4.5 - Family and Domestic Labour

• What did Young and Wilmott find?

  • investigated the distribution of domestic labour and conjugal roles
  • MEN - spent leisure time with friends, breadwinners of the family, rarely attended births, no help with childcare, head of household
  • WOMEN - rarely worked, did all childcare, economically dependent on husbands, little power over desicions
• What were the 4 major social changes that led to the symmetrical family?

  1 - Slum clearance problems - moving away from extended family

  2 - Greater education and job opportunities for women

  3 - More women working

  4 - Women have more control over fertilitty
• What was the symmetrical family?

  • joint conjugal roles
  • both are involved in paid work and housework contribution
  • desicion making is shared
  • leisure time spent together
• What were the responses to the symmetrical family?

  • feminist response - Oakley argues there is still patriarchy in women's role in housework. Gathered quantitative data through interviews with 40 housewives. Found that men did help with housework but seen it as 'womens work'
  • Craig - found that women do more than one half of the housework and this increases when married
  • 'partnership penalty' and 'mother penalty'
  • feminists argue that women working has led to a dual burden - women do the housework and paid work
• What was Edgell's research?

  • research into the contribution of desicion making
  • 1 - Very important decisions - economic or financial desicions such as moving house, done by husband
  • 2 - Important desicions - education, childcare normally done by women
  • 3- Less important desicions - buying groceries, domestic items, clothing , done by women
• How did Hardills research contradict Edgell?

  • repeated Edgell's research and found women do have a contribution in very important desicions like buying a house or mortgage
• What do Duncombe and Marsden say about domestic labour?

  • say that emotion work has to be taken into consideration
  • this includes - providing hugs and love, sending cards and presents to family, mediating conflict, planning social events
  • say that women have a 'triple shift' - emotion work, paid work, housework
  • Gabb - argues that it is a mothers love and they are not burdened by it
• What was Duncombe and Marsden's research?

  • 40 interviews with couples
  • women felt their partners were 'emotionally lacking'
  • men felt that they did not know how to provide comfort and emotion or show gratitude
  • leads to neglect of womens' mental health
• What does Gillian Dunne argue?

  • argues that the division of labour is due to deeply ingrained gender scripts - which are social expectations for each gender
  • believes there are now gender scripts with lesbian/gay couples
• What did Dunne investigate?

  • 37 cohabitating lesbian couples with dependent children
  • found that gender scripts were not a part of their relationship and work/childcare was split evenly
  • there was a lot of symmetry and egalitarianism with work. However, if one worked more then domestic labour was unequal
• What did Carrington investigate?

  • carried out an ethnographic study on the distribution of domestic labour between gay/lesbian couples
  • found there was tension between inequalities in domestic labour
• What are the biological explanations of domestic labour?

  • Parsons argue that women have a more biologically suited role to being nurturing
  • murdock argues men have the physical power to physically dominate the workplace
• What is the familial and patriarchal ideology?

  • it is the idea that there is a way to organise family life
  • ideology is mainly patriarchal
  • Chambers states the ideology of motherhood is that they should be focused on putting the needs of the child first and put childcare before work
  • some mothers feel guilty about going to work when having a child
• What is the relative resource theory?

  • economic explanation for inequalities in home
  • men have an economic advantage then women in terms of skills in the labour market and have a greater access to jobs
  • however, Breene and Cook argue there has been a rise in women having jobs so now have argumentative power on sharing the domestic labour
• What is the marxist feminist view on domestic labour?

  • women serve the interest of capitalism - maintains resentment and reproduces the next workers
• What is the radical feminist view towards domestic labour?

  • women are exploited by men
  • housewife is created by patriarchy and domestic abuse
  • hakim - women have the choice to choose an employment career or housewife career
  • feminism is guilty of devaluing the value of the housewife