and the unfeeling, inactive or absent mother (Clinton). Employment, lack of attachment to the home, involvement of her husband in caregiving, and her mothering practices (e.g., bringing her children on the road, going back to work very quickly after having her fifth child, her outspoken remarks against sex education in the face of a pregnant teen daughter, etc.) all led to characterizations of Palin as a deviant mother. In addition, all of this also inferred Palin’s prioritization of paid work over motherhood. Clinton’s long-term success in politics and paid work, her age, the age of her daughter, her lack of everyday emotion and nurturing behavior, and her marital instability all helped to discount her motherhood/womanhood status. While Palin and Obama conformed to gendered prescriptions for behavior,

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Clinton seemed androgynous and even masculine in contrast. While she was an acceptable candidate by race and class prescriptions, she was unacceptable for her gender, age, and family structure locations. Tellingly, though, age and family structure counted against her specifically because she was female; male politicians do not face the same deviancy discourses because of their age or estranged marital relationships. Thus we suggest that Clinton’s gender location was the primary reason for her downfall; she did not conform to prescriptions for motherhood/womanhood. In contrast, Obama’s efforts to drop paid work from her repertoire – and, in the process, distance herself from images associated with the African American experience of motherhood – and elevate full-time, intensive motherhood are clear in all media portrayals of the future first lady. Of the three women in the campaign, then, Obama was aligned most closely with good motherhood. While her racial location could have been a reason to denigrate Obama’s qualifications as potential first lady and good mother, the comparisons of Obama to Jackie Kennedy seem to indicate clearly that good motherhood potentially lessened the negative media images of an ‘‘anti-American’’ ‘‘terrorist’’ (as the New Yorker, 2008, parodied in a cover image), ‘‘radical’’ Black woman and ‘‘outspoken’’ wife portrayed earlier in the campaign (Anderson, 2009; McGinley, 2009). In this case, then, good gender behavior meant less deviancy discourse around Obama’s race location. Obama’s motherhood is also very much a class-privileged motherhood, as media portrayals of her activities are peppered with examples of the various activities and events her children were allowed to participate in; this means that it was Obama’s class location that provided the vehicle by which she was able to garner intensive motherhood in the first place. Write-ups of Chelsea Clinton also make it clear that she had the best educational opportunities that money could buy, indicating Clinton’s class privilege while parenting. Perhaps as a working class mother (as she declares herself), Palin is never characterized as being able to give her children everything and never matches with the more hegemonic, privileged type of intensive mothering that Obama and Clinton could strive for more readily. Thus, Palin’s inability to mirror White intensive motherhood highlights flaws in both her gender and class locations. The fact that Obama was hoping to secure a supporting role (first lady) rather than the role of vice-president or president (the latter two roles never inhabited by mothers/women before 2008) also cemented her gendered acceptability within popular discourse. In addition, good motherhood also allowed Obama to be portrayed as a good wife/good woman, supportive of her husband. Since notions of motherhood and womanhood are linked

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patriarchal constructions (Arendell, 1999; Chodorow, 1990), Obama’s gendered performance of motherhood allowed for Barack to be seen as more powerful in his own family and more capable of leading the nation and allowed the Obama family to appear the most traditionally nuclear in structure. Compared to Obama, Palin and Clinton fought much more of an uphill battle from the start as they were both vying for ‘‘men’s’’ positions (Carlin & Winfrey, 2009; Larson, 2001) and, thus, acted against a nuclear family ideal by their very involvement in the campaign. Other family structure locations matter for Obama as well, in that where children were located (mostly in the home), how old children were (young), and whether all family members appeared to be living happily within one household at the time of the campaign all formed the basis for how Obama’s gender, motherhood and family behavior would be perceived (Baca Zinn, 1992; Smith, 1993). Thus, very specific intersections of gender, class, race, age, and type of motherhood or family status mean that Obama is constructed as the good mother – despite her potentially very damaging race location – especially when compared to Clinton and Palin. The 2008 presidential campaign represented a campaign for good motherhood as much as it represented a campaign for the next president. By November 2008, when the Obamas were elected, it was very clear who the good and bad mothers (and families) were on the campaign trail. It was also clear that managing one’s motherhood identity and behavior in the spotlight was indeed a full-time, and potentially harrowing, job for all three women. The mother work that these women performed on an everyday basis was judged using narrowly constructed, hegemonic notions of women and family that would leave most women falling short of any ideological standard. Ultimately the campaign reified a very narrow standard for good motherhood and good womanhood, and did little to broaden the acceptability of women or mothers in politics. The fact that Obama had to constrain herself to very few public conversations and to full-time motherhood and family activities in order to appear appropriate during the campaign is evidence of the ideological terrain she encountered. The questions surrounding Palin’s and Clinton’s efforts to mother while vying for political candidacy also illustrates how much of a tightrope these women had to walk in order to gain public approval. Alongside recent reports that women ‘‘can’t do it all’’ (Kantor, 2012; Slaughter, 2012), women (with or without children) will continue to face an uphill battle on the campaign trail. While a majority of contemporary mothers are employed outside the home and increasing numbers of women are in politics, we have not been able to dislodge the hegemonic ideological standard that controls and defines us.

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So far McGinley (2009) is one of the only scholars that we have found who acknowledges that intersectional analyses of the 2008 campaign season (or any campaign season, for that matter) are critical. Yet unless we examine Palin’s, Obama’s, and Clinton’s complex and intersecting social locations we cannot visualize why it is Obama who comes closest to earning the title of good mother (and also why it was so important for her to pursue it). It is only by paying attention to the specific intersections and overlaps of gender, race, class, family structure, and motherhood status, then, that we see how the 2008 presidential campaign became a campaign for good motherhood. Perhaps even more importantly, until we engage in an intersectional analysis, we might not see that the reification of good motherhood within campaign discourse is also a reification of hegemonic gender, race, class, age, and family structure locations. Ideology about motherhood and family is maintained and reified to protect the privilege of a few, to the detriment of mothers and women of varying social locations.

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O’Reilly, A. (1996). Ain’t that love? Antiracism and racial constructions of motherhood. In M. T. Reddy (Ed.), Everyday acts against racism (pp. 88–98). Seattle, WA: Seal Press. Peretz, E. (2008, September 1). Sarah Palin’s mommy problem. Retrieved from http:// www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2008/09/sarah-palins-mommy-problem.html Quindlen, A. (2005, February 20). The good enough mother. Newsweek. Retrieved from http:// www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2005/02/20/the-good-enough-mother.html Quinn, S. (2008, September 2). Republican national convention focuses on McCain biography. CNN. Retrieved from http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0809/02/cnr.07.html Ranson, G. (2004). Paid work, family work and the discourse of the full-time mother. In A. O’Reilly (Ed.), Mother matters: Motherhood as discourse and practice (pp. 87–97). Toronto, Canada: Association for Research on Mothering. Reynolds, T. (2001). Black mothering, paid work and identity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 24(6), 1046–1064. Richards, J. (2012, April 16). Stay-at-home motherhood not an option for most black women. The Grio. Retrieved from http://thegrio.com Roberts, D. (1997). Killing the black body: Race, representation, and the meaning of liberty. New York, NY: Pantheon Books. Seelye, K. (2008, September 2). Palin’s teen daughter is pregnant; new G.O.P. tumult. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/us/politics/ 02PALINDAY.html?pagewanted¼1&oref¼slogin&_r¼0 Slaughter, A. (2012, July/August). Why women still can’t have it all. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-can-8217t-have-it-all/9020/ Smith, B., & Frates, C. (2008, January). Chelsea Clinton steps up her role. Politico. Retrieved from http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/8294.html Smith, D. (1993). The standard North American family: SNAF as an ideological code. Journal of Family Issues, 14(1), 50–65. Stone, P. (2008). Opting out? Why women really quit careers and head home. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Story, L. (2005, September 20). Many women at elite colleges set career path to motherhood. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/ 20women.html?incamp¼article_popular_1 Swarns, R. (2008, November 24). From home and away, advice for a first lady. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/us/politics/24advice.html Swarns, R. (2009, February 8). ‘‘Mom in chief’’ touches on policy; tongues wag. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/us/politics/08michelle.html The New Yorker. (2008, July 21). No author. (Cover image suggests Obama’s terrorist connections). Thompson, L., & Walker, A. J. (1989). Gender in families: Women and men in marriage, work, and parenthood. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 51(4), 845–871. Tumulty, K. (2008, September 9). Can Obama win back Wal-Mart moms? Time Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1839930,00.html Warner, J. (2008, September 25). Poor Sarah. The New York Times. Retrieved from http:// www.opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/poor-sarah/ Warner, J. (2010, October 29). The new momism. The New York Times. Retrieved from http:// www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/magazine/31FOB-wwln-t.html?gwh¼3BB60329B80CAA 258F5BCC7FC0C01F31

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Weber, L. (2001). Understanding race, class, gender, and sexuality: A conceptual framework. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Publishers. Westfall, S. (2008, August 29). John McCain & Sarah Palin on shattering the glass ceiling. People Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20222685,00.html Williams, J. C. (2010). Reshaping the work-family debate: Why men and class matter. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Wolf, N. (1991). The beauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. New York, NY: Morrow. Yerman, M. G. (2008, October 12). Race, gender, and the media in the 2008 elections. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com

INTERSECTIONALITY AND WORK–FAMILY BALANCE: A STUDY OF BLACK, WHITE, AND MEXICAN-AMERICAN ADULTS Rashawn Ray and Pamela Braboy Jackson ABSTRACT Purpose – Utilizing the intersectionality framework, this study examines how a racially diverse group of adults aim to balance work–family life. Methodology/approach – This chapter uses qualitative data from the Intersections of Family, Work, and Health Study consisting of 132 black, white, and Mexican-American adults. Findings – We find that socioeconomic status and marriage provide social and economic capital to more easily fulfill role obligations. Individuals with more capital have more choices and are offered a chess board and a variety of pieces to facilitate the goal of creating work–family harmony. Individuals with less capital end up with less job flexibility and play checkers through rigid concrete roles because work decisions are in the hands of their employers instead of their own. Social implications – This chapter sheds light on the influence of high social status and the ability some individuals have to maximize both job Notions of Family: Intersectional Perspectives Advances in Gender Research, Volume 17, 241–262 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-2126(2013)0000017014

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flexibility and autonomy in managing work–family life. As we show here, married middle-class whites are able to manage work–family life better than professional black single mothers and working class Mexican Americans by having the ability to choose to play checkers or chess. Originality/value of chapter – We argue that the concept of ‘‘balancing’’ does little to express the ways individuals negotiate the constraints of work and family. By using an intersectionality perspective, we show that conceptualizing work–family life as ‘‘checkers or chess’’ games allow for the cognitive process of decision making (in terms of, for example, time pressures and perceived role demands) to be assessed more efficiently across work–family domains. Keywords: Family functioning; work; intersectionality; race; gender; social class

The study of the family initially garnered the attention of sociologists when Thomas and Znaniecki (1918–1920) presented their extensive work entitled The Polish Peasant. Since that time there has been a relative dearth of qualitative research in scientific journals on families (see Ambert, Adler, Adler, & Detzner, 1995; LaRossa & Wolf, 1985 for a discussion of this issue) and even less on ethnic minority families coupled with social class and gender considerations (see Landry, 2000; Taylor, Chatters, Tucker, & Lewis, 1990 for exceptions). A select group of scholars challenge the field to embrace the complexity of family life that might integrate a variety of niches of inequality as they pertain to the family (see Allen, 2000; Murry, Smith, & Hill, 2001), while others call for a broader intellectual acknowledgment of the actual diversity that exists across and within families (Allen, 2000; Perry-Jenkins, Pierce, Haley, & Goldberg, 1999). In this chapter, we adopt the intersectionality paradigm to view the articulation of family from the vantage point of multiple axes of status difference (Schulz & Mullings, 2006; Weber & Parra-Medina, 2003). An extrapolation of intersectionality theory is that race, gender, and social class intertwine to create unique but perhaps contentious identities (Jackson & Cummings, 2011; Ray, 2008), attached to which are resources that facilitate the ability to negotiate the worlds of work and family (Aumann, Galinksy, & Matos, 2008; Gerson, 2010; Hochschild & Machung, 1989). We argue that adaptational responses to work and family life are racialized, gendered, and

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driven by social class location – all at the same time. We insist that the current view of work and family life (as a balance) among American families is too simplistic in its visual imagery and does not capture the myriad of ways in which adults (even those within the same family) attempt to combine work and family across the life course. In this study, we ask, how do a diverse group of adults describe their efforts to achieve balance in work and family life? To examine these issues, we present responses to a subset of items taken from a larger study entitled ‘‘The Intersections of Family, Work, and Health Study’’ (see Jackson, 2004). The data used in this study answers the call for more inclusive research across racial/ethnic groups as well as the need to move family research beyond the dual-earner or nuclear family model (Collins, 2000). We do not attempt to reach universal conclusions with this approach, but we hope to demonstrate that family behavior is ‘‘grounded in socialization and power relations’’ regardless of how work and family roles are managed (Henderson, 1994). By considering patterns of family life across groups as well as providing a platform for the voices of multiple family members to be heard (thus capturing some level of within-group variation), we articulate the similarities and differences in how adults pursue work–family balance.

