Comunicação inserida no projecto “Mães e pais depois da “verdade biológica”? Género, desigualdades e papéis parentais” (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-008483), coordenado pela Doutora Helena Machado, desenvolvido em parceria pelo Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra e pelo Centro de Investigação em Ciências Sociais.Almost all European societies support legal efforts to establish parentage when the paternity of children born out of wedlock has not been established. In this context, courts frequently ask for DNA tests as part of public policies to ensure that children are cared for not only financially, but also regarding education, upbringing and psychological development. Underlying such action, there is a biological conception of paternity that has been discussed against the emergence of new family forms dissociated from the trilogy ‘heterosexual couple-marriage-procreation’. Feminist studies have shown that state institutions, when actively engaging in civil action to identify a child’s father tend to reveal patriarchal gender relations grounded on the evaluation of the mothers’ sexual activity and fidelity and of the fathers’ income and employment status. This paper explores the ways in which the legal investigation of paternity of children born out of wedlock reveals cultural models that reinforce the naturalisation of gender differences. We contend that: by allowing for the “biological true” of paternity, biotechnology has effects on the configuration of parental roles and identities by reproducing gender inequalities, which may question both the rights of children and of biological mothers and fathers. We intend to show how women and men evaluate legal interventions in this domain; reconfigure their private rights in ways that tend to reproduce and at the same time challenge prevailing patriarchal structures.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (F.C.T.)Comissão para a Cidadania e Igualdade de Género (C.I.G.
