gender roles, domestic labour and power relationships

YES FAMILIES SHOULD CONFORM TO TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES...

- Functionalism 

- The New Right

NO FAMILIES SHOULDN'T CONFORM TO TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES...

- Feminism 

- Postmodernism

Young and Wilmott - the familiy is becoming more 'symmertical' due to changes in the position of women and geographical mobility. A symmetrical family involves both spouses in paid work and joint conjugal roles)

Sullivan - This research supports Young and Wilmotts idea of a symmerical family. Sullivan analysed data collected over a 25 year period and found a trend towards greater equality as men were talking on more responsibility for domestic labour

The New Man - The idea of a 'New Man' is supported by Man Yee Kan who found that younger men were more likely to do more housework due to changing gender socialisation

Gershuny - In 1994, found that wives who worked full time did less domestical labour and the longer the women has been in paid employment, the more likely the husband was to help with domestic work

postmodernist view

In homosexual relationships Dunne found evidence of symmetry due to not feeling the pressure of 'gender scripts'

Boulton

she claims that Young and Wilmott over exaggerate their claims that men contribute to childcare because she found that fewer that 20% of husbands in the late 1980's played a major role in childcare.

Dual burden and triple shift

Ferri and Smith argue women face a 'dual burden' of paid employment and unpaid domestic work. they found in a sample of over 1,500 working mothers and fathers, the father took responsibility for childcare in less than 4% of families. 

Duncombe and Marsden argue women face a 'triple shift' of housework, paid work and emotion work.

Oakley

feminist who argues that Young and Wilmott's evidence for symmetry is hardly convincing and that gender roles are taught through socialisation.

men still hold the power regarding money management:

- Vogler and Pahl

they found couple today are using a 'pooling' money management system which is better compared to the past which would have been an 'allowance system' for women but when a pooling system was used men still made the most important financial decisions and 'came out on top'

- Hardill 

studied 30 couples where both the men and women had professional careers and found that decisions were usually taken either by the man alone or jointly. she also found that the males career normally took priority when deciding whether to move house for a new job.

- Laurie and Gershuny 

found that 70% of couples said they had an equal say in decision making. this was most likely to occir when women in the relationship were high earning and well-qulified professionals.

they place more emphasis on equality and strive to remove power differences from their relationships.

• Dunne studied 37 lesbian couples and found they were more likely to report that power in their relationships was equal and that both partners' careers were given priority

• Smart found that some individuals attached no importance to who controlled the money and were happy to leave this to their partners

• Weeks and Smart (personal life sociologists) argue they offer greater possibility of equality because they are open to negotiation and agreement, rather than based on patriarchal tradition

one in four women will experience domestic violence at some point in their lifetime and on average two women will die every week due to domestic violence 

- radical feminists

they see domestic violence as being an inevitable feature of partiarchal society and serves to preserve the power men have over women. they attribute this to gender role socialisation and the fact that men are socialised to adopt masculine values and behaviours. also women entering the labour market has led to a 'crisis of masculinity' so men are proving their masculinity through domestic violence.furthermore, radical feminists believe that because men dominate state institutions they cannot deal with cases of domestic violence effectively and fairly. for example, less than 75% of males who are prosecuted are convicted of the offence. this view is supported by a study by Dobash and Dobash who found that violent incidents were often set off by a challenge to the males authority. 

- Wilkinson 

he sees domestic violence being a result of stress on family members caused by social inequality. he suggests that those greatest at risk are those with less power, status, wealth or income. this view can help explain the link between domestic violence and socioeconic income. for example, in 2015 a study found that women living in the poorest households were 3X more likely to be victims of domestic violence

- The sexuality of the couple (Dunne)

- The age of the couple - younger relationships are more equal due to different socialisation     (Man Yee Kan)

- The ethnicity of the couple 

- Womens paid employment/wprking status (supported by Gershuny)

- Class - middle class relationshops tend to be less equal, Lyonette found that high-earning men are less likely to help their partners with household chores than their lower-paid counterparts.