familes - couples

parsons - instrumental/expressive roles

• husband has instrumental role: achieving success at work to provide for family - breadwinner

• wife has expressive role: primary socialisation of children and meeting family’s emotional needs - homemaker

• division of labour based on biological differences

• women naturally suited to nurturing role and men to provider

• critics

• young and wilmott argue men are taking greater share of domestic tasks and more wives becoming wage earners

• feminists reject view that division of labour is natural and it only benefits men

joint and segregated conjugal roles

• bott:

• segregated conjugal roles where male is breadwinner and female is homemaker and leisure activities tend to be separate

• joint conjugal roles where couples share tasks like housework and childcare and spend leisure time together

• young and wilmott: identified pattern of segregated conjugal roles. men were breadwinners and played little part in home life and spent leisure time with workmates. women were full time housewives responsible for housework and childcare, helped by female relatives and leisure time spent with female kin

the symmetrical family

• young and willmott take match of progress view

• family becoming more equal and democratic

• trend towards joint conjugal roles

• roles of husbands and wives not identical but more similar

• women go out to work, may be part time

• men partake in housework and childcare

• couples spend leisure time together

• symmetrical family more common among younger couples, those geographically and socially isolated and more affluent

• due to change in women’s position, geographical mobility, new technology, higher standards of living

feminist view of housework

• reject march of progress view and argue men and women remain unequal and women still do most of housework - family is patriarchal

• ann oakley: criticises symmetrical family and claims are exaggerated.

• husbands ‘helped’ wives once a week- making breakfast on occasion, not evidence of symmetry

• 15% husbands had high level of participation in housework and 25% in childcare

• only shared in pleasurable aspects of childcare

• good father was one who played with children in evenings and ‘take them off her hands’ on sunday morning - mothers lost rewards of childcare

• mary boulton: fewer than 20% of husbands had major role in childcare. young and willmott exaggerate men’s contribution by looking at tasks involved in childcare rather than responsibilities

• warde and hetherington: sex-typing of domestic tasks remained strong e.g. wives 30 times more likely to be last person to have done washing while husband 4 times more likely to be the last to wash the car

• men would only carry out ‘female’ tasks when partners not around to do so

• slight change in attitude of younger men- no longer assumed women should do housework

march of progress view

• women going out to work is leading to a more equal division of labour and men becoming more involved we in housework/childcare

• gershuny: women working full time is leading to a more equal division of labour in home. these women did less domestic work than other women

• sullivan: trend towards women doing a smaller share of domestic work and men doing more . increase in member of couples with equal division of labour and men participating more in ‘women’s’ tasks

• british social attitudes survey 2013: fall in member of people who think it’s man’s job to earn money and woman’s to look after home

• 1984- 45% man and 41% women agreed, by 2012 only 13% men and 12% women

emotion work and triple shift

• hochschild: emotion work- women responsible for managing emotions and feelings of family members e.g. squabbles between siblings while exercising control over own emotions

• duncombe and marsden argue women perform triple shift of housework paid work and emotion work

explaining gender division of labour

• crompton and lyonette identify : the cultural of ideological explanation of inequality where division of labour determines by patriarchal norms and values that shape denver roles in our culture. the material or economic explanation of inequality where women earn less than men so economically rational for them to do more housework and childcare

• evidence for cultural explanation

• gershuny: couples whose parents had more equal relationship more likely to share housework equally - parental role models important

• man yee kan: younger men do more domestic work - generational shift

• british attitudes survey: less than 10% under 35s agreed with traditional division of labour against 30% under 65s

• dunne: lesbian couples has more symmetrical relationships due to absence of traditional gender scripts

• evidence for material explanation

• kan: for every £10,000 a year more a woman earns, she does two hours less housework per week

• arber and ginn: better our mc women more able to buy commercially produced products and services such as labour saving devices and ready meals rather tan spending time carrying out labour intensive work

• ramos: where woman is breadwinner and man unemployed he does as much domestic labour as she does

• sullivan: working full time rather than part time makes biggest difference in terms of domestic work

• crompton: no immediate prospect of equal division of labour as depends on economic equality between sexes

resources and decision making in households

• barrett and mcintosh: men gain more from women’s domestic labour than they give back in financial support, financial support is unpredictable and comes with strings attached, men make decisions about spending on important items

