Sociology of the Family, Sexuality,

and RaceBeverly Yuen Thompson

Ph.D. Sociology, New School for Social Research

What is Sociology of the Family?

The purpose of Sociology of the family is to encourage the development of sociological perspectives on families, to bring together those who study and teach about families, and to consider the implications of such analyses for public policy, politics and professional practice. The field seeks to foster understanding of family structures and practices, of differences between and within families and of those social institutions and forces -- race, class, and gender; the economy, culture, social movements, the law, and demographic trends -- that shape families or are shaped by them.

--American Sociological Association Section on the Family

Topics covered in sociology of the family

The importance/role of the family in society (basic social unit)

Modern family structures Aging and death Cross-cultural marriage

and family structures Dating Sexuality/reproduction Mate selection Divorce/remarriage (Step) Parenting Adoption Domestic violence (Changing) gender roles

•Child care

•Childhood

•Disability

•Domestic labor

•Work/home balance

•Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual Families

•Prisoner families

•Addiction

•Aging and elder care

Axes of Identity-Based Privilege and

Inequality

Social Institutions and Power

Citizenship status

Race/Ethnicity

Gender

Sexuality

Ability

Class

Age

Media

Sports

Church

Military

Education

Employment

Government/Policy

Overview

Centering Race and Sexuality in Sociology of the Family White normative family model have been historically

centralized in society and literature (positive eugenics)

Overview of family studies topics on communities of color, sexual minorities, and the disabled community

Historical narratives of reproductive control for women of color, poor/working class, and disabled

New issues in family studies stemming from marginalized identities

Applications in the field, future research needed, my research topics

This myth-shattering examination of two centuries of American family life banishes the misconceptions about the past that cloud current debate about "family values." "Leave It to Beaver" was not a documentary, Stephanie Coontz points out; neither the 1950s nor any other moment from our past presents workable models of how to conduct our personal lives today. Without minimizing the serious new problems in American families, Coontz warns that a consoling nostalgia for a largely mythical past of "traditional values" is a trap that can only cripple our capacity to solve today's problems. From "a man's home was his castle" to "traditional families never asked for a handout," this provocative book explodes cherished illusions about the past. Organized around a series of myths and half-truths that burden modern families, the book sheds new light on such contemporary concerns as parenting, privacy, love, the division of labor along gender lines, the black family, feminism, and sexual practice.

Instead, national campaigns for reclamation, conservation, country life, and eugenics became prominent expressions of American pronatalism, Recognizing them as such is not a matter of understanding how reproduction was associated in each campaign with nostalgic ideals of the family, motherhood, or the home. In the United States, reproduction was regulated as much by social pressure and created conventions as by actual legislation (2).

In this book, I focus on how ideological and cultural ideals influenced and shaped pronatalist policies and reform efforts in the United States. I claim that from 1890 to the 1930s nostalgic idealizations of motherhood, the family, and home were used to construct and legitimate political agendas and social policies concerning reproduction (3).

In Chapter 6, I consider the extension of nostalgia for the rural family to eugenics, a more-traditional arena for pro-natalism and population politics. By documenting the development of the American Eugenics Society’s ‘human livestock’ competitions, known as the Fitter Families for Future Firesides contests (1920) (15).

Buck v. Bell, 1927 Supreme Court ruling that upheld compulsory sterilization of the “unfit,” (i.e., mentally ill, impoverished, criminal, sexually promiscuous women, and women of color generally).

20-60,000 Forced or un-consented sterilizations performed in the U.S., peaking between 1935-1945 (CA ~20k).

The experience of Oregon and Washington, where substantial numbers of those targeted for sterilization were classified as “sexual deviants”—often men caught in flagrante delicto with other men—demonstrated how eugenic practices often operated as methods of sexual regulation (p. 23).

Additionally, like other Western states, California passed an antimiscegenation statute in 1850 that forbade unions between whites and “negroes and mulattoes,” adding “Mongolians” to the list in 1880 [ended in 1967 with Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia (p. 87).

(Social Security Act of 1935) For our purposes, the act is important because through what FDR called “this piece of intelligent planning,” the government reached down into the American family and responded to the reproductive activity of some resourceless women (132).

