4.1 : Couples

Question 1

Define INSTRUMENTAL Role

Answer 1

• Husbands Role
• Breadwinner
• Provide Financially for the Family

Question 2

Define EXPRESSIVE Role

Answer 2

• Primary Socialises Children
• Meets Families Emotional Needs
• Homemaker/Carer/Housewife

Question 3

Give Two Criticisms of Parsons

Answer 3

• Feminists argue it only benefits men

- Young and Willmott argue that men are now taking a greater share of domestic tasks and wives are becoming wage earners

Question 4

Who would Support Parsons?

Answer 4

New Right

Question 5

Define SEGREGATED Conjugal Roles

Answer 5

Coupes have separate roles:
-men are breadwinners
-women are carers/homemakers
And leisure time is separate

Question 6

Define JOINT Conjugal Roles

Answer 6

Couples share tasks and spend their leisure time together

Question 7

Which social class is more like to have segregated Conjugal Roles according to YandW?

Answer 7

Working Class

Question 8

What’s the ‘March of Progress’ view

Answer 8

Family gradually improving for all its members

Question 9

Three Characteristics of a SYMMETRICAL FAMILY

Answer 9

• Women Work
• Men help with housework and childcare
• Couples spend leisure time together

Question 10

Four Social Changes that have encouraged the rise in Symmetrical Families

Answer 10

• Changes in a woman’s position
• Geographical Mobility
• New Technology and Labour Saving Devices
• Higher standards of living

Question 11

Outline Ann Oakley (1974)

Feminist perspective

Answer 11

• Rejects march of progress view because she believes little has changed
• Claims Y and W exaggerate their claims
• Found:
  • 15% (husbands) high level of participation in housework
  • 25% (husbands) high level participation in childcare

Husbands = Childcare>Housework
Meant mothers lose the rewards of childcare such as playing

Question 12

What did Mary Boulton (1983) find in relation to men’s involvement in childcare?

Answer 12

Less that’s 20% had a major role in childcare

Question 13

Two examples of sex-typing tasks (Warde and Hetherington, 1993)

Answer 13

• wives were 30x more like to be the last person to have done the washing
• husbands were 4x more likely to be the last person to have washed the car

Question 14

What trend did Oriel Sullivan (2000) find over 1975, 1987 and 1997?
March of Progress Perspective

Answer 14

• Woman doing smaller share of domestic work and men doing more
• Increase in the number of couples with an equal division of labour
• Men are participating in more traditional womans tasks

Question 15

In what type of couple is domestic wok more equally shared and most unequally shared?

Answer 15

find out.

Question 16

Which of the tasks are always/usually undertaken by men or women? And how does this support woman having a dual burden?
Feminist Perspective

Answer 16

Men: 8 hours a week
- making repairs around the house
- 
Women: 13 hours a week
- laundry
- cleaning
- meals
- looking after ill members

ans dual burden

Question 17

Feminist, Boulton Supported by

• Ferri and Smith
• Dex and Ward
• Braun, Vincent and Ball

Answer 17

Ferri and Smith
- In less than 4% of families men took responsibility for childcare

Dex and Ward
- fathers had high involvement with their three year olds, 78% played with their kid but only 1% took responsibility when their child was ill

Braun, Vincent and Ball
- In 3 out of the 70 families studied, fathers were the main caregiver. Most were background fathers.

Question 18

Define ‘emotion work’

Arlie Hochschild

Answer 18

Females responsible for managing emotions and feelings of family members. Whilst also managing their own.
Eg. Handling jealousies and squabbles between siblings to ensue everyone is happy

Question 19

Whats Triple Shift

Jean Duncombe and Dennis Masden

Answer 19

Woman have to perform:

• housework
• paid work
• emotion work

Question 20

According to Southerton, why do mothers today face greater difficulties in trying to organise quality time?

