Sociology - Gender Roles

Domestic division of labour = roles that men and women play in relation to housework, childcare and paid work. Sociologists are interested in whether men and women share domestic tasks equally.

Instrumental and Expressive Roles: Parson's (1955) functionalist model of the family states there is a clear division of labour between spouses.

• Husband - Instrumental role - geared towards achieving success at work so that he can provide for his family financially.
• Wife - Expressive role - geared towards primary socialisation of the children and meeting the family's emotional needs. The wife is a homemaker, a full-time housewife rather than a wage earner.

Parson's saw division of labour to be beneficial to men, women, children and society as a whole, as well as the New Right. Feminists say the division of labour is not natural, only benefiting men.

Young & Wilmott (1962) criticised Parsons as they argue that men are now taking a greater share of domestic tasks and more wives are becoming wage earners.

Conjugal Roles: These are roles that take place in a marriage according to Bott (1957):

• Segregated Conjugal Roles - Couples have separated roles and spend the leisure activities separately.
• Joint Conjugal Roles - Couples share tasks such as housework and childcare and spend their leisure time together.

+ Young & Wilmott identified segregated conjugal roles in their study of traditional, working-class extended families in Bethnal Green, in the 1950's. They found that men were breadwinners, played little part in home life and spend their leisure time in the pub with workmates. Women were full-time housewives with sole responsibility for housework and childcare and helped female relatives. They spent their leisure time with female relatives.

The Symmetrical Family: Young & Wilmott (1973) take a 'march of progress' view of the history of the family. They see family life improving for all its members, i.e. becoming more equal. 

The family is becoming more symmetrical by:

• Women going out to work - may be part-time rather than full-time.
• Men now help with the housework and childcare.
• Couples spend leisure time together instead of separately with workmates/female relatives.

Symmetrical families are more common among younger couples who are geographically and socially isolated, and the more affluent (better off).

Reasons they put forward the rise of the symmetrical family:

• Changes in women's position - including married women going out to work.
• Geographically mobility - more couples living away from communities in which they grew up.
• New technology and labour-saving devices, such as dishwashers and hoovers.
• Higher standards of living.

A Feminist View of Housework: Feminists reject the 'march of progress' view because they feel it is left to women to still do most of the housework. They see this as inequality stemming from the fact that the family and society are male-dominated or patriarchal. Women occupy a subordinate and dependent role.

Oakley (1964) critiques the view that the family is now symmetrical. She argues Y&W's views are exaggerated. Although Y&W found most husbands they interviewed 'helped' their wives at least once a week, this could simply include taking children for a walk or making breakfast on one occasion (hardly convincing evidence of symmetry).

Oakley found that 15% of husbands have a high-level of participation in housework, and 25% have a high level of participation in childcare. She states that the father's role is 'taking an interest' with children, 'take them off their hands' for a few hours. This would mean that the mothers lost the rewards of childcare (playing), simply left with more housework.

Boulton (1983) further supports this as she found less than 20% of husbands have a major role in childcare. She argues that Y&W exaggerate men's contribution by looking at tasks involved in childcare rather than responsibilities. The father may help with specific tasks but the mother is responsible for the child's security and well-being.

Are Couples Becoming More Equal? 

More Equal: Young and Wilmott argue women going out to work is leading to a more equal division of labour at home. In the march of progress view, men are becoming more involved in housework and childcare and women are more involved in paid work outside the home.

Gershuny (1994) supports this as they argue women working full-time is leading to a more equal division of labour in the home. This is further supported by Sullivan's (2000) analysis of nationally representative data whereby men were shown to be participating in traditionally 'women's' tasks.

These trends reflect changes in attitudes to the traditional division of labour. E.g. the British Social Attitudes Survey (2013) found a fall in the number of people who think it is the man's job to earn money and a woman's job to look after the home. In 1984 this stood at 45% for men and 41% for women. However, in 2012 only 13% of men agreed with this and 12% of women.

Are Couples Becoming More Equal?

Less Equal: Feminists state little has changed in relation to the man sharing housework and childcare, while women now carry a dual burden.

Research supporting this comes from the British Social Attitudes survey (2012). They found that men did 8 hours of housework a week and women did 13 hours a week. Men cared for their family members 10 hours a week whereas women did 33 hours a week.Overall, women did twice as much as men. 60% of women felt this division of labour was unjust because they were doing more than their fair share. The survey also found that couples continue to divide household tasks along traditional gender lines, e.g. cooking, cleaning and washing for women vs maintenance repairs around the house for men.

Dunne supports the radical feminists view that relationships between men and women are inevitably patriarchal and women can only achieve equality in a same-sex relationship. Dunne studied 37 lesbian couples with dependent children and found that they were more likely than heterosexual women to: equal childcare and housework and both be in paid jobs.

This is because heterosexuals are under pressure to conform to the 'gender scripts'.

Are Couples Becoming More Equal?

Less Equal: Taking Responsibility For Children - Boulton (1983) points out that although fathers may help by performing specific childcare tasks, it is usually the mother that takes responsibility for the child's security and well-being.

+ Ferri & Smith (1996) found that fathers took responsibility for childcare in fewer than 4% of families.

+ Dex & Ward (2007) found 78% of fathers played with their 3-year-old, however, when it came to caring for a sick child, only 1% of fathers took the main responsibility. 

+ Duncombe & Marsden (1995) argue that women have to perform the 'triple shift' of having paid work, childcare and emotional work.

Are Couples Becoming More Equal?

