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Effect shared household chores have on gender roles
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The stereotype of the ages is that women are responsible every stitch of laundry, every dirty dish, and every child in the house while the man is at work. This could not be a more false and offensive statement. Whenever two people live together (preferably married), there is a lot that needs to get done behind the scenes such as doing the laundry, cleaning the dishes, trimming the lawn, dusting the counter tops, making the bed, and caring for the kids (if there are any). If all of these duties are thrown on one person, things could be very difficult. Household chores should be shared between spouses for several reasons, some being that it helps strengthen bonds, provides guidelines to children, and lifts the workload off of one particular person.
When people share these chores, it does more than just make things go quicker; it makes the bond between the people doing them a lot stronger. It is not the 1940’s anymore; both men and women are now working more than ever. If a husband and wife get home from an equally shared work day and the wife is still expected to do all the chores, th...
The Cult of Domesticity is an offensive gesture; however in the 1950s’ there was validity this gesture. The rise of feminism has created a society in which there are more single mothers than ever before, long side more children born out of wedlock. The United States Census Bureau states, “During the 1960-2016 period, the percentage of children living with only their mother nearly tripled from 8 to 23 percent and the percentage of children…” (1). The article the Cult of Domesticity indeed points out the valid flaws of Ideal duties/expectations of domesticity in the 1950s’; however, I would like to state that anything man-made idea or material mechanism is not without faults. The agreeable points of the list were that there should be a genuine respect and act of service shown to our husbands each day. However, the list made a hard-left turn in suggesting that women are not to question the motives of their husband, and/or the location of their husbands if they chose to be late after work. Lastly, if husbands choose to
Dorment goes into personal detail by describing how his spouse might refold the laundry after he does it himself, or clean again after he does it. This is no longer a matter of a man not willing to step-up, but instead the personality of the relationship shining through. On an emotional note, women often find it harder to be away from their children which leaves heavily emotional baggage placed on work decisions (709). This can be chalked up to social conditioning, genetic predisposition, or emotional shallowness for men; whatever it is, may ironically, be the cost of doing business. Conversely, men are being judged as fathers in a way harder than ever before (708). Each party has hardships of its own, but it will revert back each individual's personality and the dynamic of the relationship. At the end of the day, there are no concrete answers to these endless issues so Dorment puts it best by saying, "we do the best we can"
Each member of the family was expected to fulfill certain roles, and to execute their obligations appropriately. When men came back from World War Two, they were forced to jump back into a normal lifestyle: working and raising a family. The father was the sole provider of the family, as he controlled the finances by working a steady job. After each day of work, the father would come home and find his role change from an intelligent businessman to a loving and caring husband. While the father was at work for the day, the mother was at home cooking, cleaning, and tending to the children. A small number of women worked part-time jobs with flexible hours, while still meeting the demands of daily housework, but rarely took the burden of working a full-time job. The mother’s main duty was to care for the children and provide for them. The children were raised to act in a respectful manner, with minimal behavioral issues. When asked by an adult to complete a certain chore, objecting was not an option; as punishment was common. According to John Rosemond from the Hartford Courant, “Your mom and dad paid more attention to one another than they paid to you.” He also commented, “They bought you very little, so you appreciated everything you had. And you took care of it” (Author John Rosemond, “Raising Kids In 1950s Households Vs. Today’s”). Children looked up
Dempsey, K. (1997). Women’s Perception of Fairness and the Persistence of an Unequal Division of Housework. Family Matters, 2(48), 1-11.
During the video clip Changes in the American Family Since 1970 we were learning about the changes that had occurred in American families since 1970, which have, even since then, changed in other ways. At the time of the video clip we were learning different things from experts Arlie Hochschild and Timothy Biblarz. One of the changes that have been made, this change being the most drastic, is the amount of women who were working in the labor force at the time. According to Arlie Hochschild, mothers of children 18 and under, less than half of them (43%) were in the labor force in the 1970s. Today over 2/3 of women are now working in the labor force, and taking care of children when they arrive home from work. Once women joined the labor force it seemed that the roll of men seemed to change drastically also. Once women were gone at work during the day, along with the men, the men were beginning to help more around the house. Hochschild had made the comment during the video clip that men are doing more work at home and women are doing a lot less, which all together means that less work is being done at home. In the home in the 1970s the rolls that each spouse had were different in many ways. Before women joined the labor force women took care of the children. By taking care of them, women did the important things such as bathing them, brushing their teeth, combing their hair, as the video stated, the maintenance things. As a father in the 70s th...
From the very beginning of history, women were portrayed to be insignificant in comparison to men in society. A woman was deemed by men to be housewives, bear children and take care of the household chores. Even so, at a young age girls were being taught the chores they must do and must continue through to adulthood. This idea that the woman’s duty was to take charge of household chores was then passed through generations, even to this day. However, this ideology depends on the culture and the generation mothers were brought up in and what they decide to teach their daughters about such roles.
In May 1955, Housekeeping Monthly published an article titled The Good Wife’s Guide. This article provided eighteen tips for women; what they should be performing in the home and how to keep their husbands happy. “Have dinner ready”, “Clear away clutter”, and “Don’t ask him questions about his actions…” are just three of the eighteen instructions. (Housekeeping Monthly) One reason this article could have been so readily accepted, was due to the simplicity of life in that era. Women rarely voiced their opinions or challenged the gender norms. Therefore, the author’s intent could have been, “let’s give women tips on how to make their husbands happier and keep the households in order”. However, taking into consideration the gender norm of the era and contrasting it to the twenty-first century certainly brings up a host of issues when taking into consideration that the majority of today’s families are dual income earners.
