Gender roles, domestic labour and power relations

Elizabeth Bott

distinguishes between two types of conjugal roles (in marriages)

SEGREGATED CONJUGAL ROLES – couple have separate roles (i.e., breadwinner / housewife). Their leisure activities tend to be separate too.

JOINT CONJUGAL ROLES – couple share tasks such as housework and childcare. They spend their leisure time together.

• Studied 20 families with children aged under 10 in 1950s London.

Wilmott and Young

identified a pattern of traditional conjugal roles in their study of WC extended families in Bethnal Green, East London in the 1950s.

Men were the breadwinners and had little to do with ‘family life’. Women were often full time housewives with sole responsibility for childcare and housework. take a march of progress view of the history of the family.

Family life has become more equal.  They argued that there has been a change and segregated roles are less common.

They call this the symmetrical family.

Silver

Commercialisation of housework has reduced the burden of housework on women. As it is easier to do, more men are willing to help, resulting in more symmetrical families. The role of the housewife is dead.

Why MC households may be more likely to experience a dual burden: More disposable income, OUTSOURCE LABOUR (HAVE A CLEANER), INVEST IN LABOUR SAVING DEVICES - DISHWASHERS, SNAZZY VACUUM CLEANERS ETC!

However, it is important to note that all labour saving devices have ‘helped families to sav

Oakley

found that most women, irrespective of social class, 70% were dissatisfied with housework – an important finding which contrasted with prevailing views.

Importantly, too, she showed how the neglect of research on domestic work was linked to the inbuilt sexism of sociology.

Current research has shown women:

• still become mothers and housewives.

• experience a period of full-time work until they have children / return to work part time

ONS data

first time in decades the number of women leaving the workforce to look after family has increased. For women aged between 25 – 34 years old, it has increased by 12.6% in the last year.

However, mothers with young children are more likely to go back to or begin full-time work now than 20 years ago, new ONS analysis suggests.

Yet, mothers with young children have the lowest employment levels of all parents with dependent children at 65.1%. In comparison, the employment rate of fathers with children aged three or four is 93.2%.

Gershuny (1994) and Sullivan (2000)

trend towards equality in the share of domestic work because of the increase in the number of women working full-time. Gershuny's data suggests that the longer the wife had been in paid work, the more housework her husband was likely to do.

Lynotte

Recent research found that men in wealthier families are even less likely to help around the house

Duncombe and Marsden

Women do a triple shift. Not only do they do paid employment and housework but they also do the emotional work (originally researched by Hochschild) which is needed in order to make a relationship work. Many women in their study expressed their disappointment in the lack of emotional work put in by their partners.

Ferri and Smith

fathers take responsibility for childcare in less than 4% of families.

Dex and Ward

men are far more involved in childcare than the past… (still more emphasis on play) when it comes to taking care of a child who is sick only 1% took time off to look after their children.

Braun, Vincent and Ball

found in 3/70 families was the father the main carer, ‘background fathers’. Most fathers held a ‘provider ideology’ that their role was as breadwinners, while mothers saw themselves as the primary carer.

Linked to ‘intensive mothering’ in the media telling women how to be good mothers.

Hays

“Intensive mothering” ideology understood as a maternal ideal that is “child- centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive, and financially expensive”, has been brought forward as a likely explanation to the increases in time spent with children, particularly among well educated mothers

Hochschild

studied how flight attendants are expected to remain calm while irate passengers are rude and make excessive demands. They’re not paid for this emotion work. They’re expressly paid to provide customer service. Emotion work is taxing on their personal health and psychological wellbeing. This type of invisible emotional labour affects people in different jobs, but especially impacts women.

Hartley

“Fed up”

Southerton’s

esearch suggests that coordinating, organising, scheduling and managing the family’s quality time falls to women.

Wider societal changes such as the emergence of a 24/7 society and flexible working patterns has meant that people’s time is more fragmented. Southerton argues that men are more likely to have blocks of leisure time, whereas women’s leisure time is punctuated by childcare /multitasking.

Crompton and Lyonette

that the reason why there is differences in men and women’s leisure time are: Cultural / Ideological. The reason for differences can be attributed to patriarchal norms and values that shape the gender roles in our culture.

• Women conform to society's expectations of doing more domestic labour.

• Gender role socialisation plays a part *Link to Ann Oakley's work.

Gershuny

found that couples who had a more equal relationship are more likely to share housework. This suggests parental roles models are important. Norms are changing as the fact that many women now work FT a new norm has been established that men 'should' do more. (cultural)

Sullivan

shows that working full time rather than part time makes the biggest difference to how much domestic work each partner does.

