"You Try to Be Superman and You Don't Have to Be": Gay Adoptive Fathers' Challenges and Tensions in Balancing Work and Family

A body of literature has emerged that focuses on work-family balance among heterosexual fathers. Little attention has been paid to how gay fathers balance work and family, despite the reality that they too are likely affected by similar masculine norms. The current qualitative study of 70 gay adoptive fathers (35 couples) begins to fill this gap in the literature. Analyzing interview data through the lens of Voydanoff\u27s (2005) work-family fit and balance model, we examine the ways in which gay men\u27s experiences of work-family balance are both constrained and enhanced by particular demands and resources. Highlighting the role of gender and sexual orientation, we analyze the challenges these men face and the strategies they use to cope with work-family tensions. © 2012 by the Men\u27s Studies Press, LLC. All rights reserved

The division of paid labor in same-sex couples in the Netherlands

Contains fulltext : 116698.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)This study examines the division of paid labor among gay male and lesbian couples in the Netherlands. We hypothesize that same-sex couples have a more equal division of paid labor than different-sex couples, partly because of lower marriage and fertility rates, and partly because equity norms are more strongly embraced regardless of family stage. Furthermore, we expect that traditional gender roles result in more hours of paid work by gay male couples than lesbian couples. Descriptive and OLS regression analyses are carried out on 13 waves of the Dutch Labor Force Surveys (1994–2007), which include 998 gay male couples and 1,033 lesbian couples. Results support all hypotheses: same-sex couples divide paid labor more equally than different-sex couples; lesbian couples specialize less after marriage or childbirth; and gay male couples work more hours than lesbian couples. We discuss how our findings can be translated across countries.14 p

Affective Arousal During Blaming in Couple Therapy : Combining Analyses of Verbal Discourse and Physiological Responses in Two Case Studies

Blaming one’s partner is common in couple therapy and such moral comment often evokes affective arousal. How people attune to each other as whole embodied beings is a current focus of interest in psychotherapy research. This study contributes to the literature by looking at attunement during critical moments in therapy interaction. Responses to blaming in verbal dialogue and at the level of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) were investigated in two couple therapy cases with a client couple and two therapists. Video-recorded couple therapy sessions were analyzed using discursive psychology and a narrative approach. The use of positioning, a discourse analytic tool, was also studied. ANS responses of the participants, including the therapists, were measured as electrodermal activity. The findings demonstrate how identity blaming, i.e. positioning the other person in ways counter to their preferred identity narrative, was accompanied by increased electrodermal activity in most participants. In the two cases studied, blaming centered on the themes of loyalty, trust and parenting. It is argued that identity blaming in these thematic domains increases the arousal level of the partners, since disloyalty, unfaithfulness and irresponsible parenting threaten the stability of the relationship.peerReviewe