Includes bibliographical references and index

Feminism and the family: two decades of thought / Barrie Thorne -- Is there a family? New anthropological views / Jane Collier, Michelle Z. Rosaldo, and Sylvia Yanagisako -- Family and class in contemporary America: notes toward an understanding of ideology / Rayna Rapp -- Family, race, and poverty in the Eighties / Maxine Baca Zinn -- Backward toward the postmodern family: reflections on gender, kinship, and class in the Silicon Valley / Judith Stacey -- The politics of gay families / Kath Weston -- Why nineteenth-century feminists did not support "birth control" and twentieth-century feminists do: feminism, reproduction, and the family / Linda Gordon -- The facts of fatherhood / Thomas W. Laqueur -- Thinking about fathers / Sara Ruddick -- The fantasy of the perfect mother / Nancy Chodorow and Susan Contratto -- Black women and motherhood / Patricia Hill Collins -- The female world of cards and holidays: women, families, and the work of kinship / Micaela di Leonardo -- Family violence, feminism, and social control / Linda Gordon -- Why men resist / William J. Goode