Emotional Investments of Biological Parents and Stepparents in Children's Gender Displays and Acquisitions of Heterosexuality

• In Event: 4284 - Section on Sociology of Sex and Gender Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 04. Gender and Sexuality

Abstract

Sociologists have long documented how the family, particularly parents, reproduce and sometimes challenge gender and sexual norms, but they have made no distinction between biological and stepparents. Through interviews with 17 biological and stepparents, we compare the emotional investments in children’s normative gender displays and acquisitions of heterosexuality. Results indicate that both groups discouraged boys’ gender deviance more than girls’ and that both groups tended to ignore the possibility of non-normative sexualities in discussions with children. Differences appeared in the intensity of emotional investments in children’s normative gender displays and expressions of heterosexual orientations. Biological parents expressed fear of their child being bullied for deviating from gender norms, whereas stepparents tended to express indifference to their children’s normative gender displays. Biological parents were also more invested in their child’s acquisition of heterosexuality, and explained that they would be disappointed for two reasons if their child were not heterosexual: they worried that queer children would not provide them with grandchildren and that their queerness would reflect negatively their parenting. Stepparents expressed more acceptance at the thought of raising a queer stepchild. We conclude by arguing that rather than families in general being key purveyors of traditional gender and sexual norms, it is biological families, in particular who are purveyors, and that stepfamilies might be a source of less rigid expectations.

Authors

• Lawrence Wellman Stacey, Florida State University

• Irene Padavic, Florida State University