Showing 1-15 of 18 items.

Undoing Motherhood

Collaborative Reproduction and the Deinstitutionalization of U.S. Maternity

Rutgers University Press

In 1978 the world’s first IVF baby was born, ushering in a paradigm shift in reproductive medicine. IVF and collaborative reproduction (egg/embryo donation, gestational surrogacy) create new opportunities and conflicts about reproduction and parentage. Undoing Motherhood examines the connected issues of fragmented and uncertain maternity in the post-IVF reproductive era.

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No Real Choice

How Culture and Politics Matter for Reproductive Autonomy

Rutgers University Press

Based on candid, in-depth interviews with women who considered but did not obtain an abortion, No Real Choice analyzes the structural obstacles to abortion and the cultural ideologies that try to persuade women not to choose abortion. It illustrates how real reproductive choice is denied, for whom, and at what cost.

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Like Family

Narratives of Fictive Kinship

Rutgers University Press

For decades, social scientists have assumed that “fictive kinship” is a phenomenon associated only with marginal peoples and people of color in the United States.  In this innovative book, Nelson reveals the frequency, texture and dynamics of relationships which are felt to be “like family” among the white middle-class.

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The End of International Adoption?

An Unraveling Reproductive Market and the Politics of Healthy Babies

Rutgers University Press

Estye Fenton studies parents in the United States who adopted internationally in the past decade. She investigates the experiences of a cohort of adoptive mothers who were forced to negotiate their desire to be parents in the context of a growing societal awareness of international adoption as a flawed reproductive marketplace.

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Queer Kinship and Family Change in Taiwan

Rutgers University Press

In Queer Kinship and Family Change in Taiwan, Amy Brainer provides an in-depth look at queer and transgender family relationships in Taiwan. Brainer is among the first to analyze first-person accounts of heterosexual parents and siblings of LGBT people in a non-Western context.  

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Saving Face

The Emotional Costs of the Asian Immigrant Family Myth

Rutgers University Press

The Asian immigrant family myth celebrates Asian families for upholding the traditional heteronormative ideal of the “normal (white) American family” yet also demonizes them for reinforcing oppressive and backwards cultural values. Saving Face cuts through these myths, offering a more nuanced portrait of Asian immigrant families in a changing world. Angie Y. Chung examines how the grown children of Korean and Chinese immigrants emotionally negotiate the complex and conflicted feelings they have toward their family responsibilities and upbringing through new modes of love, communication, and caregiving.

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Labor of Love

Gestational Surrogacy and the Work of Making Babies

Rutgers University Press

Drawn from extensive interviews with paid gestational surrogates, women employed to carry children who are not genetically their own, Labor of Love reveals the challenges they face as they deal with complicated medical procedures, delicate work-family balances, and tricky social dynamics. The book demonstrates the extent to which advances in reproductive technology are affecting all Americans, changing how we think about maternity, family, and the labor involved in giving birth.   

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Raising the Race

Black Career Women Redefine Marriage, Motherhood, and Community

Rutgers University Press

Raising the Race is the first study to examine how black, married career women juggle their relationships with their extended and nuclear families, the expectations of the black community, and their desires to raise healthy, independent children. Including extensive interviews from women whose voices have been underrepresented in debates about work-family balance, Riché J. Daniel Barnes draws upon their diverse perspectives to propose policy initiatives that would improve the work and family lives of all Americans.

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Caring on the Clock

The Complexities and Contradictions of Paid Care Work

Rutgers University Press

Caring on the Clock is the first book to bring together cutting-edge research on a wide range of paid care occupations, placing the various studies within a comprehensive and comparative framework. The book includes twenty-two original essays by leading researchers across a range of disciplines—including sociology, psychology, social work, and public health—and provides a wealth of insight into these workers, who take care of our most fundamental needs, often at risk to their own economic and physical well-being. 

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Misconception

Social Class and Infertility in America

Rutgers University Press

In Misconception: Social Class and Infertility in America, Ann V. Bell overturns stereotypes of reproduction that frame poor women as too fertile and white, affluent women as not fertile enough by comparing experiences of infertility across socioeconomic groups. In comparing class experiences, Bell is able to go beyond just examining infertility. Misconception reveals the social, cultural, and economic forces surrounding reproduction, family, motherhood and health in contemporary America. 

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Misconception

Social Class and Infertility in America

Rutgers University Press

In Misconception: Social Class and Infertility in America, Ann V. Bell overturns stereotypes of reproduction that frame poor women as too fertile and white, affluent women as not fertile enough by comparing experiences of infertility across socioeconomic groups. In comparing class experiences, Bell is able to go beyond just examining infertility. Misconception reveals the social, cultural, and economic forces surrounding reproduction, family, motherhood and health in contemporary America. 

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Queering Marriage

Challenging Family Formation in the United States

Rutgers University Press

In-depth interviews with participants in non-traditional families are used to argue that same-sex marriage cannot be understood as simply entrenching or contesting heterosexual privilege. Instead, Katrina Kimport contends that these new legally sanctioned relationships can both reinforce as well as disrupt the association of marriage and heterosexuality. She provides a nuanced, accessible, and theoretically grounded framework for understanding the powerful effect of heterosexual expectations on both sexual and social categories.

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Daughters and Granddaughters of Farmworkers

Emerging from the Long Shadow of Farm Labor

Rutgers University Press

The work and family lives of Mexican American women in a community near the U.S.-Mexico border in California’s Imperial County are examined. Wells provides stories of the struggles, triumphs, and everyday experiences of these women and explores the social structures that create the barriers, constraints, and opportunities that have shaped their lives. These women aspire to achieve the American Dream, but the realities of life in a rural, agricultural border community strictly limit social mobility for these descendants of immigrant farm laborers.

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Amigas y Amantes

Sexually Nonconforming Latinas Negotiate Family

Rutgers University Press

Amigas y Amantes (Friends and Lovers) explores the experiences of sexually nonconforming Latinas in the creation and maintenance of families. It is based on forty-two in-depth enthnographic interviews with women who identify as lesbian, bisexual, or queer (LBQ) and draws from fourteen months of participant observation at LBQ Latina events that Katie L. Acosta conducted in 2007 and 2008 in a major northeast city. The book examines how LBQ Latinas manage loving relationships with the families who raised them, and with their partners, their children, and their friends.

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Do Babies Matter?

Gender and Family in the Ivory Tower

Rutgers University Press

Do Babies Matter? is the first comprehensive examination of the relationship between family formation and the academic careers of men and women. The book draws on over a decade of research using unprecedented data resources, including the Survey of Doctorate Recipients, a nationally representative panel survey of PhDs in America, and multiple surveys of faculty and graduate students at the ten-campus University of California system.

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