For example, women now go out to work and become wage earners, just as men now help with housework and childcare. However Feminists reject this theory, and argue that women remain unequal within the family. Anne Oakley argues that we still live in a patriarchal (male dominated) society, and that children are being taught from an early age that the traditional roles are the norm. She also rejects Parsons Theory of saying that it is controlled by biology she believes it is controlled by society. Overall it could therefore be
Functionalist Murdock suggested as children we are socialised into societies shared norms and values and he believed that males provide the economic roles and females provided the expressive role. Therefore it is natural for women to play the expressive role in the household looking after the family’s emotional needs. However, radical feminist Ann Oakley argues that the role of the housewife is a social construction and isn’t linked to the female role. The housewife role makes sure that women stay inferior to men making it difficult for them have careers. Women carry out the triple burden in the household; the domestic labour, emotional labour, and paid labour.
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. Sociologists such as new right thinkers argue that the Labour party has constructed a ‘nanny state’ which over-intervenes in personal living arrangements. The Labour party have constructed many laws beneficial for women in families as they have realised most families now rely of two
“Joey’s Problem: Nancy and Evan Holt” is a study of the different perspectives of taking care of a home and how they are dealt with. In this reading, we look at the Holt household; a seemingly “normal” family. However, as we look deeper, we see that they are divided on how they look at homemaking. Evan has more of a “homemaker-breadwinner” mindset, whereas Nancy, a self-proclaimed “ardent feminist”, believes that the duties at home should be shared. This results in clashing ideals and tension in the household.
There is even a brief nod to equity theory in this. Some of her peers are also parents but have chosen to hire nannies and continue to work full time. This gives them the advantage at work and creates feelings of inequity in Anna. Drive to Bond: Anna needs to develop the special bond of mother and daughter. Anna also wants to nurture the relationships she worked hard to create with her employer, co-workers and church group.
The movement helped bring about major changes in the lives for women as a whole, and also in everyday life of others in the United States. Before the women begin to act out about the treatment they received for society, their expected roles was to sit home, bear children, clean the house, clean the clothes and cook. Tired, stressed and frustrated women had many demands that the societal expectations of them change, from being servile house-bound creatures expected to save themselves for one man in marriage, after and during this movement women were able to get professional and blue-collar jobs that were available only for men. Women were treated as though they were second class citizens and not as an equal to man. It put the demands for women’s equality, religion, sports, marriage and child bearing on a higher scale.
While Wollstonecraft talks about co-education, one can infer that women are at least educated on a basic level. Pizan lives in a society where royalty is still prevalent and societies’ thinking is very narrow. The era that Pizan lives in is very uneducated and women are looked as not having a life unless it benefits the man. Although Wollstonecraft parallels to that in a way, one can tell that women have a greater importance in her time period. Many debates have happened whether or not these women approach feminism for their time period.
Many people believe that the family should be nuclear and the male should be the main economic provider with the woman spending most time at home and taking care of the children, this is a functionalist point of view, who believe that the nuclear family is the best type of family and childcare is less important than financial income. One of the main factors affecting the division between genders is societies view on men and women. Pink and blue jobs are a good example of how the division is set, women would do pink jobs which included maids and domestic workers and men would do blue jobs which would include more manual labouring jobs and jobs that required a higher level of intellect. Even nowadays these are still referred to, In the United States, a pink-collar worker performs jobs in the service industry. In contrast, a blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs skilled or unskilled manual labor.
Examine the factors affecting the domestic division of labour and power relations. (24) Domestic labour consists mainly of childcare, housework and emotional maintenance for the family. Parsons, 1995, drew the conclusion that men and women have different roles within the family, with men expected to be the bread earners, and go out too work, whereas women, in most cases, had to stay at home and perform the various domestic labour tasks required of them. This included all the above mentioned tasks, and parsons stated that this was the "expressive" role, and that this system made things "nice and functional", stating that the respective genders were uniquely suited biologically for these roles. Power relations within a household refer to the control of decisions, finance and the families direction, and whom they are controlled by.
Men were seen to be increasingly helping with domestic chores, childcare and decision making about family life. They found that 72% of husbands helped with these household tasks. They’re argument was based on the fact that women are becoming more dependant and career driven providing more time for the men to be drawn into the family circle. However, feminists may argue that ‘occasionally helping out’ is not providing clear evidence of the symmetrical family exists. Feminists suggest that socialization within the household can cause inequality in the future as they are treated differently as children, for example; girls are given dolls and play kitchens whereas boys are given trucks and play power tools, etc.