Answer 20

Copy book

Question 21

How do men and womens leisure time differ

Answer 21

They have similar leisure time but different experiences

eg, men have solid time where as women’s break is interrupted with childcare

Question 22

The cultural or ideological explanation for the gender division of labour

Answer 22

the division of labour is determined by patriarchal norms and values that shape gender roles in our culture.
women perform more domestic labour simply because that’s is what society expects tem to do and has allowed them to do

Question 23

The material or economic explanation for the gender division of labour

Answer 23

the fact that women earn less than men means it s economically rational for woman to do more housework and childcare while men spend more of their time earning money.

Question 24

Evidence for cultural explanation for the gender division of labour

• Gershuny
• Man Yee Kan
• British Social Attitudes Survey
• Gillian Dunne

Answer 24

Gershuny
- couples whose parents are more equal are more likely to share housework more equally themselves. this suggest parental role models are important. Social values are gradually adapting to the fact that woman are now working full time, making it a new norm for men to do domestic work

Man Yee Kan
- younger men do more domestic work. In the Future Foundation, most men claim to do more housework than their fathers and women claim to do less than their mothers. Generational shift in behaviour is occurring.

British Social Attitudes Survey
- long term change in attitudes, norms and values shows the change in gender socialisation of younger groups more in favour of equal relationships.

Gillian Dunne
- lesbian couples had more of a symmetrical family because of absence of traditional heterosexual genders scripts

Question 25

Define Gender Scripts

Answer 25

norms that set out the different gender roles men and woman are expected to play

Question 26

Evidence for the material explanation for the gender division of labour - Sara Arber and Jay Ginn - Man Yee Kan - Xavier Ramos - Oriel Sullivan

