Describing family relationships: conjugal roles Flashcards
How have family roles and relationships changed?
Families in the past have tended the notion of segregated or separated conjugal roles (husbands and wives had different roles).
Functionalists argued that men and women had naturally different roles:
-Men had instrumental roles because they took charge of family life.
-Women had expressive roles as they cared for family emotional life.
The expressive and instrumental roles emerged as women were squeezed out of the world of work following industrialisation.
Factory acts excluded children from the work place, making them and women financially dependant on men.
Women began to return to work after WW2 but usually as an extension of their caregiving role.
How has the role of women changed?
Social changes meant that women started to take on more jobs outside of the home.
Parsons suggests that women can express themselves emotionally through caring for families.
Willmott and Young saw that more men were getting involved in the home, but still saw domestic labour as the job of women.
Devine found that men started to work more in the home, but because it was necessary, not because they wanted to.
Feminists such as Oakley saw housework as oppressive and dissatisfying.
Have relationships become more equal?
Wilmott and Young (march of progress view) argued that relationships are becoming more equal. They used large scale research to argue that families are now home centred and men are much more involved with domestic life.
Gershuny discussed a lagged adaptation, when women work full time, men’s contribution to domestic work increased gradually.
Silver and Schor’s ‘commercialisation of housework’ finds that labour saving devices have meant that women have more time and relationships are becoming more equal.
In a postmodern society, there’s greater flexibility in relation to roles. Globalisation has led to greater number of multicultural families with varying views on roles and relationships.
Have relationships not become more equal?
Oakley (a liberal feminist) disagreed with W&Y, arguing that women experience a ‘dual burden’ and struggle to fulfil domestic and paid work.
Dunscombe and Marsden argue that women experience a triple shift (paid, emotional and domestic work).
Dobash and Dobash’s ‘power relationships’ found that 1 in 4 women experience domestic violence.
Edgell found that men continue to take serious decisions in the family while women continue to make minor decisions.
Pahl and Vogler argue that men still control money as they tend to earn more but there’s an increasing number of pool finances.
