gender roles in family

• Domestic division of labour


  The way male and female roles are divided in the family
• Parsons' view on gender roles in the family

  • Husband has an instrumental role (breadwinner)
  • Wife has an expressive role (homemaker)
  • This division is based on biological differences and is beneficial to them both
• Bolt's view on conjugal roles

  • Segregated conjugal roles - separate roles and leisure times
  • Joint conjugal roles - shared tasks and spend leisure time together
• Young and Willmott's view on the symmetrical family

  • Roles are becoming more similar - women now go out to work, men help with housework, spend leisure time together
  • This rise is due to social changes - changes in women's position, geographical mobility, new technology, higher standards of living, commercialisation of housework, decline of close-knit extended family
• Women going into paid work

  Hasn't led to equality in paid division of domestic labour
• Women now carry a dual burden and have a triple shift with emotional work included
• Couples continue to divide household tasks along traditional gender lines
• Crompton and Lyonette's explanations for gender division of labour


  • Cultural ideological explanation - patriarchal norms and gender roles in culture, societal expectations
  • Material economic explanation - women earn less so they have to do more housework
• There's no immediate prospect of a more equal division of labour if it depends on the economic equality between sexes
• Highly qualified women are discriminated against - returning women labelled as 'jelly heads'
• Women are more likely to interrupt their own career and have to start again
• Allowance system


  Men give wife an allowance
• Pooling


  Both have access to income and joint responsibility
• Men and women had a joint account
• Important decisions were made by the man as his career took priority
• Cultural definition of men as decision makers is deeply ingrained in society - which is why it remains unequal
• Domestic violence is far too widespread and does not occur randomly - follows social patterns
• More violence against women occurs when men thought they were not fulfilling their expected roles
• Victims may be unwilling to report to the police - women suffer 35 assaults before making a police report
• Police and prosecutors may be more reluctant to report them as they make 3 assumptions about family life: family is a private sphere, family is a good thing, individuals are free agents
• Explanations for domestic violence

  • Radical feminist view - evidence of patriarchy, men as the enemy, male domination of state institutions
  • Material explanation - inequalities of income, stress on family members caused by social inequality
• Not all men are aggressive and most are opposed to domestic violence
• Women from some social groups face a greater risk of domestic violence such as young women
• Wives are takers of shit - domestic violence is the product of capitalism
• Doesn't account for why some females commit cases of domestic violence