Answer 26

``` Sara Arber and Jay Ginn - better pain middle class woman were more able to buy in commercially produced products and services such as, ready meals, domestic help, childcare, and labour saving devices, rather than doing it themselves ``` Man Yee Kan - for every £10,000 a year woman earn, means 2 hours less of housework per week Xavier Ramos - where the woman is the full time breadwinner, the man is unemployed and does as much domestic work as the woman Oriel Suliivan - working full time rather than part time makes the biggest difference in terms on how much domestic work each partner does which could be due to earnings being closer to their partners

Question 27

What three points do Barett and Mcintosh make about family resources?

Answer 27

- Men gain more from womans domestic work than they give back financially - The financial support that husbands to their wives is often unpredictable and comes with strings attached - Men usually make the decision's about spending in important items

Question 28

The two money management systems by Pahl and Vogler

Answer 28

The Allowance System - men give their wives a budget to meet the families needs, with the man retaining any surplus income for himself Pooling - both partners have access to income and joint responsibility e.g. a joint bank account

Question 29

Edgells three types of decisions and who tends to make them and why

Answer 29

Very Important Decision's: those involving finance, change of job or moving house - husband or joint but man has final say Important Decisions: those about childrens education or where to go for holiday - jointly or wife alone Less Important Decisions: choice of home décor, childrens clothes or food purchases -wife alone the reason for this is because men earn more and woman earn less and therefore dependent on them economically and have less say in decisions making. However, evidence has been found woman who were well qualified and high earning were me likely to have equal say.

Question 30

How do feminists explain the differences in decision making?

Answer 30

It's instilled through gender socialisation

Question 31

An example of where polling may not mean inequality

Answer 31

One partner may earn more than the other

Question 32

Why may same sex couples couples have different arrangements from heterosexual couples in relation to money? Personal Life Perspective on Money

Answer 32

there is evidence that same-sex couples often give a different meaning to the control of money in the relationship. Smart found that some gay men and lesbians attached no importance to who controlled the money and were perfectly happy to leave this to their partners. They did not see the control of money as meaning either equality or inequality in the relationship.

Question 33

Define Domestic Violence

Answer 33

Any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive or threatening behaviour violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are or have been intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality.

Question 34

Why do sociologists reject the view that domestic violence has psychological rather than social causes?

Answer 34

- Domestic violence is far too widespread to be simply the work of a few disturbed individuals. According to the Women's Aid Federation (2014), domestic violence accounts for between a sixth and a quarter of all recorded violent crime. The Crime Survey for England and Wales (2013) found that two million people reported having been victims of domestic abuse during the previous year. - Domestic violence does not occur randomly but follows particular social patterns and these patterns have social causes. The most striking of these patterns is that i is mainly violence by men against women. For example, Kathryn Coleman et al (2007) found that women were more likely than men to have experienced 'intimate violence' across all four types of abuse partne abuse, family abuse, sexual assault and stalking. According to Coleman and Osborne (2010), two women a week or one third of all female homicide victims are killed by a partner or former partner.

Question 35

According to Dobash and Dobash, how does marriage legitimate domestic violence?

Answer 35

By conferring power and authority in husbands and dependency on wives. They found violence could be set off by what a husband saw as a challenge to his authority.

Question 36

What do the three following studies show about Domestic Violence? - Sylvia Wally and Jonathan Allan - Donna Ansara and Michelle Hindin - Aaliyah Dar

Answer 36

Sylvia Wally and Jonathan Allan - found women were much more likely to be victims incidents abuse and sexual violence Donna Ansara and Michelle Hindin - found women suffered more severe violence and control, with more serious psychological effects. They also fo women were much more likely than men to be fearful of their partners. Aliyah Dar - points out that it can also be difficult to count separate domestic violence incidents because abuse may be continuous (for example, living under constant threat), or may occur so often that the victim cannot reliably count the instances

Question 37

Give Two Main Reasons why Official Statistics understate the true extent of DV?

Answer 37

1. Victims may be unwilling to report it to the police - Stephanie Yearnshire found that on average a woman suffers 35 assaults before making a report. Victims may be reluctant to report the offence because they believe it is not the matter for the police or is to trivial. 2. police and prosecutors may be reluctant to record, investigate or prosecute those cases that are reported to them because is because they're not prepared to become involved in family life

Question 38

What 3 Assumptions do police make about family life which makes the reluctant to get involved in DV?

Answer 38

* the family is a private sphere, so access to it by agencies should be limited * the family is a good thing and so agencies tend to neglect the 'darker side' of family life * individuals are free agents, so it is assumed that if a woman is experiencing abuse she is free to leave

Question 39

How do Radical Feminists explain DV? Sociological Explanation

Answer 39

* see family and marriage as key institutions in patriarchal society and the main source of woman's oppression. Within family, men dominate woman through DV or the threat of it * believe it's inevitable in patriarchal society and serves to preserve the power that all men have over all woman * in their view, this helps to explain why most domestic violence is committed by men * male domination of state institutions helps to explain the reluctance of the police am courts to deal effectively with cases of domestic violence

Question 40

evaluation of the radical feminist POV of DV

Answer 40

* Elliot (1996) rejects the radical feminist claim that all men benefit from violence against omen. Not all men are aggressive and most are opposed to domestic violence. Radical feminists ignore this. * also fail to explain female violence including child abuse by women and violence against male partners and within lesbian relationships * don't explain which woman are most likely to be victims of DV e.g. Race, Class, Age

Question 41

Materialist explanation for DV

Answer 41

• focuses on economic and material factors such as inequalities in income and housing to explain why some groups are more at risk than others. E.g. Wilkinson and Pickett (2010) see domestic violence as the result of stress on family members caused by social inequality. • Inequality means that some families have fewer resources than others. Those on low incomes or living in overcrowded accommodation are likely to experience higher levels of stress. This reduces their chances of maintaining stable, caring relationships and increases the risk of conflict and violence. For example: * worries about money, jobs and housing may spill over into domestic conflict as tempers become frayed * lack of money and time restricts people's social circle and reduces social support for those under stress. • not all people are equally in danger of DV

Question 42

Evaluation of the materialist explanation of DV

Answer 42

* do not explain woman rather then men are the main victims | * Ansley : woman are takers of shit