According to Parsons, husbands are the breadwinners and the wife has the nurtring and caring role and that this is based on biological differences between the sexes, a view shared by the New Right. However, this can be criticised using Willmott and Young’s findings, which show that men are now doing the housework and women are going out to work. This shows that family roles are socially constructed and hence not fixed as our society is always changing. Feminists such as Anne Oakley have criticised Willmott and Young’s finding’s stating that they are methodically flawed. She found that only a small minority of men did a significant amount of housework and childcare.
When looking at equality within relationships there are three main areas to observe; housework, decision making and Domestic violence. A study done by Young and Willmott greatly supports the idea that husbands and wives now have a relationship based on equality. They argue that there has been a long term trend away from segregated conjugal roles and towards joint conjugal roles and the symmetrical family. By this they mean the roles of husbands and wives are much similar; as women now go out to work, although this is may be part time not full time. Men also no help with housework and childcare, also couple now spend their leisure time together instead of separately with workmates or female relatives.
Women are naturally more suited to take on the expressive role which involves socialisation of the children and meet the family's emotional needs. She is the homemaker rather than a wage earner. Where as men are naturally more suited to take on the instrumental role which is geared towards achieving success at work so that he can provide for the family financially. He is the breadwinner. Parsons claim that this division of labour is beneficial to both men and women.
Initially, within the modernity period, functionalists like Parsons (1955), saw a biological division of labour which he claimed were beneficial to the family and thus wider society. Elizabeth Bott (1957) categorised these divisions through ‘joint and segregated conjugal roles.’ These suggested whether within a marriage, the roles of the family were shared or divided. Parsons viewed these gender roles as being segregated through expressive and instrumental functions which were formed following industrialisation as there became a clear division between the private sphere at home, and the public sphere at work. This meant that gender roles were unequal in that the husband had to perform the instrumental function in being the ‘breadwinner’ by providing financial stability, and the wife had to perform the expressive function in socialising the children, caring for the emotional welfare of the family and providing a housewife role. He suggested that these differences were ‘natural’ and thus benefitted the family as a whole; also supported by new-right thinkers.
Elizabeth Bott conducted a lot of research into conjugal roles and came up with the term ‘joint conjugal role’ which means that the couple share the housework and the childcare. This type of relationship has become much more common since the 1970’s, this suggests that there is more equality between men and women in domestic labour and gender roles. Controversially, Bott discussed segregated conjugal roles, the ‘instrumental role’ played by the man, meaning he provides for the family by going to work whilst the women play the ‘expressive role’ meaning that they cook, clean and look after the
Feminist views of the family revolve around and understanding of the term patriarchy, which means make domination. Feminists agree that men tend to have a superior position in society and that women suffer oppression because of this. Many feminists argue that the family is a corner stone of this oppression and as such needs careful analysis. Liberal feminists believe that the fanily is gradually becoming less oppressive for women, they cite the move of many families towards more symmetrical roles where men take more part in the domestic roles so that women are no longer burdened by the mundane, repetitive, low status work of cleaning, laundry and childcare work which makes their position in society less powerful than mens. However, radical feminists disagree.
Initially, functionalists like Parsons (1955), viewed a biological division of labour roles which he said benefited to the family and then the bigger society. Parsons saw the gender roles as expressive and instrumental, meaning that gender roles were unequal so the husband had to perform the instrumental function of being the ‘breadwinner’ by providing financial stability to the family and the wife had to follow the expressive role by socialising the children, looking out for the emotional welfare of the family and filling a housewife role. Parsons says these different roles were ‘natural’ to benefitted whole family. Elizabeth Bott (1957) put these divisions into ‘joint and segregated conjugal roles’, meaning that within the family roles were shared or divided. This idea has been criticised as being too traditional by theorists who suggest that equality within the family has happened and that the ‘norm’ of gender roles is diminishing.
The older couple that was observed showed the common construction of a relationship in which the women was the household caretaker and the men took care of the “manly” things. Although there is a division of labor in human affairs between the sexes, there are changing social expectations, which are reflected in somewhat different gender roles at different time (Neuman, M.D, 2013). Through the observation I realized that both men and women no longer have specific “roles” it is now a whoever can get it done should get it done type of attitude. With this new attitude women can now by financially responsible for the family such as the case with the younger couple I observed. Many of the things that the older couple exhibited was frowned upon by the younger couple.
However decisisons such as child care would be done by the wife or a joint decision. This could be down to the face that men predominantly earn more money than woman, so they get the choice, in this situation the man would play the instrumental role. This suggests that equality is at a minimum. On the other hand a study done in 1993 by Silver & Schor found that it is a lot easier in this generation to make food and clean up etc, due to the technology available, which reduces time taken to do the certain task which would give women more time around the house. So in this time they could go elsewhere and get a job to earn some extra money.
Delphy and Leonard (1992) argued that the inequalities between partners in the home are a result of the fact that the head of the household is almost always male. This implies that men have more decision-making power, and are able to consume more of what the family earns, even if they are unemployed and it is the woman who is earning the money. They state that women, on the other hand, are expected to carry out domestic work without being paid. Marxist Feminists believe that the woman are a ‘reserve army’ of cheap labour in the family and they think that the family should be abolished along with the capitalist society that we live in.