Gender Roles

• Young and Willmott


  March of progress view - Women are going to work, men do jobs in house, this is most common in young couples. Family becoming more symmetrical and slowly improving for all its members. The relationship between men and women is less male dominant and patriarchal
• Domestic division of labour


  How household tasks are divided between family members
• Bott


  Segregated conjugal roles - show a clear division and separation between male and female roles, and joint conjugal roles - show few divisions between male ndd female roles and in genersl. They have leisure time together for example.
• The New Man'


  Kind, caring, emotional, and sensitive in his attitudes towards women, children, and his own emotional needs.
• Improved living standards in home


  Improved living standards such as central heating, TV, DVDS, Computers, etc have all encouraged husbands and wives, and cohabiting couples , to become more home centred, building the relationship at home.
• Social and geographical mobility


  More of this has cut off close knit ties between extended families, meaning there is less pressure from kin on newly weds o cohabiting people to retain traditional roles and it is therefore easier to adopt new roles in a relationship.
• Gershuny


  Found that as wives moved into paid employment, or from part time to full time work, they did less housework and mean did a bit more. Saw this in some progress in reducing gender inequalities in the home, but they stressed this was a very slow process and was leading to only small reductions.
• Improved status of women


  The improved status and right of women may encourage men to accept women more as equals, as they are in paid employment, whilst at the same time, women are becoming more assertive.
• Kan et al


  While men have increased their contribution to domestic work, this in what has been traditionally seen as the masculine defined tasks, such as DIY, outside work like gardening and general 'fixing'. These tasks are non-routine and do not need doing everyday and women still do the bulk of caring activities and routine chores such as cooking, cleaning, and clothes care - traditionally defined feminine tasks.
• Commercialisation of housework


  The way there are a whole host of consumer goods and services to help with reducing the burden of housework compared to previous generations. This includes things like freezers, washing machine, vacuum cleaners, dishwasher.
• Silver


  This commercialisation has taken away some of the dudgery and time consuming aspects of housework . This means that housework is now easier and less skilled, enabling women to do a bit less and encouraging men to do a bit more; if women are in paid work it boosts the family income to pay for these things.

  HOWEVER, all these things still need to be organised and the fact that there is less to do doesn't necessarily reduce gender inequality.
• Postmodernists


  Men and women now have much more choice in how they see themselves and their roles. Couples are free to 'pick n mix' roles and identities based on personal choice and therefore less constrainted by traditional masculine and feminine gender roles.
• Postmodernists


  This may weaken traditional gever divisions in housework and childcare, and encourage men to do more.
• Ann Oakley


  rejects the march of progress view and criticizes YOUNG AND WILLMOTT as she argues their views are exaggerated. In their research, they found that most husbands 'helped' their wives at least once a week, this could be taking the children for a walk. She says this is hardly evidence for a symmetrical family.

  In her research, she found some evidence of husbands helping in the home, but no evidence that the family was symmetrical. Only 15% of husbands participated regularly with chores in the home. Husbands were more likely to share childcare than housework, but only the enjoyable parts.
• Boulton


  Says that fewer than 20% of husbands had a major role in childcare. She says Young and Willmott exaggerate men's contribution by looking at tasks involved in childcare rather than responsibilities.
• Knudsen and Waerness


  (Division of labour) out of 34 modern countries there are none where men do more than, or as much as women in regards to house and child care. Women perform 2/3 of all domestic work in the world.
• British Social Attitudes Survey


  80% of women with partners said that they 'always or usually do the laundry'.
• Mumsnet survey


  75% of mothers do most of the cooking for their children, compared to just 7% of fathers.
• Consumer Attitudes to Food Standards Survey


  77% of women took all or most of the responsibility for household food shopping.
• Office for National Statistics


  Women sepent, on average, nearly twice as long as men each day cooking, cleaning, shopping, washing, and looking after children. ANALYSIS - Housework is the second largest cause of a row and women are more likely to make sacrifices.
• Elston


  Conducted research on doctors and found that these professional wives are still expected to take major responsibility for dealing with childare arrangements, sick children, and housework.
• Harkness


  What Elston found is still true a quarter of a century later. 3/4 of houses now have dual incomes, but she found women still take responsibility for most of the housework, and it is still mainly women who take time off when a child is sick.
• Harkness


  Working mothers with children put twice as many hours into housework as their partners, and mothers working full time in dual earner couples faced long working hours, with the burden of unpaid housework.
• Social Issues Research Centre


  Even though most mothers work full time or part time today, they are twice as likely to be involved in childcare as fathers.

