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Sociology > Family and Households - Couples > Flashcards

Family and Households - Couples Flashcards

1
Q

What did Parsons see as the roles of couples?

Functionalism

A

The Instrumental and Expressive roles

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2
Q

What is the Instrumental role?

Functionalism

A

The role of the breadwinner, earning money for the family, the man’s role

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3
Q

What is the Expressive role?

Functionalism

A

Caring and emotional role, looks after the children and the home, the woman’s role

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4
Q

What does Parson’s say about why men and women have different roles?

Functionalism

A

The differences are caused by biological reasons, such as women being more naturally nurting than men

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5
Q

What did Elizabeth Bott see as the roles of couples?

A

The Segreated conjugal roles and Joint conjugal roles

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6
Q

What is the Segregated Conjugal Role?

A
  • Traditonal roles, much like Parsons outlined
  • Women care for the children at ome
  • Men make the money
  • Leisure activities are seperated
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7
Q

What is the Joint Conjugal Role?

A

Tasks are shared between the couple

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8
Q

What type of family do Young and Willmott say exist?

March of Progress

A

The symmetrical family

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9
Q

What is the Symmetrical Family?

March of Progress

A
  • Women go to work more
  • Men help with the housework and children
  • Couples spend more time together
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10
Q

What did Young and Willmott’s Symmetrical Family study show?

March of Progress

A

They found the Symmetrical Family to be more common in younger couples, especially those who were socially and geographically isolated as well as more affluent

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11
Q

What did Willmott and Young say caused the Symmetrical Family?

March of Progress

A
  • Changes in women’s positions
  • Geographical mobility
  • New technology (labour-saving devices)
  • Higher standard of living
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12
Q

Why do feminists criticse Willmott and Young’s Symmetrical Family?

A

They argue that they over exaggerate the extent to which the family is equal, women still do the majority of housework

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13
Q

What did Ann Oakley’s study show?

Feminism

A
  • 15% of husbands had a high level of participation in housework
  • 25% had a high level of participation in childcare
  • Men were more likely to partake in the more pleasurable aspects of childcare, making women lose out on the rewards of play
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14
Q

What did Mary Boulton (1983) say?

Feminism

A
  • Fewer than 20% of husbands had a major role in childcare
  • Young and Willmott exaggerate men’s contribution by looking at tasks rather than responsibilities
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15
Q

What did Warde and Hetherington (1993) say?

Feminism

A
  • Sex-typing of domestic tats remained strong
  • Wives were 30x more likely to be the last person to have done the washing
  • Husbands were 4x more likely to be the last person to wash the car
  • Men only carried out ‘female’ tasks when their wives weren’t around to do them
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16
Q

What is the Dual Burden?

Feminism

A

Women now have two jobs - paid work and unpaid housework

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17
Q

What do March of Progress sociologists say about the impact of paid work?

A
  • Johnathon Gershuny (1994) argues that women in paid work is making domestic roles more equal
  • Oriel Sullivan’s (2000) studies show that more housework is being shared and men are doing more traditionally feminine roles
  • British Social Attitudes survey found that only 8% of people in 2017 believed it was men’s only role to work
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18
Q

What do Feminist sociologists say about the impact of paid work?

A
  • Men do intrinsically satisfying tasks while women do less rewarding tasks
  • 60% of women felt the work they were doing was unjust as they were doing the majority of it
  • British Social Attitudes survey showed little sign of the ‘new man’ and showed that women carry a dual burden
  • Women often did twice as much housework than men
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19
Q

What did Ferrie and Smith (1996) find?

A

Fathers took childcare responsibility in less than 4% of families

20
Q

What did De and Ward (2007) find?

A

Although 78% of fathers played with their 3 year olds, only 1% took on a key role in taking care of them when they were sick

21
Q

What did Braun, Vincent, and Ball (2011) find?

A
  • In 3/70 families the father was the main carer
  • High amount of ‘background fathers’
  • Most fathers saw their role as the breadwinner
22
Q

What is Hochschild’s (2013) Triple Shift?

Feminism

A

Women are responsible for paid work, housework, and emotional work

23
Q

What does Southerton say about leisure and quality time?

Feminism

A
  • Argues that it is the mothers responsibility to organise quality time together for families
  • Men are more likely to experience blocks of time where they can persue leisure activies, unlike women whos leisure time is determined by child care
24
Q

Evidence for the cultural explaination of the gender division of labour

A
  • Gershuny argues gender norms are shifting and men are taking on more roles
  • Man Yee Kan (2001) supports the idea that men are taking on more domestic roles
  • BSA (2013) found a change in attitudes from under 35s to over 65s in that they hold less traditional views
  • Dunne (1999) found that lesbian relationships were more symmetrical due to the absence of gender scripts
25
Q

Evidence for the material explaination of the gender division of labour

A
  • Man Yee Kan said for every £10,000 a women earns she does 2 hours less housework
  • Archer and Ginn (1995) argues m/c women can afford labour-saving devices such as dishwashers
  • Ramon (2003) says men do as much domestic labour as female breadwinners
  • Sullivan (2000) argues both parties in full-time work increased the likliness of shared housework
26
Q

What 3 key points do Barrett and Mcintosh (1991) make about control over money?