WORK–FAMILY DOMAIN: A PRESSING REALITY FOR MEN AND WOMEN The work–family interface is a pressing reality for most Americans. First, there are twice as many dual-earner couples as there are traditional male breadwinner/female homemaker families (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). Dualearner is also the prevalent household type among couples with children in the home (at 64%) and couples with children under the age of 6 (57%) (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). More strikingly, about 75% of married mothers with school-aged children were in the paid labor force in 2005 (Cohany & Sok, 2007). Second, single mothers joined the workforce in large numbers in the middle 1990s (Blank, 2002). In fact, the labor force participation rate among single mothers grew from 57% in 1994 to 75% in 2000 (Meyer & Rosenbaum, 2000; Mishel, Bernstein, & Boushey, 2003). Eighty-five percent of all single-parent households are maintained by women; of these households, 65% of the mothers are employed full-time. Although a smaller

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percentage of households are single-father households, 73% of these fathers are in the paid labor force (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). Third, racial differences in household type mark the American landscape. Ninety-two percent of black women, compared to 82% of white women, with school-aged children are in the labor force (Landry, 2000). About 85% of African-American middle-class wives, 25–44 years old, with young children were employed by the mid-1990s. This figure is in marked contrast to the 68% of comparable white women during this time period. The United States has also witnessed an increase in the proportion of Mexican immigrant women who participate in the paid labor force. While there are clear patterns of occupational segregation among Mexican Americans (Catanzarite, 2000, 2002), the feminization of the migration stream indicates that work–family issues are equally salient across this context. Regardless of race/ethnicity, research suggests that few married-couple families could maintain their current standards of living without two incomes (Heckert, Nowak, & Snyder, 1998; Gerson, 2010). Furthermore, the notable second shift (where working wives often come home to contend with housework and childcare responsibilities) is most prevalent among dualearner families with children under the age of 6 (Sayer, England, Bittman, & Bianchi, 2009) and dual-earner couples experience more work–family strain than their single-earner counterparts (Duxbury, Higgins, & Lee, 1994). At the same time, dual-earner couples often have access to a wider range of resources that may help ameliorate work–family balance issues than single parents (Haddock, Zimmerman, Ziemba, & Lyness, 2006). Given the diversity in household types and the notable changes in family structure over the past few decades, the challenges facing working parents remain important topics of study.

WORK–FAMILY DOMAIN: GENDER–RACE–CLASS AS SOURCES OF COMPLEXITY Despite the reality of the interface between work and family obligations, there remains little effort to embrace the complex picture that emerges from the broader sociological literature when we consider the divergent work– family experiences across gender, race, and social class divides. As noted by other scholars, if families somehow manage to combine work and family responsibilities, we assume that they have successfully ‘‘balanced’’ these roles (Crompton & Lyonette, 2006). This view of work and family is void

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of the depth embedded in these important social roles. Furthermore, when we only apply a quantitative numerical value to ‘‘balance’’ we lose the opportunity to discover the creative ways people manage the tensions and pressures of daily activities (see Dillaway & Broman, 2001 for a similar stance). Our work provides a platform to illuminate how adults from a variety of backgrounds strategize to achieve some acceptable degree of equilibrium between work and family. Work–family balance often refers to ‘‘a global assessment that work and family resources are sufficient to meet work and family demands such that participation is effective in both domains’’ (Voydanoff, 2005, p. 825). According to a recent national survey (Taylor, Funk, & Clark, 2007), there has been a marked shift in preferences for full-time work among working mothers: in 1997, 32% of working mothers said the ideal situation for them is to work full-time compared to just 21% in 2007. In 2007, a higher percentage (60%) of working mothers said they prefer to be working parttime compared to those in 1997 (48%). Mothers who work full-time give themselves lower ratings as parents than their peers who are working parttime or who are not in the paid labor force. Likewise, in a study of 1,000 fathers who work in white-collar occupations, Harrington and colleagues (2011) find that almost 60% report an inability to get housework and care giving duties accomplished because of their work responsibilities. Not surprisingly then, a substantial percentage of fathers (60%) and mothers (50%) in dual-earner households continue to have difficulty managing family and work life (Aumann et al., 2008). The ability to balance work and family obligations is typically viewed from a gender role perspective. Here, perceptions of work–family-fit typically fall along traditional gender lines where men’s work role takes precedence over family roles and women are expected to give priority to family roles even if they are working outside of the home (Gutek, Searle, & Klepa, 1991). In a national survey, 72% of fathers say the ideal situation for them is to be in a full-time job (Taylor et al., 2007). Simon (1995) finds in her sample of 40 white, employed, married parents that most women view their work and family roles as independent life domains, whereas men view being a good father as contingent on providing economic support to their families. In other words, part of the cognitive schema of a father includes provider, perhaps making it easier for men to perceive role balance if they are employed (see Ray, 2008). Many minority women have not been privileged to embrace the middleclass gendered division of labor, often as a result of various structural constraints (Coontz, 1992; Collins, 2004). The tenuousness of employment

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opportunities for black and immigrant men, for example, leads to some women feeling compelled to work for pay. This has been the case throughout history for African-American women. Thus, an alternative view of work– family balance suggests that gender roles are socially constructed entities that vary across contexts. We argue that intersectionality provides a useful frame by which we can come to appreciate the ways adults manage work–family issues. As suggested by the range of studies cited above, there is reason to believe that race, gender, and social class combine in very interesting ways to exacerbate (or minimize) group differences in the experience of work and family; therefore, we seek to provide insight into how adults describe the way they ‘‘do’’ family when faced with the question of work–family balance.

CHECKERS OR CHESS While some adults may feel that they are juggling their work and family responsibilities on a daily basis, we find that more appropriate ‘‘gaming’’ language would be ‘‘checkers’’ or ‘‘chess.’’ There are certain aspects of these games that we wish to highlight as they capture much of the narratives provided by our families when asked about balancing work and family. Of course, some aspects of these popular games are irrelevant. For example, both games are two-player games, but we do not mean to insinuate that work–family issues must be understood in the context of a two-parent household. Work and family are patterns of social relations that can change across the individual life course. Below we describe the important components of these board games that map onto some of the lived experiences of our study respondents. Checkers is a board game that involves a series of diagonal moves of uniform pieces (all are the same) with the goal of reaching the opponent’s last row on the board while taking all of her/his pieces. There are several notable rules to the American version of this game with the most dominant being the inability to make a move into an occupied square. The only time a player can move a piece across multiple squares along a diagonal is if they reach their opponents end and are ‘‘crowned’’ king status. Now, they can make moves forward or backward but only into unoccupied spaces. A king can also make successive jumps across multiple spaces on the board as long as the purpose is to acquire the opponent’s pieces. The person who has no remaining pieces or cannot move their remaining pieces is designated the loser of the game.

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In the figurative sense of family roles, checkers are played via rigid concrete roles for men and women. Checkers mostly align with gender role patterns before the 1970s where men served as providers and women served as house workers and caregivers. When partners play checkers, family role expectations are often very clear. One person moves to work, while the other person moves to cook, clean, and care. Each piece carries equal weight and can only move one space. In this regard, checkers can be seen as the traditional model. Chess is a board game where different types of pieces move along the board differently. In fact, each player begins with a king. Each piece in the chess game has its own set of characteristics that allow it to engage the opposition through threat (moving forward) or retreat (moving backward) without penalty. You can capture an opponent’s piece by moving them out of an occupied space on the board. In chess, there are three conclusions: win, lose, or draw. Chess, in the context of family, is played via fluid, constantly renegotiated social roles. Unlike checkers, all of the chess pieces have different duties and movements. The action of the other player dictates which piece will move and when. Many families operate in this way. Each week, and sometimes daily, partners decide how the next several days will go. Who will take the kids to ball or band practice? Who will go to the grocery store? Who will take off from work to take one of the children to the doctor? These are questions that couples ask and answer regularly. While men and women may have some distinct roles, such as grocery shopping or mowing the grass, much of the duties centered on housework and care giving are an everchanging chess game to get each piece of family and work into a position that makes life manageable.

INTERSECTIONALITY: VITAL FOR RESEARCH ON FAMILY FUNCTIONING The intersectionality framework (Choo & Ferree, 2010; Collins, 2004; Crenshaw, 1991) becomes useful for examining how gender, race, and class simultaneously influence the ability of individuals to even play checkers or chess. ‘‘The purpose of intersectionality theory within the family literature is to provide a much needed lens to construct a space for the multiplicity of social identities and categories that provide context-specific scripts for marginalized groups’’ (Ray, 2008, p. 327). Although useful, the gender role perspective of work–family balance upholds a traditional model that gives

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scant attention to the specific experiences of minority groups and cultures. A social constructionist view is much more reflective of the particular historical patterns noted throughout the family literature (especially those that account for opportunity structures), but we believe that this perspective does not provide a parsimonious explanation for similarities found across groups in regards to family experiences. Intersectionality, on the other hand, draws attention to points on the axis where we would find both similarities and differences in experiences within the family. For example, the marriage patterns of African Americans are different from whites, which inhibits their ability to even play checkers or chess with a partner. Black women are less likely to marry and more likely to work fulltime and have children than white women (Banks, 2011). Although black women report more familial support for childcare, they are less likely than white women to have ‘‘the help’’ in the form of nannies and maids. Black men’s struggle with stable employment change how African-American families function. In this sense, black women have always performed a second shift as many were working outside of the home for pay long before their white counterparts (Billingsley, 1992; Littlejohn-Blake & Darling, 1993). As a result, a majority of single mothers, such as those concentrated among African-American women, may actually be forced to play chess in a different way. Mexican Americans also face unique experiences. While there is a growing group of second and third generation Mexican Americans, a large percentage still comes to the United States as immigrants. This means that many Mexican Americans are leaving behind their family members in Mexico. In turn, their priorities for providing economic support to their families may be different from mainstream America. Mexican-American men are more likely to have manual labor occupations, while Mexican-American women are more likely to be in domestic and service jobs. Mexican Americans are also more likely to hold more traditional attitudes about family roles (Ray, 2008). These dynamics may lead to Mexican-American families playing checkers more than chess. Despite chess being a model that privileges a middle-class lifestyle, some upper middle-class families with high levels of income may actually choose to play checkers, especially when children are young. Although there are a growing number of stay-at-home dads, mothers staying at home with the children while fathers work is still the more prominent norm if a parent does not work. This is a choice and privilege not afforded to single mothers and most working-class families.

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Taken together, we know little about how couples ‘‘do family’’ and actually manage family and work life on a daily basis. We know even less about the differences among family types (e.g., middle- and working-class families, families with high levels of income, single mothers) and how the intersection of race and gender structures these differences. Below we detail our sample and methods and then present findings related to how different families play checkers or chess to make their family and work lives more manageable.

METHOD Participants Forty-five percent of the total sample self-identified as African American (N ¼ 60), 31% as white (N ¼ 41), and 24% as Mexican American (N ¼ 31). Sixty-six percent of the sample were women, half were married, and the average age was 38 (18–80). In terms of social class, the average level of education was 15 years, the median household income was $45,000, and 73% were employed. Participants reported an average of slightly less than two children. Table 1 provides descriptive statistics for each racial/ethnic and gender group. Some of the differences are consistent with national patterns while others probably reflect within-family influences. Education is highest among whites, followed by African Americans, and then Mexican Americans. However, there are small educational disparities within each racial group. The largest disparity by work status can be found among Mexican Americans, while African-American men and women have similar rates of employment. African-American women are least likely to be married. Finally, nearly 50% of the Mexican-American sample is immigrants with a substantially higher percentage of men (67%) self-identifying as non-U.S. born than women (35%).

