Gender roles, Domestic Labour/Abuse & Power Relationship

Question 1

Changing Gender Roles in Relationships

Answer 1

• March of Progress view: domestic roles have become more equal

Elizabeth Bott - Segregated and Joint Conjugal Roles

• Segregated conjugal roles: separate & one person has more power
• Joint conjugal roles: shared roles
• Since the 1950s, relationships have become more joint and less segregated

Young and Wilmott - The Symmetrical Family

• Saw family life as gradually improving for all of its members becoming more equal and democratic
• Long term trend away from segregated conjugal roles and towards joint conjugal roles
  ↳ emergence of ‘Symmetrical Family’ - roles are more similar
  ↳ eg women go out to work full time, men now help with housework achildcare and couples spend leisure time together rather than separately

Ulrich Beck - Negotiated Family

• Greater gender equality and greater individualism has led to the Negotiated Family
  ↳ does not conform to the traditional family norm but varies according to the wishes and expectations of their members
• Men and women today enter relationships on an equal basis
  ↳ means that we are more likely to see more symmetrical families with joint conjugal roles in the future

Question 2

Indicator of equality - Trends in the Domestic Division of Labour

Answer 2

1) Jonathan Gershuny’s historical comparisons of who does the housework

• Trends show a rise in the proportion of women taking on paid employment
• Gradual shift in the proportion of domestic work carried out by men

2) Changing face of motherhood

• Even for women in full time work, they are twice as likely to be involved in childcare as the father
  ↳ Women on average do more work than men once domestic labour is taken into account
• 1994: women did most or all of the laundry with 79% of couples
• 2011: In 70% of houses laundry was still seen as women’s work & women still do the majority of the cooking in 55% of couple households
• 2011: DIY still seen as the sole preserve of men in 75% of households
  Chore Wars (2014)
• Women devote well over the equivalent of a working day each week to household chores which is double to amount undertaken by men
  ↳ Women spend an estimated average of 11.5 hours doing housework compared to 6 for men
  ↳ Men tend to be bolder in their estimations and women tend to be on the side of underestimation
• 86% of women said they were mainly responsible for changing the bedsheets
• 78% of men said they did DIY
• Indicates a clear divide in the sexes when it comes to housework

Question 3

Indicator of equality - Trends in Parenting

Answer 3

Mary Boulton

• Allocation of home tasks exaggerate the extent of men’s involvement with childcare
  ↳ Although men might help with particular tasks, it is their wives who retain primary responsibility for children & relegate non-domestic aspects of their lives to low priority
• Statistical research suggests childcare is more equally shared today than in the past
• Supported by the Millennium Cohort Study: 70% of women said they did most of the childcare and only 1% of men, with the responsibility shared in 29% of cases
  ↳ Women spent twice as king on childcare as men
  ↳ 78% of women played with their child daily but only 51% of fathers read to their child daily

Braun et al - Interviews with Working Class Fathers

• 50% of fathers were classified as ‘active fathers’ (highly involved in parenting)
• 50% we’re classified as ‘background fathers’ (did not spent much time with their children and saw childcare as primarily mothers responsibility)
• Strong ’provider ideology’: most men strongly believed their masculinity was tied up with being the main income earner
  ↳ Many men felt childcare was helping out their partner (being the breadwinner) and saw childcare as a less important duty
• Many men discussed how uncomfortable they felt looking after their child in public places without their partner present

Gayle Kaufman

• New dads are supposedly more involved with their children than previous fathers were
  ↳ However they are expected to carry on with their ordinary work after their child is born
• Men are performing a ‘second shift’ when they come home; performing on average 46 hours a week on childcare and housework
  ↳ it’s increasingly men rather than women who face the ‘dual-burden’
• ’Old dads’: did not change anything when their kid was born
• ’New Dads’: placed a high priority on involvement with children and made some minor adjustments to their work practices
• ’Superdads’: actively adjusted their work lives to fit with their family lives and saw spending time with their children as the most important thing
  ↳ Much easier for middle class dads due to income

Question 4

Indicator of Equality - Control of Money & Decision-Making

Answer 4

Jan Pahl - How Couples Manage their money

• Husband-controlled pooling (most common: money was shared but husband had dominant role in deciding how money was spent
• Wife-controlled pooling: both couples were working and the wife was better educated and earning more
• Husband control: husband was the main or only wage
  ↳ leads to male dominance
• Wife control (most common in low income households): both partners on benefits so money management tended to be a burden not a privilege
• In households where partners have similar amounts of power in decision making they are likely to have equal amounts of money for themselves
• Only gender equality in 25% of households where control over income is concerned
• Evaluations: Hardill - men mainly had control over decision making and money & Volger et al: 54% of couples used joint pooling with only 7% using the male household allowance system - 40% of households used financial systems which offered women a greater deal of freedom than suggested above

