Families and Households - Feminism Flashcards
1
Q
What is the role of family for feminists?
A
- The experience of family is different for men and women; the family benefits men more, with functionalists ignoring the way women suffer from the sexual division of labour in the family, with their responsibility for housework and childcare undermining their position in paid employment, through restricted working hours because of the need to provide childcare and look after the household
- Domestic labour serves the needs of a capitalist economy - the household tasks completed by women make the man in the family a more productive worker. By producing and rearing children, the future workers, with no cost to the employer, housewives play an important role in the reproduction of labour power
- Women do the majority of housework, even in modern society - the family is patriarchal, with men dominating the family relationships and the idea of balanced and equal roles in marriage being viewed as a myth by feminists (symmetrical conjugal roles)
- There are a lot of instances of sexual and domestic abuse of women in the family
2
Q
Ann Oakley - feminist views of the family
A
- Ann Oakley (Marxist Feminist) concluded from a study in 1974 where she observed 40 London housewives between the ages of 20-30 who had at least one child below the age of 5, studying housework from their perspective
- Oakley argued that housework should be understood as a job in its own right and not a natural extension of the role of women, and there undertaking of these domestic duties which are unpaid allows them to be exploited by capitalism to provide the needs of the male worker to continue doing their job to meet economical needs
3
Q
Oakley - conclusions
A
- Domestic duty has long been regarded natural for women (because they give birth) - however, Marx’s theory of male workers being exploited in paid employment can be equated to women’s exploitation in the home with ideology disguising this fact by presenting housework and domestic labour as natural for women but not worthy of a wage that understands the gravity of the role
- Oakley states that gender and the roles associated to it should reflect cultural and historical processes, rather than being tied to biology
- The role of women in the household is also reflective of the Marxist idea of alienation due to being unsatisfied with the monotonous, fragmented, repetitive, lonely, boring and pressured nature of their job, as well as being unhappy with the low status equated to being a housewife
4
Q
Oakley - conclusions cont.
A
- Oakley concluded through her studies that housewives report alienation more frequently that factory workers due to the sense of social isolation, as they gave up careers or marriage and have lost autonomy and control - not doing their domestic job will result in angry spouses and sad children
- Housework therefore prevents women reaching their full potential, and despite Oakley’s study being almost 40 years old, the findings are still applicable even with women continuing with paid employment
5
Q
Dual burden
A
- This is when women have to undertake unpaid domestic labour along with paid employment
- Triple shift - dual burden is done in conjugation with emotional work
- Men and women remain unequal within the family, women still do most of the housework.
- They see this inequality as stemming from the fact that the family and society are patriarchal (male dominated).
- They argue that the woman plays the subordinate role within the family and is exploited for free labour
- Ann Oakley argued this created more emotional strain that served men but oppressed women
- Feminists challenge Young and Willmott (1973) - They claim there is no march of Progress
6
Q
Key terms and Key People
A
Key Terms: Dual burden Triple shift Emotion work Symmetrical family Domestic labour Conjugal roles
Key theorists:
- Anne Oakley (Marxist Feminist)
- Hakim - rational choice theory
- Bott - joint/separate conjugal roles
- Duncombe and Marsden
- Jonathan Gershuny
7
Q
Ann Oakley - Sociology of Housework (1974)
A
- 20thC = separation of paid work from the home. Women were once a part of the workforce but were increasingly pushed out and have become increasingly dependant on men for financial support.
- She challenges Parsons’ argument that women are biological determined to play the expressive role. She argued that the housewife role has been socially constructed to be the women’s role.
- Full time housewives spent 77 hours per week on housework
- Criticised Wilmott and Young’s figure of 72% of men doing jobs, as these were usually inconsistent housework and small tasks
- 76% of employed and 93% of unemployed women are housewives
8
Q
Arguments for a dual burden
A
- Ann Oakley
- Office for National Statistics - 2016; women do 26 hours per week of domestic labour and men do 16 hours per week on average
- Many Feminist argue that, despite women working, there is little evidence of a ‘new man’; Ferri and Smith (1996) found that despite women’s employment increasing outside the family, this has not changed the division of labour in the family and they argue that women have simply acquired a dual burden of paid work and unpaid housework
- Lydia Morris (1990) found that even when a women works and her husband is unemployed, there is little evidence of men doing more at home. For example, if a men had lost their job and their wife worked, men avoided housework because they felt it was women’s work
- Radical feminists argue that Dunne’s study finds that women can only achieve equality in a same-sex relationship.