Measures All respondents were asked the following questions: (1) Have the things you wanted to do with your family ever interfered with your job responsibilities or has your job ever gotten in the way of the things you want to do with

0.52 0.76 0.90 0.00 1.67 (2.06) 36.05 (13.43) 15.19 (2.56) $60,000

Men N ¼ 21 0.26 0.77 0.79 0.00 1.72 (1.58) 36.00 (13.51) 14.95 (2.19) $31,000

Women N ¼ 39

African Americans

0.45 1.00 0.09 0.67 2.00 (1.95) 33.00 (8.46) 12.09 (1.58) $28,500

Men N ¼ 11 0.65 0.55 0.60 0.35 2.35 (1.87) 36.25 (11.64) 12.10 (2.25) $28,500

Women N ¼ 20

Mexican Americans

0.62 0.85 0.31 0.00 1.61 (1.56) 43.92 (14.28) 16.62 (2.50) $60,000

Men N ¼ 13

Women N ¼ 28 0.57 0.64 0.68 0.00 1.50 (1.32) 44.00 (17.19) 15.86 (3.25) $50,000

Whites

Descriptive Statistics by Race and Gender (Standard Deviations in Parenthesis).

Marital status (1 ¼ Married) Work status (1 ¼ Employed) Religion (1 ¼ Moderately/Very religious) Immigrant status (1 ¼ Immigrant) Number of children Age Education in years Median household income

Table 1.

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your family? (1a) If yes, in what way? Can you give some examples?; and (1b) If no, how are you able to keep your family life and your work life separate, either now or in the past? (2) Do you feel that your parents’ job affected your life in any way?

Procedure Sample Selection We use the Intersections of Family, Work, and Health Study (IFWH) conducted in a Midwestern city (Jackson, 2004). Primary respondents for the IFWH were 46 adults who responded to an advertisement to participate in a study on the family (primary respondents). Ads were placed in public areas throughout the city. Flyers were also placed in mailboxes in a wide variety of neighborhoods in the city. The adults were instructed to call the research office where a staff member would determine if they were eligible for the study. At the time of phone contact, potential respondents were asked if they were confident that family members living anywhere in the United States (secondary respondents) would be interested in participating in the study and if they preferred to be interviewed in English or Spanish. After the research team established phone contact with secondary respondents, 86 agreed to be interviewed, yielding a total sample of 132 adults. A Spanish translation of all instruments was prepared and used in cases where the respondent noted that preference. In-Depth Interviews Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 46 primary respondents. These interviews were completed by the authors and several graduate student research assistants (in pairs) in the respondents’ homes (65%), work places (22%), or a public setting such as fast-food restaurants (13%). All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Trained interviewers were matched by race/ethnicity and/or gender of the primary respondent. A bilingual graduate student conducted interviews in Spanish. This in-person interview ranged from one to three hours in length with an average of 89 minutes. Participants received $20 compensation for participating in the face-to-face component of the interview and a 120-minute phone card for completing a self-administered questionnaire. We contracted with the Schuessler Institute for Survey Research at Indiana University to administer the telephone survey to the 86 secondary

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respondents who were mailed a 120-minute phone card for their participation. The average amount of time to complete the telephone interview was 62 minutes. The telephone interview included approximately 75% of the items from the in-person interview and the identical set of items from the self-administered questionnaire. All participants are assigned pseudonyms to protect their identities. Analytic Strategy Quotations relating to work–family balance were coded by categorizing respondents based on race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status (i.e., occupation, income, education). We searched for words including conflict, balance, manage, juggle, fight, agreement, debate, discussion/discuss, communicate, stress, and negotiate in each transcript. We initially used an inductive approach to identify patterns from the transcripts. After establishing patterns in the coding, we searched the interviews again looking for examples that confirmed and contradicted emerging patterns. The use of negative cases is imperative to any qualitative research endeavor. The emerging propositions were refined or eliminated to explain negative cases (Rizzo, Corsaro, & Bates, 1992).

RESULTS Who’s Playing Games? Our findings show four classifications that capture particular segments of work–family routines. While what we find is consistent with existing bodies of literature, we also take note of the plaguing reminder that marriage is an understated resource. Social class position, in particular, is one axis of difference that seems to dictate how adults negotiate the worlds of work and family. Some workers have less job flexibility, autonomy, and power at work. The most extreme variants within this configuration are those who occupy low status jobs (or who play checkers) without much choice in the matter: the working class (mostly dual-earners). At the other extreme are high status workers (who play chess) with much flexibility and resources at their disposal: middle- to upper-middle-class workers (mostly dual-earners). For some, the more interesting cases may very well be adults who are forced to play on a high-status field even though they may not have the social and economic capital (or chess pieces) to do so: single, professional mothers who

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find themselves with a dwindling share of resources (flex-time) as they attempt to raise children and work full-time jobs. And then there are those who elect to remain at the level of checkers and share traditional role obligations: working and middle class (mostly male breadwinner/female homemaker combinations). We provide qualitative responses to illustrate these themes.

Checkers: Forced to Play the Game In most service and manufacturing occupations, individuals frequently have their work–family lives sorted for them vis-a`-vis their employer and work schedules. As a result, they have fewer choices for managing work–family life. A few responses from those who answered the question, ‘‘Has your work life ever interfered with your family life?’’ highlight this theme. Tommy is a 35-year-old black man who is a married father of two children. His youngest child is 15 months old and the oldest is 3 years old. He is a college graduate who estimates his yearly household income to be around $55,000 working as a fireman. His wife works part-time. Have the things I wanted to do with family got in the way of a job? No. Have the job got in the way of the family? Yes, because with our rotating schedule, we miss out on holidays or even just being home with the kids at night. I’m not home with the kids when I’m on duty so, I miss out on that.

Curtis, his father, who completed some college, says: Yes y well, being in the military or farming, uh, you had a job and you had to do it and family gatherings and stuff, you couldn’t just go when you wanted to. And farming was a seven day a week, uh, 365 day a year job cause I raised hogs y and stuff. In the Army you go when they tell you where they tell ya.

Similarly, Tommy’s mother Sheila (a high school graduate) says: Uhm. (laugh) Oh. Heck yes! (laugh) y Well there’s times when I rather would not have worked weekends, uh y cause I’d rather, there were some family things that I wanted to do y I’d rather not have worked at all. But uh it was financially necessary although I have enjoyed my work.

Jessica, a 41-year-old black woman who is a married mother of two, responds in a similar fashion. She says: Uhhmmm, yeah, I mean of course, just the common things as far as you know wishing you could go on vacation, but you can’t because you have a job y but as far as my family with my job, I mean yeah, when I was taking care of my dad for the three years, I

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mean there was times when I just had to take off work, and you know, eat up vacation time and things like that to care for him.

Unlike families that describe the work–family interface as nonnegotiable distinct roles, another group of adults describe the ways they consciously try to negotiate this boundary, mostly through enacting traditional roles. Maria is a 29-year-old Mexican-American woman with a high school degree. She is married with three small children ages 3, 5, and 9. Her husband, who also has a high school degree, works as a cook and they have a household income of $48,000 a year. Maria is not currently working for pay outside of the home, although she has opinions about whether she should be paid for work as a primary caregiver and homemaker. When asked has her family ever interfered with her work responsibilities, Maria responded: Well, you see, I haven’t been working for a while, but I do like to work. I like to work for my children. I want them to go to college and I want them to have money to spend. But I want to be in the house to help them, to raise them well, to have good health and to make sure they go down the right track.

Even when Maria was in the labor market, she also pulled a second shift and did most of the care giving and housework. When asked how she was able to keep her work and family life separate, she said: Well it was really difficult because sometimes I would come home without the energy or will to do anything. I would do things like make the food a day in advance so that it would already be ready. So I would make it early, arrive home, and we’d eat, and then I’d have to make the next couple of days food. I still say that even though I stay at home I work harder than my husband (laughter). Like while I’m watching the kids playing outside I’m also ironing (laughter). I work. I should receive a salary right? But women who work at home don’t get a salary right?

Maria’s husband [Jonathan] provides a more direct example of complications between work and family. When asked, ‘‘Have the things you wanted to do with your family ever interfered with your job responsibilities or has your job ever gotten in the way of the things you want to do with your family?,’’ he says ‘‘yes.’’ When prompted for an example, he simply says: Doctor’s appointment for my son and my wife, I have to ask permission.

Like Jonathan, many respondents complained about inflexible work schedules that do not consider the reality of the need for multiple medical visits for his children. Collectively, parents who embrace playing checkers compared to those feeling forced have a different outlook on their roles and personal identity. This is most evident among the upper-middle-class families described below.

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Checkers: I Choose to Play this Game Susie is a white, 23-year-old medical school student. She described how her father’s job as a physician afforded their family enough income for her mother to stay at home and serve as the primary caregiver and house worker. What separates high-income families with a traditional family arrangement from working-class families is the breadwinner’s ability to have a sizable income to support necessities and leisure activities, while still being available for quality time and family events. Susie’s sister and mother made similar statements to what she says below: He’s a doctor, for one, so that probably influenced a lot about why I’m a med student. And plus he’s always been there to listen for anybody, which I really like. And he’s always, no matter what, he’s trying to do stuff for us. Even in Canada when he was really busy, cause just the medicine and the situation at the time, he still had time to make swing sets for us or make playhouses y So probably, a lot of my family looked up to my dad because he spent so much time with us.

Dorothy is a 63-year-old white woman with a household income over $100,000. Her father had a professional job that required a lot of travel when she was young. Her mother did not work until she went to high school. And, at that point, her mother was close by working as an attendant for the school registrar at her high school. Dorothy said: My father traveled for most of the time I was growing up. He was out of town from Monday morning until Friday evening. So we were home alone with mom. So in many ways, it’s allowed mom to be mostly involved with me. But, it’s not like dad had left us. If there were something important at school or something, he tried to arrange it so that he could be home for school programs or something like that. He didn’t neglect me. I’ve never felt that we were neglected. He was a father.

Although Dorothy’s father was gone most days, he was available for important events. Reflecting back on her childhood, most of the daily activities that form an imprint on Dorothy’s memory included her mother as well as her father. In this case, Dorothy’s father was seen as a bonus provider for his family. In other words, his role responsibilities were amplified even though they were quite limited in scope. These findings align with those noted by Ray (2008) about some men’s ability to garner a professional allowance that gives them more visibility when they spend quality time with family. Another important component to upper-middle-class families and their choice to play checkers is that they have the economic capital to manufacture memories through trips and extracurricular and school activities that are inaccessible to working-class families (Powell & Steelman, 1995).

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Chess: The Queens Do it All Most middle-class parents play chess because they gain purchase on their economic and social capital to have job flexibility, autonomy, and power to choose when to move what pieces on the board (or how to manage and what to manage). Chris and Becky provide a useful lens to view how middle-class parents actually play chess. Chris is a 37-year-old white man with an MBA. His wife, Becky, is a 31-year-old white woman who also has an MBA. They have two children ages 1 and 3 and a household income of $90,000. Chris responded about managing family and work life. When asked, ‘‘Have things you wanted to do with your family ever interfered with your job responsibilities? Or has your job got in the way with things you wanted to do with your family?,’’ Chris responds: I think for me y yes probably on both counts, but not tragically y My wife and I both have an understanding that to maintain our lifestyle, which is not high end at all (laughs) but to maintain our lifestyle we both need to work, and y to maintain uhh y to be able to spend time with the kids, to be able to be a parent, to be able to enjoy them, uhh, we’ve realized, we’ve sacrificed other things; umm, hardly ever get a chance to go golfing anymore, (laughs) going to baseball games y There were times when I was asked to pull extra late nights or pull weekends and I did a little bit of that and that affected us a little bit. Then I decided that I wasn’t going to do that anymore. It wasn’t worth it.

Becky discusses the sacrifices Chris makes for the family. He ended up with a job, but it doesn’t really seem like what he really wants to do. It’s difficult to do that and I’m sure that has to do with him taking the money and what he has over everything else just because of family obligations.

However, Becky makes her own professional sacrifices for the family. She says: There have been times where you turn down a greater responsibility just because you don’t wanna have the added workload. A lot of people you know who want you to take on a directorship or something like that and you just have to turn it down cause you have too many things going on.

