Family&Households- Topic 1(Paper2)

Question 1

2 examples of patriarchy in the Victorian family.

Answer 1

-Women are seen as housewives. A woman’s property became her husbands.

-Males are seen as the breadwinner. Grounds for divorce were very unequal.

Question 2

Instrumental role.

Answer 2

Geared towards achieving success at work so that he can provide for the family financiall. He’s the breadwinner.

Question 3

Expressive role.

Answer 3

Geared towards primary socialisation of the children and meeting the family’s emotional needs. She is the homemaker, a full time housewife rather than a wage earner.

Question 4

According to Parsons, what is the difference between the instrumental and expressive role.

Answer 4

Biological differences with women naturally suited to nurturing role and men to the that of provider. New Right also share this view.

Question 5

2 criticism of Parsons in instrumental and expressive roles.

Answer 5

-Michael Young and Peter Willmott (1962) argue that men are now taking a greater share of domestic take and more wives are becoming wage earners.

-Feminist sociologists reject Parsons view that the division of labour is natural. In addition, they argue that it only benefits men.

Question 6

Segregated conjugal roles.

Answer 6

When the couple have separate roles: a male breadwinner and a female homemaker/carer as in Parsons instrumental and expressive roles. Their leisure activities also tend to be separate.

Question 7

Joint Conjual roles.

Answer 7

Where the couple share tasks such as housework and childcare and spend their leisure time together.

Question 8

Which social class is more likely to have segregated conjugal roles according to Young and Wilmott?

Answer 8

Working class.

Question 9

What is menat by the ‘march of progress’ view?

Answer 9

View of the history of the family.
They see family life as gradually improving for all its members becoming more equal and democratic. They argue that there has been a long-term trend away from segregated conjugal roles and towards joint conjugal roles and the ‘symmetrical family’

Question 10

3 characteristics of a symmetrical family.

Answer 10

-Women now go out to work, alothiugh this may be part time rather than full time.

-Men now help with housework and childcare.

-Couples now spend their leisure time together instead of separately either workmates or female relatives.

Question 11

According to Young and Willmott, which couples are most likely to be symmetrical?

Answer 11

Younger couples.

Question 12

4 social changes that have encouraged the rise of the symmetrical family.

Answer 12

-Changes in women’s positions including married women fling out to work.

-Geographical mobility- more couples living away from the communities in which they grew up.

-New technology and labour- saving devices.

-Hughet standards of living.

Question 13

Why do feminists reject the match of progress view?

Answer 13

They argue that little had changed: men and women remain unequal.

Question 14

How does Oakley criticise Young and Willmott?

Answer 14

That the family is now symmetrical. She argues that their claims were exaggerated.

Question 15

Outline Oakleys findings on men involvement in housework and childcare.

Answer 15

Housework- Found that men did help in the homes but no evidence of a trend towards symmetry. Only 15% of men had a high level of participation in housework.

Childcare- Only 25% had a high level of participation in childcare.

Question 16

What did Boulton find in relation to men’s involvement in childcare?

Answer 16

Mary Boulton (1983) found that fewer than 20% of men had a major role in childcare.

Question 17

According to Boulton, women take responsibility for children’s security and wellbeing. How is this view supported by Ferri and Smith, Dex and Ward, Braun, Vincent and Ball?

Answer 17

Ferri and Smith- 1996- Found that fathers took reap for childcare in fewer than 4% of families.

Dex and Ward- 2007- Found that although fathers had quite high levels of involvement with their 3 year olds, when it came to caring for a sick child, only 1% of fathers took the main responsibility.

Braun, Vincent and Ball-2011- Found that in only 3 families out of 70 studied was the father the main carer.

Question 18

Define emotion work.

Answer 18

This is where they are responsible for managing the emotions and feeling on family members.

Question 19

3 activities that make up the triple shift.

Answer 19

-Housework.
-Paid work.
-Emotion work.

Question 20

According to Southerton, why do mothers today face greater difficulties in trying to organise quality time?

Answer 20

Due to recent social changes like emergence of the 24/7 society and flexible working patterns.

Question 21

The cultural or ideological explanation.

Answer 21

In this view the division of labour is determined by patriarchal norms and values that shape the gender roles in our culture.

Question 22

The material or economic explaination.

Answer 22

The fact that women generally earn less than men means it’s economically rational for women to do more of the housework and childcare while men spend more of their time earning money.

Question 23

Cultural explaination

Answer 23

Jonathan Gershuny- Found that couple whose parents had a more equal relationship are more likely to share housework equally themselves.

Man Yee Kan- Found that younger men do more domestic work. Similarly, according to the future foundation (2000) most men claimed to do more house work than their father.

