Firstly, whether a family live in a symmetrical family or not will have an effect on the divisions of labour. March of Progress theorists (Liberal Feminists) such as Young and Willmott argue that family life is gradually improving for all its members, becoming more equal and democratic. For example, women now go out to work, just as men now help with housework and childcare. However Radical Feminists reject the ‘March of Progress’ theory, and argue that women remain unequal within the family. Anne Oakley argues that we still live in a patriarchal (male dominated) society, and therefore women occupy a subordinate and dependant role within the family and wider society.
For example, women now go out to work, just as men now help with housework and childcare. However Feminists reject the ‘March of Progress’ theory, and argue that women remain unequal within the family. Anne Oakley argues that we still live in a patriarchal (male dominated) society, and therefore women occupy a subordinate and dependant role within the family and wider society. In addition in Mary Boulton’s research backed this, she found that fewer than 20% of husbands had a majority role in childcare. Overall it could therefore be argued that rather than partners becoming more equal, women now have to carry a ‘dual burden’, whereby she is responsible for two jobs of unpaid or paid labour.
Feminists believe that marriage remains patriarchal and that men benefit from wives. Feminists reject the idea of ‘one best’ family type, they welcome freedom and diversity. There is more than one feminist perspective, two of which include Marxist feminists and Radical feminists. Marxist feminists emphasise how capitalism uses the family to oppress women, and the harmful consequences of the family to women’s lives. For example Margaret Benston (1972) argued that capitalism benefits from a large army of women – an unpaid workforce – who are compliant and willing to do as they’re told because women have been socialised to act this way and women rears future workers to think the same way.
Linda N. (undated) provides a definition as men holding the position of power and the head of the family unit. They hold the view that women are kept in their place which is being at home looking after their children and being a mother is their main priority in life. This shows inequality between men and women. According to this inequality, the women act in manner of being seen as a good wife, looking after the home and children. This results in the man having more power over the woman as he is the individual working and bringing an income, enabling him to make the decisions whereas the woman would have no power for this to happen.
Some of these chores include being a caregiver for her children, tending to the garden, making and maintain the family clothing, cook and keeping the house clean. More recently than ever, some Amish women startup businesses but once they give birth, it becomes hard for them to keep up
1) How have women right changed since 1945 from house wife mother to career women from having unequal pay to equal pay from having limited education to getting increased access as well as being a follower to becoming a leader. 2) This all started to occur when women demonstrated that they were capable of filling the jobs left by men who were apart of the 2nd world war. But following the arrivals of the soldiers women were expected to return to their traditional rule as house 3) Wife but after the experience of fulfilling a mans occupation they all objected the so called obligation. To prove this many feminist begun the establishment of committees to lobby government in order to gain the privilege of taking up 4) Any occupation
Hanna Rosin’s article states that she thinks that women are not completely controlled by men in their job choices, but that women are making different choices based on their personal prefrences and economic situations. The counter argument is that men are dominating over women and taking all the jobs. Rosin gives an example from her own experience of how women themselves are in control of their own decisions in the workplace. she stated that shortly after giving birth, that she wanted to go back to work, but that she also wanted to stay home and raise a child. She didnt see staying home with her child as her “duty”, and she didn’t feel pressure from her husband or boss to do one or the other, but that It was her own subconscious, tricking her into beliving that it was more her duty to stay home with their baby than her husbands.
The point, of course, was that housewives were expected to do all these things, but no one ever expected a man to be capable of these tasks. The underlying question of the essay was “Why?” She is not serious in the story. She doesn’t want a wife literally. The main examples given in the story highlight the author’s sarcasm. Brady says that she wants a wife who will work and send her to school so that she would not have to work as hard while working to become more economically independent.
Sharpe’s research suggests that younger girls are now becoming more confident in terms of their rights and their priorities have changed from being a housewife and mother, to getting a good education, a degree and being able to support themselves financially. She also found out that there are signs that women are more likely to divorce husbands who are insistent on their wives playing an inferior domestic role. Helen Wilkinson (1994) argues that there has been an essential alter in terms of attitudes and values among women below the age of 35. Due to the drastic changes, she argues this should be known as ‘genderquake’ and claims this has led to an intense transformation in the distribution of power between male and female. Wilkinson argues that an uprising in women’s
The home and workplace before the industrial revolution had been virtually the same; however, both had begun to separate. Male and female spheres had separated along with the separation of home and workplace as well. While the men were gaining their income from their jobs in the public sphere, women, still viewed as the primary care takers for the children, were primarily put into the private or “domestic” sphere. To explain why the separation of men and women in the work force was necessary, the ideology of separate spheres was created; it had defined innate characteristics of women. Women were deemed incapable to work and function in public because these traits were thought to make women less capable to do work that the men did.