feminism and the family Flashcards
key date- inter marital rape illegalised
1994
key date- women’s pay act
1870s
key date- women over 30 could vote
1918
key date- contraception and abortion
contraception, 1961
abortion, 1967
key date- first female PM in the UK
1979
key date- equal pay act
1970
key date- women conscripted into the army
1941
key date- sex discrimination act
1975: illegalises gender pay gap and certain questions in interviews such as marital status
key date- when women could fight on the front line
2016
Willmott and Young symmetrical family- key details and points
- 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
stratified diffusion
- 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
march of progress theory
things improve gradually
egalitarian
equal
glass ceiling
an invisible wall preventing certain groups from gaining advantage
ways that the symmetrical family is a myth:
- 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)
ways that the symmetrical family benefits women:
- even housework, help w/ the housework
- women have their own income
- dual income household
- more shared leisure time
evidence to suggest that women suffer a dual burden:
- 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
evidence to suggest that women do not suffer a dual burden:
- 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
summary of feminist views on the family:
- 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
Elizabeth Bott (1957)
- joint and segregated conjugal roles
- clear differentiation between male/female roles which means they are segregated
- shared/egalitarian roles= joint
Warde and Herrington (1993)
- sex typing of domestic tasks, for example women clean house and cook while men do DIY, garden and car
Jonothan Gershuny (1994&2008)
- 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
commercialisation of housework
- 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
the dual burden concept
- 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
the mental load
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
Dunne (1999)- gender scripts
- 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
Catherine Hakim (1996)
- 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
self-actualisation
the realisation of one’s full potential
What did Oakley’s study find about the exploitation of women in the family?
(also research details)
- 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.
What were Oakley’s opinions about the exploitation of women in the family?
- 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
How are women exploited by capitalism within the family?
- 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
ADD: christine delphy notes, within homework section, 3rd Dec.
