gender roles and domestic labour within power of the family

traditional gender roles

• being male and female is a biological fact

• masclinity and feminity are socail constructions

• creation of conjugal roles within the family

• parsons 1955 → divisons amoung the nucelar family, the husband as the intrumental role and the wife as the expressive role

elizabeth bott 1957 distingushed between two types of conjugal roles

• sergreated conjugal roles → clear division between male and female tasks with seprate friends and lesuire activities

• intergrated conjugal roles → roles are flexible and interchangeable

arguments for change within the family → young and willmott 1973

• symmertical family

• modern marriage, families have become equals with little divison between roles

• shown through women and men taking on differing traditional gender roles

• the symmertical nucelar family is the result of major social changes that haven taken place over the last century

arguments for change within the family → geographical and social mobilitly

• has led to the decline of the close knit extened family who have extened family roles

• bott 1957 → conjugal roles and social networks found that close networks led to the maintance of reneforced gender roles

• social control through teasing

• younger couples who moved away were less pressured by expectations of family memebers

changing state of women and its relationship to paid employment

• unpaid housework and childcare has a low status because it is based on informal relationships

• feminism has bought attention to inequailties in the home and work place, rasing expectations of girls and women

• increase of status has led to increased athourity in the family for women with the recogntion of the importance of their earnings

• working women have less time for housework thus famiiies have to become more symmerical

• laurie and gernhuny 2000 = wives who moved to full employment spent less time on housework

• kan 2001 → better paid and younger women spent less time doing housework. £10,000 increase in annual income = 2hours less work

improved living standards and the commericalsation of housework

• modern technology has encoruaged ‘home centredness’ home is a comfortable place to be and this helps to build relationships

• consumer goods and services have reduced the time consuming drudgery of housework

• e.g washing machines, online shopping

• schor (1992) → house work is less skilled, which encourages men particuarly if it is technological

conjugal roles in media

• mr clean advert → promoting women domestication

• cleaning adverts that show men finding the solution and the wife not being as smart

• however has been a growth in recent years of showing men in cleaning roles

weakened gender identites

• a postmodernist view is that indivduals construct their own indeity through the choices that they make

• there is less constraint on what is percieved to be mascline and feminine

• warde and heatherington (1993) found that younger men no longer assumed that women should do the housework

• 2000 study of 1000 adults showed that 60% of men do more housework than their father

• ‘new man’ in media

evidence agaisnt change in the family → a crtitque agaisnt young and wilmott

• exaggerated claims

• the interviews had shown that husbands only help their wives with housework around once a week with simple tasks such as taking care of the children

• only 15% of husbands had a high level of participation

evidence agaisnt change in the family → methods and samples of research

• self report methods of interviews and questionnaires may ask questions about shared friends resulting in more dependence and a power imbalance

• boulton 1983 → suverys exaggerate how much childcare men really do

• bott only surveyed 20 families

• oakly = 40

• boulton = 50

some changes in social life but the structure remains that same

• marxism and feminism → captialsim, womens unpaid domestic labour is benefical to the economy

• women are instrumental to the maintaince of the workforce, they reproduce labour power and cater to the physical and mental welbeing

• 1997 = £700 billion worth of unpaid work at home

• 2011 = value of a parent was £30,000

patriarchy - unequal power and the darkside of the family

• ideology of the cereal packet family, the family can be hostile and dangerous place

• ¼ of women and 1/6 of men will suffer from some sort of domestic violence

• dobdash and dobdash (1992) → male violence in the family is the means by which womes subordinate role is enforced

are role perecptions and attuides to gender identies changing? - NO

• talyor + gooby (2005) → wide beleif that women should be responsible for the care of the home. nearly half thought that mothers should stay at home when children are under the school age

• Gatrell (2004) → employers still discrimiate against women on the biasis of motherhood and their commitment being questionable

• sugar magazine in 2005 found that 43% of girls thought it as acceptable for their boyfriends to get agresive

shared descion making - the distrobution of power and athourity

• edgell 1980 → women had sole responsibilitly for descions which were relatively unimportant in areas such as children clothes food and domestic spending. women were less likely to

working women

• the connections that working women would have reduced time for housework and the increased need for symmetary from both partners seems to be undermined by research findings

• elstons 1980 - found that proffesional wives were still expected to take domestic reponsibilty

• harkness 2005 → 75% of households are dual income, ½ of women who earn more than their partners do 2x as much housework than them

triple shift delphy and leonhart 1992

• women have 3 jobs paid work, domestic labour and emotional work

• although there has been an increased employment of women the dynamic is quite the opposite with the domestic role dominating having negative consquences