Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. Child Custody Law, Gender, and Difference: Shifting Relations; Introduction; Feminist Analysis of Child Custody Law: The Difference That Gender Makes; Differences Among Women: Complicating Feminist Analysis; Conclusion and Outline of the Book; 2. Paternal Rights: From Absolute to Presumptive Power in the Nineteenth Century; Introduction; The Early Law; The Legislatures: Incremental Change; The Ideological and Socio-Economic Context for Change; The Courts: A Terrain of Struggle; Conclusion; 3. Law's Cautious Endorsement: Maternal Rights to Custody, 1900-1970; Introduction; Socio-Economic Context; Judicial Interpretations: Equivocating on Maternal Equality; Judicial Resistance to Maternal Claims; The Ties That Bind; Moral Mandates; The (Slow) Rise of the Tender Years Doctrine; Conclusion; 4. Shifting Discourses: Public Equality/Private Confusion (the 1970s); Introduction; Divorce Rates, the Women's Movement, and Shared Parenting; The Changing, but Uneven, Statutory Framework; Moving Away from Sex-Based Guidelines? Tender Years and the Talsky Decisions; How Many Ways Could Mothers Lose Custody?; Adultery; Leaving a Good Marriage: The Legacy of Re L; Leaving Children Behind; Women's Work and Men's Work; Material Resources; Challenges to the Heterosexual Familial Norm: Lesbian Mothers; Conclusion; 5. Equality Discourse and the 'Modern' Family: The 1980s; Introduction; Statistics in Context; The Ideology of Equality; Equality Discourse, 'Modern' Marriage, and the Best Interests of the Child; The Shifting, Continuing, Sexual Division of Labour; The Employment Cases; The Appeal of Joint Custody and the Rise of Therapeutic Divorce; Doubting Mothers: Abuse Allegations; Conclusion: Good Fathers?; 6. The Rising Emphasis on Contact with Fathers: Expanding Access and Maternal Responsibilities; Intrdouction; Trends in Custody and Access Law: Enlarging Access, Shrinking Custody; Custody, Access, and Relocation: Canadian Trends; Gender Neutral and Gendering Discourses in Gordon v. Goertz; Mother: Different Position, Different Onus; Father: Equality and the Selfless Father; Children's Lawyer of Ontario: Only the Child Matters; LEAF and Gendered Discourses: Rescuing the Famous Disappearing Mother; The Supreme Court of Canada Majority Decision: Gender Nowhere in Sight; Madame Justice L'Heureux-Dube: A Minority Opinion; The Rise of Access and the Disciplining of Custodial Mothers; Conclusion; 7. A Feminist Strategy: Potentialities and Perils of Emphasizing Primary Care; Introduction; For a Primary Caregiver Presumption: Countering the Invisibility of Caregiving; Against the Primary Caregiver Presumption: Indeterminacy Reaffirmed; Canadian Judicial Discourse on Primary Caregiving; Can Judges Recognize Women's Caregiving Work?; Limits of a presumption: Race, Culture, Disability, Sexuality..; The Limits of Law in Challenging the Privatized, Gendered Nature of Caregiving; Conclusion; 8. W(h)ither Motherhood, W(h)ither Feminism: Law Reform Debates at the Turn of a New Century; Introduction; The Early 1990s: The Department of Justice Public Consultation; Reforms Canvassed; Feminist Concerns with the Public Discussion Paper; The New Wave Legislative Reforms: Parenting Acts and Parenting Plans; The Late 1990s: The Special Joint Committee; Twenty-First Century Law Reform: The Disappearance of Gender; Taking Caregiving into Account: Alternative Proposals; Conclusion; 9. Conclusion: Child Custody Law Reform and Privatization of the Post-Divorce Family Unit; Mothers, Fathers, and Child Custody Law; Privatization and the Gender of Child Custody Law; Contradictions and Progressive Struggle; Notes; References; Index
