Topic 5 Couples Flashcards
Statistics of domestic violence
- 1 in 4 women
- 6% of cases are men
- 30% of cases being during pregnancy
- 2 women die a week from domestic abuse
- affects children emotionally and socially
- a woman suffers 35 assaults before making a report
- police are reluctant to record as they are not willing to get involved with the family
- it is assumed that if a woman is experiencing domestic violence they are free to leave
What are the radial feminist explanation for domestic violence?
- men are the enemy and they are the oppressors and exploiters of women
- men dominate through domestic violence
- they see the family and marriage as the key institution in patriarchal society
- domestic violence serves to preserve the power that all men have over women
How can the radial feminist explanation for domestic violence be evaluated?
2 evaluations
- men can also be victims and also occurs and same sex couples
- HOWEVER, feminists would argue back and say tat only 6% of cases are men
- liberals believe that the march of progress allows for women to be able to escape, more laws in placebo give women the freedom to do so, eg marital rape act, divorce reform act, better protection like domestic shelters
What are the materialistic explanations for domestic violence?
- economic and material factor like inequalities in income
- Wilkinson sees domestic violence as the result of the stress on family members caused by social inequality
- those on low incomes are more likely to experience higher levels of stress therefore reduces their chance of maintaining a stable relationship
- those with less power, status, wealth are at greater risk
How can the materialistic explanations of domestic violence be evaluated?
- They do not explain why women are more likely to suffer domestic violence than men - marxist feminist seek to explain this
What are the marxist feminist explanations of domestic violence?
- inequality because of capitalism causes domestic violence
- Fran Ansley ays that women are the ‘takers of shit’
- She argues domestic violence is the product of capitalism as male workers are exploited at work and take their anger out on women
How can the marxist feminist explanations of domestic violence be evaluated?
- it is economically deterministic - it takes the blame away from the individual an not all working class men
What do Millet and firestone argue about patriarchy?
Millet and Firestone argue that all societies have been found on patriarchy.
What are Bott’s joint and segregated roles?
segregated - couple have separated roles and responsibilities. Leisure activities are separated.
Joint roles - couples share paid work, domestic tasks and child care. Share leisure activities
What does Oakley argue about the division of labour?
- men’s ‘help’ with housework is tiny, 15% men have high involvement in housework and 25% in childcare
- men are only involved in the fun bits and cause mothers to miss out
- men only ‘take interest’
What does Willmott and young argue about the division of labour?
- labour is equally divided
- family is symmetrical because their roles are symmetrical and shared equally
- earn a dual income
What does Gershuny argue about the impact of paid work on women?
Does he believe women have a dual burden?
- Gershuny found that women who do paid work do less work within the home
- wives with no job did 83% of housework
- wives with part time did 82%
- wives with full time did 73%
- he also found that the longer a woman was in paid work for, the more housework her husband did
- women do not have a dual burden
Do Hilary Silver and Schor believe women have a dual burden?
No
Hilary Silver and Juliet School argue that increased technology means women have less timely housework to do. They can afford it because they are now working (dual income)
They say this has led to the ‘death of the housewife role’
Do Elsa Ferri and Kate Smith believe women women have a dual burden?
Yes
Elsa Ferri and Kate Smith provide evidence that women suffer from a dual burden - double the work because they go out to work and also have to work in the home.
They took a sample of 1,589 33-year-olds and found that in less than 4% of the cases the man was in charge of child care.
Does Lydia Morris believe women have a dual burden?
Yes
She found that unemployed men see domestic tasks as ‘women’s work’.
Their masculinity may be already decreased from unemployment and they don’t want to ruin their ‘macho’ manly image any further.
Do Duncombe and Marsden believe women have a dual burden?
Yes
They actually found that there may actually be a ‘triple burden’ because women are used for emotion support, as well as domestic and paid work.
What does Gillian Dunne say about housework?
Gillian Dunne says that there are ‘gender scripts’ setting out male and female roles.
These are social expectations of men and women doing set things; similar to Warde and Hetherington’s idea of sex-typing tasks.
Dunne demonstrates her point by showing that in lesbian couple’s housework and childcare is because there are no gender scripts to live up to.
In her study of 36 co-habitating lesbian couples with children, she found domestic tasks were shared.
Does Man-yee Kan believe women have a dual burden?
It depends
He found that income from employment, age and education affected how much housework women did; better-paid, younger women did less housework.
How have new technologies changed women’s roles within the family?
- dishwashers, hoovers and washing machines have meant that both men and women do the housework and spend less time doing it
- there’s less stress on women
How have higher standards changed women’s roles in the family?
- women have more disposable income
- makes men stay at home more because of internet and tvs
What does Rosemary Crompton say about the division of labour?
- unequal
- men still earn more
- women 3/4 of what men earn
- even though they earn less, they’re still expected to do more housework and childcre
What does Boulton argue about family roles?
- wilmott and young exaggerated their claim of a symmetrical family
- less than 20% of husbands had a major role in childcare
What do Warde and Hetherington say about domestic tasks? and what did they find?
- domestic tasks are specifically associated with males or females, ‘sex-typed’
- they found wives were 30x more likely to be the last person to have washed up
- men were 4 times more likely to have washed the car
- stereotypical gender roles means women end up doing more work
What are the two types of income control, found by Pahl and Vogler?
- pooling - where both partners have joint access to income, eg joint account
- allowance system - men give women a budget for home and childcare, and keep the rest
- pooling has increased (because of dual earner) from 19% with parents to 50% with current couples
What is partial pooling?
where couples contribute some of their income to a joint account solely for joint expenses and keep the rest seperate
What is the personal life perspective of resources and decision making?
- Smart found that there is great freedom for same-sex couples to do what suits them as a couple, as there’s no gender pay gap between same sex couples so they tend to earn similar amounts
What did Edgell find about decision making?
- finds that the most important decisions are made by men like moving house
- women tend to take the less important decisions like food choice
What do some feminists argue about decision making?
- men take more decisions because we live in a patriarchy so we believe that men are in control and are most important, not because they earn more money
What do Dobash and Dobash say about marriage and domestic violence?
- they argue marriage legitimates violence against women because husbands tend to be in charge and women are often dependent on them
What did Yearnshire find about official statistics regarding domestic violence?
- women suffers 35 assaults before making a report, therefore official statistics are reliable
- victims are scared of repercussions or may not see it as a serious offence
What do radical feminists say about domestic violence?
- men are violent to maintain a patriarchy
- men dominate through domestic violence
What do Millet and Firestone argue about domestic violence (radical feminists)?
- all societies have been founded on patriarchy
- key division is society is between men and women
- men are the enemy
- men are oppressors and exploiters of men
How can the radical feminist view of domestic violence be evaluated?
- men can also be victims
- domestic violence also occurs in same sex couples
- liberal feminists argue women can escape, more laws eg marital rape act, better protection for women when they escape eg domestic shelters
Define segregated conjugal role?
idea that men and women play seperate roles and do not share leisure time
Define joint conjugal role?
idea that men and women now share roles and equally play a part in domestic work, childcare and paid work
What is the march of progress view of childhood?
- position of children has been steadily improving
- Aries and shorter argue that children today are more valued, better cared for, protected and educated
- family and society is now more child centred
- there are higher living standards due to smaller family sizes
How have higher living standards improved childhood?
- decrease in infant mortality rate, more people would rather live nicer than have more children
What does Sue palmer say about childhood?
- rapid technological and cultural changes in the past 25 years have damaged children’s physical, emotional and intellectual development
