Gender Matters: Bringing in a Gender Structure Analysis. A Comment on “Paternal and Maternal Gatekeeping? Choreographing Care-giving in Families” by Tina Miller and “Rethinking Family Socialization to Gender through the Lens of Multi-local, Post-separation Families” by Laura Merla

Abstract

In this comment, Risman suggests that both papers show definitely that gender still matters, but how it matters in families is consistently shifting. Both papers provide glimpses into how new family dynamics both reinforce and challenge gender inequality. Risman presents her theoretical framework of gender as a social structure and applies it to each article to analyze what the research teaches us about these families, and what questions remain unanswered.

Keywords

• gender
• gender as a social structure
• inequalities
• family
• feminism