Parità dichiarata e disparità agita. Questo è il dilemma. Analisi critica dei discorsi sui generi e sui ruoli genitoriali di coppie eterosessuali prima e dopo la nascita del/della prim* figli*.

Despite the changes in women’s political rights and their increased presence in the paid workforce since 1960s, family work, that “refers to unpaid work done to maintain family members and/or a home” (Shelton, John, 1996, p. 300), remains traditionally divided by gender (Coltrane, 2000; Kroska, 2004; Beagan et al., 2008; Romano, 2008; Reyneri, 2009; Sartori, 2009; Zajczyk, Ruspini, 2008; Lachance-Grzela, Bouchard, 2010). In particular, women keep on spending much more time on childcare and household duties than men do (Eurostat, 2011; Istat, 2012). In addition, women manage, plan, organize and supervise the household work of their partners (Mannino, Deutsch, 2008). This traditional organization of gender roles is more frequent when partners become parents (Istat, 2010). Paradoxically, even though the mothers are employed and the fathers are involved in their parental role, in common sense the mother’s primary responsibility is still the child’s emotional well-being, while the father’s is the family’s financial well-being (Miller, 2007; Nentwich, 2008). In this way, mothers may work and have a career, but they are perceived as “intensive mothers” always focused on child (Hays, 1996), while fathers perceived as breadwinner may be involved in childcare as “part-time father”, the “baby entertainer” or “mother’s bumbling assistant’” (Sunderland, 2000). The distribution of family work in heterosexual couples is still constructed along heterosexual gender binary (Edley, Wetherell, 1999; Nentwich, 2006). However, as gender can be “done” (West, Zimmerman, 1987), it should also be troubled (Butler, 1993). For this reason, this thesis intends to analyze how the discursive constructions on the division of household labor could reify or refuse the heterosexual gender binary, based on patriarchal culture, and maintain the ideological dilemma (Billig et al., 1988) between stability and change in the distribution of gender roles. To achieve this purpose 20 heterosexual couples have been involved in a longitudinal study during the transition to parenthood. The study involved three stages (1 during the pregnancy, 1 in the 3rd month after the birth and a final 1 when the child was 4 months old). In the first and the second stages semi-structured interviews were conducted to produce data about the organization of household labor pre and post birth, while during the third stage a video feed-back was conducted to discuss with the couples about the results produced in the previous stages. The longitudinal design of the research mirrored the period of transition, giving to the data collection the period fluidity not achieved in one-off interviews. Every meeting was conducted with the presence of both partners in their home, and it was video-recorded. The couple’s interaction is the “place” where partners negotiate and experiment their actions, their roles and legitimize the meaning of being a man or a woman (Valentine, 1999; Gill, 1999; Boeije, 2004; Beitin, 2008). The present research takes extended sequences of discussions (the transcripts of the three meetings) as its database and analyzes the structure of these discourses, according to the concepts and claims of discourse analysis (Billig, 1987; Potter, Wetherell, 1987; Edwards, Potter, 1992). The data analysis reveals that people are inconsistent in their behaviors and opinions, abandoning the presupposition that people have an attitude which could be represented through mutually exclusive response categories or act on the basis of a stable set of attributes (Wetherell, Stiven, Potter, 1987). The contradictions and ideological dilemmas (Billig et al., 1988) allow understanding the functions of discourse (Potter, Wetherell, 1987) and the (re)production of social structures (Fairclough, 1995). Our data uncover the presence of some coherent and recurring topoi called “interpretative repertoires” (Potter, Wetherell, 1987) about gender and gender roles. In particular, the results display that the domestic work is mainly performed by women, who are described as naturally suitable for care. Men offer their help occasionally, because they have to provide for the family’s financial well-being. Regarding the organization of childcare, the discourse analysis reveals three different scenarios of parenthood (traditional, egalitarian, dilemmatic). After the birth of the child the discourses of the partners are radicalized coherently with the traditional and egalitarian scenarios of parenthood. However the traditional category is mainly recurring. The dilemmatic scenario of parenthood is more frequent in the first and third meeting. It includes traditional repertories about the natural and social suitability of women to care vs. a little time availability of men-breadwinner. At the same time the couples of the dilemmatic scenario propose egalitarian repertories that trouble gender attributing the same expertise and ability to fathers and mothers. These repertories are expressed both by men and women. This confirms that also women can act as agents of oppression (Weedon 1997). In this way, women are masters and slaves of language and patriarchal hegemonic culture (Billig, 1991). In conclusion, we believe that women’s emancipation can happen only through discursive productions that deconstructed gender supported firstly by women.