Why has the interlacing of gender issues and the family become a dominant strand of political discourse and policy development in the late 20th century? Will the historical contradictions that have beset the relationship between the family and feminist aspirations continue through the new millennium? Is the "new feminism" a resolution of these tensions or part of the "anti feminist backlash"? This study examines the continuing "war over the family" in the USA and the UK in the context of major socio economic and cultural changes that have fundamentally shifted the ground of traditional gender relations and redrawn the material and psychological conditions for family life in the 21st century.