Topic 4 (Gender roles, domestic labour + power relationships within the fam in contemporary)

Question 1

Parsons instrumental and expressive roles

Answer 1

Men and women in a traditional nuclear families have separate an distinct roles. According to parsons,
husband has instrumental role, aimed towards achieving success around work so that he can provide for the family - he is the breadwinner.
wife has an expressive role, aimed at primary socialisation of children + meeting family’s emotional needs - she is homemaker.
He argues division of labour is based on biological differences, women ‘naturally’ suited to nurturing role + men to that of provider. He claims that division of labour is beneficial to men, women and their children. New Right hold this view.

Question 2

Parsons: instrumental and expressive roles - criticisms

Answer 2

Young + Willmott (1962) argue men are taking greater share of domestic tasks and more wives are becoming wage earners.
Feminist’s reject Parsons’ view that division of labour is natural, arguing that only benefits men.

Question 3

Joint/ conjugal roles (Domestic division of labour)

Answer 3

conjugal roles are roles within marriage/ partnership. Bott (1957) distinguished between two types:
segregated : couples have separate roles and reflect parsons’ instrumental and expressive roles. Their leisure activities are separate too.
Joint : couple share tasks such as housework + childcare and spend their leisure time together.

Question 4

The symmetrical family

Answer 4

Young and Willmott take a ‘march of progress’ view of history. see family as gradually improving for all its members - becoming equal and democratic.
Conducted large scale survey - 1,928 people interviewed in London Area. Results formed basis of book ( The symmetrical family 1973).
argued privatised home - centred nuclear family becoming norm appeared to be far more family orientated + symmetrical in relation to domestic work + leisure activities. Believed there was long term trend away from segregated roles, towards integrate/joint roles.
However, recognised that due to stratified diffusion, this change in nature of gender roles were initially more MC than WC trend, but found much evidence of this in the community the were studying which was predominantly WC.
Whilst acknowledged role allocation, argued there was much evidence of equal marriage within research. concluded most important factor making relationships more symmetrical, joint equal was increasing tendency for women to be working outside of home in paid employment. increased females bargaining position in the home + encouraged males to participate in domestic labour.
Also, recognised increased availability of labour-saving devices reduced time spent or required for domestic tasks - also contributed to male participation in domestic labour. Furthermore, found more evidence of symmetry among younger couples + those who are more geographically mobile.

Question 5

The symmetrical - criticisms

Answer 5

Strongly criticised.
Feminists - reject ‘march of progress’ view + argue that little has changed: men and women remain unequal within the family - conjugal roles are defined by gender + greater priority is given to males paid work. They see this inequality due to fact society is patriarchal. women occupy a subordinate + dependant role within family + wider society.

Question 6

Feminist views on the domestic division of labour (Oakley)

Answer 6

In ‘Sociology of Housework’ (1974) argued idea of symmetrical marriage was a myth + stated Willmott + Young’s claims are exaggerated and was critical of aspects of their methodology.
From her research she found greater signs of participation by males in childcare/ housework, but argued few relationships could be described as unequal, only 15% oh husbands had a high level of participation in housework + only 25% had high level of participation in childcare.
Also concluded domestic labour is still devalued in society, it is constantly down played and not seen as ‘real work’.

Question 7

Silver (1987) + Schor (1993) Feminist view of couple equality

Answer 7

Emphasise economic developments in reducing burden of housework on women. They claim housework has become commercialised + women working means they can afford to buy goods + services. As a result, they believe burden of housework on women has decreased, Schor goes so far to claim these developments have led to ‘death of housewife role’.

Question 8

Braun, Vincent and Ball (1996) on responsibility for Child Care

Answer 8

Found in only 3 families out of the 70 studied, was the father the main carer. Most were ‘background fathers’ where helping w/ childcare was more about their relationship with their partner than their responsibility towards the child. Most fathers held a ‘ provider ideology’ that their role was as breadwinners, while mothers saw themselves as primary carers.