Chris and Becky make conscious choices about how to manage their lives. Clearly, family is most important. They both make work sacrifices to be more available for their children. They go on to describe how they communicate and constantly renegotiate their roles. Becky says: It’s hard to juggle both working full-time and having two toddlers. It happens where you wanna be with your kids, wanna spend more time with them, and you don’t cause you feel like you have to be at work. It’s just a week to week occurrence. You know you’re

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always making decisions week to week. Of course there’s been times, especially when the kids are sick or something, you feel like you have to take them to the babysitter anyway.

Discussing the same issue, Chris says: The biggest [thing] that me and my wife have had is trying to figure out who will burn a day off. And there are times when she just can’t and I would do it, you know. It’s something you gotta do. When I have to burn days at least then my boss was pretty cool about it.

He goes on to say: It’s difficult. You have to make a conscious effort. I went in one day when my child was sick. I was in there [at] like six [am] so that I could leave early to take the kid. Got my child, took my child to the doctor, and then my wife got the child at two [pm] and I went back to work until like seven [pm]. Just got to, you just juggle! I mean we talked earlier about in order to maintain you go in every different direction. Well to maintain the over balance, I was up at 4 o’clock [am], didn’t get home until 7:30 [pm] that time.

What Chris described above is what parents do on a daily basis. Since he and Becky both have professional occupations, they have the job flexibility and autonomy to act as ‘‘queens’’ and move around the chess board with more ease than others. Most professional jobs are based on performance goals and less on the time to accomplish those goals. Working class jobs, on the other hand, are often based on time as individuals are compensated an hourly wage. Salary gives people more freedom to, in some cases, work when they want and where they want as long as performance goals are accomplished. In the case of Chris and Becky, Chris can go to work at 6 am, or even 4 am, before his company officially opens for business, leave in the middle of the day to take his child to the doctor, have his wife (who can also leave in the middle of the day) provide childcare, and then return to his job to finish his work. This is the essence of chess. Chris and Becky see their family and work life as merged entities instead of separate. Individuals with professional occupations have the ability to merge their family and work worlds and gain more leverage to manage life on their own terms.

Chess: Forced to Sacrifice the Queen The chess game described above is quite different for single, professional mothers. We highlight Kelsie as an example. Kelsie, who is a 27-year-old single mother of a 2-year-old and newborn baby, holds a bachelor’s degree and makes $27,000 a year. Currently working at a university, she describes her life as a student.

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When I had him I was in my last semester of college. So, I was trying to complete my degree and working full-time and trying to take care of a newborn. So, I was really overwhelmed in trying to finish housework, homework, and then having to do work at my job.

When asked, ‘‘Has family life interfered with job responsibilities?,’’ Kelsie says: Well I know there’s a conflict in scheduling as far as like taking my kids to the doctor at times, cause I have two kids and my doctor’s office they don’t put both of the children on for the same day and I hate that. You have to take them on different days so you’re missing two days of hours.

Kelsie has the type of job where she has to be physically at work to be paid. This poses a problem when she needs time off to care for her children or take them somewhere during normal office hours. While Kelsie may have some social support, her mother has not worked in several years so she cannot rely upon her for financial support. These are some of the challenges facing single, working mothers: they have to do everything, and in turn, sacrifice their health (and the queen on the board). As a result, their lived experience of managing family and work is much different than two-parent households who are middle or working class. Their realities also differ from upper-middle-class mothers who may have the luxury to not work full-time or hire someone to complete their house work and/or care giving duties.

DISCUSSION A growing contingent of scholars suggests that family research needs to move toward an intersectional approach (e.g., see Dillaway & Broman, 2001). This study takes a step in this direction by considering the ways that a diverse group of adults describe how they negotiate work and family domains. We also build on prior research by considering the views held by family members that go beyond the standard couple dyad (or one parent– one child). We find that the analogy of balancing work and family roles does little to express the creative ways in which people negotiate the constraints of these two often competing role domains. The intersectionality framework challenges work on the family to consider how race, gender, and social class operate in tandem to create cleavages (or axes) that do not coincide with normative patterns of family life. One important axis can be found at the intersection of social class and marital status. We find that a higher social class position and marriage

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provide resources to more easily fulfill the wide range of role obligations. Economic and social capital provides the foundation onto which work and family roles are successfully negotiated. Individuals with more capital have more choices for managing family and work life. They are offered a chess board and a variety of pieces to work with that facilitate the goal of achieving some level of satisfaction about making moves to create work–family harmony. Individuals with less capital end up with less job flexibility, autonomy, and control. These adults end up playing checkers through rigid concrete roles because their time, money, and autonomy are in the hands of their employers instead of their own. We find that middle class, married adults have the job flexibility, autonomy, and income to manage their family and work life in different ways than most working class parents. As a result, middle-class parents, regardless of gender or race/ethnicity, can normally choose to be available for sickness and accidents, school activities, scheduled or impromptu ‘‘family time,’’ and normal housework and care giving duties. We see this most clearly in the case of Chris and Becky who communicate role expectations to one another (e.g., how much to work and when to take off from work), understand that sacrifices must be made on both ends, and facilitate the goal of successful role fulfillment. Working class parents, on the other hand, are more likely to be in rigid roles that compromise the time they spend at home. Consequently, mothers are more likely to pull a second shift by working for pay and being responsible for a majority of the care giving and housework. Interestingly though, some single mothers play chess. Who do single mothers play chess with? They mainly play by themselves frequently having to sacrifice important chess pieces on their board: a vacation day for a sick child takes away from the time most professionals use for family vacations or to recover from a stressful work season. Single parents may also have to ask family members or close acquaintances to join them on the chess board. If a child is sick, the mother may rely on a female family member to assist (normally her mother or grandmother). Because single mothers are forced to utilize more chess pieces (or pieces of capital) than dual-earner couples, they remain at a disadvantage in the world of work (e.g., less likely to be promoted) and family (e.g., more work–family strain). They face a set of pressures that two-parent households are, for the most part, able to resist. Because marital status brings with it the type of resources necessary to offset some work–family problems, we believe that this social status position should be equally heralded as an axis of power within the intersectionality framework. By using an intersectionality perspective, this study especially provides insights into the high-status worlds of upper-middle-class families

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and those of single mothers, all of whom are ‘‘doing’’ family in successful but quite different ways.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors thank the volume editors for comments on previous drafts.

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Schulz, J., & Mullings, L. (2006). Gender, race, class and health: Intersectional approaches. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Simon, R. (1995). Gender, multiple roles, role meaning, and mental health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 36, 182–194. Taylor, P., Funk, C., & Clark, A. (2007). Generation gap in values, behaviors: As marriage and parenthood drift apart, public is concerned about social impact. Pew Research Center. Taylor, R. J., Chatters, L. M., Tucker, M. B., & Lewis, E. (1990). Developments in research on black families: A decade review. Journal of Marriage and Family, 52, 993–1014. U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). American Community Survey. Voydanoff, P. (2005). Toward a conceptualization of perceived work-family and balance: A demands and resources approach. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67, 822–836. Weber, L., & Parra-Medina, D. (2003). Intersectionality and women’s health: Charting a path to eliminating health disparities. In M. T. Segal, V. P. Demos & J. J. Kronenfeld (Eds.). Advances in Gender Research: Gender perspectives on health and medicine: Key themes (Vol. 7, pp. 181–229). Boston, MA: JAI press.

LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION AMONG ASIAN, BLACK, HISPANIC, AND WHITE MOTHERS IN 20 OCCUPATIONS Liana Christin Landivar ABSTRACT Purpose – Although most mothers are currently in the labor force, mothers’ labor supply varies by race and ethnicity. However, most of the discourse on mothers’ employment, particularly recent media coverage and research on mothers opting out of the labor force, focuses on the experiences of White women in managerial and professional occupations. I address the lack of diversity in the opt- out discussion by comparing the prevalence of opting out of the labor force and scaling back on work hours among Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White mothers in 20 occupations. Methodology/approach – This research employs hierarchical logistic models and hierarchical linear models using 2009 American Community Survey data. Findings – Although mothers of all racial and ethnic backgrounds are more likely to opt out when they have young children, opting out is more prevalent among White mothers. Racial and ethnic disparities are

Notions of Family: Intersectional Perspectives Advances in Gender Research, Volume 17, 263–286 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-2126(2013)0000017015

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particularly salient when examining work hours. White and Asian mothers are more likely to scale back compared with Black mothers who do not appear to scale back at all when they have children. Social implications – These results show that work–family strategies differ by race, ethnicity, and occupation, and work–family solutions need to address the specific needs of women in different occupations. Originality/value – This study provides evidence suggesting that the opt-out discourse surrounding mothers’ employment has not been sufficiently nuanced and that policy solutions that are based on the experiences of women in managerial and professional occupations are likely to fall short of meeting the needs of most women. Keywords: Race; ethnicity; occupation; opting out; work hours

In recent years, mothers’ employment has garnered considerable media and academic scrutiny. Belkin (2003), in a popular article published in The New York Times, claims that women are increasingly opting out of the fast track to stay at home with their children, framing these decisions in the context of ‘‘choice.’’ Several recent books and articles address this claim by detailing the experiences and challenges of mothers in managerial and professional occupations. However, an important limiting factor to this research is its focus on affluent, educated, mostly White, married women (e.g., Blair-Loy, 2003; Epstein, Seron, Oglensky, & Saute´, 1999; Stone, 2007). These insightful studies provide admirable detail on the work–family time bind; however, their generalizability remains limited due to their small sample sizes and their exclusive focus on women in managerial and professional occupations whose experiences may not be representative of all women. Williams (2010) critiques the lack of diversity in the opt-out debate and the disproportionate focus on managerial and professional workers because women in these occupations may not face the same employment barriers that working class women face. Working class women have less access to employment flexibility, are more likely to work nonstandard work hours, are at increased risk of mandatory overtime, have lower earnings, lack employment benefits, and are less likely to be able to work from home. These structural employment differences merit expanding the opt-out discussion to a much wider range of women to have a fuller grasp of the work–family challenges and potential solutions. To the extent that women are occupationally segregated by race and ethnicity, these structural

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employment inequalities will further manifest themselves as racial and ethnic disparities in women’s employment. This study addresses the lack of diversity in the opt-out discourse by comparing the prevalence of opting out of the labor force and scaling back on work hours among Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White mothers in 20 occupations. These 20 occupations represent the full spectrum of occupations – from managerial and professional occupations to service, office, construction, and production occupations. Data come from the 2009 American Community Survey (ACS), the largest household survey in the United States. The ACS provides sample sizes that are large enough to carry out a nationally representative study of mothers’ employment by race and ethnicity in 20 occupations. I find that opting out is more prevalent among White mothers than among Asian, Black, and Hispanic mothers. Racial and ethnic disparities are particularly salient when examining work hours. White mothers are significantly more likely to scale back than Hispanic mothers when they have preschool children, particularly in managerial and professional occupations.1 Black mothers do not appear to scale back when they have preschool children. Employment flexibility and household resources play an important role in these disparities. White mothers are disproportionately likely to be in an occupation where they may be able to negotiate working a reduced schedule, and higher family income may provide White and Asian women with the option to cut back on their work hours. The invisibility of race and class privilege in the work–family debate on opting-out results in an incomplete assessment of women’s work and family experiences and yields inadequate policy solutions. An intersectional framework, jointly examining how race, ethnicity, class, and gender interact, would fully consider how experiences and constructions of work and family vary. The separation of work and family spheres is not a universal experience, as historically it could not be maintained by the non-White, non-middle class (Glenn, 1994). Middle-class women’s economic and employment gains have been partially enabled by immigrant women performing service and caretaking work, enabling the more privileged to pursue employment (Chang, 1994). Unequal occupational opportunities and household resources, along with differing cultural expectations contribute to differing work–family outcomes between White and non-White women. This research brings together the discourse on opting out that predominately focuses on the experiences of White professionals, with extensive data on non-White and non-managerial and professional women. Based on the research presented here, I conclude that studies on opting out based on the experiences of White professional women do not generalize to all women. Rather, opting out and especially

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scaling back is more prevalent among White women who may have the occupational and household resources to do so.

