Equality

• Parsons argued the family functions best when women do the domestic labour and men make the decisions, and that this suited the biological differences between men and women. he believed there should be segregated conjugal roles where the husband fulfills the instrumental role and wife fulfills the expressive role
• Feminists argue that Parsons view of the family is outdated. Oakley argues that the housewife role is a social construct arising from industrialisation, not biological. Before industrialisation, women would work but the new laws of the workplace forced them out and made them financially dependent on their husbands
• Theorists that argue women and men are now equal (March of progress) - Willmott and Young (symmetrical families, joint conjugal roles, new man), Pahl and Vogler (allowance system vs pooling system, co-independence)
• Theorists that argue women and men are still unequal (critical approach) - Oakley (dual burden), Edgell (decision making) and Dobash and Dobash (domestic violence)
• Willmott and Young argue the family has now become symmetrical where women are now involved in the instrumental role and men with the expressive role doing domestic labour. They carried out structured interviews with closed preset questions with 1000 working class families in London. They did it in the 50s then in 70s and found more couples have joint conjugal roles. 72% of men helped around the house other than washing up at least once a week. There has also been an emergence of a ‘New Man’ (sensitive and nurturing) who do expressive roles
• Evaluation of Willmott and Young - Oakley argued their claim of 72% of men helping out could include men occasionally putting children to bed or making their own breakfast and so this vague statement doesn’t reflect a symmetrical family or joint conjugal roles
• Oakley conducted unstructured interviews with 40 women, half middle class and half working class. They were between 20-30, lived in London and had one or more children under 5. She developed a strong rapport with them. She found 15% of men had a high level of help with housework, 25% had a high level of help with childcare. She concluded there is little evidence of symmetrical families, but women actually suffer a dual burden of doing housework and expected to work too.
• Duncombe and Marsden build of Oakley’s work by saying that not only do women have a dual burden of paid work and housework, but a triple shift where they also have to manage the emotions of the family, where men just have to focus on paid work.
• Evaluation of Oakley - can be criticised for research being subjective, as what counts as ‘high level’ of work will change from person to person so cannot really be valid. She only researched a small sample so it is unrepresentative and hard to generalise
• The commercialisation is the new technology that has made housework easier. Washing machines, hoovers, online shopping etc.
• Silver argues that the commercialisation of housework means men are more likely to do housework as it’s easier and less time consuming
• Gershuny argues there is a lagged adaptation where men are slowly adjusting to the cultural and technological changes, and are moving towards equality slowly but aren’t there yet
• There is a growing rise of weaponised incompetence where men deliberately do bad at household chores so women take over.
• the commercialisation of housework mostly benefits the richer middle class as they have the money to afford the products that make housework easier
• Pahl and Vogler argue that traditionally couples with segregated conjugal roles would have an allowance system where the husband would give wife a set amount of money to buy necessities. However as women have gained more power and income of their own, couples opt for a pooling system where both put money into a joint bank account to share household responsibilities and a seperate account for what they want. This is ‘ co-independence’ and is growing in younger couples.
• Pahl and Vogler argue that the increase in jointly controlled finances shows couples are now equal as money equals power. (Women have more money = more power)
• Evaluation of Pahl and Vogler- Smart argues homosexual couples attach no importance to who controls money as they don’t see it as a sign of power or inequality. This suggests that it isnt the control of money that is important but the stereotypical masculine role of being the breadwinner and the identity that goes with it
• Edgell found decision making in the home was divided - very important decisions (moving house) were made by men, semi important decisions were joint, (children’s education) but men had final say and less important decisions were made by women. (Dinner). She found that an important factor in this was who made the most money as there is a cultural link between money and power. As men traditionally earn the most, they have more power, but as women have gained more financial power, they have more input
• Evaluation of Edgell - in some cases where women earn more than their husband, they will still let their husbands make most decisions so their masculinity is not threatened. This suggests Edgell is wrong about money being the reason men make decisions, but more to do with their identity
• Dobash and Dobash are radical feminists who argue male violence is used to control and oppress women, and that marriage is used to legitimise domestic violence. Many incidents of violence were triggered when a woman appeared to ‘challenge’ a man’s authority. This strongly suggests an unequal marriage where men see themselves to dominate- patriarchal control.
• Dobash and Dobash found that male violence was particularly common from lower class who are more stressed about money and poverty. They argue that inequality is tolerated and reinforced by social institutions - can be used in conclusion
• Evaluation of Dobash and Dobash - they ignore the amount of female on male violence. Some estimates 1 in 6 men will suffer domestic abuse but this number may be higher as male victims may be to embarrassed to report it to police, not making it into crime statistics.