Power Maneuvers: Conceptualizing Informal Gendered Interactions within Formal Gender-Neutral Shared Parenting Arrangements

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  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 20: Youth, Family, and Social Reproduction

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine how gender inequality underpins the interactions of parents in gender-neutral shared parenting arrangements. Contemporary U.S. family law has moved towards being gender neutral—in short, children’s relationship with both legal parents is prioritized rather than the gender of the parent. Still, scholars have underscored entrenched gendered power imbalances within different-sex families at the interactional level. Family science requires further conceptualization of parents’ informal negotiations after litigation to contextualize how power is exercised within gender-neutral child custody arrangements. In-depth interviews conducted with 50 parents (34 mothers and 16 fathers) who had a current child custody court order for at least one minor child were utilized. Parents were from diverse racial and social class backgrounds. Data were abductively analyzed using flexible coding. I develop the concept of power maneuvers to explore informal interactional behaviors that parents engage in to exercise and negotiate power which ultimately reinscribe gender inequities. More specifically, I examine how physical and legal custody are mechanisms for unequal parenting time and decision-making. This article highlights the interactional processes of power in the family by situating micro-level experiences of gender inequality within macro-level changes that purport gender equality.

Author

• Adriana Ponce, Southwestern University