TRENDS IN WOMEN’S LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION BY RACE AND ETHNICITY Although most mothers are currently in the labor force in the United States, patterns of mothers’ labor force participation vary by race and ethnicity. Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that 62 percent of Black women, 60 percent of White women, and 59 percent of Hispanic women were employed (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011). There has been some convergence over time, but the differences are longstanding trends and are greater among mothers. Using decennial census data since 1970, Spain and Bianchi (1996) show that Asian and Black mothers have high rates of labor force participation, followed by White women, and Hispanic women who are the least likely to be in the labor force. Although the dominant discourse on motherhood focuses on an ‘‘idealized model of motherhood, derived from the situation of the white, American, middle class,’’ this model has not always been attainable or desirable by all women (Glenn, 1994, p. 3). Black mothers have traditionally had higher rates of labor force participation and have challenged the social construction of work and family as inherently conflicting roles (Collins, 1994). Over the course of the 20th century, the likelihood of employment shifted from less privileged groups to those with higher levels of human capital. The most highly educated women have benefitted from increased market opportunities incentivizing employment. This shift in likelihood of employment to women with higher educational attainment is an important contributing factor to racial and ethnic disparities in women’s employment rates (England, Garcia-Beaulieu, & Ross, 2004). Some of the differences in labor force participation rates have also been attributed to differences in household structure and composition. For instance, a larger proportion of Black and Hispanic households are mother-only households (Casper & Bianchi, 2002; Kreider & Elliott, 2009). Mothers in mother-only households are more likely to be employed (Kreider & Elliott, 2009), perhaps out of economic necessity to sustain the household. On the other hand, Hispanic mothers have higher fertility rates (Spain & Bianchi, 1996), have children at a younger age (Fram & Kim, 2008), and start their children in center-based child care at later ages than White, Black, or Asian mothers (Fram & Kim, 2008). These factors combined may depress Hispanic women’s labor supply.

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There are also differences in how the presence of a child affects mothers’ work hours. Omori and Smith (2010) find that having a child reduces White mothers’ work hours by about 3 hours per week but it does not affect work hours among Black and Hispanic mothers. Occupational segregation may account for some of these disparities in work hours. Black and Hispanic mothers are disproportionately likely to be in service occupations, while White and Asian mothers are disproportionately likely to be in managerial and professional occupations. Managerial and professional occupations typically require more human capital investment resulting in higher opportunity costs for labor force exit and tend to have more schedule flexibility, which may accommodate scaling back (Hilgeman, 2010). To the extent that occupations are racially and ethnically segregated, scale-back options may be more restricted for Black and Hispanic women because they are more likely to be in nonmanagerial and professional occupations.

THE INTERSECTIONALITY OF WOMEN’S EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCES Research on mothers’ employment patterns needs to consider women’s intragroup diversity, as cultural, familial, and structural forces shape women’s mothering experiences and expectations. Women’s experience of mothering and labor force participation is deeply intertwined with their gender, racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds. The occupational opportunities available to them, household financial, domestic, and interpersonal support, and human capital attainment play vital roles in shaping if and when women have children and how they reconcile labor supply with care work. These various facets affecting women’s mothering and labor supply are best understood in an intersectional framework. Intersectionality provides the framework to analyze how multiple identities intersect and interact, recognizing variation in advantage and power among women (Baca Zinn & Dill, 2001). When analyses of mothers’ employment are not sufficiently nuanced by race, ethnicity, and class, significant constraints may be overlooked. This has important practical applications. For instance, some studies have argued for pushing for work–family benefits in elite occupations, in hopes that gains made in those occupations would then be extended to the working class (Worley & Vannoy, 2001). It could be argued that any gains in work–family policy are beneficial to working women, but there is the strong possibility that because of significant structural differences in employment, gains made at the forefront may not trickle down to working class occupations as

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expected. This study seeks, not only to ‘‘give voice’’ to working class and non-White women, but to draw out the implications of neglecting to include a diverse sample of women in the opt-out debate (Choo & Ferree, 2010). The overemphasis on the experiences of White, middle- to upper-middle-class women will result in undercoverage of work–family issues and will not yield solutions that benefit all women. This study shows that because of the significant variation in occupational concentration and in personal and household resources, research and policy responses need to consider the range of potential opportunities and constraints facing women of different racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND CONTRIBUTIONS This study is among the first to examine racial and ethnic differences in opt-out and scale-back patterns by major occupational groups. Most recent studies on opting out are based on the experiences of White women in managerial and professional occupations, limiting their generalizability to working class, non-White women. This study builds upon compelling qualitative studies of women’s work–family experiences that explicitly call for the extension of their research to include non-White women and more ‘‘typical’’ workers (Blair-Loy, 2003; Stone, 2007). I provide such analyses here, by testing their claims using a nationally representative sample. I address the following questions: 1. Are White and non-White women equally likely to opt out of the labor force when they have preschool children? 2. Do White and non-White women scale back on hours of work when they have preschool children? 3. To what extent does human capital, household composition, and occupational segregation account for differing opt-out and scale-back patterns?

METHOD Data Source and Sample Restrictions The 2009 American Community Survey (ACS) is the largest household survey in the United States and the large sample size permits analyses of women’s employment by race, ethnicity, and occupation with statistical

Labor Force Participation among Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White Mothers

269

precision. The sample consists of women ages 18–54 who are currently employed or who have had a job in the last five years (N ¼ 67,043,294). Occupational information is gathered for the person’s current job, if the person is employed, or her last job if she is not employed but had a job in the last five years. This provides the data necessary to examine work hours and labor force participation of women who are either presently employed or who were recently in an occupation but have since left the labor force. Measures To measure human capital I include educational attainment and earnings. Measures of household composition and family resources include presence and age of own children, marital status, and family income. Control variables include age, presence of a person 65 years and older in the household, school enrollment, industry, and class of worker. Because a larger percentage of Asian and Hispanic women are born outside of the United States and international migration may affect employment patterns, I include period of entry to the United States in the models. Descriptive statistics and reference categories for all variables in the models are provided in Table 1. Results are provided for four racial and ethnic groups: Asian, Black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White. Federal surveys now give respondents the option of reporting more than one race. Therefore, two basic ways of defining a race group are possible. A group such as Asian may be defined as those who reported Asian and no other race (the race-alone or single-race concept) or as those who reported Asian regardless of whether they also reported another race (the race-alone-or-in-combination concept). The body of this research (text and figures) shows data using the first approach (race alone). Use of the single-race population does not imply that it is the preferred method of presenting or analyzing data. The Census Bureau uses a variety of approaches. In the analyses presented here, ‘‘White’’ refers to the non-Hispanic White population. The term ‘‘non-Hispanic White’’ refers to people who are not Hispanic and who reported White and no other race. The Census Bureau uses non-Hispanic Whites as the comparison group for other race groups and Hispanics. Because Hispanics may be any race, data in this report for Hispanics overlap with data for racial groups. Statistical Procedures To account for the nested structure of the data and the complexity of the analyses, I use hierarchical logistic models and hierarchical linear models

Percent opting outb Usual weekly work hoursc Individual characteristics Age Marital status: Married Not married [ref] Educational attainment: High school or lower [ref] Some college College degree or higher Enrolled in school Yearly earnings ($) Predicted earnings ($) Period of entry: U.S.-born [ref] Less than 5 years ago 5–10 years ago 10–20 years ago More than 20 years ago Class of worker: Private [ref] Government Self-employed

Percenta

Total (weighted)

Table 1.

0.20 0.07 0.04 0.28 0.28 0.24 0.26 0.29 0.18 473 82 0.23 0.19 0.21 0.27 0.24 0.22 0.17 0.17

36.6

61.8 38.2

22.8 25.0 52.1 17.0 36,730 22,586

21.5 11.2 13.8 25.6 28.0

79.7 11.9 8.0

S.E.

13.2 37.0

Mean

4.9

3,245,560

Asian

77.1 19.5 3.3

89.8 1.2 2.1 3.4 3.5

37.3 42.3 20.5 20.4 25,275 23,282

28.0 72.0

35.8

11.4 36.8

Mean

13.4

0.18 0.16 0.07

0.12 0.05 0.06 0.08 0.06

0.18 0.18 0.16 0.18 96 47

0.19 0.19

0.02

0.13 0.04

S.E.

8,815,735

Black

80.5 12.5 6.8

53.5 4.3 9.2 16.1 16.8

52.7 32.1 15.1 15.2 21,000 20,239

46.1 53.9

34.6

13.2 35.6

Mean

14.1

0.14 0.11 0.10

0.20 0.08 0.12 0.15 0.15

0.18 0.16 0.13 0.12 79 39

0.18 0.18

0.02

0.12 0.04

S.E.

9,426,257

Hispanic

77.4 15.5 6.9

96.1 0.6 0.7 1.4 1.3

28.3 38.0 33.7 16.8 30,299 29,350

53.5 46.5

36.8

13.3 35.8

Mean

65.4

43,861,356

0.06 0.05 0.04

0.03 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.01

0.08 0.08 0.08 0.05 48 23

0.09 0.09

0.01

0.06 0.02

S.E.

White, Non-Hispanic

Descriptive Statistics of Women 18–54 by Race and Ethnicity.

270 LIANA CHRISTIN LANDIVAR

0.03 0.04 0.16 0.09 0.17 0.08 0.08 0.15 0.16 0.26 0.19 0.16 0.08 0.22

0.24 0.26 0.31 473

0.3 0.7 9.8 2.5 11.6 2.0 2.2 7.9 11.6 29.8 11.2 7.3 2.9

12.3

20.4

26.7

52.9 108,869

52.4 58,019

28.6

19.0

7.7

0.2 0.6 5.7 1.1 12.6 3.6 2.4 6.9 8.8 36.6 11.1 3.9 6.5

0.21 238

0.20

0.16

0.11

0.02 0.03 0.10 0.04 0.15 0.07 0.06 0.10 0.11 0.20 0.12 0.07 0.10

43.2 63,817

31.7

25.1

7.3

1.9 1.2 8.8 2.4 13.7 2.5 1.6 6.3 9.9 26.1 15.2 7.1 3.2

0.21 240

0.18

0.17

0.11

0.05 0.04 0.09 0.07 0.12 0.06 0.05 0.08 0.11 0.16 0.15 0.09 0.06

a

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2009 American Community Survey. Race and ethnicity totals will not add up to 1.00 as the racial category ‘‘other’’ is excluded from display. b Percentage of women who were employed at some point in the previous 5 years but are no longer employed. c Usual weekly work hours of women who are currently employed or were employed in the past 12 months.

Industry: Agriculture Construction Manufacturing Wholesale Retail [ref] Transportation and utilities Information Finance Professional and scientific Education and health care Arts and food services Other services Public administration Household characteristics Presence of person 65 þ Presence and age of own children in household: Has at least 1 preschool- aged child (ages 0–5) Has school-aged children only (ages 6–17) No children under 18 Yearly family income ($) 55.6 93,227

26.6

17.8

5.1

0.7 1.7 6.3 1.9 13.1 2.2 2.1 8.0 10.2 33.7 11.4 5.1 3.6

0.07 138

0.06

0.06

0.04

0.01 0.02 0.04 0.02 0.05 0.02 0.02 0.04 0.04 0.06 0.05 0.03 0.02

Labor Force Participation among Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White Mothers 271

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LIANA CHRISTIN LANDIVAR

to assess labor force participation rates (opting out) and work hours (scaling back) across 20 occupations. Models include 20 occupations to be able to explore differences at a more detailed occupational level while still retaining a large enough sample size within each racial and ethnic group. I run separate models by race and ethnicity to be able to ascertain differences between mothers and non-mothers of the same racial and ethnic background and to more readily isolate the ‘‘child effect’’ on work hours and labor force participation among otherwise similar women. Individual characteristics in both sets of analyses are grand-mean centered, with the exception of parental status. Estimates can be interpreted as the odds ratio of being in the labor force for a woman without children who is at the mean on all characteristics in the hierarchical logistic models or the average work hours for a woman without children who is at the mean on all characteristics in the hierarchical linear models. To estimate the effect of parenthood, one would add the effect of having a preschool- or school-aged child to the estimate. The hierarchical logistic models used to assess labor force participation rates are based on the full sample of women ages 18–54 who have been employed in the past five years. Because earnings are only collected for the past 12 months, I create a predicted earnings measure based on age, educational attainment, 4-digit occupation, race, and ethnicity that is applied to women whose most recent job was between one and five years ago. While the predicted earnings measure yields a slight underestimate (see Table 1), sensitivity analysis do not yield large differences in results. The hierarchical linear models used to assess work hours are based on a subset of women, those employed in the last year, because work hours are only available for the current or most recent job held in the past 12 months. Because this model is based on the subset of women who were employed in the past year, reported earnings are available for all women and predicted earnings are not necessary.

