Best-selling Books Advising Parents about Gender: A Feminist Analysis

Abstract: To determine how gender in parenting was addressed, a content analysis was conducted on the six best-selling self-help books (1997–2002) that provide general parenting advice. A feminist perspective was used to code gendered meaning units in the six books. Findings were that 82% of the implicit gender messages across all books were stereotypical, and that Parenthood by Proxy (Schlessinger, 2000) and Children Are From Heaven (Gray, 1999) had a gendered agenda in that they contained highly prescriptive content about gender. Practitioners can use these findings in selecting parenting advice books to increase their understanding of the information about gender that parents may glean from these books, and to address these messages with families with whom they work.