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.
Anne Oakley highlighted the fact that the survey questions were very vague, and pointed out that “A man who helps with the children once a week would be included in this %, so would (presumably) a man who ironed his own trousers on a Saturday afternoon”. Oakley argues that ‘to help in the house’ is not really evidence of male domestication, and that Willmott and Young’s claims were exaggerated. Oakley did her own research in 1974, and the conclusions she drew from it were that women still saw housework and childcare as their responsibility. This is supported by Devine, who said that even women in employment did the majority of housework and childcare, though the husbands helped a little. According to the Functionalist, Talcott Parsons, there
The future foundation (2002) supports the march of progress and found that 75% of women do less domestic chores than their mothers and 60% or men claim they do more domestic chores than their fathers. Young and Willmot (1973) said that the symmetrical family is becoming increasingly popular. This is a type of family in which the domestic chores, childcare and paid work roles are split equally between the man and woman. This family type is becoming so popular because women’s position in society has changed significantly over the recent years, it’s now normal for women to have a career instead of being a housewife. Also the burden of housework has decreased due to commercialisation of housework, the housewife role is disappearing and it’s now easier and quicker to keep a home clean by the use of hovers and washing machines.
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.
Women in the Victorian era were dependent on their husbands financially and one third of all women in england still led a domestic housewife role (“Victoria’s Past”). Considering the fact that Lucretia did not hold a job shows that they did not hold a lower class social status. By leaving her husband Lucretia detaches any power and control that he had on her and liberates herself of the common role of
There is certainly not much a social feminist can do; but play along in the role already assigned for her. The Liberal feminist probably has the most relaxed, tolerable views on the the subject. I believe she is aware there are certain things she cannot achieve as a female, but is content with the oppurtunities she does have. The thought of some kind of gender inequality is way in the back of her mind. Nothing like a Radical feminist who sees the injustice on a daily level..
For example, women used to do just domestic tasks and take care of their children at home and men were responsible to work very hard to bring money to their homes. Since then, the gender wage gap has affected women and men. Because of this fact, many companies think that women are not designed to do different kinds of tasks and they do not have the same skills as men. For example, men are more likely to have mechanical or computer skills and women are more likely to have nursing or childcare skills. Therefore, the gender wage gap affects women more than men because of the circumstances that happened in the past.
Wal-Mart managers public stated that women associates are paid less than men because they had to provide for their families. They also claimed that you can trust Wal-Mart employees with their wives and wallets. Additional information related to the
While there are a million gender stereotypes about females, these are definitely the biggest, and the most debated by feminists of today. Some other stereotypes include: Women are supposed to have "clean jobs" such as secretaries, teachers, and librarians Women are nurses, not doctors Women are not as strong as men Women are supposed to make less money than men Women don’t need to go to college Women don’t play sports Women are not politicians Women are quieter than men and not meant to speak out Women are supposed to be submissive and do as they are told Women are supposed to cook and do housework Women are responsible for raising children Women do not have technical skills and are not good at "hands on" projects such as car repairs Women are meant to be the damsel in distress; never the hero Women are supposed to look pretty and be looked at Women are flirts.Women are never in charge INDIRA GANDHI Possibly one