RESULTS Results indicate that White mothers are the most likely to opt out of the labor force when they have preschool children (see Tables 2 and 3). Asian, Black, and Hispanic mothers are less likely to opt out (see Fig. 1). Racial and ethnic disparities appear to increase when examining work hours (see Fig. 2). White and Asian mothers show a much greater degree of scaling back, particularly in managerial and professional occupations.2 Hispanic

 Presence of person 65 þ in household  Higher educational attainment  Family income

 Presence of preschool child  Presence of schoolage child  Higher educational attainment  Family income

Factors reducing work hours

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2009 American Community Survey.

 Presence of preschool child  Earnings

 International migration  Earnings

Factors increasing work hours

Presence of preschool child Presence of school-age child Marital status (married) Higher educational attainment  Family income

   

 Presence of preschool child  Presence of schoolage child  Higher educational attainment  Family income

 Presence of person 65 þ in household  Earnings

 Presence of preschool child  Presence of person 65 þ in household  Marital status (married)  Family income

 Presence of preschool child  Marital status (married)  Family income

 Presence of preschool child  Presence of person 65 þ in household  Family income

 Presence of preschool child  Marital status (married)  Higher educational attainment  International migration  Family income

Factors reducing labor force attachment

 International migration  Earnings

þ þ  Higher educational attainment  Earnings

White

þ   Higher educational attainment  International migration (more than 5 years ago)  Earnings

Hispanic

   Marital status (married)  Higher educational attainment  Earnings

Black

 þ  Presence of schoolage child  Presence of person 65 þ in household  Earnings

Asian

Factors Associated with Opting Out and Scaling Back by Race and Ethnicity.

Likelihood of opting out Amount of scaling back Factors increasing labor force attachment

Table 2. Labor Force Participation among Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White Mothers 273

Table 3. Likelihood of Opting Out among Women 18–54 by Race and Ethnicity: Odds Ratios from Hierarchical Logistic Regression Models. Model 1a Asian

Model 2a Black

Model 3a Hispanic

Dependent variable: Labor force participation (1 ¼ not in labor force) Intercept 0.07 0.09 0.09 (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) Age 1.00 1.01 1.01 (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) Presence of own children in household Preschool-age children 1.64 1.65 2.10 (0.18) (0.13) (0.13) School-age children 0.79 1.01 0.96 (0.08) (0.07) (0.05) Presence of person 65 þ in household 0.76 1.13 1.01 (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) Married 1.56 0.89 1.42 (0.01) (0.00) (0.00) Education Some college 1.13 0.87 0.90 (0.01) (0.00) (0.00) College degree or higher 1.33 0.54 0.81 (0.01) (0.00) (0.00) Enrolled in school 2.01 1.50 1.46 (0.01) (0.00) (0.00) Period of entry Less than 5 years ago 2.66 0.88 1.04 (0.02) (0.01) (0.01) 5–10 years ago 1.25 0.64 0.98 (0.01) (0.01) (0.00) 10–20 years ago 1.13 0.68 0.87 (0.01) (0.01) (0.00) More than 20 years ago 1.21 0.60 0.82 (0.01) (0.01) (0.00) Class of worker Government 0.84 0.97 0.90 (0.01) (0.00) (0.00) Self-employed 0.99 1.20 1.03 (0.01) (0.01) (0.00) Log of earnings 0.63 0.76 0.72 (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) Log of family income 1.22 1.15 1.15 (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) Industry (13) Includedb Includedb Includedb Likelihood ratio chi-square 67.46 88.64 82.46 N (unweighted) 38,090 77,670 97,203

Model 4a White, Non-Hispanic 0.10 (0.01) 1.01 (0.00) 2.73 (0.13) 1.02 (0.02) 1.28 (0.00) 1.28 (0.00) 0.88 (0.00) 0.76 (0.00) 1.59 (0.00) 2.24 (0.01) 1.09 (0.01) 0.94 (0.00) 0.88 (0.00) 0.81 (0.00) 0.89 (0.00) 0.69 (0.00) 1.21 (0.00) Includedb 61.33 542,896

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2009 American Community Survey. Note: po.05; po.01; po.001 (two-tailed tests). Standard errors are in parentheses. These models are estimated using residual pseudo-likelihood estimation. a Random effects are allowed to vary by 20 occupations. Random effects included are intercept and presence and age of children. Coefficients for all 20 occupations are available upon request. b Coefficients for 13 industries are available upon request.

Labor Force Participation among Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White Mothers

275

Black Women

Asian Women Managerial Business and financial operations Computer and mathematics Architecture and engineering Life,physical, and social science Community and social services Education Legal Arts and media Healthcare practitioners Healthcare support Protective service Food preparation and serving Buildingand grounds maintenance Personal care Sales Officeand administrative Farming, fishing, and forestry Construction and maintenance Production and transportation

Managerial Business and financial operations Computer and mathematics Architecture and engineering Life,physical, and social science Community and social services Education Legal Arts and media Healthcare practitioners Healthcare support Protective service Food preparation and serving Buildingand grounds maintenance Personal care Sales Officeand administrative Farming, fishing, and forestry Construction and maintenance Production and transportation

0

1

2

3

0

4

1

Odds Ratio

2

3

4

Odds Ratio

Hispanic Women

White Women Managerial Business and financial operations Computer and mathematics Architecture and engineering Life,physical, and social science Community and social services Education Legal Arts and media Healthcare practitioners Healthcare support Protective service Food preparation and serving Buildingand grounds maintenance Personal care Sales Officeand administrative Farming, fishing, and forestry Construction and maintenance Production and transportation

Managerial Business and financial operations Computer and mathematics Architecture and engineering Life,physical, and social science Community and social services Education Legal Arts and media Healthcare practitioners Healthcare support Protective service Food preparation and serving Buildingand grounds maintenance Personal care Sales Officeand administrative Farming, fishing, and forestry Construction and maintenance Production and transportation 0

1

2

3

4

0

1

Odds Ratio

Managerial and professional

2

3

4

Odds Ratio

Non-managerial and non-professional

Fig. 1. Opting Out by Occupation for Women with a Preschool Child and Employed in the Last Five Years Compared to Women without Children. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2009 American Community Survey.

mothers scale back very little if they are in the labor force (marginally more in managerial and professional occupations). Black mothers do not appear to scale back when they have children, even among Black mothers in managerial and professional occupations. White mothers are nearly 3 times as likely to opt out of the labor force when they have preschool children, compared to Hispanic mothers who are twice as likely to opt out and Asian and Black mothers who are 1.6 times as likely to opt out. Having a school-aged child does not appear to affect the labor force participation of mothers, except for a small increase among Asian mothers. Results suggest that women of all racial and ethnic backgrounds opt out at higher rates when they have young children and then reenter the labor force as their children get older, working fewer hours. Having preschool- and school-aged children appears to reduce working hours by a similar magnitude. While women with school-aged children are about as likely to work as non-mothers, mothers work shorter hours, on average, regardless of the age of their children. The magnitude of scaling

276

LIANA CHRISTIN LANDIVAR Black Women

Asian Women Managerial Business and financial operations Computer and mathematics Architecture and engineering Life,physical, and social science Community and social services Education Legal Arts and media Healthcare practitioners Healthcare support Protective service Food preparation and serving Building and grounds maintenance Personal care Sales Office and administrative Farming, fishing, and forestry Construction and maintenance Production and transportation

Managerial Business and financial operations Computer and mathematics Architecture and engineering Life,physical, and social science Community and social services Education Legal Arts and media Healthcare practitioners Healthcare support Protective service Food preparation and serving Building and grounds maintenance Personal care Sales Office and administrative Farming, fishing, and forestry Construction and maintenance Production and transportation

–4

–3

–2

–1

0

–4

1

–3

–1

0

1

White Women

Hispanic Women Managerial Business and financial operations Computer and mathematics Architecture and engineering Life,physical, and social science Community and social services Education Legal Arts and media Healthcare practitioners Healthcare support Protective service Food preparation and serving Building and grounds maintenance Personal care Sales Office and administrative Farming, fishing, and forestry Construction and maintenance Production and transportation

Managerial Business and financial operations Computer and mathematics Architecture and engineering Life,physical, and social science Community and social services Education Legal Arts and media Healthcare practitioners Healthcare support Protective service Food preparation and serving Building and grounds maintenance Personal care Sales Office and administrative Farming, fishing, and forestry Construction and maintenance Production and transportation –4

–2

Work Hours

Work Hours

–3

–2 –1 Work Hours

0

Managerial and professional

1

–4

–3

–2

–1

0

1

WorkHours

Non-managerial and non-professional

Fig. 2. Scaling Back by Occupation for Women with a Preschool Child and Employed in the Last Year Compared to Women without Children. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2009 American Community Survey.

back differs by race and ethnicity. White mothers scale back the largest number of hours – about three hours per week when they have preschool children. Asian mothers scale back about two hours, while Hispanic mothers scale back about one hour. Black mothers do not appear to scale back when they have children (see Table 4). Occupational Segregation Women remain highly racially and ethnically segregated across occupations. White and Asian women are disproportionately likely to be employed in managerial and professional occupations, while Black and Hispanic women are overrepresented in service and production occupations.3 In addition to the disparity in earnings across these occupations, the disparity in workplace benefits, schedules, and flexibility may be an important reason why employment patterns differ by race and ethnicity. Managerial and

Labor Force Participation among Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White Mothers

Table 4.

277

Weekly Work Hours among Women 18–54 by Race and Ethnicity: Hierarchical Linear Models Estimates. Model 1a Asian

Dependent Variable: Usual weekly work hours Intercept 36.97 (0.26) Age 0.03 (0.01) Presence of own children in household Preschool-age children 1.67 (0.32) School-age children 1.55 (0.24) Presence of person 65 þ in household 0.19 (0.16) Married 0.28 (0.15) Education Some college 1.43 (0.17) College degree or higher 1.34 (0.17) Enrolled in school 4.03 (0.19) Period of entry Less than 5 years ago 1.75 (0.23) 5–10 years ago 0.99 (0.20) 10–20 years ago 0.19 (0.17) More than 20 years ago 0.09 (0.17) Class of worker Government 0.03 (0.22) Self-employed 3.12 (0.21) Log of earnings 4.79 (0.06) Log of family income 0.22 (0.02) Industry (13) Includedb

Model 2a Black

Model 3a Hispanic

Model 4a White, Non-Hispanic

37.71 (0.21) 0.02 (0.00)

37.28 (0.28) 0.01 (0.00)

37.17 (0.28) 0.03 (0.00)

0.36 (0.14) 0.15 (0.08) 0.33 (0.12) 0.09 (0.08)

0.72 (0.14) 0.72 (0.13) 0.05 (0.11) 0.18 (0.07)

2.66 (0.25) 2.01 (0.18) 0.35 (0.06) 0.09 (0.04)

0.04 (0.08) 0.57 (0.11) 1.99 (0.09)

0.34 (0.08) 0.64 (0.11) 3.03 (0.10)

0.34 (0.04) 1.23 (0.04) 3.05 (0.05)

0.04 (0.30) 0.29 (0.22) 0.24 (0.17) 0.57 (0.16)

1.86 (0.16) 0.67 (0.12) 0.53 (0.09) 0.41 (0.09)

1.94 (0.20) 0.41 (0.16) 0.08 (0.11) 0.55 (0.11)

0.76 (0.11) 2.61 (0.19) 4.59 (0.04) 0.06 (0.01) Includedb

0.64 (0.12) 0.53 (0.13) 4.92 (0.03) 0.12 (0.01) Includedb

0.65 (0.05) 0.76 (0.06) 5.41 (0.01) 0.35 (0.01) Includedb

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Table 4. (Continued ) Model 1a Asian

Variance Components Null model Intercept Residual Full model Intercept Residual N (unweighted)

Model 2a Black

Model 3a Hispanic

Model 4a White, Non-Hispanic

7.79 7.47 6.74 9188.44 8533.09 8771.51

11.85 7677.15

0.71 1.42 0.87 6909.92 6331.85 6399.71 32,303 66,187 80,842

1.53 5273.9 463,969

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2009 American Community Survey. Note: po.05; po.01; po.001 (two-tailed tests). Standard errors are in parentheses. These models are estimated using restricted maximum likelihood estimation. a Random effects are allowed to vary by 20 occupations. Random effects included are intercept and presence and age of children. Coefficients for all 20 occupations are available upon request. b Coefficients for 13 industries are available upon request.