British Social Attitudes Survey- 2013 found that less than 10% of under 35s agreed with a traditional division of labour as against 30% of the over 65s.

Gillian Dunne- 1999- Found that lesbian couples had more symmetrical relationships as of the absence of traditional heterosexual gender scripts.

Question 24

Material explaination

Answer 24

Man Yee Kan- Found that for every £10,000 a year more a woman earns, she does 2 hits less housework per week.

Sara Arber and Jay Ginn- 1995- Found that better paid, middle class women were more able to buy in commercially produced and services.

Xavier Ramos- 2003- found that where the women is the full time breadwinner and the man is unemployed he does as much domestic labour as she does.

Oriel Sullivan- shoes that working full time rather than part time makes the biggest difference in terms of how much domestic work each partner does.

Question 25

What were Dunnes 2 findings about lesbian couples.

Answer 25

-describe their relationship as equal, share housework and childcare equally and view childcare positively.

-give equal importance to both partners careers.

Question 26

How does Dunne explain the difference between lesbian and heterosexual couples?

Answer 26

Heterosexual are under pressure to conform to deeply ingrained masculine. By contrast in lesbian relationships household tasks are not linked to particular gender scripts. Feminists would support Dunne’s explaination.

Question 27

3 points do Barrett and Mclntosh make about family resources.

Answer 27

• Men gain far more from women’s domestic work than they give back in financial support.

-The financial support that husbands give to their wives is often unpredictable and comes with strings attached.

-Men usually make the decisions about spending on important items.

Question 28

Define Pahl and Voglers 2 types of control over family income.

Answer 28

The allowance system- where men give their wives an allowance out of which they have to budget to meet the families needs with the man retaining any surplus income for himself.

Pooling- where both partners have access to income and joint responsibilities for expenditure for example a joint bank account.

Question 29

Define Edgells 3 types of decision and who tends to make these.

Answer 29

Very important- Husband.
Important- Wife.
Less important- Wife.

Question 30

how do feminists explain the differences in decision-making?

Answer 30

they argue that inequalities in decision-making are not simply the result inequalities in earnings. they argue that in a patriarchal society, the cultural definition of men, as decision-makers is deeply ingrained in both men and women instilled through gender roles socialisation.

Question 31

Example of where pooling may not indicate equality.

Answer 31

If a man earns as much as his wife but both put the same amount into the join account, does this count as equality?

Question 32

Why does having separate money not necessarily mean inequality in a couple.

Answer 32

Volger at el found that cohabiting couples were less likely to poor their money- perhaps from a desire to maintain their independence.

Question 33

Why may same sex couples have different arrangements from heterosexual couples in relation to money.

Answer 33

there is evidence that often same-sex couples give a different meaning to the control of money in the relationship.
Smart found that some gay men and lesbians attached no importance to who controlled the money and we’re perfectly happy to leave this to their partners. They did not see the control of money as meaning either equality or inequality in the relationship.
Weeks et al- found that the typical pattern was pooling some money for household spending together with separate accounts for personal spending.

Question 34

Why do sociologists reject view that domestic violence has psychological rather than social causes?

Answer 34

domestic violence is far too widespread domestic violence doesn’t occur randomly.

Question 35

According to Dobash and Dobash, how does marriage legitimate domestic violence?

Answer 35

Against women.
This is by conferring power and authority on husbands and dependency on wives.

Question 36

What do Sylvia Walby and Jonathan Allen, Donna Ansara and Michelle Hindin, Aliyah Dar show about domestic violence?

Answer 36

Sylvia Walby and Jonathan Allen- Found that women were much more likely to be victims of multiple incidents of abuse and of sexual violence.

Donna Ansara and Michelle Hindin- found that women suffered more severe violence and control with more serious psychological effects. They also found that women were much more likely than men to be fearful of their partners.

Aliyah Dar- Points out that it can be difficult to count separate domestic violence incidents because abuse may be continuous or may occur so often that the victim can’t reliably count the instances.

Question 37

Explaination of domestic abuse. Radical Feminists.

Answer 37

Radical feminists- They interpret findings, such as those of Dobash and Dobash as evidence of patriarchy. They see the family and marriage as the key institutions in patriarchal society and the main source of women’s oppression.
Evaluation- Faith Robertson Elliot(1996) thefts the radical feminist claim that all men benefit from violence against women. Not all men are aggressive and most are oppressed to domestic violence- radical feminists ignore this.

Question 38

Explaination of domestic abuse. Materialist View.

Answer 38

Materialist View-this focuses on economic and material factors, such as inequalities in income and housing to explain why some groups are more at risk than others. inequality means that some families have fewer resources than others economic factors like lack of resources.
Evaluation- Wilkinson and Pickett’s approach is useful in showing how social inequality produces stress and triggers conflict and violence in families.