Couples Flashcards
The domestic division of labour
Roles men and women play in relation to housework, paid work and children,
Parsons : Expressive role
The woman usually plays the expressive role, geared towards socialisng the children and maintaining a family home and environment
Parsons : instrumental role
This role is played by the man, he is geared towards being the breadwinner and he places this above all else. Chasing success
Parsons : instrumental role
This role is played by the man, he is geared towards being the breadwinner and he places this above all else. Chasing success
Criticism of Parsons roles
- Young and Willmott argue more men are taking roles in domestic work as are women taking on paid work
- Feminists argue that the divide is not natural, and it only benefits the men
Bott : Segregated conjugal roles
Where the man and women have seperate roles like Parsons suggests and they also have seperate leisure activites
Bott : Joint conjugal roles
Where the couple shares tasks such as housework and paid work, also spending leisure time together.
The symmetrical family
Young and Willmott take a march of progress view arguing that roles are becoming much more similar between the husband and wife.
- women now work
- men help with childcare
- couples spend leisure time together
Feminist view of housework
They argue nothing has changed and men and women are still seperate in their conjugal roles.
Oakley argues Y&W claims are exaggerated and mens ‘help’ around the home may be seen as making breakfast once a week.
only 15% of hubands had a high level of pp in the home
March of progress view
Men are becoming more involved
Gershurny argues that the increase of women going into paid work leads to a more equal divide of labour in the home, he found these women do less housework in comparison to others.
Sullivan found a trend of men doing more work in the home compared to women doing a smaller share
Feminist view
Still little sign of the new man who equally shares housework
- British Social Attitude Survey shows that men did around 8 hours of housework a week in comparison to women who did around 13
- Men and women are still likely to spit chores based on gender roles. Women are more likely to do the laundry and men are more likely to fix lights etc
Taking responsibility for children
Although men may perform specific childcare tasks it is still usually the mother who takes resp for childs health and wellbeing
- Ferri and Smith found 4% of fathers took resp for child
- Dex and Ward found although fathers played w children when it came to nurturing a sick child only 1% of dads did
Emotion work and triple shift
Marsden argues women have to perform a triple shift of domestic work, emotion work and paid work
- Emotion work being them having to mediate family issues, and ensuring all are content
Taking responsibility for quality time
Southerton argues the responsibility of organising family quality time also lies to mothers.
Also men usually experience blocks of uniterrupted leisure time compared to women whos leisure time is taken up by childcare.
Cultural explanation of inequality
Divison is based on patriarchal roles and values.
Women perform more domestic work simply because that is what society has socialised them to do
Material explanation for inequality
Men earn more then women so it is seen as rational for women to complete domestic tasks while men spend more time earning money to provide
Evidence for cultural reason behind inquality
- Gershurny found that those who had parents who had equally divided were more likely to do so themselves as they were socialised into this
- Dunne found lesbian couples had more equal division as they had no gender roles to comply to
Evidence for material explanation of inequality
- Kan found for every £10,000 more a woman earnt a year, she did 2 hours less housework a week
- Sullivan found working full-time rather then part-time makes the biggest difference in how much domestic work each partner does
Money management
Pahl and Vogler
-Allowance system where women have to budget to meet family needs and the man keeps his surplus income for himself
- Pooling where both partners have access to an account and have joint resp for expenditure
Decision making
Where pooled income is controlled by the husband it gives them more control enabling them to make the major financial decisions
Pahl and Voler found even where there was pooling men made the major financial decisons
Edgell found
- very important decisions such as moving home were made by husband
- important such as holidays were made by wife
- not inporant such as shopping were made by wife
Why do men make decisions
Feminists argue that men make the dscisons as we are socialised into the view that men are the decison makers
Common view of domestic violence
That it is the work of a few disturbed individuals in society
Critisisms of DV being a few disturbed ind
- Too widespread, Womens Aid say DV accounts for between 1/6 and 1/4 of all crime.
- Doesnt occur randomly and followes pattersn, eg its usually men
What may trigger DV
Dobash and Dobash Men seeing challenges to their authority eg wife asking why they are home late
Gender gap of DV
7.5% of women
5% of men
but other studies suggest a wider gap
Wallby and allen suggest women are more likely to be victims of abuse
Offical statistics of DV
Official stats may underestimate
- Victims may be unwilling to report to police. Yearnshire found a woman usually takes 35 instances before reporting it to police
- Police may be reluctant to record and prosecute add according to Cheal this is due ot them bienng reluctant to get involved in the family as they see it as a private sphere, they see the family as a good institute so they ignore the darker sides and also they assume the woman has free will to leave.
Explanations of DV
Radical feminist explanation
They see marriage and the family as the key sources of oppression of women.
They see DV as an inevitable factor of patriarchal society and argue it upholds the power men have over women. This helps to explain why most perpetrators are men.
Male domination of the state and police allows us to understand their reluctance in intervening
Evaluation of radical femininst explanations
Elliot rejects this view and argues all men are not violent and aggressive and most oppose DV.
They fail to exxplain female violence, and violence in lesbian relationships
They argue women are more likely to be at risk but they fail to identify which women. Office for National Stats ststes some women are more likely to be at risk
- young
- high levels of alc/drug consumption
- low income
This also applies to men
Material explanation for DV
Focuses on economic and material factors such as inquality in income and housing.
Inequality ,eand some families have fewer resources then others. Low income or in substandard housing are at greater risk of DV due to higher levels of stress due to worries about money and lack of time.
Evaluation for materialist explanation of DV
Those in lower classes face higher levels of stress triggering conflict and violence
However wilkinson and pickett dont explain why women are more at risk
Marxist feminists view on DV
Result of inequality, men are frustrated due to being exploited at work and take this out on their wives.
Fails to explain why all male workers dont resort to this.
