19 research outputs found
Parent-child relationships and sexual identity in male and female homosexuals and heterosexuals.
No full textThis article includes two studies of reported parent-child relations and sexual iden-tity: one of a population of 84 white, well-educated female homosexuals and their 94 matched heterosexual controls and the other of a group of 127 similarly well-educated, white male homosexuals and their 123 heterosexual matched controls. Female homosexuals reported having had more negative relations with their fathers in childhood that female heterosexuals, although a wide variety of parent-daughter relations was reported by both groups. The female homosexuals were neither mother nor father identified, but they were more distant from both parents and other people than their controls. The female homosexuals also reported a more masculine child-hood than the heterosexuals, and they were more masculine on an objective measure of masculinity-femininity. Compared with their controls, the male homosexuals reported more close-binding, intimate mothers and hostile, detached fathers than the heterosexual controls. As with the two female groups, a wide variety of parent-son relations was reported. Homosexual males were not more mother identified than their controls, but, like the female group, they were more distant from parents and other people than the matched controls. Male homosexuals reported more feminine childhoods, and they were less masculine than controls on a masculinity-femininity test. Considerable attention has been focused on the psychological factors involved in homo-sexuality. Today, most students in the area realize that a homosexual adjustment has exceptionally complex determining compo-nents, but they agree that one profitable approach is the study of the relationship between parents and the prehomosexual child, especially as this affects the child's sex-role identification. Few research workers have studied female homosexuality. Thus, little is known about parent-child interactions among prehomo-sexual females and the relations of these interactions with later sexual identity; and the little research that has been conducted is inconsistent in its results
Relationship between Self-Concept, Body Build, and Perception of Father's Interest in Sports in Boys
No full textCinderella and her cruel sisters: parenthood, welfare and gender in the human fertilisation and embryology act 2008
No full textThis paper takes as its starting point the comparative parliamentary time spent discussing the welfare of the child and parenthood provisions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008. While the former commanded over 8 hours of debate - most of which was spent discussing the proposed removal of the words "the child's need for a father" from the legislation - the parenthood provisions generated approximately only one hour of debate. This seems curious, given that the parenthood provisions (which govern the attribution of legal parenthood following certain fertility treatments governed by the legislation) are likely to have much more of a "real life" effect, and given that subtle changes in the wording of the welfare provision from "need for a father" to "need for supportive parenting" are unlikely to make a great deal of difference to actual clinical practice. In contrast, extending legal parenthood to a second female parent from the moment of a child's birth has important symbolic as well as practical legal consequences for two women having a child together. This paper begins by setting this curious scene and explaining why it is problematic. The first part of the paper focusses on the reform of the welfare clause and will contextualize the extensive discussion of this clause in socio-political concerns about assisted reproduction, the role of men and masculinity in family life, and the role of genetics in underpinning these concerns. Against this backdrop, the second part of the paper then analyzes why so little attention was paid to the parenthood provisions, pointing to the "common sense" assumptions which typically shored up the discussions surrounding this part of the legislation. This part of the paper will also draw attention to a number of significant gender-based connotations in the parenthood provision
