No place like home : relationships and family life among lesbians and gay men /

Carrington argues that although domesticity is the essence of family building, because it is unpaid and often invisible, it is devalued. Unless "lesbigay" families (lesbian, bisexual, gay) can afford to have one or both members attend to domestic concerns, tensions arising from neglect or discrepancies in members' domestic work will undo the family. Effectively, those working- and middle-class families for which paid work consumes both members' time and energy have the lowest survival rate. Although Carrington (sociology, San Francisco State Univ.) rarely draws them, the parallels with "biolegal" (traditional) families are striking. An essential difference, however, is lesbigay fear of "butch" and "femme" gender labels. The myth of equality reflects rejection of 1950s stereotypes and the embrace of an ideal whose actual practice Carrington found to be the exception. This nuanced and lucid book, which reviews the literature and analyzes Carrington's field work with 26 female and 26 male families (108 individuals) in the San Francisco area, refuses "to romanticize the struggles of lesbigay people" to build and sustain a family. Chapters on feeding work, housework, kin work, and consumption work detail domesticity's labors. Interesting endnotes and excellent bibliography. All levels. P. K. Cline; Earlham College

Carefully separating stereotype from reality, Carrington (sociology, San Franciso State Univ.) investigates family in the gay and lesbian community. Relying upon interviews and observation, the author analyzes the lives and routines of 52 diverse lesbian, gay, and bisexual couples in the Bay area. Carrington explores several areas: "feeding work," the business of planning and executing meals; housework; "kin work," the creation and preservation of family connections; "consumption work," purchasing goods and services for the family; and the division of labor between partners. Beware: no domestic stone is left unturned. After five chapters of exacting detail about the domestic lives of these families, Carrington closes the work with a discussion of the raging same-sex marriage debate and posits an enlightened solution to this dilemma. This work adds much to the growing body of literature on domestic work and gender. Recommended for gender, gay and lesbian, and family social science collections.--Kimberly L. Clarke, Univ. of Minnesota Lib., Twin Cities (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.