8. Couples Flashcards
DOMESTIC DIVISION OF LABOUR:
Parsons Instrumental and Expressive roles
Instrumental role is to achieve success at work, provide financial support and is the breadwinner (father)
Expressive role is primary socialisation, meeting the family’s emotional needs and is the home-maker (mother)
DOMESTIC DIVISION OF LABOUR:
Parsons criticism
Young and Wilmington argue that this view is outdated as men are now taking more roles up in childcare and more women are working
Feminists reject his view as its patriarchal
DOMESTIC DIVISION OF LABOUR:
Joint and Segregated Roles - Bott
Segregate - where the coupe have separate roles like breadwinner and home-maker
Joint - where the couple shares tasks like housework and childcare
DOMESTIC DIVISION OF LABOUR:
The Symmetrical Family
Young and Wilmott
They have a March of Progress view and argue there’s been a long term trend away from separated roles, a joint role family is called a symmetrical family
DOMESTIC DIVISION OF LABOUR:
Feminist view of housework
They argue little has changed in society and it’s still unequal
15% of husbands help with housework and 25% with childcare
Husbands who did share childcare only took part in the pleasurable acts
ARE COUPLES MORE EQUAL:
1. The Impact of Paid Work
For:
Gershunt found in families where the wife works full time husbands do more domestic labour
Sullivan collected data on domestic labour over time and found a trend of women doing less when employed and men doing more
ARE COUPLES MORE EQUAL:
1. The Impact of Paid Work
Against:
British Social Attitudes survey in 2013 found little sign of men, women carry out a dual burden of paid and unpaid labour
BSA’s said couples divided household tasks on traditional gender views eg women look after sick relatives
ARE COUPLES MORE EQUAL:
2. Taking responsibility for children
Women take the main responsibility
Boulton found women takes most responsibility and his view is supported by a number of studies:
Brown/Vincent/Ball found 3 in the 70 families they studied had a father as the main carer
Dex/Ward found that <19% of fathers took care of sick children
Men take the fun and desirable tasks
ARE COUPLES MORE EQUAL:
3. Taking responsibility for quality time
Coordinating quality time is usually done by mothers
RESOURCES/ DECISION MAKING:
Who makes financial decisions
men
RESOURCES/ DECISION MAKING:
Money Management
1) Allowance - women get allowances out of which they meet the families needs
2) Pooling - both partners have access to the income - shared bank accounts
RESOURCES/ DECISION MAKING:
Decision Making
Financial decisions are made by men and childcare and household decisions are made jointly
RESOURCES/ DECISION MAKING:
Cultural Explanation
Inequality is due to patriarchal society we learn through socialisation
RESOURCES/ DECISION MAKING:
Personal Life
Focus on meanings that couples give to control the money
Smart found same sex couples often give different meaning to the control of money
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE:
Domestic is too wide spread to be what?
Too fare wide spread to simply be the work of a few disturbed individuals - according to the women’s aid federation domestic violence accounts for between 1/6 and 1/4 of all recorded violent crime