professional occupations are more likely to have flexible hours and telework options and enjoy greater access to health and parental leave benefits (Boushey, 2008; Hilgeman, 2010). Employers invest more into recruiting and training managerial and professional employees, and are more likely to offer incentives for their retention. This may provide women in these occupations with some ability to negotiate for reduced work hours. However, Blair-Loy (2003), Stone (2007), and Epstein and her colleagues (1999) indicate that women in managerial and professional occupations face intense pressure to work full-time schedules and may feel ‘‘pushed out’’ of the labor force if they do not live up to organizational expectations of full-time work commitment. Here, I show that Asian and White women in managerial and professional occupations are more likely to be able to scale back (see Fig. 2), and their overrepresentation in managerial and professional occupations may explain some of the racial and ethnic disparities in scaling back. Service and production occupations, with an overrepresentation of Black and Hispanic hourly workers, provide little employee flexibility and are more likely to require on-site work. Irregular and unpredictable schedules make obtaining child care difficult (Enchautegui-de-Jesus, 2009) and workers may not be eligible for parental leave or other benefits that would increase compatibility between work and family obligations. If employees are eligible for benefits, they may be subject to a substantial waiting period,

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and high turnover may keep them ineligible for benefits for long periods of time (Lambert, 2009). Because these occupations require less extensive training, employers may be less inclined to offer benefits and work schedule flexibility to retain workers. This lack of flexibility may extend to women’s ability to negotiate reduced hours. As these results indicate, scaling back is, indeed, less common in nonmanagerial and professional occupations. Nonstandard work schedules are also more common in nonmanagerial and professional occupations. Recent work by Presser and Ward (2011) indicates that Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to work nonstandard and non-day schedules. Although this creates family strain and marital instability, Blacks and Hispanics may be able to share caretaking with a spouse or partner by working full-time at different hours or on different days. These findings would be consistent with lower rates of opting out and scaling back among Black and Hispanic mothers but cannot be measured here because of a lack of information on work schedules.

Human Capital Attainment Differences in human capital attainment explain some of the variability in opting out and scaling back. Asian women are disproportionately likely to obtain a college degree or higher level of education which is associated with a higher risk of opting out of the labor force among Asian women. Conversely, higher levels of education increase labor force attachment among Black, Hispanic, and White women. Higher levels of educational attainment are associated with scaling back among all women. Because women with higher levels of education are more likely to be in a managerial and professional occupation, they may have greater access to employment flexibility and other employer benefits enabling them to reduce their work hours. Higher earnings are associated with lower odds of opting out and working longer hours. To the extent that Black and Hispanic women earn significantly less than their Asian and White counterparts, this may provide less of an incentive to remain in the labor force or work longer hours. However, Black women appear to remain in the labor force and maintain their work hours despite lower earnings. Asian and White women face greater opportunity costs for opting out and scaling back because they would forego larger salaries. However, the results indicate that White women are the most likely to opt out. Though racial and ethnic differences in labor supply are larger without controlling for earnings, additional

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factors are at work. Next, I will consider the effects of migration and household composition. Migration Among the groups studied here, Asians and Hispanics have the largest percentage of international migrants. International migration may result in less country-specific human capital and more language barriers, both of which may depress women’s labor force participation. Based on results in Tables 3 and 4, international migration appears to reduce labor force attachment among Asian women, particularly among recent migrants, while international migration increases labor force attachment among Hispanic women after they have been in the United States for more than five years. The negative effect of migration on Asian women’s labor force participation generally diminishes the longer they have been in the United States. This may be partially explained by expanded social networks (e.g., links established with immigrant communities) and a change in human capital skills among more recent entrants. Recent migrants, particularly those arriving from South East Asia, have entered with fewer job skills, are more occupationally segregated, and experience higher levels of poverty (Vo˜, 2001). Recent Hispanic migrants also have slightly higher odds of opting out than native-born Hispanics, though the trend quickly reverses among those who have been in the United States for more than five years. In an excellent analysis of Hispanic women’s labor force participation, Kahn and Whittington (1996) found that even though the returns to education among foreign-born women are weaker and the language barriers can be substantial, foreign-born Hispanics have higher rates of labor force participation despite these limitations. Self-selection into migration and lower household income may encourage Hispanic women to enter and remain in the labor force. Household Composition Hispanic women in this sample are the most likely to have preschool- and school-aged children in the household, which contributes to reduced labor force participation among Hispanic women. White women are the least likely to have a preschool child or a person over the age of 65 in the household. This may present fewer competing demands for their time, as results presented here indicate that having children and persons over the age of 65 in the household increases the odds of opting out among White

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women. Living with a person over the age of 65 may suggest greater caregiving responsibilities among White women compared with Asian women who are more likely to be employed if they live with someone over the age of 65. Asian women, perhaps through an expanded notion of family, may be able to rely on kin for the provision of childcare, as having an elder in the household may facilitate the employment of Asian women. Asian and White women are more likely to be married and to live in households with much higher family income, both of which may facilitate the option to opt out and scale back. Opt- out odds are higher for married women among all except Black women. Scaling back is only marginally associated with marital status. Higher family income is associated with higher odds of opting out and with working reduced hours among all women. Being married appears to facilitate the decision of whether or not to be employed, while family income is associated with whether and how much women work. On both counts, Black women have fewer options, as they are the least likely to be married (only 28 percent are married) and have the lowest average family income ($58,000) compared with Asian women at the high end of the distribution with 62 percent married and family income of $108,800. In sum, Black women have the least access to household resources to facilitate opting out or scaling back. Hispanic women also lack access to household resources to facilitate such options, which reduces their odds of opting out or scaling back, but are also disproportionately likely to have children which increases the odds of opting out and scaling back. White women have greater access to household resources but fewer caretaking responsibilities to create demand for opting out or scaling back. Finally, Asian women have the greatest access to household resources and the presence of a person over the age of 65 appears to be an asset, enabling them to remain employed.

DISCUSSION Although having a preschool child increases all women’s odds of opting out, only a minority of women opt out of the labor force. Those who do opt out are more likely to be White. Among women remaining in the labor force, some scale back on work hours when they have children under 18 in the household. Scaling back is limited in number of hours (three hours or less per week) and is restricted to particular subgroups – primarily Asian and White women in managerial and professional occupations.

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These labor supply differences may be bolstered by differences in levels of human capital, household resources, and occupational distribution. Furthermore, these variables do not have the same effect across racial and ethnic groups. Take for example educational attainment. While higher levels of educational attainment reduce the odds of opting out among Black, Hispanic, and White women, higher levels of educational attainment is associated with increased odds of opting out among Asian women. This indicates that we cannot assume a similarity of effect of human capital and household composition across racial and ethnic groups. Factors that may increase labor supply for Hispanic women may decrease labor supply among Asian women (see Table 2). We also need to consider that labor supply is not linear and factors that reduce opting out may not be the same factors that reduce scaling back. For instance, while having a school-age child does not appear to increase the odds of opting out, it does significantly reduce hours of work among Asian, Hispanic, and White women. Overall Black women exhibit remarkably strong labor force attachment. At the other end of the spectrum, White women’s labor supply is the most sensitive to the presence of children. White women are much more likely to opt out and to scale back hours of work when they have children. Asian women are less likely to opt out than White women but take advantage of human capital, household resources, and the greater flexibility of managerial and professional occupations to scale back. Hispanic women, with greater caretaking demands and lower earnings, may find it more difficult to remain in the labor force. However, if they remain employed, they are less likely to have the flexibility to scale back on hours of work in the occupations in which they are most strongly represented. These results illustrate the significant diversity in the experience of mothering and how options are shaped by cultural, familial, and structural forces. Considering how gender, racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds affect women’s options is essential to a complete analysis of opting out. The overemphasis on the experiences of White, middle- to upper-middle-class women overlooks important work–family issues. Proposals for solutions based on this elite group result in policy and workplace benefits that are inaccessible to most women and reinforces disparities.

CONCLUSIONS Mothers’ labor supply differs by racial and ethnic group and can be bolstered or depressed based on personal and household characteristics, as

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well as occupational segregation. White women have higher odds of opting out and scale back the most hours when they have preschool children. Black women, on the other hand, are much less likely to opt out and do not scale back when they have children. Asian and Hispanic women lie at the middle of the spectrum. Asian women are less likely to opt out than White women but scale back a similar number of hours. Hispanic women are also less likely to opt out than White women and are unlikely to scale back very much if they remain in the labor force. These patterns of labor supply are associated with women’s earning potential, availability of household resources, and occupational structure, providing varying levels of work– family support. Prior studies on opting out examine the choices and constraints of White women in managerial and professional occupations (Blair-Loy, 2003; Epstein et al., 1999; Stone, 2007). By taking an intersectional approach to the study of women’s labor supply, this study shows that opting out and scaling back differ significantly by occupation and by race and ethnicity, indicating that many studies on this topic do not generalize to the majority of women in the United States. Important human capital attributes, such as level of education, do not have the same effect on mothers’ labor supply for women of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. Stone (2007) acknowledges that the results of her study are of limited generalizability and calls for studies to fill in the gaps. The results presented here support Stone’s conclusion and show that it is critical that we extend our analyses to be able to appropriately generalize findings to the non-White population. In addition to further refinement of analyses by race and ethnicity, we must pay attention to the influential role of occupation on women’s labor supply behavior. Occupational setting plays a crucial role in shaping White and non-White women’s access to work–family benefits. Studies that focus on women in managerial and professional occupations will likely understate many of the day-to-day challenges women experience, such as lack of parental or sick leave, unpredictable schedules, or unavailability of child care at nonstandard hours. The results of this research have practical implications. Because work– family challenges differ by occupation, work–family solutions need to address the specific needs of women in different occupations. Strategies that are based on the experiences of more privileged women may not reflect the reality experienced by the majority of women and may not be applicable to their worksites, limiting their effectiveness. The growing employer–employee interest in telework and flexible schedules may be easier to achieve in some occupations than others, potentially creating a gap in coverage for employer

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work–family policy between those who have access to these benefits and those who do not. This may lead to different employee work–family responses, such as scaling back or opting out in the absence of, or in response to, available work–family policies. These differing responses may create a multitude of positive and negative unintended consequences which should be evaluated. Further compounding occupational differences is the presence of significant racial and ethnic occupational segregation. White, Asian, Black, and Hispanic mothers are concentrated in different occupations. To the extent that occupations lend themselves to different work– family strategies, this may compound racial and ethnic disparities in women’s employment and career options and trajectories in the absence of equitable work–family policy solutions. Future research on mothers’ labor supply and work–family policy proposals need to consider potential differences by race, ethnicity, and class adopting an intersectional approach.

NOTES 1. Asian mothers are not statistically different from White and Hispanic mothers. 2. Estimates for White and Asian mothers are not statistically different. 3. The ACS provides estimates of occupation by sex and race and ethnicity illustrating these disparities on American FactFinder available at: factfinder2.census.gov.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Marla Kohlman, Bette Dickerson, Dana Balsink Krieg, Melissa Chiu, Jennifer Day, Karen King, Michael Roebuck, and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback and insights on earlier drafts of this manuscript. The views expressed in this chapter are those of the author and not necessarily those of the U.S. Census Bureau.