Before 1935, many states had funded mothers’ pension programs. These efforts provided meager assistance for poor and “worthy” mothers and their children. Most often the mothers were white widows (132).

The Aid to Dependent Children program (ADC) (established by Title IV of the Social Security Act and popularly known as relief or welfare), distributed still-meager sums of money to women of whom social workers approved (132).

During this period unwed mothers were denied aid on moral grounds. Mothers of color were found unworthy by definition, or they were defined as more suitable for waged work than for raising their own children (132).

In 1948, William Voigt, soon to be the national director of Planned Parenthood, wrote an international best seller, Road to Survival, in which he proposed paying poor people modest sums to refrain from reproducing (141).

In this way, Planned Parenthood and other organizations contributed to early efforts to define motherhood as a class privilege (141).

Disability & Lesbian Families: an intersection

Alison Kafer Feminist Studies

Southwestern University Georgetown TX

Studying the intersections between disability studies/

and sexuality.

Link to video

Day-to-Day LivingMark Robert Rank

Qualitative research with welfare recipients. In short, they have difficulties paying bills, having enough food, paying for health care, car repair, unanticipated expenses (113). Example: family living off $4-10 per day for everything.

Recipients often rely on emergency assistance, food pantries, family and friends, networks of support.

Poor people often pay more for services: check cashing, credit/mortgage interest rates, deposits/advances for utilities, jail telephone calls have very high rates, toiletry supplies in jails/prisons very expensive, etc.

Important issues: nutrition, health coverage, safety, educational preparation, housing conditions, job training, safety net, and family services that are oriented towards family unification.

African-Americans in the 1990William P. O’Hare, Kelvin M Pollard, Taynia L. Mann, and

Mary M. Kent

African Americans still rank below whites on nearly every measure of socioeconomic status (86).

Dramatic changes in family structure (87). Ongoing debate continue about the

relationship between Black marriage structures and historic slavery, where marriage and parental rights were not recognized; 2) effects of continued economic marginalization; or 3) alternative cultural structures.

Black families often compared in the literature against white, middle class normative models and stereotypes reinforced (first sexual encounter age; teenage pregnancy; single-parent households; poverty).

“Consider this history—from slave masters’ economic stake in bonded women’s fertility to the racist strains of early birth control policies to sterilization abuse of Black women during the 1960s and 1970s to the current campaign to inject Norplant and Depo-Provera in the arms of Black teenagers and welfare mothers—paints a powerful picture of the link between race and reproductive freedom in America.”

--Dorothy Roberts 1997

Reproductive justice framework: intersectional analysis and human rights

SisterSong collective: Framework of history of

reproductive oppression, especially of women of color

Movement building Connection to global issues

Loretta Ross of Sistersong (click box for video)

Video produced for Miami Women’s Fund and Mi Lola (Latina Women’s Health Organization)Link to video

Diverse community, language, culture, immigration status (Spain, Mexico, Central America, Caribbean, South America).

Urban population (New York, Miami, Los Angeles, southern states)

Statistics: lower median age, lower educational levels, high percentage employed in blue collar and service occupations, same marriage stability rates (as whites), many bilingual households (children as language brokers).

Contrasting: Puerto Rican, Mexican American, and Cuban Americans.

Important issues: effects of immigration on family structure; extended families; child rearing; school achievement; youth employment; and health.

Latino families

Latino families

Linda Skogrand, “Strong Marriages in Latino Culture.”

This study used a qualitative research methodology to understand the cultural values, practices, and strengths of twenty-five Latino couples who had strong marriages. The study was conducted in the context of Latino culture. According to the participants in the study, the components of strong marriages in Latino culture were children, communication, and religion (117).

Richard B. Miller, “Migrating Latinas and the Grief Process.”

• The authors applied Schneller’s theoretical model of the bereavement grief process to examine grief experienced by immigration and loss of home country… Results indicated that the grieving process from immigration is similar to that experienced upon the loss of a loved one (155).

Made In LATrailer

Oksana Yakushko, “Career and Employment Concerns of Immigrant Women.”

