Family and Households - Couples Flashcards
(46 cards)
What did Parsons see as the roles of couples?
Functionalism
The Instrumental and Expressive roles
What is the Instrumental role?
Functionalism
The role of the breadwinner, earning money for the family, the man’s role
What is the Expressive role?
Functionalism
Caring and emotional role, looks after the children and the home, the woman’s role
What does Parson’s say about why men and women have different roles?
Functionalism
The differences are caused by biological reasons, such as women being more naturally nurting than men
What did Elizabeth Bott see as the roles of couples?
The Segreated conjugal roles and Joint conjugal roles
What is the Segregated Conjugal Role?
- Traditonal roles, much like Parsons outlined
- Women care for the children at ome
- Men make the money
- Leisure activities are seperated
What is the Joint Conjugal Role?
Tasks are shared between the couple
What type of family do Young and Willmott say exist?
March of Progress
The symmetrical family
What is the Symmetrical Family?
March of Progress
- Women go to work more
- Men help with the housework and children
- Couples spend more time together
What did Young and Willmott’s Symmetrical Family study show?
March of Progress
They found the Symmetrical Family to be more common in younger couples, especially those who were socially and geographically isolated as well as more affluent
What did Willmott and Young say caused the Symmetrical Family?
March of Progress
- Changes in women’s positions
- Geographical mobility
- New technology (labour-saving devices)
- Higher standard of living
Why do feminists criticse Willmott and Young’s Symmetrical Family?
They argue that they over exaggerate the extent to which the family is equal, women still do the majority of housework
What did Ann Oakley’s study show?
Feminism
- 15% of husbands had a high level of participation in housework
- 25% had a high level of participation in childcare
- Men were more likely to partake in the more pleasurable aspects of childcare, making women lose out on the rewards of play
What did Mary Boulton (1983) say?
Feminism
- Fewer than 20% of husbands had a major role in childcare
- Young and Willmott exaggerate men’s contribution by looking at tasks rather than responsibilities
What did Warde and Hetherington (1993) say?
Feminism
- Sex-typing of domestic tasks remained strong
- Wives were 30x more likely to be the last person to have done the washing
- Husbands were 4x more likely to be the last person to wash the car
- Men only carried out ‘female’ tasks when their wives weren’t around to do them
What is the Dual Burden?
Feminism
Women now have two jobs - paid work and unpaid housework
What do March of Progress sociologists say about the impact of paid work?
- Johnathon Gershuny (1994) argues that women in paid work is making domestic roles more equal
- Oriel Sullivan’s (2000) studies show that more housework is being shared and men are doing more traditionally feminine roles
- British Social Attitudes survey found that only 8% of people in 2017 believed it was men’s only role to work
What do Feminist sociologists say about the impact of paid work?
- Men do intrinsically satisfying tasks while women do less rewarding tasks
- 60% of women felt the work they were doing was unjust as they were doing the majority of it
- British Social Attitudes survey showed little sign of the ‘new man’ and showed that women carry a dual burden
- Women often did twice as much housework than men
What did Ferrie and Smith (1996) find?
Fathers took childcare responsibility in less than 4% of families
What did De and Ward (2007) find?
Although 78% of fathers played with their 3 year olds, only 1% took on a key role in taking care of them when they were sick
What did Braun, Vincent, and Ball (2011) find?
- In 3/70 families the father was the main carer
- High amount of ‘background fathers’
- Most fathers saw their role as the breadwinner
What is Hochschild’s (2013) Triple Shift?
Feminism
Women are responsible for paid work, housework, and emotional work
What does Southerton say about leisure and quality time?
Feminism
- Argues that it is the mothers responsibility to organise quality time together for families
- Men are more likely to experience blocks of time where they can persue leisure activies, unlike women whos leisure time is determined by child care
Evidence for the cultural explaination of the gender division of labour
- Gershuny argues gender norms are shifting and men are taking on more roles
- Man Yee Kan (2001) supports the idea that men are taking on more domestic roles
- BSA (2013) found a change in attitudes from under 35s to over 65s in that they hold less traditional views
- Dunne (1999) found that lesbian relationships were more symmetrical due to the absence of gender scripts
