Assess the View That the Positions of Men and Women in the Family Have Changed in Recent Years:

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There are quite a few arguments surrounding this discussion of positions between men and women changing. Most of the arguments revolve around feminist opinions. In a nutshell most Feminists believe that women are still to this day being exploited by men. They believe that men are still using women and that they are not equal, when it comes to things such as housework, childcare and paid work. On the other side of the spectrum, some people are discussing the opposite; positions between men and women are in fact changing and it is becoming more equal. One of the arguments to suggest that positions of men and women have changed is the commercialisation of housework. Technology is making housework a lot easier and less time consuming. Things such as washing machines save women time and effort to hand-wash clothes, making housework less of a chore. Also, goods housewives would previously make themselves are now mass produced and widely available for example, ready-made meals. This reduces workload for women. Some argue that Women now work, so they can afford to buy such goods. They argue that as a result of this, the burden on women has lightened. Some people go as far to say that such developments have led to 'the death of the housewife role'. There are of course some counters to this argument however... For starters, poorer women can't afford expensive goods, meaning that the commercialisation of housework argument does not apply to absolutely everybody. Also, just because burden lessened, that doesn't make division of labour equal between men and women. Men still don’t do as much housework, even though there is generally less to do. Gershuny is another argument to prove a change in positions between men and women. Gershuny is basically the debate that when women work full time (which they didn’t use to), they do less housework. Although it doesn’t prove equality,

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