Question 5

Explaining trends towards greater equality in relationships

Answer 5

1) Improved status in the rights of women

• General improvement in the status of women in society
• Most women now in paid employment leading to men seeing women as equals not just housewives/mothers
  ↳ could also be why women have demanded men take more of an equal role in domestic labour

2) Gershuny - Increase of women in paid employment

• As women moved into paid employment they spent less time doing domestic labour and men did a bit more
  ↳ Very slow move towards reducing gender inequality in the home but
• Supported by Sullivan: found a trend towards women doing less housework and men doing more - increase in couples sharing domestic labour and men participating in ‘women’s work’
• Criticised by Kan et al: chores are still split along gender lines with men traditionally doing more masculine tasks (DIY) and women still doing routine day to day activities (caring tasks & chores eg childcare)

3) Improved living standards in the home

• Both partners being in paid employment means there is more disposable income and more money is spent on consumer goods and building the relationship and home
• Time together has become more important

4) Commercialisation of Housework

• Increasing number of new technologies which are available to help with housework
• Couples can now afford consumer goods that make domestic chores easier and more efficient
• Middle class couples can afford cleaners, nannies etc
  ↳ Domestic chores/labour are completed by those paid to do so meaning couples roles are more symmetrical

5) Postmodernists - Weaker Gender Identities

• Men and women now have much more choice in how they see themselves in this pick and mix society
  ↳ Less constrained by traditional male and female roles and free to construct their own identity based on choice
• Men and women are participating in roles that were once very gendered
• Evaluation: may be exaggerated

Question 6

Explaining why inequalities still exist in domestic division of labour

Answer 6

Material Explanations

• May be rational for women to do a greater share of housework if men spend more time in paid employment than women if men earn more
• Men may be short of time to complete housework
• Liberal Feminism: women do more housework but as they increasingly go into paid work and earn more, they do less housework and childcare and relationships become more equal
  ↳ Harkness - Domestic division of labour is more equal in relationships where women earn a great amount/equal to their partner

Gender Construction/Socialisation Theory

• The division of household labour is not rational at all but is shaped by dominant ideas about gender roles
• Women will tend to do more housework because it is what society expects of them
• Familial ideology: dominant idea there is a correct/ideal way to organise family life
• Radical Feminism: patriarchal attitudes prevail and the ideology of traditional roles keeps women doing more housework and childcare than men even though they are almost equal with men in terms of paid employment
  ↳ Dunscombe and Marsden: women suffer from the dual burden and triple shift

Evaluations

• Evidence showed that even if both partners do the same work the women still does all the housework
• Crompton and Lyonette: in the last people held more gendered views towards domestic duties but this had shifted by 2006
• Warin and Miller: dominant and traditional ideology surrounding fathers as breadwinners and mothers dominating childcare remain
• Hakim: women often make rational choices based around the ‘employment career’ or the ‘marriage career’ and feminism may be guilty of devaluing the role of mother/housewives as a second class job
  ↳ potential backlash of stay at home mothers and wannabe housewives

Question 7

Domestic Violence - The Dark Side of the Family

Answer 7

• Any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive or threatening behaviour, violence or abuse
• 1 in 4 women in a lifetime; 12.9 million incidents in one year
• In 83% of rape cases, the victim knows the rapist
• Dark figure of DV: people don’t report due to fear, embarrassment and men tend to not report due to stigma

Question 8

Explanations of Domestic Violence

Answer 8

Radical Feminist Explanation

• DV is evidence of the patriarchy
• Kate Millet and Firestone: men are the enemy, oppressors and exploiters of women
• Within the family men dominate and control women through DV or the threat of it
• Violence is an inevitable feature of a patriarchal society and serves to preserve the power men have
• Redfurn and Aune: male violence against women takes many forms and violence is often a product of patriarchal ideas, deeply routed in societies history and culture, reinforced through the family
• Male domination within institutions/the state explains the reluctance of the police to get involved and deal with the issue

Dobash and Dobash

• Incidents within families are argued that marriage legitimated violence within some families, power, authority being challenged as explanations for violent incidents

Brookman

• Gender role socialisation from family, media and society contributes to DV
• In British culture, masculinity places a high values of control over others (particularly women)
  ↳ When men feel they are losing control over their ‘female property’ they resort to violence as a means of reasserting their masculine identity
• 80% of cases where a wife/girlfriend had been murdered by their male partner was when she was in the process of leaving/suspected of cheating

Materialist Explanation - Wilkinson and Pickett

• DV is the result of stress on family members caused by social inequality
• Those on low income of living in overcrowded accommodation are likely to experience stress
  ↳ Reduces their chances of maintaining stable caring relationships and increases risk of conflict

Question 9

Domestic violence against men

Answer 9

• About 2 in 5 of all DV victims are men
• Men assaulted by their partners are often ignored by police and see their abuser go free
• Men are often treated as ‘second class victims’ and many police forces/councils don’t take them seriously
  ↳ they are invisible to the authorities and overlooked by the media/in official reports