Fatherless Families

Rousseau and the Contemporary Defense of the Gender-Structured Family

Bibliographic Data

ID11367616
AuthorsKaren Struening (corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume21
Issue1
Pages85-106
Publication date2000-03-27
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueWomen & Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0195-7732 • E-ISSN: 1540-9473
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1300/j014v21n01_04
OpenAlexW4245777001
LanguageEN
References cited7

In Discourse on the Origin of Inequality and Emile or On Education, the eighteenth century political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau raises several questions concerning the relationship of men to families. He claims that families in the state of nature lacked fathers and suggests that attaching men to the more primary mother-child unit continues to be a problem in civil society. I argue that Rousseau's model of the sentimental family grew out of his concern with integrating men into families. In comparing Rousseau with two contemporary authors, David Blankenhorn and David Popenoe, I show that both eighteenth- and late-twentieth-century strategies for resolving the problem of fatherless families require a gendered division of labor that preserves and promotes gender inequality. While contemporary advocates of the gender-structured family, such as Blankenhorn and Popenoe, make some concessions to the feminist demand for greater gender equality, they are in truth part of a long tradition that bases its ideal of family on the subordination of women to men

Character (mathematics · Division of labour · Gender inequality · Ideal (ethics · Inequality · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Subordination (linguistics · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Gender Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law · Philosophy · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment

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