Women’s Studies Journal, Volume 28 Number 1, July 2014: 4-17 ISSN 1173-6615 © 2014 Women’s Studies Association of New Zealand Hosted at www.wsanz.org.nz/ The portrayal of post-separation parents in the speeches of the Principal Family Court Judge of New Zealand NICOLA CHADWICK, NICOLA GAVEY, VIVIENNE ELIZABETH AND JULIA TOLMIE Abstract This article examines the ways in which parents negotiating care and contact arrangements for their children following separation are portrayed within speeches of the New Zealand Principal Family Court Judge (2005 to 2012). Our analysis fnds the speeches to be marked by gender neutrality, and promote prescriptive normative ‘ideals’ of cooperation and an orientation to the future uncomplicated by the past. We suggest that these texts set out an informal philosophy surrounding the court, and that they construct parents in ways that may work against the interests of mothers, and do not necessarily align with achieving solutions that are in the best interests of children. Our fndings suggest the need for professionals working in the area of family law to bring to their work a nuanced and contextual consideration of separating parents and their situations, including recognition of gendered power dynamics. Key words family law, custody disputes, gender, power, speeches Introduction The Family Court touches the lives of parents and their children in profound ways, beyond the letter of the law and the formal proceedings and judicial rulings within the courtroom. As scholars of governmentality would argue (e.g., Ewald, 1990; Rose & Valverde, 1998), the conduct of citizens in a country like New Zealand is governed not only by the law directly, but also by norms which co-exist with the law in interdependent ways. Thus, when mothers and fathers are faced with negotiating post-separation care and custody arrangements for their children they will be guided by the dominant norms of conduct within the society as much, or more than, they will be by the law directly. Such norms are, of course, formed and reproduced within broader cultural contexts, but they are also shaped directly and indirectly within specifcally legal contexts. If we think about a ‘legal complex’ as an ‘assemblage of legal practices, legal institutions, statutes, legal codes, authorities, discourses, texts, norms and forms of judgement’ (Rose & Valverde, 1998, p. 542), we can see the many avenues that exist for infuence. Through efforts to educate parents or to inform the public at large, for instance, agents of the Family Court (judges, lawyers, court offcials and delegated professionals of various kinds) provide information and ideas about how separated mothers and fathers should be and act. Carried out in the shadow of the law, however, with the implicit backing of legal authority and supported by scientifc truth claims from the psy disciplines (e.g., psychology), statements made in this context hold considerable power to infuence commonsense ideas about what is right and wrong, and what is an appropriate resolution to confict over the care of children following parental separation. The cost of fouting the norms promoted in these contexts is not merely the risk of being judged unconventional, eccentric, or odd; but rather the risk of having one’s family life rearranged by a stranger, and possibly losing the care of children or even the ability to protect them from identifed sources of emotional hurt and physical harm. Thus, even ostensibly benign or helpful interventions proffered in the service of ‘education’ or public 4