• kempson: among low income families women denied own needs to make ends meet

• women have no entitlement to share of resources in own right so see money spent on self as money ought to be spent on children

money management

• jan pahl and carolyn vogler identify two types of control over family income

• the allowance system: men give wives allowance out of which they have to budget to meet family’s needs

• pooling where both partners have access to income and joint responsibility for expenditure

decision making

• where pooled income controlled by husband, gives men more power

• pahl and vogler: even when there was pooling, men made more financial decisions

• hardill: study of 30 dual career professional couples found important decisions taken by man alone or jointly and his career rooo priority when deciding whether to move house for a job

• edgell: very important decisions e.g. moving house taken by husband alone or jointly with husband having final say. important decisions e.g. holiday taken jointly or wife alone. less important decisions e.g. children’s clothes made by wife

• men take decisions as earn more

• laurie and gershuny: by 1995 70% couples had equal say indecisions but women who earned high and were well qualified professionals more likely to have equal say

personal life perspective on money

• focuses on the meanings couples give to who controls the money

• e.g. assume one partner controlling the money is sign of inequality, for some couples it won’t have this meaning

• same sex couples often give different meaning to control of money in relationship

• smart: some gay men and lesbians attached no importance to who controlled the money and were happy to leave this to their partners

• weeks et al: typical pattern was pooling some money for household spending with separate accounts for personal spending - co independence

• smart found there is greater freedom for same sex couples to do what suits them as a couple - do not enter relationships with ‘historical, gendered, heterosexual baggage of cultural meanings around money’ that see money as a source of power

domestic violence

• domestic violence far too widespread to be work of few disturbed individuals

• women’s aid federation: domestic violence accounts for between a sixth and a quarter of all recorded violent crime

• crime survey for england and wales: two million people reported having been victims of domestic abuse during previous year

• domestic violence does not occur randomly but follows particular social patterns and these patterns have social causes

• coleman et al: women more likely than men to have experienced intimate violence across all types of abuse

• coleman and osborne: two women a week are killed by a partner or former partner

• russel and rebecca dobashs research found that violent incidents could be set off by what a husband saw as a challenge to his authority. marriage legitimates violence against women by conferring power and authority on husbands and dependency on wives

• walby and allen: women more likely to be victims of multiple incidents of abuse and sexual violence

• ansara and hindin: women suffered more severe violence and control with more serious psychological effects and women more likely than men to be fearful of their partners

official statistics

• victims may be unwilling to report to police

• yearnshire: on average a woman suffers 35 assaults before making a report

• dar argues victims of dv are less likely than victims of other forms of violence to report the offence as believe it is not a matter for the police or fear of reprisals

• police and prosecutors reluctant to record, investigate or prosecute

• cheal: due to fact police and other state agencies are not prepared to become involved in the family as:

• family is a private sphere so access by state agencies should be limited

• family is a good thing so agencies tend to neglect ‘darker side’ of family

• individuals are free agents so assumes if a woman is experiencing abuse she is free to leave. however male violence often coupled with male economic power

radical feminist explanation of dv

• evidence of patriarchy

• millett and firestone: all societies have been founded on patriarchy and men are the enemy as they’re oppressors and exploiters of women

• the family and marriage are the key institutions in patriarchal society and main source of women’s oppression

• men dominate through/ threat of dv

• explains why most dv committed by men

• male domination of state institutions explains reluctance of police and courts to deal with dv

• evaluation

• faith robertson elliot: not all men are aggressive and post oppose dv but radical feminists ignore this

• fail to explain female violence e.g. crime survey for england and wales found 18% men experienced dv since age 16

• wrongly assume all women equally at risk e.g. office for national statistics suggest women from some social groups face greater risk such as young women, those in lower social class, those on low incomes

materialist explanation of dv

• factors such as inequalities in income and housing

• wilkinson and picket: dv result of stress on family members caused by social inequality

• those on low income/overcrowded accommodation experience more stress, reducing chance of maintaining stable relationships and increase risk of conflict

• those with less power, status, wealth or income at greater risk of experiencing dv

• evaluation

• do not explain why women are main victims

• marxist feminists see inequality causing dv e.g. ansley describes wives as takers of shit and dv is product of capitalism: male workers exploited at work so take out frustration on wives