Jaime is femme and Laura is butch.

Laura does most of the traditional “man” stuff. She’s the one who takes out the garbage and mows the lawn behind their home in Oakland. Jaime does most of the cooking and frequently goes on baking binges.

But it’s Jaime who’s the primary breadwinner. She’s the program coordinator of a women’s health center in Walnut Creek where she’s being groomed to take over for her boss. And now that they’ve decided to have their first baby, it’s Laura who’s pregnant

The feminist and gay rights movements of their mother’s generation allows them to pick and choose what aspects of the nuclear family and which feminist teachings they want to adhere to.

“We play with tradition. We buck tradition. The two of us have done it with this understanding of what’s come before us. And so in the ways that we choose to be traditional, in the ways that we choose to use feminism to choose what our mother’s were fighting against, is because we now have that choice,” Laura.

This photo essay documents the choices Jaime and Laura have made.

The project was shot with black and white film between February and April, 2008.

Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell has signed a bill to establish civil unions for same-sex couples. Court rulings led to civil unions in Vermont in 2000, and marriage for same-sex couples in Massachusetts last year. Connecticut is now the first state to approve civil unions without court pressure. But both supporters and opponents of marriage for same-sex couples are unsatisfied with the new law.