feminism and the family

Question 1

key date- inter marital rape illegalised

Answer 1

1994

Question 2

key date- women’s pay act

Answer 2

1870s

Question 3

key date- women over 30 could vote

Answer 3

1918

Question 4

key date- contraception and abortion

Answer 4

contraception, 1961
abortion, 1967

Question 5

key date- first female PM in the UK

Answer 5

1979

Question 6

key date- equal pay act

Answer 6

1970

Question 7

key date- women conscripted into the army

Answer 7

1941

Question 8

key date- sex discrimination act

Answer 8

1975: illegalises gender pay gap and certain questions in interviews such as marital status

Question 9

key date- when women could fight on the front line

Answer 9

2016

Question 10

Willmott and Young symmetrical family- key details and points

Answer 10

• 1973
• based on surveys in East London
• ideas based on functionalist views of the family
• in 1973 families became symmetrical becuase men and women both did paid work and housework
• not exactly equal but family life was becoming more egalitarian in terms of conjugal roles
• more time spent together in the home rather than seperately- children had become more central to family life

Question 11

stratified diffusion

Answer 11

• behaviour is diffused from one strata (class) to another
• changes in norms and values start among wealthier classes and others start to behave the same way

Question 12

march of progress theory

Answer 12

things improve gradually

Question 13

egalitarian

Answer 13

equal

Question 14

glass ceiling

Answer 14

an invisible wall preventing certain groups from gaining advantage

Question 15

ways that the symmetrical family is a myth:

Answer 15

• there is still a dual burden of work and home
• housework remains based on gendered stereotypes such as men do DIY women do cooking etc
• helpers in the home cannot be accessed by everyone
• lower class families do not necessarily correlate to higher ones
• triple shift
• growth in income inequality makes class division even more broad
• assumes a certain family type exists (nuclear)

Question 16

ways that the symmetrical family benefits women:

Answer 16

• even housework, help w/ the housework
• women have their own income
• dual income household
• more shared leisure time

Question 17

evidence to suggest that women suffer a dual burden:

Answer 17

• Oakley found that 76% of employed women were housewives
• nowadays, 3/4 of cohabiting women are economically active
• ONS 2016- women do 25h a week of domestic labour while men do 16
• women do more unpaid work than men in every category, w/ them spending nearly 7.5h a week cooking while men spend 3.5
• Ferri and Smith theorise that despite the increase in women doing paid labour, domestic labour roles have hardly changed

Question 18

evidence to suggest that women do not suffer a dual burden:

Answer 18

• Duncombe and Marsden found that women suffer a TRIPLE burden: emotional work, paid work and housework
• Silver and Schor think that housewifery is dying out due to the commercialisation of housework which makes it possible for the automisation of many household chores
• some women choose to be housewives and enjoy it

Question 19

summary of feminist views on the family:

Answer 19

• feminists challenge young and willmott, they suggest there is no march of progress and that men and women still remain unequal
• women still do the majority of the housework
• they see this inequality as something which stems from the patriarchy within the family and wider society
• they argue that women are the subordinate role within the family and are exploited for free labour

Question 20

Elizabeth Bott (1957)

Answer 20

• joint and segregated conjugal roles
• clear differentiation between male/female roles which means they are segregated
• shared/egalitarian roles= joint

Question 21

Warde and Herrington (1993)

Answer 21

• sex typing of domestic tasks, for example women clean house and cook while men do DIY, garden and car

Question 22

Jonothan Gershuny (1994&2008)

Answer 22

• women wanted to reduce time spent on unpaid work in favour of increased work hours (2008)
• parents have more equal relationship and share the tasks more equally (1994)
• women working full time is leading to more equal division of labour at home
• found that wives who work 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 the housework
• wives who worked full time did 73% of the housework

Question 23

commercialisation of housework

Answer 23

• Hilary Silver (1987) and Juliet Schor (1993) argue that the burden of housework on women has decreased
• Schor claims that the housewife role is dying out for two reasons:
  1. housework has become commericialised due to technologies such as dishwashers reducing the amount of domestic labour that has to be done
  2. women wrking: families have become dual income earners and can afford things which reduce housework

Question 24

the dual burden concept

Answer 24

• many feminists argue that despite the increase of working women, there is little evidence of the “new man”
• Ferri and Smith (1996) found that the division of labour in the family has not changed despite women’s employment outside the home
• they argue that women have just acquired a dual burden of paid and unpaid work
• Lydia Morris (1990) found that even when a woman works and her husband is unemployed, there is little evidence of men doing more at home
• this implies that men still think housework is a woman’s job

Question 25

the mental load

Answer 25

work whose main feature is the management of the emotions of other people and oneself

• usually seen as “the labour of love”
• mainly done by women
• Jean Duncombe and Denis Marsden (1995) argue that women are expected to do a triple shift which includes housework, paid work and emotional work

Question 26

Dunne (1999)- gender scripts

Answer 26

• studied 37 cohabiting couples with dependent children
• having no traditional “gender scripts” allows roles to be negotiated
• far more equality and symmetrical roles in such families
• rad fems argue that this proves women can only achieve equality in a same-sex relationship

Question 27

Catherine Hakim (1996)

Answer 27

• feminists underestimate a woman’s ability to make rational choices
• some women choose to be housewives and take pride in childcare and housework
• marriage gives women a certain advantage like status, freedom from employment, economic security and opportunity to raise children

Question 28

self-actualisation

Answer 28

the realisation of one’s full potential

Question 29

What did Oakley’s study find about the exploitation of women in the family?

(also research details)

Answer 29

• 40 London housewives aged 20-30, all at least w/ 1 child
• housewives, like male workers, do not own the fruits of their labour because no intrinsic satisfaction is gained and it gives them low status
• women have no autonomy because their work is solely their own responsibility, they risk sick children or angry husbands
• the study revealed that women feel alienated more often than factory workers due to social isolation and giving up on previous careers.

Question 30

What were Oakley’s opinions about the exploitation of women in the family?

Answer 30

• she said that housework should be seen as its own job, not just an extension of women’s role as wife/mother
• gender roles should reflect cultural and historical processes rather than being determined by biology

Question 31

How are women exploited by capitalism within the family?

Answer 31

• housewives are taught to normalise the alienating labour they do for free
• they are controlled by the ideology that housework is natural for women to do and unworthy of a wage
• it is low status work that is assumed to come naturally to women
• it offers little opportunity for creativity or self-fulfillment
• women meet the needs of male workers as their wives, ensuring that they are able to provide for the economy

Question 32

ADD: christine delphy notes, within homework section, 3rd Dec.