Less Equal: Taking Responsibility For 'Quality Time' - Southerton (2011) stated that organising 'quality time together' usually falls to mothers. However, due to flexible working hours and 24/7 society, it has led to people's time being more fragmented and 'de-routinised'. They also note that men and women do have equal leisure time but they have different experiences of it. For example:

Evaluation of the Unequal Division of Labour:

Crompton & Lyonette (2008) identify two different explanations for the unequal division of labour:

Evaluation of the Unequal Division of Labour:

Crompton & Lyonette (2008) identify two different explanations for the unequal division of labour:

There is inequality in how the family's resources are shared out - dependent upon who controls the family income and therefore the power in making expenditure decisions. 

Barret & McIntosh (1991) note that men gain far more from women's domestic work than they give back in financial support. The financial support husbands give to their wives is often unpredictable and comes with 'strings attached'. Men usually make decisions about spending money on important items.

Kempson (1944) found that there is unequal sharing of resources (e.g. food and money). She also found that among low-income families, women denied their own needs, seldom going out, and eating smaller portions of food/skipping meals altogether in order to make ends meet.

As a result of this inequality, a woman is likely to see anything she spends on herself as money that ought to be spent on essentials for the children. 

Money Management: Pahl & Vogler (1933) identify two main types of family income:

Decision Making: Pooling indicates more equality and is more common where partners work full-time. However, Pahl & Vogler (2007) found that even where there was pooling, the men usually made the major financial decisions.

+ Hardill (1977) found the important decisions were usually taken either by the man alone or jointly and his career normally took priority when deciding whether to move house for a new job.

+ Finch's (1983) observation that women's lives tend to be structured around their husband's careers.

Cultural V Material Explanations: Research to dispute the material (economic) explanation comes from Laurie & Gershuny (2000) who found that by 1955, 70% of couples said they had an equal say in decisions. Also, women who were high earning were more likely to have an equal say. However, Feminists argue that inequalities in decision making are due to a patriarchal society - men as decision-makers are deeply ingrained and instilled through gender role socialisation. Until this definition is challenged, decision-making is likely to remain unequal.

The Meaning of Money For Couples: Nyman (2003) states that money has no automatic, fixed or natural meaning and different couples can define it in different ways - reflect the nature of the relationship.

A Personal Life Perspective: This focuses on the meanings couples give to who controls the money. Smart (2007) found that homosexual partners attached no importance of who controlled the money and were happy to leave this to their partners as they saw it as having no meaning inequality. Same-sex couples do not enter relationships with the same 'historical, gendered, heterosexual baggage of cultural meanings around money' that see money as a source of power.

The Home Office (2013) - domestic violence is violent behaviour that is controlling or threatening. 

• DV is far too widespread. The Women's Aid Federation (2014) - DV accounts for between a sixth and a quarter of all violent crimes. The Crime Survey for England and Wales (2013) found that two million people reported having been victims of DV the previous year.
• DV does not occur randomly but follows particular social patterns - mainly violence by men against women. Coleman et al (2007) found that women were more likely than men to have experienced 'intimate violence across all four types of abuse. They also found that two women per week are killed by their partner or former partner.

This pattern is confirmed by Dobash & Dobash's (2007) research of police and court records and interviews with women in Scotland. They cite examples of wives being slapped, beaten, ***** or killed by their husbands. They found that violent incidents could be set off by what husbands saw as a challenge to his authority. They argue marriage legitimates violence against women by conferring power and authority on husbands and dependency on wives.

Who Are The Victims? The Crime Survey for England and Wales (2013) found a relatively narrow gender gap of 7.3% of women compared to 5% of men.

Mirrlees-Black (1999) found that most victims are women and 99% of all incidents against women are committed by men.

+ Walby and Allen (2004) found that women were much more likely to be victims of multiple incidents of abuse and sexual violence.

Official Statistics on DV understate the true extent of the problem. This is because: 

Explanations of Domestic Violence (possible 10 marker):

1) Radical Feminists Explanations: Millet (1970) and Firestone (1970) argue that all societies have been founded on patriarchy. Feminists state that men dominate women through DV or the threat of it. Radical feminists - widespread DV serves to preserve power that all men have over women. This helps to explain why most DV is committed by men. Also, male domination of state institutions helps to explain the reluctance of the police courts to deal effectively with cases of DV.

Evaluation: Elliot (1996) rejects the claim that all men benefit from violence against women because not all men are aggressive and most are opposed to DV.

Radical feminists fail to explain female violence (e.g. child abuse by women and violence against male partners and within lesbian relationships). The Crime Survey (2013) found that 18% of men have experienced DV.

Radical Feminists wrongly assume that all women are equally at risk of patriarchal violence, but don't explain which women are most likely to be victims. The Office of National Statistics (2014) illustrates this by young women, those in the lowest social classes and those living in the most deprived areas.

2) The Materialist Explanation - This focuses on economic (income) and material (housing) factors to explain DV.

Wilkinson and Pickett (2010) see DV as the result of stress from family members caused by social inequality (families having fewer resources). This reduces their chance of maintaining stable, caring relationships and increases the risk of conflict and violence.

Evaluation: Wilkinson and Pickett's findings explain class differences in the statistics on DV but don't explain why women are mainly the victims. Marxist feminists see inequality causing DV, e.g. Ansley (1972) describes wives as 'takers of s***'. She argues that DV is the product of capitalism: male workers are exploited at work and take out all their frustration on their wives. This explains male violence against women but fails to explain why not all male workers commit acts of violence.