9
Q
Arguments that there is not a dual burden
A
- Elizabeth Bott (1957) - Joint and segregated conjugal roles, Clear differentiation between male/female roles - segregated shared/egalitarian roles - joint (Y&W observed joint conjugal roles)
- Warde and Hetherington (1993) - Sex-typing of domestic tasks E.g. men = DIY, garden, car, Women = cleaning house, cooking, laundry
- Jonathon Gershuny (1994 - 2008) - Women wanted to reduce time spent on unpaid work in favour of increased work hours (2008) and parents have a more equal relationship and share tasks more equally supporting the idea of a symmetrical family (1994), with women doing less domestic work (more equality with men)
- Commercialisation of Housework (Silver and Schor 1987 and 1993) argue the burden of housework on women has decreased. Schor even claims that the housewife role is dying out. Reasons:
1. Housework has become ‘commercialised’ – technology and services have reduced the amount of domestic labour that needs to be done.
2. Women working – families have become dual earners and now can afford goods and services which reduce housework. - Xavier Ramos (2003) found that in families where the man is not in paid work and his partner works full time, male domestic labour match that of his partner.
- Dunne (1999) - Studied 37 cohabiting same sex (female) couples with dependent children - no traditional ‘gender scripts’ = allows negotiation of roles finding far more equality and symmetrical roles in lesbian families
- Catherine Hakim - Feminists underestimate a woman’s ability to make rational choices. Some woman want to choose domesticity and take pride in housework and childcare - marriage bestows certain advantages on women - status, freedom from employment, economic security, opportunity to focus on raising children. (TradWives)
- Man-Yee Kan (2001) found income from employment, age and education affected how much housework women did - if they were younger, better educated and better paid they did less
10
Q
Jonathon Gershuny (2004 and 1994)
A
Women working full-time is leading to a more equal division of labour in the home. Gershuny found that wives who worked full-time did less domestic work.
- Wives who did not work completed 83% of the housework.
- Wives who worked part-time still did 82% of housework.
- Wives who worked full time did 73% of the housework.
- Couples whose parents had a more equal relationship were likely to be more equal themselves.
11
Q
Emotional Work
A
Definition – work whose main feature is the management of one’s own and other people’s emotions.
- Emotional work is usually seen as a ‘labour of love’ because it involves caring for other family members.
- Nevertheless, it is work, and work done mainly by women.
- Jean Duncombe and Denis Marsden (1995) argue that women are expected not only to do a double shift of both housework and paid work, but also to work a triple shift that includes emotional work.
12
Q
Why does a dual burden exist?
A
- Biological differences (sex role theory) - Parsons
- Patriarchal ideology
- Familial ideology / social attitudes
- Gender socialisation / canalisation of children
- Social policy
13
Q
Canalisation
A
- When children are socialised into specific gender roles
- Narrowing of experience for each child
14
Q
Hochschild’s Ideas
A
- ‘Orgasmic model’ late 19th century, Darwin, Freud et al - emotion is a biological process in which a stimulus triggers a response which is common across all people
- ‘Interactional model’ 20th century, Goffman, Dewey et al - emotion has a biological component, but it is differentiated by a range of social factors where culture influences the formation of emotion and people manage feelings subjectively
- Arlie Hoschild - emotional dimensions of human work, inspired by her own experience in her family home with parents who hosted foreign diplomats and had what she called an ‘act’ of personality; a main influence of hers is Goffman, a symbolic interactionist
15
Q
Hochschild’s Views of Emotional Labour
A
- Arlie Hoschild’s view of emotional labour was that it affected women more than men, who are conditioned since childhood to supply emotion and this can cause an individual to become estranged from their own emotions, which they give to their work rather than themselves
- Goffman - interactions with others shapes our identity (looking glass self) and so our selfhood is a intricate product of the social context we are raised in - Hoschild extended this idea by arguing emotions are also subjected to this and are also self manageable, just like our identity and have a mental component that uses past emotional experiences and equates them to our current one
- Hoschild theories - that we ‘do’ emotions, and this is emotional work describes how we alter and intensify emotions, suppressing unpleasant ones