Question 9

Class differences - responsibility of childcare

Answer 9

These class differences are illustrated by Gregson and Lowe’s (1994) study of employment of domestic ‘help’ by dual-earner MC families. These couples found it more economical to employ WC women as nannies + cleaners than poor wife to stay at home. Unlike MC, WC cannot afford to employ someone to do their housework so are more likely to carry dual burden.

Question 10

Emotion work for women

Answer 10

DUNCOMBE + MARSDEN (1995) argue women are expected to not only do a double shift of both housework and paid work, but also do triple shift that includes emotional work. ‘Emotion’ work is a ‘labour of love’ and is usually seen as caring for other fam members and involves monitoring the worries an frustrations of others.

Question 11

What are the two explanations of the gender division of labour?

Answer 11

CROMPTON AND LYONETTE (2008) identify 2 different explanations -
cultural/ideological explanation of inequality
division of labour is determined by patriarchal norms + values that shape gender roles in our culture. Women perform more domestic labour simply because its what society expects them to do and has socialised them to do.
material/economic explanation of inequality
fact women generally earn less than men means its economically rational for women to do more of the housework and childcare while men spend their time earning money.

Question 12

DUNNE (1999) - cultural explanation of inequality

Answer 12

Equality will be achieved only when norms about gender roles change. This would involve changes in men + women’s attitudes, values, expectations, role models + socialisation.
study of 37 lesbian couples with dependant children found they’re more likely than heterosexual women to:
describe relationship as equal, share housework + childcare equally + view childcare positively.
give equal importance to both partners’ careers.
argues this is because heterosexuals are under pressure to conform to deeply ingrained masculine + feminine ‘gender scripts’ by performing different kinds of domestic tasks that confirm their gender identities. In contrast, in lesbian relationships, household tasks are not linked to particular gender scripts + this allows lesbian couples to create a more equal relationship. This provides support for radical feminist view that relationships between men + women are inevitably patriarchal + that women can only really achieve equality in same sex relationships.
Dune also found that where one partner did much more paid work than the other, time spent on domestic work was likely to be unequal. This suggests paid work still affects division of labour.

Question 13

evidence to support material explanation of inequality

Answer 13

SULLIVAN shows that working full time vs part time makes the biggest difference in terms of how much domestic work each partner does. Sullivan suggests that this may be because Working full time brings women’s earnings much closer to those of their partners.
However, recognizing that men still earn more than women ( in 7 out of 8 households) Crompton (1997) concludes that as long as earnings remain unequal so too will division of labour.

Question 14

Pahl + Volger (1993) - control of income

Answer 14

Identify two types of control over fam income

Allowance system - men give wives allowance out of which they have to budget to meet the family’s needs, with the man retaining any surplus income for himself.

Pooling - both partners have access to income + joint responsibility for expenditure. often assumed pooling indicates more equality in decision making/ control + more common in couples where both partners work full time. However, if pooled income controlled by husband, this tends to give men more power in major decisions. P + V found even when there was pooling, men usually made final decisions. Phal also identifies that pooling money doesn’t necessarily mean that a relationship is equal, arguing that we also need to know who controls the pooled money and whether each partner contributes equally. Vogler found that cohabiting couples were less likely to pool their money - perhaps form desire to maintain independence. Yet, evidence suggests cohabiting couples are more likely than married couple to share domestic tasks equally.

Question 15

Personal life perspective on money

Answer 15

Focus on meanings couples give to who controls money. Eg, whilst we might assume that one partner controlling the money is a sign of inequality, for some couples it may not have this meaning.

Same sex couples often give different meaning to the control of money in relationship.

SMART(2007)- some gay men + lesbians attached no importance to who controlled money and didn’t see control of money as symbolic of either equality or inequality in the relationship. she found greater freedom for same-sex couples to do what they want as couples, suggests this is due to them not entering relationships w. ‘historical, gendered, heterosexual baggage of cultural meanings around money’.

