Family- Power and Inequality

Domestic division of labour

DDOL- way tasks are divided up in a household between its members.

• Gender roles influence how each partner participates in the DDOL.

• Where couples have traditional beliefs about male and female roles, women do more domestic labour than in households where beliefs reflect sexual equality.

• 75% of men and women believe the DDOL is very fair or somewhat fair.

UK time use survey 2000

• studied 6500 households- 11,700 participants

• keep a diary of how they spend time one week day and one day at the weekend

  men- 2hrs, 20mins women- 4hrs

  92% of women did laundry 94% of men did DIY

nPower study 2002

• women do twice as much housework as men

  • women > 2 hours

  • men < 1 hours

• men are now doing more than ever (1940- 15 mins)

about 49 hours each

• £10,000 increase in female’s wage —> 2 hours less housework per week

Girls average 5x as much housework as boys, but boys are given more money.

Symmetrical families

Young and Wilmott, Functionalists

• used questionnaires to research the domestic division of labour within 6000 families in East London.

• significant shift in conjugal roles in traditional nuclear families.

• concluded there had been a march of progress within the DDOL.

Social changes within the family were first occuring in the upper class. They then became seen as the norm as the pattern of change filtered down through the middle class and then the working class.

Reasons for change from segregated to integrated roles

1. more money- increase in male wages and rising number of women entering paid employment

2. working conditions- decreasing male mortality rate combined with lower unemployment rate

3. geographic mobility- families are moving around more which means there is a weaker support network.

4. less children- enables wives to get a job so more income equality.

5. living standards- men more likely to spend time with family due to increasing entertainment tech at home.

Elizabeth Bott

• most important factor influencing whether couples have segregated or integrated roles was the social network of friends, kin and acquaintances built up by each partner before marriage.

• tight knit support network in regular contact teases them from drifting from traditional segregated roles.

• nuclear family is more geographically mobile meaning social networks are weaker so there is more reliance on the partners in the relationship which leads to more integration.

Commercialisation of housework

Commercialisation- process of managing or running something for financial gain e.g. the way housework has been changed by capitalists who have tried to make money from it

Silver and Schor, Feminists

• new technological goods and services that women can purchase to reduce the amount of time they need to spend of domestic labour

• technological goods: e.g. ring doorbell, smart fridge, microwave, robot hoover

  • makes housework less time consuming and easier

  • less skills needed- encourages men and children to do more

• services- cut down on the amount of time required for everyday tasks e.g. shop online

  • 80% of British families say they regularly shop online

  • top purchases for women- food, clothes, medicine- which all benefit wider family

• claim that the commercialisation of housework has led to the “death of the housewife”

  • women who are working or live with middle class male breadwinners can afford services and goods meaning housework is reduced

  • middle class women trap working class women in a “burden of pain” by paying them to take over the domestic duties they either don’t have time for or do not want to do.

The Double Shift

Feminists reject Young and Wilmott’s claim of the nuclear family being symmetrical with more integrated roles and argue that a rise in female employment has not been met with a rise in male domestic work. Therefore, inequality has increased as working women are still expcted to do domestic tasks so now they have to do a double shift.

2008, British Social attitudes survey

• 75% of mothers do most of the cooking for their children.

• 40% of British men felt that housework was a “woman’s job”.

• 20% of men admitted they never cleaned

  → housework was found to be the second largest cause of domestic disagreements.

Arlie Hochschild, second shift

Working women still end up taking on the role of housewife. All women experience a period of full time housework, some only return to part time work when their youngest child starts school.

• used systematic sampling in the Fortune 500 (every 13th person in each company)

• married couples who both worked with children under 6

• non-participant overt observation with interviews- more believable data than Young + Wilmott

  → women better at multitasking

  → happier families when they shared second shift

  → workplace is designed for men with stay at home wives

Ann Oakley, feminist

Families cannot be symmetrical due to the double shift- reject Young and Wilmott’s claim that there has been a march of progress within the family for women. Argues that Y+W overexaggerated the contributions men were making- when men did choose to help, it was by selecting the fun and simple tasks, so women had no choice but to do everything else.

Factor Act, 1847- the housewife role became cemented as it excluded women from the workplace and confined them to a life within the home.

Duncombe and Marsden, triple shift

Women have to take on emotional work required to keep a family together e.g. mediator

• after separation/ divorce- 1/3 of men have little contact with kids, 1/8 no contact

Unpaid domestic work

Stephen Edgell- women only had sole responsibility for decisions in relatively unimportant areas e.g. decoration, food, kids clothes. men are more likely to have final say on the most important decisions e.g. moving house, taking out loans

Consequences of inequality

Women’s continuing responsibility for housework and childcare means that their career suffers which holds back their earning power.

Working women are limited in the jobs and hours they can do e.g. still have to take responsibility for the housework and be home to pick up kids from school.

Means women struggle to progress in careers or gain more qualifications.

Caroline Garrell- highly qualified women are discriminated against after returning to work after maternity leave.

• nicknamed Jelly Heads

• have to accept lower status downgraded postions

• do not fight it as could face further labelling and discrimination

42% of women in paid employment are part time (12% for men)

Radical feminists- men are the main people who benefit as the inequalities are due to the patriarchy. the family reinforces and reproduces male domination.

Marxist feminists- capitalism benefits as women provide free work and consume goods and services

The Dark Side of the Family

Feminists are often critical of Functionalists and the New Right as those view the nuclear family as the most desirable.

Feminists argue that families are patriarchal with an imbalance of power that disadvantages women. The cumulative effects of inequality manifest into the dark side of the family which challenges the idealised view of the cereal packet family stereotype.

Due to the private nature of the family, accurate evidence on the extent of violence and abuse within the family is difficult to obtain, and fear/ shame means that many incidents are covered up.

Primarily women and children are on the receiving end, and men are the main perpetrators.

Domestic abuse

Fran Ansley, Marxist Feminist

• women are “takers of shit” as being a housewife involves absorbing the frustration their husband feels due to alienation/ exploitation at work.

• instead of men’s anger being aimed at capitalism, women suffer domestic abuse and violence.

• on average: female victims suffer 35 assaults over 7 years before informing government agency.

Forced marriage- face physical pressure to marry (threats, violence) or emotional and psychological pressure- illegal in the UK,

• 2023, marriage and civil partnership minimum age act- 16 → 18

• 2019: 80% of victims female

• 2021: 22 million people living in a forced marriage

Marital rape

• before 1992, forced sexual activity within marriage was not illegal

• the wife was considered to have provided onoing consent through the contract of marriage

• 1991: R vs R changed marital rape law

  • man was convicted for raping wife

  • House of Lords unanimously decided to overwhelm existing law

- women cannot be charged with comitting rape (penil penetration), but that is sexual assault or coercion