Conjugal roles, power & domestic labour

Question 1

What did Elizabeth Bott define

Answer 1

segregated conjugal roles

joint conjugal roles

Question 2

segregated conjugal roles

Answer 2

seperate

female = carer/homemaker
male = breadwinner (earner/provider)

Question 3

joint conjugal roles

Answer 3

couples share housework, childcare and leisure time

Question 4

what did Talcott parsons say about the husband

Answer 4

instrumental role - causes stress and anxiety

breadwinner

Question 5

what did Talcott Parsons say about the wife

Answer 5

expressive role - provides warmth, security and emotional support

believed women should take on the role of looking after their children as women’s biology meant they could give birth and breastfeed

Question 6

criticisms of Parsons’ view on the domestic division of labour

Answer 6

archaic
ignorant
focuses solely on nuclear families

Question 7

what view point did Willmott and Young write from

Answer 7

Neo-functionalism

Question 8

Willmott and Young’s Symmetrical Family (1973)

• what research did they base their ideas off

Answer 8

interviewing working class families
- firstly in the 1950’s in Bethnal Green
– at this time there were more trad gender roles
-1970’s in another part of London
–interviewed couples and found that relationships had become more equal

Question 9

key features of The Symmetrical Family (1973)

Answer 9

women are more likely to be in paid work
increasingly similar conjugal roles of
decisions about the family are mainly shared
72% of husbands help in the house
men help to raise children more

Question 10

what societal changes have occurred to create The Symmetrical Family

Answer 10

Geographical Mobility

Higher standards of living

New Technology (e.g. labour saving devices)

changes in women’s position (employment)

Question 11

which feminist criticised Willmott and Young

Answer 11

Ann Oakley

Question 12

what was Ann Oakleys criticism on W & Y

Answer 12

men only had to carry out 1 task in the home or with the children to be classed as helping their wives and showing symmetry in the relationship

Question 13

what research went into the housewife study (1974)

Answer 13

interviewed 40 women with children under 5

interviews were unstructured and indepth

Question 14

findings of the housewife study (1974)

Answer 14

wives saw housework as their responsibility and received little or no help from their husbands

husbands may take the children to leisure activity

Question 15

events that lead to the development of the housewife role

Answer 15

industrialisation - laws introduced for children to stop working meaning that women had to stay home and look after the children

male workers at times fought for their right to work over and above women’s rights

Victorian ideology stated ‘a woman’s place was in the home.’

Question 16

Gershuny (1994)

Answer 16

found that women do the majority of housework and childcare, but wives who work full time in paid employment do less

still a long way from symmetrical

‘lagged adaptation’ - mens roles have changed more slowly than women’s but that eventually they would catch up

‘march of progress’ to greater equality in the home in terms of the division of labour

Question 17

weaponized incompetence

• feminist idea

Answer 17

deliberate use of incompetence or the feigning of ignorance as a strategy to maintain traditional gender power dynamics and resist gender equality

Question 18

Kan (2001)

Answer 18

Oxford Uni Researcher
surveyed 2000 couples
concluded that men pay lip service to equal rights in the home whilst letting women do 3 quarters of the household chores

women in sample - 18 hours per week
men in sample - 6 hours per week

women who were younger, educated, high earners did substantially less than women in lower paid work

higher income gave women more bargaining power

Question 19

who did kan Survey

Answer 19

2000 couples

Question 20

what was Kan’s findings

Answer 20

women do 3/4 of the household chores
women - 18+ hours a week
men - 6

higher income gave women more bargaining power

higher income women did less housework than those on a lower income

Question 21

what did Kan’s study not include

Answer 21

childcare

Question 22

Findings from Xavier Ramos’ (2003) study

Answer 22

women in his sample did 4 times more work than men in british households

men - 5 1/2 hours per week
women - 19 hours per week

when both work full time they spend a similar amount doing a combination of paid employment and unpaid labour

when women work part time and their husband woeks full time, - their total workload is 13 hours more

Question 23

What was Xavier Ramos’ (2003) sample size

Answer 23

5,500 households

Question 24

British Social Attitudes Survey (2013) - what does this survey do

Answer 24

finds out the british public’s attitudes to social issues every few years

Question 25

What has the British Social Attitudes survey (2013) shown about the change in attitudes to gender roles

Answer 25

shown a long-term change in attitudes towards gender roles and domestic work over time

most people now do not believe in a traditional gendered division of labour

younger men do more housework and childcare than previous generations

clear trend towards gender equality

Question 26

What is the cultural or ideological explanation for inequality?

