Women carry out the triple burden in the household; the domestic labour, emotional labour, and paid labour. As shown in the item most of this work is ‘unpaid and hardly recognised work at all’. Oakley argues the only way women will gain independence and freedom in society is for the role of the housewife to be removed aswell as the present structure of the family. Wilmott and Young believed the family is symmetrical and that both husband and wife have joint conjugal roles making the family a functional institution and their research showed that men do help women with housework. Radical feminists such as Dobash and Dobash also disagree with Willmott and Young’s theory that the family is symmetrical.
This was introduced by the Labour party, who Lewis argues have taken on the idea of ‘social investment in children’ seriously and have realised family forms are changing. The Labour party have introduced a number of laws, attempting to strengthen the family unit. They were mainly concerned on helping the social and economic position of women, for example, marital rape was made illegal in 1991 by the Labour party. The rights of children have also been improved by the labour party due to the children’s act of 1989. New right thinkers however; believe that these laws undermine the traditional male dominance in families, but many believe these new policies for women and children strengthen the family rather than weaken it.
A mixture of these factors led to the change in the position of women in society, the increase in equality, especially legally, including the right to vote (legal factor), the increase in educational opportunities (social factor) meant that women chose to educate themselves before starting a family, the increase in work opportunities with laws banning unequal pay and sex discrimination (social/legal factor)and changing attitudes in society meant that it was socially acceptable for women to be employed whereas traditionally the wife would be the housewife and the husband would be the breadwinner and would financially support his family. Recently, the number of people dying has also decreased in the UK as there is an increase in life
Depending on the lower or upper level of the middle class, women were able to be work as school mistresses, or not work at all and only take care of the house. As upper class and middle class women had little advantages to their life, lower class women often had none. They were married to poor farmers, with no education and often had to work just as hard as their husbands, maybe even harder as they had a responsibility of taking care of the house and children. In some parts of the Western Europe, lower class women had to work in textile mills or various workhouses parted away from their families, working many, many hours. Double burden was also common at the beginning of 1900’s as women worked to earn money but also had the responsibility for unpaid, domestic labor.
The industrial revolution had profound effects on American women, because as production shifted from homes to factories, it shifted away from women doing the producing. This led to the “cult of domesticity.” The cult of domesticity decreed that a woman’s place was in the home, so rather than making things the job of women was to enable their husbands to make things, by providing food and a clean living space, but also by providing love, friendship, and mutual obligation. Only very low paying work was available to them and in most states they couldn’t control their own wages it they were married. But, still poor women did find work in factories, as maids, or seamstresses. Some middle class women found work as teachers, which was disreputable
(Malarek, 1978). These two articles stuck out to me because of the vast differences between the argument of women’s rights. In the first article it is argued that women aren’t even being recognized as people when is comes to purchasing a home. This is unfair because while we are now able to work in this time, our income doesn’t matter for the reason that that income could come to a halt due to our ability to procreate. Now in the other article, because of our ability to procreate we are afforded financial assistance as mothers, where men are
However, in U.S. with Indian culture, husband and wives both work together in but only wives work the household chores such as cleaning and cooking. Even though wives do not work outside in our country, they work in the U.S., which is acceptable since wives generally take up work outside. This exists because of ethnocentrism that husbands in India do not help with household chores. If the Indian people believed in culture relativism than both spouses can make their life and environment better. This type of ethnocentrism does not set a good example for the new
“As a result of this attitude, wives seldom worked at outside jobs,” Benner stated (Benner pg.1). Some women tried to have a job out of rebelliousness or some just desperately needed a job because their husband could not maintain a well enough paying job. Women weren’t sought out to be the type person who would get a job and provide for the family. The man of the house was supposed to do that. That was the norm, the norm was that the man of the house was the one who was to protect his family, provide for his family, and be there for his family.
In most of the countries around the world years ago women had to stay at home, take care of kids and do the home chores (women were not allowed to work); while men were supposed to be working and earning money for the family, but this thinking have changed through the years. Nowadays women and men have more varied roles. In my country (Dominican Republic) the traditional roles of women are: to work, and when I say work it means women are able to work in areas that before were considered only for men like engineering, medicine, law, and political sciences. All this means that women have been inserted more in the workplace, a clear example of this is that the vice presidency of the Dominican Republic is occupied by a woman. Women also take care of children, do the home chores, do the cooking, drive a car, and much more.
We know this as Agnes is reliving the tension she has built up. We can see there is an absence of male as the sisters throughout the play stick together as a unit “We both do” gives us the impression of stability of the mundy sisters however from the quote ‘Paint the house’. Sweep the chimney. Cut the grass. Save the turf’ this shows us how the Mundy sisters are trying to envelope the fact that they are not stable as in that society it was patriarchal and needed a man to run the household as Jack is unwell they are unable to rely on him so he is more of burden on them .