Father of the Year

Abstract

This chapter explores how gendered social institutions shape the custody process and experiences of noncustodial mothers. It elaborates that work and employment, psychotherapy, and the law are discursively gender-neutral social institutions that rest on and reproduce existing gender hierarchies that shape a noncustodial mothers' experiences. It also explains what gendered understandings and assumptions about work and employment or home inform mothers' understandings of child custody and custody-determination processes. The chapter describes the role that the therapeutic orientation of the custody process plays in making mothers lose custody. It demonstrates the manner in which gender matters in child custody as the concept of parenting is deeply gendered, regardless of the actual genders of parents.