• This chapter focuses on immigrant women’s experiences of work and career development. Stress due to relocation can serve as a barrier to positive work adjustment. Immigrant women are more likely to find jobs than men, however they are most likely to be in low skill, low-level jobs with no opportunity for advancement. Social cultural forces, such as xenophobia, racism, sexism, and poverty, may be interconnected and contribute to oppression and discrimination (175).

Latino families: language brokering

Linda Halgunseth, “Language Brokering: Positive Developmental Outcomes,”

In knowing two languages, CLB perform a unique function for other family members. Their brokering skills provide great utility and may enhance feelings of importance and usefulness in CLBs, as well as feelings of self-confidence and self-worth (155).

Adriana J. Umana-Taylor, “Language Brokering as a Stressor for Immigrant Children and Their Families,”

•Family relations can become strained when children broker for their parents because of the role reversal that takes place when parents become dependent on their children for communication with people outside the family (157).

Susan Santiago, “Language Brokering: A Personal Experience,”

•…I felt as though I sacrificed mastering my native language in order to be accepted into mainstream culture (161)

Latina and reproductive oppression

The childbearing of Mexican immigrant women in increasingly suspect and often criminalized. For example, Proposition 187 in California targeted poor, pregnant Mexican immigrant women, blaming them for the state’s and the nation’s problems (p. 217).

Although research on Latinas and their health is sparse, studies report that, overall, they experience poor health, with disproportionately high rates of cervical cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancy, obesity, diabetes, domestic violence, and unintentional injuries compared to other women. These circumstances are exacerbated by the extremely low rates of health care delivery to Latinas (p. 217).

• Essentially, Puerto Rico and its people have served as a laboratory for American contraceptive policies and products. For example, the contraceptive foam, the intrauterine device (IUD), and many varieties of the pill were all tested on the bodies of Puerto Rican women before ever making their way to the mainland US market (p. 219-220). By 1965 about 35 percent of the women in Puerto Rico had been sterilized, two-thirds of them in their 20s (p. 221).

Little Data on immigrant, Asian American, or Native American families

Douglas A. Abbott, “Influence of American Culture on East Indian Immigrants’ Perceptions of Marriage and Family Life.”

The purpose of this research was to identify how the marriages and family life of recent Indian immigrants had changed since coming to America… Greater egalitarianism and more personal parent-child interaction…” (93).

•Hofstetter, C. Richard. “Intergenerational Differences in Acculturation and Family Conflict among Korean Immigrant Families.”

Sample of 494 parent/adolescent pairs. Reported family conflict was low… adolescents reported higher levels of acculturation than their parents, and discrepancies…were associated with family conflict (241).

Xiaolin Xie, “Co-Residence in Chinese Immigrant Families.”

Results focus on family dynamics created by co-residential patterns in the U.S.

Asian American Women and Reproductive Oppression Restricted immigration historically, i.e.

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882—the first federal law directed at a specific nationality (p. 159).

Many Asian immigrants are concentrated in low-wage jobs that do not provide health insurance, and approximately 36 percent of Asian American women under the age of 65 have no health insurance at all (p. 162).

Furthermore, language barriers constitute another impediment to health care. Over 60 percent of the Asian immigrant population is limited English proficient (p. 162).

Asians and Pacific Islanders for Reproductive Health. In April 1995, APIRH held a landmark conference, “Opening Doors to Health and Well-Being.” Over 150 API women came to Sacramento to be part of this first statewide gathering on API women’s health (p. 181).

Approximately 20 women, all volunteers, carried out the survey, interviewing 1,215 adults in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Francisco (p. 177).

Native American women

and reproductive oppression

• …for Native American women the issues of cultural survival, land rights, and reproductive rights cannot be separated (p. 105). • …to policies which sanctioned the removal of Native children to non-Native schools and families (p. 106). • It was not until the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 that the federal government finally renounced this century-old policy, and replaced jurisdiction over cases of foster care and adoption of Native children with tribal governments, with disputes to be heard in tribal courts (p. 107).In 1973, the first legal challenge to sterilization abuse among Native women was brought by Norma Jean Serena, a Native woman of Creek-Shawnee ancestry, whose civil suit addressed sterilization abuse as a civil rights issue (p. 111). • In 1987, a Senate subcommittee investigation revealed that doctors from the Phoenix, Navajo Nation, and Oklahoma City—area offices of the HIS admitted to injecting approximately 50 women ranging from ages 15 to 50 with Depo-Provera (p. 112).