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Blair-Loy, M. (2003). Competing devotions: Career and family among women executives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Boushey, H. (2008). Family friendly policies: Helping mothers make ends meet. Review of Social Economy, 66(1), 51–70. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2011). The Employment Situation – August 2011. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf. Accessed on October 27, 2011. Casper, L. M., & Bianchi, S. M. (2002). Continuity and change in the American family. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Chang, G. (1994). Undocumented Latinas: The new employable mothers. In E. N. Glenn, G. Chang & L. R. Forcey (Eds.), Mothering: ideology, experience and agency. New York, NY: Routledge. Choo, H. Y., & Ferree, M. M. (2010). Practicing intersectionality in sociological research: A critical analysis of inclusions, interactions, and institutions in the study of inequalities. Sociological Theory, 28(2), 129–149. Collins, P. H. (1994). Shifting the center: Race, class, and feminist theorizing about motherhood. In E. N. Glenn, G. Chang & L. R. Forcey (Eds.), Mothering: Ideology, experience and agency. New York, NY: Routledge. Enchautegui-de-Jesus, N. (2009). Challenges experienced by vulnerable hourly workers: Issues to consider in the policy conversation. In A. C. Crouter & A. Booth (Eds.), Work-life policies. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute Press. England, P., Garcia-Beaulieu, C., & Ross, M. (2004). Women’s employment among Blacks, Whites, and three groups of Latinas: Do more privileged women have higher employment? Gender & Society, 18(4), 494–509. Epstein, C. F., Seron, C., Oglensky, B., & Saute´, R. (1999). The part-time paradox: Time norms, professional life, family, and gender. New York, NY: Routledge. Fram, M. S., & Kim, J. (2008). Race/ethnicity and the start of child care: A multi-level analysis of factors influencing first child care experiences. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 23, 575–590. Glenn, E. N. (1994). Social constructions of mothering: A thematic overview. In E. N. Glenn, G. Chang & L. R. Forcey (Eds.), Mothering: Ideology, experience and agency. New York, NY: Routledge. Hilgeman, C. (2010). Parenthood and women’s work hours in 92 occupations. U.S. Census Bureau working paper. Available upon request. Kahn, J. R., & Whittington, L. A. (1996). The labor supply of Latinas in the USA: Comparing labor force participation, wages, and hours worked with Anglo and Black women. Population Research and Policy Review, 15, 45–73. Kreider, R. M., & Elliott, D. B. (2009). America’s families and living arrangements: 2007. Current Population Reports, P20-561. U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC. Lambert, S. J. (2009). Making a difference for hourly employees. In A. C. Crouter & A. Booth (Eds.), Work-Life Policies. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute Press. Omori, M., & Smith, D. T. (2010). Working and living: The effects of family responsibilities and characteristics on married women’s work hours in the USA. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Winter, 43–55. Presser, H. B., & Ward, B. W. (2011). Nonstandard work schedules over the life course: A first look. Monthly Labor Review, 134(7), 3–16. Spain, D., & Bianchi, S. M. (1996). Balancing act: Motherhood, marriage, and employment among American women. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

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Stone, P. (2007). Opting out? Why women really quit careers and head home. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Vo˜, L. T. (2001). Asian American women: Immigration, labor force participation, and activism. In D. Vannoy (Ed.), Gender mosaics: Social perspectives. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury. Williams, J. C. (2010). The odd disconnect: Our family-hostile public policy. In K. Christensen & B. Schneider (Eds.), Workplace flexibility: Realigning 20th century jobs for a 21st century workforce. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Worley, J. C., & Vannoy, D. (2001). The challenge of integrating work and family life. In D. Vannoy (Ed.), Gender mosaics: Social perspectives. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Delores P. Aldridge has served as the Grace Towns Hamilton Professor of Sociology and African American Studies since 1990 at Emory University. Her career has focused on racial, ethnic, gender, family, and educational issues. She provided the seminal work on Black Women and the Labor Market in the Journal of Social and Behavioral Sciences (1975). For her scholarly contributions and social activism in and beyond the academy, she has received countless awards including the Cox, Johnson, Frazier Lifetime Achievement Award, the American Sociological Association(2010); Charles S. Johnson Award for Professional and Scholarly Achievement on Race and the South, the Southern Sociological Society (2006); and, the W. E. B. Du Bois Award (distinguished scholar, social activist, humanitarian), the Association of Social and Behavioral Sciences (1986). Karen Christopher is Associate Professor of Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Louisville. Her research explores the intersections between motherhood, employment, and social policy. She has published a variety of journal articles and book chapters on these topics, most recently in Gender & Society and in Academic Motherhood in a PostSecond Wave Context (Demeter Press). Paul Dean earned his PhD at the University of Maryland in 2012. He is currently Assistant Professor of Sociology at Ohio Wesleyan University. His research focuses on social inequality and social change. From his dissertation work, which examines movements promoting corporate social responsibility, to studying civic engagement in local communities, Paul is interested in understanding mechanisms of inequality and how they are contested through collective efforts. Paul is also co-creator and co-editor of an award-winning teaching website, The Sociological Cinema (www. thesociologicalcinema.com). Heather E. Dillaway is an Interim Chair and Associate Professor of Sociology at Wayne State University. Most of her research focuses on

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women’s experiences of menopause and midlife, and the effects of inequalities on these experiences. A secondary research agenda involves the examination of women’s motherhood experiences and ideologies of motherhood. In all of her research, Dillaway prioritizes an intersectionality approach. She primarily teaches courses about social inequalities, intersectionality, women’s health, families, research methods, and qualitative research methods. Shirley A. Hill is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Kansas. She teaches classes in the fields of family, medical sociology, and social inequality, and these topics have been the focus of her research. She is the author of Black Intimacies: Families and Relationships in Gender Perspective (AltaMira, 2005) and, more recently, Families in Social Class Perspective (Sage, 2012) and (with co-author John Rury), The African American Struggle for Secondary Education: Closing the Achievement Gap (Teachers College, 2012). Pamela Braboy Jackson received her PhD from Indiana University, Bloomington (IUB) in 1993. She was a Ford Foundation Fellowship recipient in 1992 and was awarded a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in 2006–2011 to conduct research on the Black middleclass. She won the Best Dissertation Award from the American Sociological Association, Section on Mental Health, in 1994. She was an Assistant Professor at Duke University and is now Full Professor at IUB. Pamela’s interests span areas of family sociology, social psychology, medical sociology, and life course sociology. The major theme underlying her research is the cumulative nature of stress in everyday life – where stress involves a slowly accumulating wear and tear on the body and mind, especially when the individual is faced with on-going problems and inadequate resources to address various situations. Central to an understanding of the nature of stress is a theoretical foundation that captures the individual’s progression through social space and time. As such, she advocates a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the interplay between social structures and human lives. She embraces a recent intellectual development in the field of medical sociology: the crossfertilization between stress research and life course sociology. Much of her research is published in top-tier journals such as Social Forces, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Health Affairs, and Social Psychology Quarterly.

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Katrina Kimport, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) program at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research focuses on gender, sexuality, and social movements. Dr. Kimport’s work has been published in the American Sociological Review, Gender & Society, and Symbolic Interaction. She has a forthcoming book on same-sex marriage with Rutgers University Press. Marla H. Kohlman is Professor of Sociology and Director of Law and Society at Kenyon College. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Maryland, a JD from the Washington College of Law at The American University, and an MS in Law and Justice from the School of Public Affairs at The American University. Prior to teaching at Kenyon, Dr. Kohlman was an attorney practicing in Maryland and Washington, DC. Dr. Kohlman’s primary area of research has been intersectionality in the experience and reporting of sexual harassment and sexual assault. She has published several articles on these topics in Work and Occupations, Race, Gender, and Class, and in a previous volume of Advances in Gender Research, in addition to other publications. More recently, Dr. Kohlman co-authored a theoretical article on intersectionality in the Handbook of Feminist Research, Second Edition. Dr. Kohlman is currently completing a study investigating the negotiation of work and family dynamics by attorneys across the United States, while writing a text on Intersectional Approaches to Work and Family for Polity Press. Dana B. Krieg is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Kenyon College. She received her doctoral degree in Developmental Psychology from Loyola University Chicago. As a graduate student, she taught at Loyola and the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. During that time, she coordinated a violence prevention project for the Cabrini Green Youth Program. Dr. Krieg’s research focuses on transitions along the developmental path. She is particularly interested in the transition from high school to work or college, emerging adulthood, parenting, and the development of family over the course of young adulthood. Dr. Krieg has recently published articles in Early Child Research Quarterly, Parenting: Science and Practice, Journal of Early Adolescence, Journal of Educational Psychology, and Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs.

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Liana Christin Landivar is a sociologist and senior statistician in the Industry and Occupation Statistics Branch at the U.S. Census Bureau and a faculty affiliate of the Maryland Population Research Center at the University of Maryland, College Park. Liana completed a PhD in Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. Her dissertation examined the impact of national work-hour policies and family benefit packages on couple-level employment inequalities. At the U.S. Census Bureau, Liana is the subject matter expert on occupations and works on American Community Survey analysis, review, and development. Liana is also a member of the Standard Occupational Classification Policy Committee STEM subgroup charged with standardizing the definition of STEM occupations. Her research focuses on women’s employment, occupational segregation, and work– family decisions and she has published her work in several peer-reviewed books and journals and in U.S. Census Bureau reports. Bart Landry is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Maryland. Most of his academic career was spent at the University of Maryland where he specialized in the areas of Stratification and Family Studies. His research and writings have explored the intersections of class and family as well as the intersection of race, class, and gender. Tracey A. LaPierre (PhD, Duke University) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Kansas with expertise in family sociology, medical sociology, and life course/aging. A key component of her research investigates the determinants of marital quality. She has presented her findings at meetings of the Population Association of America, the American Sociological Association, the Southern Sociological Association, the National Council on Family Relations, and the Gerontological Society of America. Her work has been published in Family Relations, Journal of Gerontology, Canadian Home Economics Journal, and the International Handbook of Population Aging. Namita N. Manohar is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Brooklyn College-CUNY. She specializes in international migration, gender, and families with a focus on Indian-Americans. Her current research examines skilled Indian immigrant women’s gender subjectivities around work and mothering in the United States. Kris Marsh received her PhD from the University of Southern California in 2005. She was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Carolina Population Center at

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the University of North Carolina. She is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland and faculty associate of the Maryland Population Research Center and African American Studies. Professor Marsh’s areas of expertise are the black middle class, demography, and racial residential segregation. The common theme in her work is decomposing what it means to be black in America by focusing on intra-group variability in regards to class, identity, educational achievement, and spatial location. Melissa A. Milkie is a Professor of Sociology at the University of MarylandCollege Park. Her research centers on how cultural and structural aspects of gender, race, and social class influence self-concept and mental health within family, work, peer, or school contexts. Some of her recent scholarship focuses on gender, parenting, time use, and children’s well-being. Elizabeth R. Pare´ graduated from Wayne State University in December 2009, earning a PhD in Sociology. Her dissertation, ‘‘Mother and Student: The Experience of Mothering in College,’’ explored the nature of student motherhood and whether educational institutions are equipped to handle students who have full-time parenting responsibilities. She is currently working on publishing parts of this dissertation in article form. Pare´ also works as an instructor at Wayne State University, teaching courses in introductory sociology and sociology of the family. Pamela Anne Quiroz received her PhD from the University of Chicago. She is a Professor of Sociology & Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Author of Adoption in a Color-blind Society, she has published several scholarly articles on adoption, education, race and ethnicity, and identity. A former fellow at Stanford University’s Center for the Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences, and two time recipient of the American Sociological Association’s Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline, Professor Quiroz is currently Media Editor for Humanity and Society and a member of the Board of Directors for the Council on Contemporary Families. Rashawn Ray is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. He received a PhD in Sociology from Indiana University in 2010. Ray’s research interests are social psychology, race and ethnic relations, and race–class–gender. His work addresses three key areas: the determinants and consequences of social class identification,

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

men’s treatment of women, and how racial stratification structures social life. Ray is the editor of Race and Ethnic Relations in the 21 Century: History, Theory, Institutions, and Policy. His work has appeared in Ethnic and Racial Studies, American Behavioral Scientist, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Journal of Higher Education, and Journal of African American Studies. Ray has been awarded funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, American Sociological Association Minority Fellowship Program, Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the Ford Foundation. From 2010 to 2012 he was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Research Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley/UCSF. Anne R. Roschelle is a Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Anne’s research interests are in the areas of the intersection of race, class, and gender with a focus on extended kinship networks and family poverty. She is the author of No More Kin: Exploring Race, Class, and Gender in Family Networks, which was a recipient of Choice Magazines Outstanding Academic Book Award. Anne is currently writing a book about homeless families in San Francisco and has published a series of articles about work and family in Havana, Cuba. Kathryn A. Sweeney received her PhD in Sociology from Emory University. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Behavioral Sciences Department at Purdue University Calumet. Her research looks at how societal inequities of race, class, and gender are perpetuated and challenged in relationships and institutions. Past publications focus on the nuances of white racial ideology, power and decision making in marriages, and how ideas about race shape arguments used in the anti-affirmative action movement (with Belisa Gonza´lez). Sweeney’s current projects examine the role of race in adoptive parent choices and racialized themes in children’s books on adoption. Catharine H. Warner earned her PhD in December 2011 at the University of Maryland, where she currently works as an instructor. Her research focuses on intersections of family, social psychology, and educational inequalities. Her current projects include research on children’s mental health and mothers’ well-being within the elementary school setting, addressing race and class inequalities using both quantitative and qualitative approaches.