GENDER ROLES

Question 1

Talcott Parsons (Functionalist, expressive and instrumental roles)

Answer 1

• In the traditional nuclear family, the roles of husbands and wives are segregated, and Parsons believes there’s two distinct divisions of labour between spouses:
• the husband has an instrumental role (geared towards achieving success at work so that he can 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, she is the homemaker, a full-time housewife rather than a wage earner).
• Parsons argues that this division of labour is based on biological differences, with woman ‘naturally’ suited to the nurturing role, and men to that of provider.
• He claims that this division of labour is beneficial to both men and woman, to their children, and wider society

Question 2

Eval (Britain’s Social Attitude Survey 2013)-

Answer 2

• Found a fall in the number of people who think it’s the man’s job to earn money and the woman’s job to look after the home and family. In 1984, 45% of men and 41% of woman agreed with this view, but by 2012, only 13% of men and 12% of woman agreed.

Question 3

Michael Young and Peter Willmott (Functionalist, symmetrical family)-

Answer 3

• They 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 argued that there has been a long-term trend away from segregated conjugal roles and towards joint conjugal roles and the ‘symmetrical family’ (where one in which the roles of husbands and wives, although not identical, are now much similar)
• . Evidence of this includes the fact that woman now go out to work (although this may be part-time rather than full-time), men now help with housework and children, and that couples now spend leisure time together instead of separately with workmates or female relatives.
• In their study of families in London, they found that the symmetrical family was more common amongst younger couples, and believe this shift within younger generations has taken place as a result of changes in woman’s position, geographical mobility
• new technology and higher standards of living.

Question 4

Eval (Alan Warde and Kevin Hetherington)-

Answer 4

• They found that sex typing of domestic tasks remained strong,
• for example woman were 30 times more likely to be the last to have washed the car, and that men only did ‘female’ tasks when necessary.

Question 5

Ann Oakley (Feminist, emotion work/ lack of progress)-

Answer 5

• She argues that the claim families are more ‘symmetrical’ is exaggerated, and that although there’s evidence of husbands helping, this may only include taking the children out on a walk, or simply making breakfast once.
• In her own research, she discovered some evidence of husbands helping, but no evidence of symmetry. Only 15% of husbands had a high level of participation in housework, and only 25% had a high level of participation in childcare. Husbands were more likely to share in childcare than in housework, but only in its pleasurable aspects, being described as them merely ‘taking an interest’.
• A good father was one who would play with the children in the evening and ‘taken them off her hands’ on Sunday morning; this overall meant that mothers lost the rewards of childcare.

Question 6

Eval (Man Yee Kan)-

Answer 6

• However, Kan found that younger men do more domestic work than traditional, and similarly, according to the Future Foundation (2000), most men claimed to do more housework than their father, and most woman claimed to do less than their mother, suggesting a generational shift.

Question 7

Sullivan (Material explanation)-

Answer 7

• Their analysis of nationally represented data collected in 1975, 1987 and 1997 found trends towards woman doing a **smaller share of the domestic work and men doing more. **
• Her analysis showed an increase in the number of couples with an equal division of labour and that men were participating more in traditional woman’s work.
• She also noted that working full-time rather than part-time makes the biggest difference in terms of how much domestic work each partner does.
• If woman join the labour force and earn as much as their partners, we should expect to see men and woman doing more equal amounts of domestic work, as they are in the home less.

Question 8

Eval (Xavier Ramos)-

Answer 8

• He found that where the woman is the full-time breadwinner, and where the man is unemployed, they still do about the same amount of domestic labour, suggesting that woman entering the workforce don’t have as much of a significant impact as suggested.