Topic 1 - COUPLES

• The domestic division of labour: Parsons instrumental and expressive roles

  • The husband has the instrumental role: geared towards success at work to provide for family - breadwinner
  • The wife has the expressive role: geared towards primary socialisation of children and meeting the families emotional needs

  Parsons argues the division of labour is based off biological differences, women as nurturing and men the provider
• Criticisms of Parsons instrumental & expressive roles:

  • Young & Willmott - argue men are taking a greater share of domestic tasks and more women are wage earners
  • Feminists reject Parson view that the division of labour is natural and it only benefits men
• Joint and segregated conjugal roles: (BOTT)

  • SEGREGATED CONJUGAL ROLES: Where men take on breadwinner and female housewife
  • JOINT CONJUGAL ROLES: Where couples share tasks such as housework and childcare
• Young & Willmott take a march of progress view on the history of family becoming equal from segregated conjugal roles to joint conjugal roles
• The symmetrical family: roles of husbands and wives are much more similar.

  • women at work, men help with housework & childcare, couples spend leisure time together rather than separately
• Young and Willmott see the rise in symmetrical family as the result of social changes:

  • changes in women's position
  • Geographical mobility
  • New technology
  • higher standards of living

  Many factors are interlinked e.g married women bringing a second wage, raises the standard of living meaning couples can afford more labour saving devices (making housework easier)
• A Feminist view of housework: Feminists reject the 'march of progress view', they argue that little has changed and still remain unequal. See the inequality as stemming from the fact the family & society are male dominated.

  • Feminist OAKLY - Criticises Young & Willmott's view that the family is now symmetrical, argues their claims are exaggerated
• Feminist view of housework:

  Oakley found some evidence of husbands helping in the home but no symmetry - 15% in housework and 25% in childcare.

  • husbands were more likely to help in childcare then housework - playing but this could mean that mothers lost the rewards of childcare
  • Boulton found fewer than 20% of husbands had a major role in childcare, argues Young & Willmott exaggerate mens contribution
  • Warde & Hetherington found sex-typing of domestic tasks e.g wives were 30 times more likely to be the last person washing up
• The march of progress view:

  • Gershuny argues that women working full time is leading to more equal division of labour, men becoming more involved in housework (march of progress)
  • Suvillian's found a trend towards women doing a similar share of domestic work & men doing more
  • The british social attitudes survey found a fall in the number of people who think its a mans job to make money & women's to look after the home & family
• The Feminist view = women working hasn't lead to greater equality in the division of labour, there's little sign of the 'new man' who does an equal share of housework and childcare, while women do both
• THE FEMINIST VIEW:

  • (2012) survey found men do an average of 8h of housework a week, whereas women do 13h
  • men spent 10h on care for family & women 23h
  • women are much more likely to do the laundry, care for sickness, shop for food, cleaning, cooking while men do repairs in the house.
• 
  

  • surveys conducted only focus on quantifiable aspects, not telling us who is responsible for ensuring tasks are done
• Taking responsibility for children: Boulton - states although fathers may help with childcare tasks, its usually the mother that takes responsibility for the childs security and well-being

  supported by:

  • FERRI & SMITH = found fathers took responsibility of childcare in 4% of families
  • DEX & WARD = found that although fathers had high involvement with their 3 year olds, when their child got sick only 1% took responsibility
• Explaining the gender division of labour - Crompton & lyonette two explanations for the unequal division of labour:

  1. the cultural/ ideological explanation of inequality: division of labour is determined by patriarchal norms and values
  2. The material/economic explanation of inequality: women earn less than men, means economically rational for women to do more housework/childcare
• Evidence for the cultural explanation: equality will be achieved when gender roles change

  • Gershuny - found couples who's parents had a more equal relationship are more likely to share housework equally
  • KAN - found younger men do more housework than their fathers and young women do less than their mothers = changes in behaviour and gender norms
  • Dunne - found lesbians had more symmetrical relationships because of the absence of traditional heterosexual roles
• Evidence for the economic/material explanation of inequality:

  • Kan found for every 10 thousand more a women earns, she does 2 hours less housework
  • Ramos - found when a women is a full time breadwinner and man is unemployed, he does as much domestic labour as she does
  • Suvillian - shows working full time rather than part time makes a big difference in how much domestic work each partner does
• Crompton and Lyonette - 1. cultural explanation of inequality

  2. economic explantion of inequality
• Resources and decision making in households:

  • Barret & Mclntosh - stated that men gain far more from a womens domestic work then what they give in financial support - (as it comes with strings attached, men usually make decisions about spending money)
  • Kempson found women in low income families denied their own needs (didn't spend money on themselves
• Money management - Phal and Volgar - two types of control over family income:

