Domestic labour and gender roles

Question 1

What is patriarchy?

Answer 1

Male dominated society

Question 2

What are conjugal roles?

Answer 2

Roles within marriage

Question 3

What are two types of conjugal roles?

Answer 3

Identified by Elizabeth Bott
Joint - the couple shares housework and childcare
Segregated - the couple have separate roles e.g. man breadwinner and woman housewife

Question 4

What is double shift?

Answer 4

Women having paid work and also doing most of the housework

Question 5

What is triple shift?

Answer 5

Women in paid work, doing most of the housework and dealing with the emotional support of the family

Question 6

What is the Functionalist and NR view on housework?

Answer 6

Argue that it is ‘natural’ for women to be housewives and men breadwinners. They say both jobs are important but it makes more sense for women to be housewives and mothers because they are nurturing while men are more suited to be breadwinners.

Question 7

Who talks about the symmetrical family?

Answer 7

Young and Willmott

Question 8

What did Young and Willmott’s book on the symmetrical family show?

Answer 8

By the 1970s roles in the family between husbands and wives had become more symmetrical.

Question 9

What is Young and Willmott’s evidence for the arrival of the New Man?

Answer 9

From their sample they found that 72% of men did housework other than washing up during the week.

Question 10

What view do Young and Willmott take?

Answer 10

A march of progress view to relationships between husbands and wives - they take an optimistic view on relationships in the family.

Question 11

Why does Oakley disagree with Young and Willmott and what did she find out?

Answer 11

As it was just one minor task the men had to complete.
Her research showed that 15% of husbands had a high level of participation in housework, and only 25% had a high level of participation in childcare.

HOWEVER, her sample was based on 40 married women, so may not be representative.

Question 12

What did Dunne find?

Answer 12

Equality in lesbian households. She examined 37 cohabiting lesbian couples and found that they were more likely to share housework and childcare responsibilities.

Question 13

What did a more recent study from Boulton show?

Answer 13

She found that less than 20% of the husbands took a major childcare role (confirmed Oakley’s findings)

Question 14

What is the problem with Dunne’s, Boulton’s and Oakley’s studies compared to The British Social Attitudes Surveys?

Answer 14

It is based on small samples. However studies with larger samples have been undertaken as part of the British Social Attitudes Survey

Question 15

What do The British Social Attitudes Surveys show?

Answer 15

Show that women do most of the housework and childcare, and men are more likely to do household repairs but they show a trend overtime of men doing more, especially with childcare

Question 16

What did Lydia Morris study?

Answer 16

Families where the husband is unemployed and wife works.

Question 17

What did Lydia Morris find?

Answer 17

The unemployed men in her sample did little more housework than before they lost their jobs because they felt that their masculinity was threatened by being unemployed, and to do housework would further emasculate them.

Question 18

What did Gershunny find?

Answer 18

Women are still responsible for the majority of housework and childcare. However, wives who work full time do less housework than housewives - men compensate for their wives working by doing more around the house.

Question 19

What did Man-Yee Kan find?

Answer 19

• women in full time employment spent nearly 12 hrs a week on housework and were responsible for 65% of the household chores
• the more a woman earned the less housework she did; every £10,000 increase in the woman’s annual salary reduced her weekly housework time by nearly 2 hrs.
• if both partners had uni degrees there was more equality than in less qualified couples
• commercialisation of housework - paying other people to do your housework for you.

Question 20

What did Edgell find about decision making?

Answer 20

Men are far more likely to make the important decisions e.g. moving house and finances, and women the less important decisions.

Question 21

What did a more recent study by Hardill show?

Answer 21

Showed some evidence of more equal decision-making taking place between middle class couples.

Question 22

What did Pahl do?

Answer 22

Interviewed 102 couples who both earned.

Question 23

What did Pahl find?

Answer 23

She found that in most couples (39) money was shared, but the husband had financial control (husband-controlled pooling) most likely in higher income households.

Another common arrangement (27) was wife controlled pooling where money was shared but the wife controlled spending .

The least likely arrangement was when the woman controlled spending (14). Pahl didn’t find any real evidence of symmetry when it comes to financial equality.

Question 24

Why do men tend to dominate decision making?

Answer 24

• men tend to earn more money than women
• for some ethnic minority groups, traditionally men make decisions
• men may feel that their masculinity is threatened if they don’t make decisions
• some feminists argue that women are socialised to be passive

Question 25

Who talks about domestic violence?

Answer 25

Radical feminists Dobash and Dobash

Question 26

What did Dobash and Dobash do/find?

Answer 26

They interviewed female victims of domestic violence who had left their abusive partners and escaped to refuge. Dobash and Dobash argued women do not report most incidents out of fear.

Question 27

What did Kirkwood argue?

Answer 27

Domestic violence causes psychological damage too. This includes low self esteem, depression, anxiety and stress.

Question 28

What does the home office state?

Answer 28

States domestic violence accounts for 16% of all violent crime, has more repeat victims than any other crime, claims the life of 2 women each week and 30 men per year, is the largest cause of morbidity (sickness) worldwide in women aged 19-44 and will affect 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men in their lifetime.

Question 29

What do radical feminists argue?

Answer 29

Argue that domestic violence exists because society is patriarchal and will only stop when women become equal. Men may be more unwilling to report attacks than women because of embarrassment and fear they won’t be taken seriously.