Couples – Family

Parsons

Instrumental role – bread winner role, held by the husband.

Expressive role – housewife role, domestic duties, held by the wife.

Parsons sees these roles as being natural and defined by the biological differences between men and women.

Feminists argue that this is not natural, but constructed by patriarchy.

Young + Willmott – men are taking on more of an equal share in the domestic duties.

Conjugal roles - Bott

Joint and segregated conjugal roles – the roles within a marriage or partnership that are shared or separate.

Joint roles – roles taken on my both partners.

Segregated roles – traditional gender norms that distinguish between both domestic work and leisure activities/interests.

Young + Willmott claim that segregated roles only exist within W/C households.

Symmetrical family -Young + Willmott

March of progress view, that households have become more symmetrical in both the share of domestic work and paid work.

Studied a W/C family and found that:

Women work Men help out more at home Couples spend their leisure time together rather

than apart like before

What has caused this shift?

Smaller family sizes More women in paid work/change in positions Therefore, higher standard of living Can afford labour saving devices/new technology

Oakley rejects this view as it is too exaggerated, a survey conducted found that only 15% if husbands had an active involvement in housework.

Boulton – no increase seen in child care.

March of progress – Gershuny

More women in paid work have seen more equal division of labour.

British Social Attitudes Survey – decrease in attitudes towards traditional roles:

o 1984 41% - 2012 12%

o Where both partners have equal roles in

doing the laundry: 2002 15% - 2012 20%

Boulton - does not tell us who is responsible for

making sure tasks get done or how much time each

partner spends on these tasks.

Vincent + Ball – in only 3/7 families in their study

showed the father was the main care giver.

Triple shift – Hochschild

Women have the burden of carrying out both domestic

work and now paid work but also emotional work.

Emotional work – caring for/managing the emotions and

feelings of family members as well as their own.

Explanations for the division of labour – Compton +

Lyonette

Cultural – patriarchy and gender roles

Economic – women earn less so choose to stay at

home.

Kan – younger men did more domestic work than their fathers suggesting a generational shift.

Dunne – lesbian couples were more equal due to the absence of heterosexual gender norms.

Kan – for every £10,000 a year more a woman makes, she does two hours less housework weekly.

Ramos - when the woman is the bread winner the husband does the most domestic work.

Money management – Vogler

Allowances and pooling systems:

Allowances are restrictive and give women few opportunities to leave the home. This is a way for husbands to control their partners.

Pooling allows the woman to share some of the wealth or contribute towards the pool where each couple share the money.

Pooling does not equal, equality. We need to know who controls the pooled money and who puts in more. Cohabiting couples are less likely to use this system in comparison to married couples.

Decision making – Edgell

Very important decisions are made by the husband e.g. financial issues – wife has a say but the ultimate choice is made by the husband.

Important decisions are made by the wife e.g. deciding where to send their children to school.

Less important decisions are made by the wife e.g. deciding where to go on holiday.

Men earn more and so have more say in highly important decisions as it is most likely his money that will be spent.

Gershuny - limited move towards equality, only 70% of couples had equal say.

Hardill – a man’s career is always priority when deciding to move house for a new job.

Finch – women’s lives are often structured around their husband’s careers.

It is more likely to be equal when the wife is on a high income.

Domestic violence – Dobash + Dobash

Domestic violence occurs when a husband fells challenged. Marriage legitimises violence as all authority is transferred to the husband.

Crime Survey – narrow gender gap, 7.3% of women and 5% of men report being victims.

‘Dark figure’ of crime statistics

Radical feminist explanation

Marriage and the family are key institutions for female oppression. Within the family the men dominate and children’s needs are put before that of the wife. Domestic violence is said to be an inevitable part of patriarchal society.

Elliot – not all men are abusers, may are opposed and condemn domestic violence.

Ignores the amount of domestic violence that is carried out against men.

Fails to explain abuse against children carried out by the mother.

Materialist explanation – Pickett

Stress on family members caused by social inequality leads to domestic violence. Those with less power and status are more at risk of being victims.

Useful and practical applications Marxist feminists would agree, as women are often

described as ‘takers of shit’ (Ansley) where the man vents his anger and frustration out on the women because of alienation and oppression at work.

It does fail to explain why women, not men are the victims of violence as they are the ones ostracised at work.

EXTRA: - old spec, which might be helpful.

Affectionate power – the most in love are easily manipulated. As a wife is more dependent on her husband, she relies on him more, while the husband can spend more time outside of the house.

Influence – males and females use a combination of verbal and non-verbal techniques to gain power, females are just more skilful at doing this to get what they want. However, it is the male who often is given more power.

Dominance power – males are more aggressive, whilst females are taught to be passive, caring and gentle through socialisation.

Note: remember synopticity in your writing, what can you pull from beliefs in society and other chapters in families and households to help bulk out your essay??