Are couples becoming more equal?

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  • Created by: Emmas13
  • Created on: 14-03-19 19:11
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  • Are couples becoming more equal?
    • No
      • Jamieson- 'disclosing intimacy'
        • relationships remain unequal due to the different roles they have,
          • eg, responsibility for bringing up children still falls heavily on women
        • relationships are based on deep mutual understanding which outsiders do not share.
      • House wife role
        • with industrialisation the home became separate from work and the family became a unit of consumption rather than production
        • women gradually became more associated with the domestic sphere
        • the idea was first associated with the middle and upper class but workedits way downwards
          • it was very difficult for poor familiesafford to only have one parent in work so the women had a double burden
        • the idea that paid work was undesirable for women was helped by trade unions arguing for a 'family wage'
      • feminists argue that men are patriarchal, women occupy a subordinate role within family
        • wives almost always depend economically on their husbands
        • Ann Oakley - even when men did some domestic tasks, they were seen as helping and the main responsibility was still the wife's
          • she critisized Y&Ws research as they regarded a symmetrical family as one where the man does housework once a week
            • larger scale research using survey methods are more reliable- the BSAs Survey showed that in 2012 70% of women always or usually do the laundry
      • Radical feminists believe the levels of domestic abuse demonstrates the patriarchal society
        • men use violence to preserve their dominant position in society
        • 1 in 3 womenthe US experience domestic violence or stalking
      • Husbands are more likely to participate in pleasurable childcare aspects
        • although 1/3 men play with their 3 y/o, less than 1% care for their sick child
      • women have a dual/triple burden
        • although there is an increase in women in paid work, for every extra £10,000 salary a woman has, they do 1 hour less of housework a week
          • 'Triple shift'
            • womenare responsible for managing the emotions and feelings of family members,
            • Duncombe and Marsden
      • men have more leisure time
        • although men spend more time in paid employment, they have 1 and a half more leisure time than women
      • men give their wives an allowance system
        • men give wives an allowance for family needs, keeps surplus for himself.
      • Michelle Barrett and Mary McIntosh (1991)
        • Men gain far more from women’s domestic work than they give back in financial support
        • The financial support that husbands give to their wives is often unpredictable and comes with strings attached
      • Pahl and Vogler(2007) found that even when poolingmen usually made major financial decisions.
      • Edgell's study of professional couples
        • Very important decisions – usually made by husband alone or jointly with the husband having the final say.
        • Important decisions – i.e. children’s education or holidays were usually jointly, but rarely the wife alone.
        • Less important decisions – home décor, food are usually made by the wife.
    • Yes
      • Joint-conjugal roles are more common
      • MOP - Young & Wilmottargue there has been a long term trend towards a symmetrical family
      • Sullivan found a trend towards women  doing less domestic work and men doing more
        • Data collected from 1975, 1987 and 1997
        • nationally representative
      • there has been a fall in the attitudes towards traditional divisions labour
        • British Social Attitudes survey 2013
          • in 1984 45% of men thoughts was a woman's job to look after the home and family
          • in 2012 only 13% of men thought this
      • Future foundation - most men claim to do more housework than their fathers, and most women claimed to do less than their mothers
      • Dunne - lesbian couplesare more symmetrical
      • Pooling- both partners have access to income and joint responsibility for expenditure.
        • most common money management system
      • Gershuny - by 1995 70% of couples  said they had an equal say in decisions
      • cohabiting couples  were less likely to pool money, but were more likely to share domestic tasks equally
        • Volger et al
      • Giddens - fundsmental shift in the meaning of the family
        • in the west, marriage is less important than the relationship between the two people
        • the relationship is no longer based on mens domination but mutual rights and equal respect
        • familieshave had to become more democratic as society has done so,
          • people will not accept  traditional inequalities in any institution any longer

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