A

1) Men gain more from women’s domestic work than they give back in financial support
2) The financial support that men give to their wives is unpredicatble and comes with strings attatched
3) Men usually make the decisions about spending on important items

27
Q

What does Kempson (1994) say about management of resources?

A
  • Women see money as needing to be spent on the children, not themselves
  • In low-income families, women often denied their own needs (skipping meals or having smaller portions)
  • This inequality occurs even in higher income families
28
Q

What systems did Jan Pahl and Carolyn Vogler (1993) come up with?

A
  • The allowance system
  • Pooling
29
Q

What is The Allowance System?

Jan Pahl and Carolyn Vogler (1993)

A
  • Men give their wives an allowance out of which they need to budget for the family
  • Men retain the surplus income for themselves
30
Q

What is the Pooling system?

Jan Pahl and Carolyn Vogler (1993)

A
  • Both partners have access to income and a joint responsibility for expenditure
  • For example, a joint bank account
31
Q

What did Edgell’s research of professional couples show?

A
  • Men are often in charge of the very important decisions, such as moving houses or job changes, or at least have the final say
  • Important decisons often have a joint say, such as children’s education and holiday destinations
  • Less important decisons, such as food, decor, and clothing, are left to the women
32
Q

What did Laurie and Gerhsuny (2000) find about couples?

A
  • BY 1995, 70% of couples said they had an equal say in decisions
  • Women who were high-earning, well-qualified professionals were more likely to have an equal say
33
Q

What do feminists argue about decision making?

A

These inequalities are deeply rooted in patriarchal society through gender-role socialisation

34
Q

What do Interactionists and Personal Life Perspective sociologists say?

A

It is wrong to assume that those who control money automatically equates to the one who has the most power in the relationship

35
Q

What did Smart (2007) find out?

A
  • Some gay and lesbian couples attached no importance to who controlled the money
  • They did not see it as meaning equality
  • There is greater freedom in same-sex couples as there is less historical and gendered heterosexual baggage
36
Q

What did Weeks (2001) find?

A
  • The typical pattern in same-sex coules was pooling for household spending and having seperate accounts for personal spending
  • This is known as co-independence
37
Q

What did the Crime Survey for England and Wales (2013) report?

A

2 million people reported being a victim of dmestic abuse over the previous year

38
Q

What does Aliyah Dar (2013) say?

A

It is difficult to count seperate dv incidents as abuse may be continuous or occur so often it cannot be counted accurately

39
Q

Why might some domestic abuse not be reported?

A
  • Theyre scared
  • Its been normalised
  • May think it will get worse
  • Dependency
  • The involvement of children
  • May love their abuser
40
Q

What did Yearnshire (1997) say about domestic abuse?

A
  • On average a woman suffers 35 assaults before making a report
  • DV is the violent crime least likely to be reported
41
Q

What did Cheal say about domestic abuse?

A

The police and other state agencies are not prepared to become involved in the family as they assume:
- The family is a private sphere
- The family is a goof thing so they neglect the ‘darker side’
- Individuals are free agents, so if a woman is being abused she can leave

42
Q

In 2020 how many reported domestic abuse incidents led to conviction?

A

7%

43
Q

What are Radical Feminist explainations for domestic abuse?

A
  • It is inevitable and keeps the power in the hands of men
  • Institutions are male dominated and therefore they are reluctant to interfere effectivley
  • Marriage and the family are the main source of oppression for women
  • Men are the enemy
44
Q

What are some evaluations of Radical Feminist explanations?

A
  • Robert Elliot states that not all men are violent or oppress women
  • Radical feminism fails to explain female violence towards men (18% of men in 2013 experienced DV) or in lesbian relationships
  • Not all women are equally at risk, for example young, poor, drug users are most at risk (so are men from these groups)
45
Q

What are Material Explanations for domestic abuse?

A
  • Fewer resources are available due to inequality (overcrowded housing, money worries, fear of losing jobs) This reduces stable relationships and creates conflict
  • Certain social groups are at greater risk
  • Wilkinson and Pickett (2010) state that it is stress caused by social inequality that results in domestic abuse
46
Q

Evaluation of Material Explanations for domestic abuse

A
  • It doesn’t explain why most victims are women

Sociology (14 decks)

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