Throughout history, the roles of men and women in the home suggested that the husband would provide for his family, usually in a professional field, and be the head of his household, while the submissive wife remained at home. This wife’s only jobs included childcare, housekeeping, and placing dinner on the table in front of her family. The roles women and men played in earlier generations exemplify the way society limited men and women by placing them into gender specific molds; biology has never claimed that men were the sole survivors of American families, and that women were the only ones capable of making a pot roast. This depiction of the typical family has evolved. For example, in her observation of American families, author Judy Root Aulette noted that more families practice Egalitarian ideologies and are in favor of gender equality. “Women are more likely to participate in the workforce, while men are more likely to share in housework and childcare (apa…).” Today’s American families have broken the Ward and June Cleaver mold, and continue to become stronger and more sufficient. Single parent families currently become increasingly popular in America, with single men and women taking on the roles of both mother and father. This bend in the gender rules would have, previously, been unheard of, but in the evolution of gender in the family, it’s now socially acceptable, and very common.
In American society, the woman has always been viewed in the traditional viewpoint of what role she should play in the home; that she is the homemaker or caretaker. Even when women break from the stereotypical role of "housewife" and join the workforce, they still are not given an equal opportunity at acquiring a job that is seen to be as advancing or of higher recognition, as they would like to have. Men usually already take those positions.
Nowadays, everyone is working hard either men or women to support their life. Therefore, women want a men to share the family responsibilities with them to balance. With modern life, it is not only men can work and bring money to the family. Women have to work hard too. The independent in economics so, taking care of the children is not only the wives duty. Some times they want husband taking care of children when they are busy such as they are at work or doing housework. On the other hand, the husband might helps their wife in the kitchen instead of stand around and do nothing while wife cooking or doing something. It is not only wife can bring the family be happy and all members in the family have a good life, but also husband responsibility. For example, the good husband usually care about what his wife and his family need to support it. It can be money or solving problem. They should have a great idea to deal with
Today, in a vast majority of families, both the wife and husband have a job. Many working parents are under stress as they have to try to balance the demands of their work, children and relationship. Over the past 25 years, women's and men's roles have changed dramatically. In fact, the world of work and home are not separate, research indicates a profound impact on work and home life.
When discussing housewifery and working mothers, some women have very different opinions about the two. In the articles “Letter to Working Mothers: Stop Feeling So Guilty” by Margie Warrell, written in 2013, and “The Satisfactions of Housewifery and Motherhood” by Terry Martin Hekker, written in 1977, this is shown to be true. While author Margie Warrell gives advice to working mothers, author Terry Martin Hekker gives her personal life story of being a housewife. From 1977 to 2013, marriage has changed quite a bit. Ms. Hekker discusses her views of being a house wife in 1977 as an over-conservative marriage. Ms. Warrell gives advice to working mothers to help with guilt of not being a housewife, which is a more nontraditional marriage. Both articles have creditable views regarding each topic due to both authors’ personal experiences.
More and more women work outside and inside the home. The double demands shouldered by these women pose a threat to their physical health. Whether you are an overworked housewife or an exhausted working mother the chances are that you are always one step behind your schedule. No matter how hard women worked, they never ended up with clean homes. Housewives in these miserable circumstances often became hysterical cleaners. They wore their lives away in an endless round of scouring, scrubbing, and polishing. The increased strain in working women comes from the reality that they carry most of the child-rearing and household responsibilities. According to social trends (1996), women always or usually do the washing in 79 percent of cases and decide the menu 59 percent of the time. Picking up the children at school or doing grocery shopping are just a few of the many typical household-tasks a woman takes on every day.
Gender is defined as the scopes of genetic, physical, mental and behaviour characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between, masculinity and feminity, meanwhile inequality is defined as in a situation where there is an unfair situation or treatment in which certain people have more privileges or better opportunities or chances than other people. Thus, from the definition stated gender inequality refers to unequal or unfair management, treatment, or perceptions of persons or individuals are based on their gender. In a parallel sense, gender inequality can be said as the world in which there was discrimination against anyone based on gender. In this introductory, the general understanding of gender inequalities will be discussed further into three significant factors that influence the allocation of housework between men and women. Household chores can be classified as cleaning, cooking and paying bills. Division of housework serves as an important element in the continuation of the function of a family and it requires contribution from both spouses (Tang, 2012). However, current society’s perception on housework is based on gender, so the three major factors that influence the division of household chores within the couples are education level, economic resources, and time availability (refer to Figure1 in Appendix 1).
A gender role attitude is an individual’s interpretation and expectation on how a woman or man should behave. These assumptions create a socially accepted “norm” about each gender. In various lectures, we examined three common gender role ideologies; traditional, egalitarian, and transitional. A traditional gender role would fit into society’s fundamental outlook on a household. An individual holding this view would believe that men should work and earn money for the family, while women stay at home to do house work and take care of the kids. An egalitarian position believes that both women and men should equally distribute responsibility throughout every situation they are faced with. This would include dividing duties up evenly despite what type it is (more strenuous chores vs. easy chores). A transitional approach combines the traditional and egalitarian approaches together. A couple who practices this attitude would split up the tasks equally but in a way that still views men as holding the majority of the “household” power. For example, women would do the dishes and clean the house while men would cut the lawn and fix the car because those jobs are “more difficult”.