gender roles & domestic division of labour

• Gender roles are roles associated with the genders.
• Conjugal roles is the separation of roles in the family e.g., mum & dad.
• The domestic division of labour is how labour is divided in the house.
• Egalitarian: all people are equal, everyone should have the same rights.
• Parsons:

  • expressive role: nurturing role (woman)
  • instrumental role: economically providing for the family (male)
• Bott:

  • joint conjugal roles: people in the family share the same roles. Spend leisure time together
  • segregated conjugal roles: people in the family have different roles. Spend leisure time separately
• Wilmott and Young:

  • symmetrical family: men & women have equal roles/their roles are becoming more equal
  • march of progress
• Oakley:

  • a rise in the housewife role (women doing the housework)
  • 15% of men had participated in the housework. Men would rather look after children
  • cherrypicking: people pick what jobs they want to do e.g., men taking the bins out, women cooking
• New dad: takes care of the children and participates in housework.
• Women - paid work:

  • women have greater freedom as they now do paid work
  • women have to do the triple shift & dual burden
• Gershuny:

  • women who work more (full-time) do less housework
  • if parents had joint conjugal roles, their children are more likely to have equal relationships
• Silver and Schor:

  • there has been a decreased burden of housework on women
  • housework = commercialised. There is now more money to spend on items that are used in housework
• AO3:

  • feminists e.g., radical feminists: there are still segregated conjugal roles, little progress towards equality. People ignore this inequality.
  • functionalism: need gendered roles to help society function.