Abstract

Till the 1960s, social practices matched more or less the legal frame, staging a hierchical family with the complementary roles of the breadwinner and the housewife. Dramatic demographic and political changes have lead to a redefinition of parent roles. But this redifinition has remained largely confined to representations and symbols. The shift from a vision of gender complementarity – in the representations of parenthood – to a vision of gender equality seems to come to a halt in front of the deep belief in the « incommensurable » difference between genders.