  1. THE ALLOWANCE SYSTEM - men give an allowance for families needs, with man retaining surplus income for himself
  2. POOLING - Both parents have access to income and joint responsibility for expenditure
• Decision making:

  • when pooled income is controlled by the husband, it gives men more power to make decisions. Phal and volgar found that even with pooling, men usually make major financial decisions
• Edgell found: (men earn more so make decisions)

  • the very important decisions - involving finance, change of job, moving house are either taken by the husband or the husband has the final say.
  • Important decisions - children's education, Holidays are taken jointly
  • less important decisions - home decor, children's clothes, decisions made by mother

  However, evidence of equality =, Gershuny - 70% of couples said they had equal say and found when women were earning higher are more likely to have a say
• Feminists argue inequalities aren't just in earning, they argue in a patriarchal society, men as decision makers is ingrained through gender role socialisation
• The meaning of money:

  Voolger - found cohabiting couples are less likely to pool their money, this suggests that they are more likely to share domestic work equally
• A personal life perspective on money - focuses on the meanings the couples give to who controls the money .

  Smart - found that gay couples attached no importance to who controlled the money and didn't see it as equality/inequality
• Domestic violence is far too widespread, (women's Aid federation) it accounts for a 6th and a quarter of violent crime.
• Domestic violence doesn't occur randomly but follows particular social patterns, mainly violence by men against women

  • E.G - Coleman found that women were more likely to have experienced intimate violence across all 4 types of abuse
  • Coleman and Osborne - 2 women a week are killed by a partner or former partner
• Domestic violence:

  • Dobashse's research supports Coleman and Osborne's findings. Police records with refugee women - explaining examples of wives being slapped, beaten, raped/ killed by husbands
  • Dobash found that violent incidents could start by challenges to husbands authority, they argue that marriage legitimates violence against women
• Domestic violence:

  • Evidence from Crime survey found a relatively narrow gender gap 7.3% of women compared with 5% of men had experienced domestic abuse

  But knowing how many victims (quantitative) doesn't tell us the frequency and severity of attacks
• Domestic violence:

  Studies with a significant gender gap:

  • Walby and Allen found women are much more likely to be the victims of multiple incidents of abuse and sexual violence.
  • Ansara and Hindin - found women suffered more severe violence and control with greater psychological effects
  • Dar - points out it can be difficult to count separate domestic violence incidents because abuse may be continuous
• Official statistics, domestic violence - understate the true extent of the problem:

  1. victims may be unwilling to report to police - YEARNSHIRE found a women suffers around 35 assaults before making a report
  2. police may be reluctant to report the case thats reported - Cheal - this is due to the fact police aren't prepared to become involved in the family:

  • they believe family is private, so access should be limited
  • family is a good thing so agencies neglect the darker side of family life
  • individuals are free agents - free to leave (but not true - due to financially dependent)
• Explanations of domestic violence:

  • The radical feminist explanation - emphasises the role of patriarchal ideas, values and institutions
  • The materialist explanation - emphasises economic resources such as lack of resources
• The radical feminist explanation: See a key division in society, men are the enemy.

  • exploiters of women, they see the family and marriage as key to the main source of women's oppression
  • widespread domestic violence is an inevitable feature of the patriarchal society, this helps to explain why most DV is committed by men - a sociological explanation
  • the male domination of the state helps to explain the reluctance of police to deal with dv reports
• Evaluation of the feminist explanation -

  • Elliot rejects the radical feminist claim that men benefit from violence against women, not all men are violent, radical feminists ignore this
  • Radical feminists also fail to explain female violence, including child abuse by women and violence against men - 18% of men have experience dv at age 16
  • Feminists fail to explain that not all women are at risk of dv but some women from these social groups are at greater risk = young women, deprived areas, financial difficulties, drugs
• The materialist explanation - focuses on economic & material factors e.g inequalities in income, housing.

  • Wilkinson and picket see domestic violence as a result of stress on family members caused by social inequality e.g arguments over money, jobs, housing = conflict and violence
  • Findings of Wilkinson and Picket show that not all people are equally in danger of suffering dv
• Evaluation of Wilkinson and Pickets approach (the materialist explanation) - useful in showing how inequality produces stress triggering conflict

  • however unlike the radical feminist approach, Wilkinson and picket doesn't explain why women are more likely to be victims than men
• Marxist feminists - also see inequality like Wilkinson and picket as causing domestic violence

  Ansley describes women as 'takers of shit', (a result of capitalism) men are exploited at work and take out their frustration on their wives

  • explains why violence is males against females but doesn't account for female violence