• Because there are few HIS facilities and vast geographic distances between them, it is extremely difficult for both rural and urban Indian women to obtain routine and reproductive (prenatal) and postnatal) health care.

Kath Weston argues in Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship, that gays and lesbians are often portrayed as willing exiles from kinship. Kath Weston poignantly illustrates that same-sex relationships can and do produce family ties.

It is a short step from positioning lesbians and gay men somewhere beyond “the family”—unencumbered by relations of kinship, responsibility, or affection—to portraying them as a menace to family and society (160).

Social ties with lovers, children, and close friends should receive social and legal recognition (gay marriage, both parents have legal parental rights, etc.)

In families we choose, the agency conveyed by “we” emphasizes each person’s part in constructing gay families, just as the absence of agency in the term “biological family” reinforces the sense of blood as an immutable fact over which individuals exert little control (171).

Irish Supreme Court: Gay man who donated sperm

to lesbian couple should have access to son

DUBLIN (AP) — The Irish Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a gay man who donated his sperm to a lesbian couple should be permitted to see his 3-year-old son regularly — in part because Ireland's constitution doesn't recognize the lesbians as a valid family unit.

The ruling was a legal first in Ireland, where homosexuality was outlawed until 1993 and gay couples are denied many rights given to married couples.

In their unanimous decision, the five judges of Ireland's ultimate constitutional authority said a lower court erred by trying to apply the European Convention on Human Rights in favor of the lesbian couple. The Supreme Court concluded that when the two are in conflict, the Irish constitution is superior to European human rights law.

Utah Supreme Court Hears Lesbian's Child Custody Case

August 30th, 2005Kim Johnson Reporting

A mother is asking Utah's highest court to take away her former girlfriend's rights to visit her child. The case has the attention of both the ACLU and Utah legislature and could have huge implications for people caring for children who aren't biologically or legally theirs.

Cheryl Barlow and Keri Lynn Jones had a three-year lesbian relationship during which Barlow gave birth to a baby girl. Barlow is arguing that she, as the child's biological parent, should be able to decide what's best for her four-year old daughter. Jones, on the other hand, says she acted as a parent to the little girl and that it's in the child's best interest that she be allowed to visit her… Jones won the right last December to visit the little girl. A 3rd district judge agreed there was a parental relationship between the two. Keri Lynn Jones: "We proved that I stood in place as a parent to Gracie before she was born and after she was born."

Contemporary issues in family studies, stemming from marginalized identities:

Centralize an intersectional analysis (race/class/gender/sexuality)

Centralize an intersectional understanding of power dynamics, social institutions, family

Biological v. social (chosen families) Early education (bilingual) Language brokers Mixed immigration status families Interracial marriage Multiracial families Transracial adoption Child welfare policies Elder care and

cultural/class difference

Addiction Child abuse Immigration policies Poverty Education and safety Nutrition

•Nontraditional family formations•Single parenting •Gay marriage and parenting•Reproductive technologies•Imprisonment•Disability/Mental Health and caretaking •Culturally/linguistically sensitive domestic violence help

Reproductive Justice:centering women of color in family studies

HIV/AIDS Culturally/linguistically

sensitive health care Family court prioritize

keeping families together Comprehensive sex

education Increase inmates’ time and

access to children Prison health care Family leave from work Reduce environmental

hazards

Freedom from violence Financial ability/right to raise

own children w/o intervention Fight anti-immigrant

discrimination Universal health care Affordable pharmaceuticals No involuntary sterilization Welfare rights Affordable child care Affordable reproductive

technologies End sex trafficking

Shifting trends in Sociology of the Family

Older theories of family studies emphasize a nostalgic, ahistorical, non-inclusive, view of the family

Contemporary dynamics and changes within the family need to be studied in a non-biased manner

An inclusive perspectives on all types of families

Studies of families of color are critically lacking in the field

Studies of lesbian, gay, bisexual families should be examined; it provides dynamic insight into the social and legal challenges of the family

Family problems and solutions should be centered (imprisonment, poverty, domestic violence, addiction, etc.)

