Topic 6 - Couples

Question 1

What does Gershuny say in terms on the March of Progress view?

Answer 1

• Argues that women working full time is leading to a more equal division of labour in the home.
• These women did less domestic work than other women.

Question 2

What does Sullivan say in terms of the March of Progress view?

Answer 2

• Analysed nationality representative data in ‘75, ’87, ‘97 and found a trend towards women doing a smaller share if the domestic work and men doing more.
• Her analysis also showed an increase in the number if couples with an equal division of labour and men participating more in traditional ‘womens’ tasks.

Question 3

What does Boulton say in terms of responsibility for children?

Answer 3

• Although fathers may help performing specific childcare tasks, it’s usually the mother who takes responsibility for the child’s security and well being.

Question 4

What does Ferri and Smith say in terms if responsibility for children?

Answer 4

• Fathers took responsibility for childcare in fewer than 4% of families.

Question 5

What does Dex and Ward say in terms of responsibility for children?

Answer 5

• Although fathers had quite high levels if involvement with their 3 year olds (78%) when it came to caring for a sick child, only 1% of fathers took the main responsibility.

Question 6

What does Brown, Vincent and Ball say in terms of responsibility for children?

Answer 6

• In 3/70 families studied, the father was the main carer.
• Most were ‘background fathers’
• Helping with childcare was more about their relationship with their partner.
• Most fathers held a ‘provider ideology’ and mothers saw themselves as ‘primary carers’.

Question 7

What does Southerton say in terms of taking responsibility for quality time?

Answer 7

• Another responsibility which usually falls to mothers is that if coordinating, scheduling and managing the family’s quality time together.
• Organising quality time for family members had become increasingly difficult in recent times as they juggle their own work schedules, social life and their families social activities.
• Being ‘pushed for time’ does not show up in quantitative measures.
• Although some studies show that men and women have more or less equal amounts of leisure time, they have different experiences of it - men are more likely to have uninterrupted blocks of leisure time whereas women’s leisure time is usually dictated by childcare

Question 8

What do Crompton and Lyonette say in terms of the division of labour?

Answer 8

• 2 different explanations for the unequal division if labour
• Cultural idealogical explanation: division if labour is determined by patriarchal norms and values that shape gender roles in our culture.
• Material or economic explanation: women generally earn less than men means it is economically rational for women to do more of the housework and childcare while men spend more time earning money.

Question 9

Evidence for the material explantion

Answer 9

• Kan: for every £10,000 a year a woman earns, she does 2 hours less housework per week.
• Arber and Ginn: better paid MC women were more able to buy in commercially produced products and services such as labour saving devices, ready made meals, domestic hep and childcare rather than carrying out labour intensive tasks.
• Ramos: where the woman is the full time breadwinner and the man is unemployed, he does as much domestic labour as she does
• Sullivan: working full time rather than part time makes the biggest difference in terms of how much domestic work each partner does.
• In 7/8 households, men earn more.

Question 10

What does Kempson say about inequality in resources and decision making in the household?

Answer 10

• Among low income families, women denied their own needs, rarely going out snd eating smaller portions of food or skipping meals altogether in order to make ends meet.

Question 11

What does Michelle Barrett and Mary McIntosh say about inequality in resources and decision making?

Answer 11

• Men gain far more from women’s domestic work than they give back in financial support.
• The financial support that husbands give to their wives is often unpredictable and comes with ‘strings attached’.
• Men usually make the decisions about spending their money on important items.

Question 12

What did Nyman say in terms of the meaning of money?

Answer 12

• Money has no automatic, fixed or natural meaning and different couples can define it in different ways. These meanings can reflect the nature of the relationships.

Question 13

What did Weeks say in terms of the PLP on money?

Answer 13

• The typical pattern was pooling some money for household spending together with separate accounts for personal spending.
• This money management system thus reflects a value of ‘co independence’.

Question 14

What does Smart say in terms of the PLP on money?

Answer 14

• Same sex couples attached no importance to who controlled the money and were perfectly happy to leave this to their partners; they didn’t see it as an issue relating to inequality.
• More freedom for same sex couples to do what suits them as a couple as there is no historical or social gender baggage.

Question 15

The Crime Survey of England and Wales (March 2022)

Answer 15

• Estimated that 5% of adults aged 16 and above (2.4 million) experienced DA in the last year.

Question 16

What does Coleman say about DA?

Answer 16

• Found that women were more likely than men to have experienced ‘intimate abuse’ across all 4 types of abuse - partner/family abuse, sexual assault and stalking.

Question 17

What do Dobash & Dobash say about DA?

Answer 17

• Certain incidents could be set off by what a husband saw as a challenge to his authority.
• Marriage legitimates abuse against women by conferring power and authority on husbands and dependency on wives

Question 18

Stats from ONS on DA

Answer 18

• Estimated 6.9% of women (1.7 million) and 3% of men (699,000) experienced DA in the last year

Question 19

What do Walby and Allen say on gender differences?

Answer 19

• Women were much more likely to be victims if multiple incidents if abuse and sexual abuse

Question 20

What do Ansara and Hidin say about gender differences?

Answer 20

• Women suffer more sever violence and control with more psychological effects

Question 21

What does Dar say about gender differences?

Answer 21

• Can be difficult to count separate DA incidents because abuse may be continuous or may occur to often that the victim cannot reliably count the instances.

Question 22

What does Cheal say about official stats of DA?

Answer 22

• The reluctancy of police and prosecutes to record, investigate or prosecute the cases of DA reported to them is due to the fact that police and other state agencies are not prepared to become involved in the family.

Question 23

What does Yearnshire say about official stats of DA? (and Dar)

Answer 23

• Found that on average women suffer 35 assaults before making a report.
• Dar argues that victims are unwilling to report DA as they feel it is not a police matter and is too trivial.

Question 24

What is the Radical feminist explanation for DA?

Answer 24

• Smith and Firestone argue that all societies have been founded on patriarchy. They see the key division in society is that between men and women; men are the exploiters and oppressors of women.

Question 25

What is the evaluation of the radical feminist explanation?

Answer 25

• Faith Robertson Elliot: rejects the radical feminist claim that all men benefit from violence against women.
• Not all men are aggressive and most are opposed to DA.
• Radical feminists fail to explain female violence including child abuse and violence against male partners and with lesbian relationships.
• Wrongly assume that all women are equally at risk of patriarchal violence

Question 26

What is the material explanation for DA?

Answer 26

• Wilkinson and Pickett: see DA as a result of stress on family members caused by social inequalities
• Higher levels of stress caused by low incomes or poor living conditions reduces family members chances of maintaining stable, caring relationships and increases the risk of conflict and violence.