Gender Roles Flashcards
The domestic division of labour
Refers to the roles men and women play in relation to housework, childcare and paid work. Sociologists are interested in whether men and women share domestic tasks equally.
Parsons: instrumental and expressive roles
In traditional nuclear family, the roles of husband and wives were separate. In Talcott Parsons’ (1955) functionalist model of the family there is clear division of labour between spouses.
- Husband has a instrumental role, he is geared towards achieving success at work to provide for the family financially, he is the breadwinner
- Wife has an expressive role, geared towards primary socialisation of the children and meeting the family’s emotional needs. Full time housewife.
Why Parsons beliefs in the division of labour
He believes due to biological differences, women are ‘naturally’ suited to a nurturing role and men are suited to being a provider. He claims that the division of labour is beneficial to both men and women or their children and wider society.
Criticisms of Parsons
- Michael Young and Peter Willmott (1962) argue that men are now taking a greater share of domestic tasks and more wives are becoming wage earners.
- Feminist sociologists reject Parsons’ view that the division of labour is natural. In addition, they argue it only benefits men
Joint and segregated conjugal roles
Elizabeth Bott (1957) distinguishes between two types of conjugal roles; that is, roles within marriage:
- Segregated conjugal roles, where the couple have separate roles: a male breadwinner and a female homecarer. There leisure activities are also often different.
- Joint conjugal roles, the couples share tasks such as housework and childcare and spend leisure time together.
Young and Wilmott
Identified patterns of segregated conjugal roles in their study of traditional working class extended families in East London in the 1950’s. Men are the breadwinners and played little part in home life and spent leisure time with work mates in the pub. Women were full time housewives with sole responsibility for housework and childcare. Limited leisure time women had were with female family members.
The symmetrical family
Young and Wilmott take a ‘March of progress’ 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 there has been a long term trend away from segregated conjugal roles and towards joint conjugal roles.
What is a symmetrical family
A symmetrical family means that roles of husband and wives are not equal but much more similar:
- Women now go out to work, although this could be part time not full time
- Men now help with housework and childcare
- Couples now spend their leisure time together instead of separately with work mates or female relatives
Reasons for increase in symmetrical families
-Changes in women position, married women going out to work and making money
-Geographical mobility, more couples living away from the communities in which they grew up
-New technology and labour saving devices
-Higher standards of living
All link together
A feminist view of housework
- Feminsits reject the March of progress view. They argue little has changed and men and women remain unequal within the family. They see the family as being male dominated or patriarchal. Women occupy a subordinate and dependent role within the family and wider society.
- Young and Wilmott view is opposed by feminist Ann Oakley as she argues that although in Y+W study they say husbands helped wives at least once a week this could including making breakfast or taking children for a walk
- In her own research she found that only 15% of men had high participation in housework and 25% in childcare
Are couples becoming more equal
Shown on next few flaschards
The impact of paid work
Most of women in Oakleys study in the 1970’s were full time housewives, but today many more wives go out to work, either full time or part time. This trend towards both partners working raises two questions:
- Is it leading to a more equal division of domestic tasks, with a ‘new man’ taking responsibility and doing an equal share of the housework and childcare
- Or doss it mean women have to carry out a ‘dual burden’ of paid and domestic work.
Decision making
- Edgell (1980) interviewed middle class couples and found that women controlled the minor decisions in a household like choosing a colour scheme for decorating whereas men took the major decisions such as choosing a car or house. This correlated with men earning more so deciding to spend more
- Weeks et al (2001) took a March of progress view as he found that some couples had a pooling system where they put some of their earnings into a joint account for household spending.
Pahl and Vogler (1989) views oppose Weeks et al as they still had their own accounts which men often had more money in. Therefore, he has more freedom with his money which often leads to him making the decisions and being more dominant in personal spending. They also observed an allowance system where they allocated their wife a certain amount of money to spend on herself.
-Personal life perspective was put forwards by Carol Smart in which h she suggests that questions about who makes decisions and how resources are shared in a household do not reflect structural inequalities in society. They are often specific and personal to the family and financial circumstances.
Domestic violence
In contrast to Parsons’ ideal family picture, Dobash and Dobash focus on the dark side of the family particularly domestic violence.
Nearly 1/3 of the women Dobash and Dobash interviews thought that there were circumstances where it was acceptable for husbands to hit their wives; this was a deeply-ingrained aspect of patriarchy that impacted the norms and values of women as well as men
They found men hit women when they felt that women were not properly performing their role (either in relation to domestic labour or sex)
80% of abusing me acted as if nothing had happened after the incident: most blamed the victims and very few expressed in any remorse
They also found police and authorities did not take the issue seriously
Evaluation Dobash and Dobash
Men are also the victims of domestic violence. It is estimated that around 70% of domestic violence incidents are men against women however a lot of men do not report because of embarrassment
Dobash and Dobash study was conducted in 1980 which is quite outdated. Since then there has been a huge difference in how seriously police take accusations
Women’s aid has found that whilst there has been improvements since 1980, very few domestic violence cases lead to successful prosecutions.
