Couples

• Parsons - instrumental and expressive roles


  the husband - instrumental - family breadwinner

  the wife - expressive - primary socialisation of kids, cares for families emotional needs.

  based on biology, aids the family and society.
• parsons criticisms

  • feminists - the instrumental and expressive roles only benefit men.
  • young and willmott - men are starting to. take on domestic tasks.
• conjugal roles

  joint conjugal roles - couple share domestic tasks and spend leisure time together.

  seperate conjugal roles - couples have seperate roles - like parsons - and have seperate leisure times.
• the symmetrical family

  young and willmott - march of progress view.

  the families roles are becoming similar.

  • women now work - al though mainly part time
  • men now help with childcare.
  • symmetrical families are found more with affluent and socially isolated, younger families.
• reasons for the symmetrical family

  • changes in women’s position
  • higher standard of living
  • newer technology
  • geographical mobility
• symmetrical family criticisms

  • oakley - feminist - found that y+w have exaggerated views.
  • husbands may help with housework but its easy jobs such as taking the kids to school.
  • husbands more likely to take part in the enjoyable aspects of childhood.
• the impact of paid work

  • leading to more equal domestic tasks - with a new man taking care of the children - march of progress view.
  • feminist view - women have to handle paid work and domestic work = dual burden.
• the march of progress view

  Gershuny - women are now doing less domestic work due to their jobs, leading to joint conjugal roles.

  Sullivan - trend of women doing less domestic work and men doing more.
• the feminist view 


  the new man is a lie -men cherry pick what tasks they do.
• taking responsibility for children

  boulton - whilst men be more involved In childcare, the mother is still responsible for the child’s wellbeing.

  dex and ward - whilst 78% of fathers spend time with their kids, only 1% of fathers take care of their sick children.
• emotion work and the triple shift

  hoschild - emotion work - women have to care for their families emotions, e.g settling sibling arguments.

  duncombe and marsden - triple shift of emotion work, paid work and domestic work.
• taking responsibility for quality time

  Southerton - men experience large amounts of uninterrupted leisure time away from home whilst women’s leisure is interrupted by their kids and mostly at home.

  Women are also in charge of finding family time, which is hard in today’s society. (Due to longer work hours)
• Explaining the gender division

  The cultural and ideological explanation of inequality - women work domestically because the norms and values of society expect them to.

  the material and economic explanation of inequality - women generally earn less than men therefore men should work more.
• evidence for the cultural explanation of inequality - dunne - lesbian couples had more symmetrical relationships because of the absence of heterosexual gender scripts.

  evidence for the material explanation - kan - for every 1000 a woman makes = 2 hours less of domestic work per week.
• kempson 


  women in WC families deprive themselves of their own wants or needs in order to provide for their family. anything she spends on herself is seen as money that should be spent on the children, leaving women in poverty.
• two types of money management - Pahl and Vogler

  • The allowance system - man gives woman a set allowance which she budgets with, man takes surplus income.
  • pooling - joint bank accounts.
• decision making

  • men have more power in financial decisions
  • women’s lives are structured around the man
  • women make child centred decisions
• personal life perspective on money

  smart - gay men and lesbians attracts no importance to who controls money.

  there is greater freedom for same sex couples as they do not have the same gendered historical baggage.
• domestic violence is too widespread - accounts for 1/6th - 1/4th of violent crime.

  domestic violence follows patterns, one in three homocides are due to DV.
• Official statistics are unreliable for DV

  1. because victims may be unwillingly to report
  2. police are less likely to investigate or prosecute cases.
• feminist explanations of DV

  1. radical feminist - dobash and dobash (dev occurs due to women questioning men’s authority). men are the enemy and dominate through the threat of DV.
  2. the material explanation - DV as the result of stress caused by class inequalities.