Applied family studies

Practitioners serving clients from a diverse background Creating family policy based on well-researched, factual

information Incorporating diversity within the educational literature

Feminist interventions in multiracial family studies

Karen Blaisure et al., “Family Science Members’ Experiences with Teaching from a Feminist Perspective.”

Their accounts illustrate a commitment to students, centrality of dialogue as illustrative of successful teaching…These results highlight dialogue and respect for students, reflexivity, and teaching with integrity.

• Linda Thompson, et. al, “The Place of Feminism in Family Studies.”

Review of family studies literature from 1984 to 1993 in top three journals: the discipline has created a legitimate place for feminism, but this place often remains marginalized (except for studies on housework).

• Katherine Allen, “A Conscious and Inclusive Family Studies.”

Allen argues that family scholars must take bolder steps to engage the tensions between our heritage of positivist science and its postmodern challenges… A responsible family studies…requires that we engage the critical intersections of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation, and age as they define family diversity.

Methodology: ethnography

Because there is a scarcity of research on so many communities of color within family studies, the initial, exploratory research is best suited for the methodology of ethnography: examining real people in their social worlds.

My future research:

Chinese identity development in the postmodern family (mixed race, second/third generation,

queer, transracial adoption) Loss of “native” language and

English dominance processes Immigration and impact on

family structure and lifestyle Chinese Diaspora studies

Sources: Allen, Katherine R. 2000. “A Conscious and Inclusive Family Studies.” Journal of Marriage

and Family 62(1): 4-17. Allen, Katherine R. and Margaret Crosbie-Burnett. 1992. “Innovative Ways and

Controversial Issues in Teaching about Families: A Special Collection on Family Pedagogy.” Family Relations 41(1): 9-11.

Allen, Katherine R. “Integrating a Feminist Perspective into Family Studies Courses.” Family Relations 37(1): 29-35.

Blaisure, Karen R. and Julie M. Koivunen. 2003. “Family Science Faculty Members’ Experiences with Teaching from a Feminist Perspective.” Family Relations 52(1): 22-32.

Bryant, Lois and Marily Coleman. 1988. “The Black Family as Portrayed in Introductory Marriage and Family Textbooks.” Family Relations 37(3): 255-259.

Coleman, Marilyn and Lawrence Ganong. 2003. Points & Counterpoints: Controversial Relationships and Family Issues in the 21st Century. Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing Company.

Coontz, Stephanie. 1992. The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. New York: Basic Books.

Dalla, Rochelle L. et. al. 2009. Strengths and Challenges of New Immigrant Families: Implications for Research, Education, Policy, and Service. New York: Lexington Books.

Lovette, Laura L. 2007. Conceiving the Future: Pronatalism, Reproduction, and the Family in the United States, 1890-1938. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

Mason, Mary Ann et. a. (eds) All Our Families: New Policies for a New Century. New York: Oxford University Press.

McAdoo, Harriette Pipes. 1999. Family Ethnicity: Strength in Diversity. New York: Sage Publications, Inc.

Nagel, Joane. “Ethnicity and Sexuality.” Annual Review of Sociology 26: 107-133. Oswald, Ramona Faith. “Resilience within the Family Network of Lesbians and Gay Men: Intentionality

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Jersey: Prentice Hall. Rank, Mark Robert. 1995. Living on the Edge: The Realities of Welfare in America. New York:

Columbia University Press. Roberts, Dorothy. 1998. Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty. New

York: Vintage. Silliman, Jael. Et. al. 2004. Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice. MA:

South End Press. Skolnick, Arlene S. and Jerome H. Skolnick. 2009. Families in Transition (15th ed.). New York: Pearson. Smith, Suzanna and Bron Ingoldsby. 1992. “Multicultural Family Studies: Educating Students for

Diversity.” Family Relations 41(1): 25-30. Solinger, Rickie. 2005. Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America. New

York: NYU Press. Staples, Robert. 1988. “The Emerging Majority: Resources for Nonwhite Families in the United

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