Question 16

DV as far too widespread - The crime survey of ENG and WHALES (2013)

Answer 16

Found that 2 million people reported having been victims of domestic abuse during the previous year. Therefore not the work of a few disturbed individuals - a common view of DV

Question 17

Official statistics on DV as Unreliable in showing the true extent of problem :

Answer 17

Victims unwilling to report it to police:
DV is also violent crime least likely to be reported. Dar argues victims of DV are less likely than victims of other forms of violence to report offence because believe that its not a matter for police / that its too trivial, or from fear of reprisals.
Reluctance of criminal justice system to record, investigate or prosecute:
Cheal (1991) reluctance is due to fact police + other state agencies aren’t prepared to become involved in family. They make three assumptions of fam life:
1) fam sphere is private, access to it by state agencies should be limited.
2) fam is good thing + so agencies tend to neglect ‘darker side’ of fam life.
3) individuals are free agents, its assumed that if woman is experiencing abuse, she is free to leave. This is not true as male violence is often coupled w/ male economic power: abused women are often financially dependant on their husbands + unable to leave.

Question 18

Evidence to support main pattern that DV is mainly violence by men against women.

Answer 18

Coleman et al (2007) - women more likely than men to have experienced ‘intimate violence’ across all four types of abuse: partner abuse, family, sexual and stalking.
Dobash + Dobash (1979, 2007) - found violent incidents could be set off by what husband saw as a challenge to his authority, such as his wife asking why he was late home for a meal. Dobash + Dobash argue marriage legitimises violence against women by conferring power/authority on husbands + dependency on wives.

Question 19

Radical feminist explanation of DV

Answer 19

MILLET (1970) + FIRESTONE (1970) all societies have been founded on patriarchy. They see key division in society between men + women. Men are enemy - they are oppressors + exploiters of women
RF see fam + marriage as key institution in patriarchal society + main source of women’s oppression. In fam, men dominate women through DV or threat of it.
Widespread DV an inevitable feature of patriarchal society + serves power that all men have over all women. RF link patterns of DV to dominant social norms about marriage. argue male domination of state institutions helps to explain reluctance of police + courts to deal effectively with cases of DV.

Question 20

Evaluation of Radical feminist explanation of DV

Answer 20

Elliot (1996) rejects RF claim that all men benefit from violence against women. Not all men are aggressive, + most are opposed to DV. RF ignore this.
They fail to explain female violence incl child abuse by women + violence against male partners + within lesbian relationships. Crime Survey of Eng + Wales found 18% of men have experienced DV since age of 16.
RF use concept of patriarchy to explain why most victims of DV are women, but wrongly assume that all women are equally at risk of patriarchal violence. They explain why its women + not men who are victims, but don’t explain which women are most likely to be victims.
Evidence from office of National statistics (2014)- suggest women from following social groups are at greater risk of DV: young women those in lowest social classes + those living in most deprived areas, those on low incomes/ in financial difficulties, those in shared/rented accommodation, those w/ high levels of alcohol consumption or illegal drug use.

Question 21

Material explanation of DV

Answer 21

Focuses in economic +materialistic factors such as inequalities in income + housing to explain why some groups are more at risk than others. Wilson + Pickett (2010) DV as result of stress o fam members caused by inequality. inequality meaning some fam have fewer resources than others. those on low incomes/ in overcrowded accommodation likely to experience higher levels of stress. This reduces chancres to maintain stable,caring relationships + increases risk of conflict/ violence. Eg worries of about jobs/ money may communicate through violence/ aggression, as tempers become frayed. Wilkinson + PICKETT not all people are equally in danger of suffering DV. Those w/ less power, status, wealth or income are often at greater risk.

Question 22

Evaluation of Material explanation of DV

Answer 22

Wilkinson + Picketts approach is useful in explaining class differences in statistics on DV.
Approach doesn't explain why women rather than men are main victims, unlike radical feminist approach.
Marxist feminists see inequality causing DV.
Ansley (1972) describes wives as 'takers of shit'. she argues DV is product of capitalism: male workers exploited at work + take out frustrations on wives . this helps explain why DV is male violence against women. However, fails to explain why not all male workers commit acts of violence against partners + doesn't account for female DV.