However, his study revealed that still women do a 60% share when both partners work. (Economic)

Sara Aber and Jay Ginn

found that better paid, MC women were able to buy in commercially produced products and services such as labour saving devices, ready meals, chidcare etc. rather than spend their time carrying out labour intensive domestic tasks themselves. (Material)

Man Yee Kan

found that younger men do more domestic work. (Ideological)

Gregson and Lowe

estimate that a third of middle-class dual-earner couples are employing domestic help.

University of Warwick

A new survey on the sexes and house-cleaning shows that men still do less, and MC men do the least of all

• Different male approaches to household chores might have something to do with class and earning levels.

• While women still do the most housework, and men still use the “incompetence” ruse, men also do say they believe in gender equality.

However, while those on lower incomes increasingly mucked in with housework, men on higher incomes not so much.

Kaufman

developed the concept of the "Superdad" – a new variety of modern father who prioritises family over work. However, not all father's are 'superdads' some are 'old dads' or 'new dads’. 70 fathers from a variety of racial, educational, age and occupational backgrounds and found the majority of the father's interviewed defined themselves as 'new dads’

New Dads Kaufman

make minor changes to their work schedule for their children, such as leaving early to attend a soccer practice or ballet recital.

Old Dads Kaufman

think of themselves as providers and make no changes to their work lives to accommodate their children. They also tend to have stay-at-home wives who take care of their children.

Super Dads Kaufman

"These dads make very large changes to their work life," Kaufman said. "The most extreme case is quitting a job, or changing jobs for another one more fitted to the family's needs. They may try to change positions within their workplace, work from home or become self employed."

Unlike old dads, Superdads also value their spouse's careers.

Dunne

37 lesbian couples with dependent children were more likely than heterosexual women to describe their relationship as equal share housework and childcare equally.

Barrett and McIntosh

• Man 'gain' more from women's domestic labour

• Financial support comes with 'strings attached'

• Men make decisions on 'big spend' items

  (2021) 7 in 10 men and nearly half of women said the husband takes responsibility for long-term financial decisions.

Pahl and Volger

Identified different ways men may control the family income:

• The Allowance System – giving a certain amount of money.

• Pooling – putting money together in one account.

• Pooling is on the increase and most common money management system.

However, P&V still argue that men usually make the major financial decisions.

Economic dependency (covert power)

Married women become economically dependent on their husbands especially as once children arrive, women give up work in order to look after the children and even when mothers do return to work it’s usually part-time rather than full-time employment.

This dependency means it is much easier for men to set the agenda over important family decisions.

Male domination (overt power )

Feminists see the family as male dominated as men are the bread-winners and tend to make all the key financial decisions.

Edgell

found the important family decisions such as financial issues tended to be made by the husband, while wives were free to make the trivial decisions on their own such as what ‘the evening meal with consist of’ or where ‘they do the weekly shopping’. This is because men are likely to earn more....

Men as decision makers is deeply ingrained in both men and women and instilled in gender socialisation.

Weeks and Smart

suggest that money management systems reflect more equality

Domestic Violence stats

1 in 4 women (according to some sociological research) will experience DV at some point in her life. It includes physical, psychological, sexual, emotional violence or abuse.

ONS claims that 5% of adults will experience DV.

Women's Aid

19,000 survivors of domestic abuse, about 8,000 suffered financial abuse, as did 60% of women living in refuge centres.

Yearnshire

found that on average a woman suffers 35 assaults before making a report, Men from Sunderland were aged between 19 and 51, with about half aged from 20 to 23; almost all were manual workers and included taxi drivers, scaffolders and labourers.

A quarter of the men had been violent towards their partners in the previous month and four admitted inflicting violence weekly.

Almost all the men thought their behaviour not worthy of arrest.

Cheal

Police and Prosecutors may be reluctant to record or investigate the cases reported to them.

David Cheal

rgues the state is not prepared to become involved with the family.

1. The family is a private sphere.

2. Family is a good thing, so agencies like to neglect the ‘darker side’ of family life.

3. Individuals are free agents (choice).

Russell

argued that the police take no action because most police officers are male and identify with the male assailant.

Maynard

found that social workers disbelieved what women said about their domestic situation, supported men's reasons for violence and encouraged the women to understand these reasons.

Elliot

reject the radical feminist explanation that all men benefit from violence against women. Not all men are violent or predisposed to violence.

Coleman

found that women were more likely than men to have experienced ‘intimate violence’ across all four types of abuse – partner abuse, family abuse, sexual assault and stalking.

Dobash & Dobash

looked at police records in Scotland and found examples of wives being physically abused and looked at many cases that included rape.

Feminist explanation of DV:

argue that DV is evidence of patriarchy within the family – ‘Men are the enemy, they are the oppressors and exploiters of women.’ see marriage and the family as the main source of women’s oppression = Men dominate women through DV or the threat of it.

Mirrlees-Black

1 in 4 woman has been assaulted by a partner in some time in her life