MT3 - Gender roles Flashcards
Millet and Firestone
societies are patriarchal - all men have power over all women and this authority causes violence
Domestic abuse is an inevitable feature of a patriarchal society as it serves to preserve male power over women.
Men control all aspects of society which is why the police are reluctant to get involved in incidents of domestic abuse.
C: not all men are aggressive
Wilkinson and Pickett
Domestic abuse incidents are a result of stress which is caused by social inequality.
Social inequality means that some families have fewer resources such as income than others. As a result, they may live in overcrowded housing which causes tension and can spill over into abuse.
C: fail to explain why women are the vixtims
Edgell
Interviewed professional couples and found:
Very important decisions such as those about finances, jobs or moving house, are made by the man alone or the couple jointly, but with the husband having the final say.
Less important decisions such as home decor or food purchases, were made by the woman.
Men make fewer decisions, but these relate to more important areas such as finances therefore, men have more power.
Pahl and Vogler:
Interviewed 1211 dual earner couples and their parents about how the income (money) is controlled in their families and found:[
Housekeeping allowance system – husband gives the wife some money for housekeeping expenses and he controls the rest (popular among older gen)
Pooling system – both partners earn the income and have access to it as well as joint responsibility for expenditure. (popular among younger gen)
Functionalist theory - gender roles
Parsons argues that the husband’s role is the instrumental role – he is the breadwinner, working to financially support the family whilst the wife’s role is expressive; she is the housewife, responsible for childcare, housework and emotional wellbeing of the family.
Based on biological differences which benefits everyone -
Willmott and Young
march of progress view
over time, family life has become more egalitarian (equal) for all family members as there has been a trend from segregated conjugal roles to joint conjugal roles whereby women and men share all responsibilities equally
Refer to this as the symmetrical family - husbands and wives share all responsibilities equally
Oakley
Family is not symmetrical – men do not carry out an equal amount of housework and childcare, they only occasionally help out with the more enjoyable aspects of childcare such as playing and day-trips.
In the 20th century, women were a part of the labour force, but since then they have been confined to the home. Thus, the housewife role is socially constructed, not natural.
Ferri and Smith
Women work outside the home, in paid employment, and still do most of the housework and childcare.
Ferri and Smith refer to this as the dual burden of paid work and unpaid housework.
Therefore, the family is still patriarchal as men now benefit both from women’s earnings and domestic labour.
Morris
Studied families in which the women worked and the men were unemployed to see if they did more housework and childcare since they were at home.
She found that men saw housework as ‘women’s work’.
They felt they had lost their masculinity as a result of being unemployed and so refused to do any housework as that would have undermined their masculinity even further.
Silver and Schor
Proclaim the death of the housewife role.
The burden of housework on women has been reduced:
1) Housework has become commercialised – microwaves, ready-meals, etc. take the burden off women.
2) Women working – so can afford these goods and services.
Gatrell
Fathers are now more involved in their children’s upbringing than ever before.
Reasons for this are: that marriages are no longer forever as adult relationships break down, while parents’ relationships with children can be expected to last a lifetime
Arber and Ginn
better paid, middle class, women are able to buy in commercially produced goods and services such as labour saving devices, ready meals and domestic help.
w/c families can’t afford these services so the women suffer the dual burden.