  This pressure has led to as the Guardian put it: married couples having the status of 'married lone parents'.
• Domestic labour


  Monotomous and fragmented, it is privatised, isolated, solitary activity - there are no workmates, it is seen as a primary role for a woman, it has little status, based on ties of emotional and personal relationships, unpaid and no fringe benefits such as pensions, no starting and finishing hours.
• Radical feminists


  Men are seen as the main people who benefit from domestic labour, since its overwhelmingly women who do it. From this POV, the inequalities in domestic labour are part of the problem of patriarchy, with the family seen as a patriarchal unit, institutionalising, reproducing, and reinforcing male power.
• Marxist feminists


  See domestic labour as benefitting capitalism by contributing to the reproduction of the labour force by providing for the physical and mental well-being of family members so they are capable of performing labour each day for the capitalists. They recognise it is also a problem of patriarchy, as it is women who do most of this unpaid work and it is predominantly men who benefit from it.
• Delphy and Leonard


  Described emotional work as concerned with maintaining the bonds of affection, moral support, friendship, and love which give family members a sense of belonging and which underpin family solidarity and cohesion. This emotional work requires effort, as it involves talking to partners and chilidren about things that give them pleasure and so on. They see this emotional work as an important dimension of women's work in the home.
• Duncombe and Marsden


  Triple Shift - Women not only experience a double burden of both housework and paid work, but also a triple shift that includes soothing the emotions of partners and children. This emotional work often leads to the neglect of women's psychological well-being and can have negative consequences on their mental and physical health as they have major responsibilities for three different jobs when their male partner only has one.
• Taylor-Gooby


  (emotional work)While public attitudes often assume a high degree of gender equality in paid work, this doesnt not apply to home and family life. Public opinion is that women should have primary control over home and child care.

  48% of people said that women should stay home and not go to work, 34% supported part-time jobs.
• Edgell


  Women had sole responsibility for decisions only in relatively unimportant areas like home decoration and furnishing, children's clothes, food, and other domestic spending. Women were less likely than men to have the final say on most important decisions in the family, and decisions which couples thought of as 'very important', (like moving house) were finally taken by men alone.
• Evaluation of Edgell


  Things appear to be improving over the period since Edgell's research, with more joint or independent decision making, particularly in money matters.
• Pahl


  There is a growing individualisation in couple's finances, whereby each partner has some independence in financial matters (like their own bank account and credit card). This was more likely among young couples, those without children, and those where women were in full time work.
• Pahl


  Though a couple's decision to keep their money separate may appear to lead to more equality and independence in decision making, it may actually increase financial inequality between partners. This because, overall, men earn around 15% more than women, so, for every £100 that men take home, women are typically earning about £85. As longer as women are earning less than men, and women are responsible forpaying for the costs of childcare and children, the individualisation in money management can be a route to inequality.
• Pahl and Vogler


  (FEMINISTS) - They found two main types of control over family income:

  THE ALLOWANCE SYSTEM - Men give their wives an allowance out of which they have to budget to meet the family's need, with the man retaining any surplus for himself.

  POOLING - Both partners have access to income and joint responsibility for expenditure - e.g. a joint bank account.
• Inequalities in employment


  Women who have children are seen as unreliable by some employers.

  Women may leave jobs temporarily to have children.

  It is mainly women who give up paid work.

  Married or cohabiting women are more likrly to move house and area for their male partner's job.
• Gatrell


  men cherrypick the best parts of childcare. They try to reassert their power in the relationship by being more involved in childcare.
• Gatrell


  Found many returning women (from pregnancy) were labelled 'jelly heads' by hostile employers; had no other option but to accept a downgraded position if they wished to stay in their chosen professions, particularly if they asked for flexible arrangements to cope with their children. Many women don't fight these cases for fear of being labelled 'awkward' and facing further career disadvantages.
• Gatrell et sl


  Employers' view about mothers being the main or only carer were becoming increasingly out of date. A growing number of fathers want to be more involved with their children than fathers in the past, and in some cases, fathers are the main or only carers, and mothers who go out to work might require fathers to work flexibly so childcare can be shared.
• Crompton and Lyonette


  Found 2 different explanations for the unequal division of labour:

  THE CULTURAL OR IDEOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF INEQUALITY - In this view, the division of labour is determined by patriarchal norms and values that shape the gender roles in our culture. Women perform more domestic labour simply because it is what society expects.

  THE MATERIAL OR ECONOMIC EXPLANATION OF INEQUALITY - The fact that women generally earn less than men mean it is economically rational for women to do more housework and childcare while men spend more time earning money.