“Doing Gender,” West and Zimmerman's (1987) landmark article, highlighted the importance of social interaction, thus revealing the weaknesses of socialization and structural approaches. However, despite its revolutionary potential for illuminating how to dismantle the gender system, doing gender has become a theory of gender persistence and the inevitability of inequality. In this article, the author argues that we need to reframe the questions to ask how we can undo gender. Research should focus on (1) when and how social interactions become less gendered, (2) whether gender can be irrelevant in interaction, (3) whether gendered interactions always underwrite inequality, (4) how the institutional and interactional levels work together to produce change, and (5) interaction as the site of change.

Predictors of paternal participation in childcare and housework are examined. A longitudinal sample of 66 couples expecting their 1st child completed extensive questionnaires during the wives' last trimester of pregnancy and 3-8 months after birth. Regressions were conducted in which paternal participation in childcare and housework were regressed on variables pertaining to each of 4 models of paternal participation: relative economic resource, structural, family systems, and sex role attitude. Composite models of paternal participation in housework and childcare were then developed. Fathers' involvement in childcare is best explained by mothers' work hours and fathers' feminism. Fathers' contribution to housework seems best explained by discrepancies in income between spouses, wives' occupational prestige, and dynamics in the marriage. Differences in the determinants of fathers' contributions to childcare and housework are discussed.The benefits of increased paternal involvement in childcare for fathers, children, and mothers have been identified in previous studies. Fathers who are highly involved in childcare report increased closeness with their children (Hood & Golden, 1979;Russell, 1982), greater feelings of competence as fathers (Baruch & Barnett, 1986), more positive attitudes toward child rearing, and greater satisfaction with parenting (Easterbrooks & Goldberg, 1984). Moreover, children with highly involved fathers adopt fewer sex role stereotypes (Carlson, 1984), demonstrate more productive problem-solving behavior (Easterbrooks

This short-term longitudinal study expands on previous theoretical approaches, as we examined how women's assertiveness and the strategies they use to elicit more household labor from husbands help to explain the division of labor and how it changes. Participants included 81 married women with 3-and 4-year-old children who completed two telephone interviews, approximately 2 months apart. Results based on quantitative and qualitative analyses show that (a) relative resource, structural, and gender ideology variables predicted the division of housework, but not childcare; (b) assertive women were closer to their ideal division of childcare than nonassertive women; (c) women who made a larger proportion of family income were less assertive about household labor than other women, but when they were assertive, they had a more equal division of childcare; (d) women who earned the majority of their household's income showed the least change; and (e) the nature of women's attempts to elicit change may be critical to their success.

This study examined the effects of China's one-child policy on two traditional aspects of Chinese family life: filial piety and patrilineality. Eighty-four graduating university seniors, who were part of the first cohort born under the onechild policy, were interviewed about their life plans. Comparisons between only children and those with siblings showed that only children were as likely to plan on helping their parents as were those with siblings and were more likely to intend to reside in the same city. The only children seemed to feel especially responsible for their parents' happiness because of their singleton status. Among only children and those with siblings, patrilineal norms seemed weak. Students'mentions of family structure to explain their decisions suggest that the one-child policy is undermining patrilineal norms.

Different ways of conceptualizing and measuring change in attitudes during transition to motherhood are examined. A series of analyses was performed on data from a cross-sectional sample (N = 667) and a smaller longitudinal sample (n = 48) to demonstrate sound psychometric properties for 2 new scales and to show construct comparability across different phases of childbearing. For Childbearing Attitudes Questionnaire, results demonstrated equality of covariance for 16 scales and comparability of structure and meaning of 4 higher order factors--identification with motherhood, social orientation, self-confidence, and negative aspects of giving birth. For Mothering Self-Definition Questionnaire, results demonstrated equality of covariance of 5 scales and comparability of structure and meaning of a single higher order factor, interpreted as reflecting positive feelings about one's mothering characteristics. Analyses of correlations and mean differences identified areas of change and stability.

The self-definitional processes accompanying the transition to motherhood were examined in this study. A cross-sectional sample of more than 600 women who were planning to get pregnant within 2 years, pregnant, or in the postpartum stage completed extensive questionnaires pertaining to their experiences of pregnancy and motherhood. On the basis of the assumption of the "self-socialization" perspective that individuals actively construct their identities in response to life transitions, our analyses focused on the role of information-seeking in the developing self-definitions of women becoming mothers. As predicted, (a) women actively sought information in anticipation of a first birth, (b) they used this information to construct identities incorporating motherhood, and (c) after the birth the determinants of their self-definitions shifted from indirect sources of information to direct experiences with child care. Hence, consistent with the self-socialization perspective, information-seeking did play an important role in the women's developing self-conceptions during this life transition. Mechanisms by which information gathered may alter self-conception are discussed.

A selective review of various conceptual positions within a historic framework is used to address four issues: whether an empathic response is an understanding or sharing of affect; whether an empathic response is a response to an object, another’s affect, and/or circumstance; which mechanisms explain empathy, and is self-other differentiation required by various definitions. This discussion is related to an examination of representative, predictive and situational measures. Comments are made regarding the reliability and construct validity of certain measures. The implications of this evidence for the use and the development of measures are advanced. A cognitive theoretical perspective is applied, in which variables that influence empathic learning are discussed with several applications of data, to assist in our understanding of empathy.

Conventional images of motherhood and fatherhood, social interactions, and genderbased job pressures push couples toward unequal parenting. Equally sharing parents resist those pressures, and construct equality through everyday negotiations and ongoing decisions about family and work. They do not believe that mothers are more responsible for children, or more suited to care for them, than fathers. They avoid gender-based decisions about jobs that reinforce a gender-based division of labor at home. Qualitative research is necessary to unravel the complex interactions between work and family arrangements, and to show how economic, social, and ideological factors constrain family arrangements, but are also transformed in their creation.