Gender and parenting : the (re)production and (re)negotiation of gender identity in the context of first time parenting.

Master of Social Science in Psychology. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 2016.This study set out to investigate the ways in which first‐time parents construct their gender identity as they grapple with a new addition to the family soon after the birth of their first child. Two white middle‐class heterosexual couples participated in the semi‐structured interviews. The study took a social constructionist perspective and the data analysis followed a critical discourse analysis approach. The broad findings are fivefold: competing ideologies persist within these comparatively modern couples’ discourses; equality is a disruption to gender identity; the construction of motherhood compared to fatherhood is asymmetrically evaluative; for these mothers, the transition from non‐parent to parent is a more embodied experience; and the transitional period of becoming a parent provides both opportunity and resistance towards new versions of gender identity