Answer 26

division of domestic labour is not rational or based on economics but is based on dominant ideas about gender roles. women do more housework and childcare because it is what society expects

Question 27

what is the material or economic explanation for inequality

Answer 27

the division of labour exists because women tend to earn less than men and so it makes sense for men to devote more time to increasing the household income

this leads to economic dependency

Question 28

evidence for the material explanation of inequality

Answer 28

The gender pay gap - the difference in hourly earnings of men and women as a percentage of the average earning of male workers

2016 - gender pay gap was 9.4%

part time work - women earned more than men

Question 29

Mary Boulton’s study

Answer 29

measuring time spent on tasks is inadequate

women take responsibility for another person (their child) who is not fully responsible for themselves.

women regulate non-domestic aspects of their lives to lowest priority

Question 30

The Millennium cohort study

Answer 30

women took responsibility for sick children

solely responsible for a sick child:
women: 70% of time
men: 1% of time

Question 31

Braun, Vincent and Ball

(Braun et al.)

Answer 31

‘provider ideology’
men viewed childcare as mainly their partners role

men still believed it was their sole duty to carry out work

Question 32

Arlie Hoschild

Answer 32

emotion work - women have to perform emotion work where they are responsible for managing the emotions and feelings of family members

this can lead to compassion fatigue

Question 33

Duncombe and Marsden - sample size

Answer 33

40 couples

Question 34

Duncombe and Marsden - findings

Answer 34

women complained of men’s emotional distance

women felt they were the main ones to offer reassurance and tenderness

men showed little awareness of their shotcomings, seeing their main role as ‘breadwinner’

women often put children and husband’s feelings above their own

Question 35

Duncombe and Marsden - what is emotion work

Answer 35

the love, sympathy, understanding, praise, reassurance and attention which are involved in maintaining relationships

Question 36

Duncombe and Marsden - Triple shift

Answer 36

they argue women have to cope with the triple shift

• paid work
• domestic work
• emotional work

Question 37

Dale Southerton (2011) - what other responsibility did he argue that women had to organise

Answer 37

quality time

Question 38

what is quality time

Answer 38

time spent with someone where they are given your full attention because you value the relationship

Question 39

Dale Southerton (2011) - why is it more difficult for women to organise quality time nowadays

Answer 39

women are more pushed for time - employment & they already have the triple shift

men are likely to have blocks of uninterrupted leisure time for themselves

Question 40

What theory did Catherine Hakim put forward?

Answer 40

Preference Theory

Question 41

what year did Catherine Hakim put forward her study?

Answer 41

1996

Question 42

what did Catherine Hakim challenge (1996)

Answer 42

That women wanted to play a more active part in the workplace

many women wanted a more traditional set up and are happy to be full time housewives/mothers

‘five feminist myths’

Question 43

what was the name of the article that Catherine Hakim put forward?

Answer 43

‘Home is the housewives’ choice’

Question 44

Catherine Hakim’s statistics on whether women were work or family centred

Answer 44

20% work-centred
20% family centred
60% adaptive

Question 45

what might influence a women’s choice about work and childcare

Answer 45

feeling obliged to contribute to household chores

too much risk relying on a single breadwinner - job insecurity

full-time mother role is undervalued by society

in the absence of financial need, only 5% of mothers would choose to work full time hours

Question 46

What does Dunne argue about gender scripts and homosexual relationships? - include study details

Answer 46

studied 37 lesbian couples with dependant children

more likely to describe the relationship as equal and share housework and give the same importance to both parents as carers

this is because they were not under pressure to conform to gender scripts in the same way as heterosexual couples

Question 47

what did Pahl and Vogler study

Answer 47

how families make decisions regarding money

Question 48

Pahl and Vogler - when were the highest levels of marital satisfaction expressed

Answer 48

when joint finances were pooled and the wife had most control over managing them

Question 49

Pahl and vogler - when were the lowest levels of marital satisfaction expressed

Answer 49

when the husband controlled the finances

Question 50

Pahl (2004) - what did they examine

Answer 50

households where women earn more than men

Question 51

Pahl (2004) - findings

Answer 51

when women earn more than men, efforts will be made by the couple to understate it

a woman’s greater economic power leads to greater political power in the household

‘checking the bank statement correlates with power and decision making’

Question 52

Stephenj Edgell (1980) - who did his sample consist of

Answer 52

38 professional ‘middle-class’ couples

Question 53

Stephen Edgell (1980) - findings

Answer 53

important decisions made solely by the man or with the man having the final say (e.g. finances)

slightly less important decisions were joint (e.g. holidays)

less important decisions made by the woman (e.g. house decor)

Question 54

What did Gershuny (2000) find

Answer 54

70% of couples had an equal say in decisions

women who were higher earning professionals more likely to have equality

Question 55

Green et al. (1997) - findings

Answer 55

many decisions are not consciously made but assumed

often assumed that the man’s job is more important than the womans

Question 56

evidence to support Green et al.

Answer 56

1/3 of men change their jobs around the time of marriage to advance careers

around 2/3 of women change jobs at this time to lower status and lower paid jobs