Gender

Abstract Gender as a theme is everywhere and, at the same time, opaque and elusive. In devoting a separate chapter to it, we acknowledge that, while it is embedded in all the other themes we discuss, it is also so crucial to making sense of different experiences of step family life that it needs to be considered on its own. Stepfamilies provide a particularly useful context within which to understand gendered experience because, in the transition to stepfamily life, men and women act out their roles in the absence of one biolo gical parent. This means that the biological role too is experienced differently because of the presence of a non-biological stepparent; such families therefore offer an ideal forum in which to explore the processes whereby gender roles are shaped and maintained.