Topic 4 - Changing Family Relationships Flashcards
What are conjugal roles?
Roles played by husbands and wives or couples who are living together as partners.
What did Willmott and Young discover about ‘Symmetrical Families’ in the 70’s?
That conjugal roles were becoming symmetrical and were less integrated. Men and women shared roles even though they weren’t identical.
What’s the meaning of ‘principle stratified diffusion’?
The idea that the symmetrical family started off in middle class families and found its way to working class families.
What is the new man?
A man in touch with his emotions and is willing to do his fair share of housework.
Why have conjugal roles become more symmetrical?
- Women are making their own money by working and can’t do all the work which means men have to do their share.
- Improved living standards means males are encouraged to spend more time at home and therefor help out.
- Men have to accept women as equals.
Etc.
Who felt that Willmott and Young had exaggerated the amount of symmetry in conjugal roles?
Ann Oakley, a feminist. She said that the figures they gave (around 70% of men doing housework) was unrealistic and that it was only 15% who had a high level of participation in housework.
What is lagged adaptation? (Gershuny)
The idea that the more a woman works and the longer she’s been employed the more her husband is likely to do housework. He uses lagged adaptation because there seem to have been a time lag in women taking up paid work and men getting more involved at home.
Define the commercialisation of housework.
Silvor and Schor argue that services and products are now available which reduce the burden of housework e.g. washing machines and dishwashers. These may not be am option for the working class.
What’s meant by the part-time trap?
Many women work part time and the part time trap is the situation in which women are still expected to do domestic jobs just because they work part time.
What’s the dual burden?
It’s the situation where a womans employment is added to her existing responsibility of the mother and housewife role because men don’t do their share of domestic work.
What’s the triple shift?
Duncombe and Marsden argued that women had a triple shift including; paid work, housework/childcare and ‘emotion work’.
What’s meant by decision making mentioned by Edgell?
Relatively important decisions were made by the man whereas less important ones were made by the woman. The main reason for this traditionally being that men earned more and therefore had more say in the economic decisions that needed to be made.
What is meant by domestic violence?
Threatening behaviour, violence or psychological, emotional, physical, sexual or financial abuse committed by one family member against another.
Name as many domestic violence facts as you can.
Any from:
- Will affect 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men in their lifetime
- Leads to, on average, two women being murdered each week and 30 men per year.
- Accounts for 16% of all violent crime.
- I t is still the violent crime least likely to be reported to the police
- Has more repeat victims than any other crime (on average there will have been 35 assaults before a victim calls the police)
- Rape in marriage was confirmed as a criminal offence in 1991.
- Domestic violence accounts for 25% of all violent crime.
What did Edmund Leach say about his comparison to the family and a fuse blowing up?
He explained that the privatisation of the family meant that a lot of stress would build up in the home which eventually causes conflict just like how an overloaded electrical circuit blows a fuse.
