Division of labor in a Household

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Division of labor in a Household
The division of labor in the household hold depends on the environment. Society creates gender ideology that affects the roles women and men take on in the household. In The Second Shift by Arlie Russell, she states three different ideologies of gender. There is the traditional, transitional and egalitarian ideology that determines what sphere men and women want to identify with, home sphere or work sphere. However, it depends what kind on the time period and society you live in that determines the “norm” gender ideology, which affects the division of labor in a household. The society, which affected the Mendoza and Ortega family that I have observed and interviewed, constructs views of the appropriate roles for men and women in the family devotion schema.

Historical
An important period of United States history that affected the division of household labor was during the earlier industrial revolution. Before the industrial revolution in America, men and women work in the farm; it was a private family farm that both men and women worked. So around the 1830’s these farms were taking over by corporation, and during this time there was a growth of factories, trades and business in the new cities of America, which attracted men and women away from the farm life. However, there was a transition in economy of America, which affected men and women, but it affected them differently. The jobs that men were receiving were different from what women were getting. “In 1860, most industrial workers were men.” While, men where working in factories women where working in more domestic jobs, but only 15% of women were working for paid. Hence, most women stayed at home to take care of the second shift, housework. When men started working in factories and women working in domestic jobs, this change the way people lived, especially family life. Now men are leaving their homes, where they use to work as farmers, to city to work, while women primary stay at home to work. During this time period, the lives of men where changing more drastically, but women identity was still identifying with the home, while men were identifying with his paid work.
Nowadays, women’s lives have changed significantly due to the expansion of jobs that have gave women more opportu...

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...n working, still the women were the one who did most of the housework. The placement of living also had an affect on their lives as well.
As a native New York, the part of queens the Ortega family lives, would be consider as “suburbs” and the part of Brooklyn, the Mendoza family live in would be considered as the urban. Their surroundings affected their affirmation of their choice of gender ideology. In Queens, most women were stay-at-home mothers and expected the man to provides the finical needs. Sherry affirmed her notion of traditional mothers by giving examples of her neighbors to state that it’s the “norm” to take at home and take care of your children. On the other hand, Gen lived in an area where most of the mothers worked outside the homes. She stated that today, “women should not identify herself with only the home, but with the labor force as well.” Both families’ neighbor encouraged them to believe in their gender ideologies, which had some contradiction between what a person said they believed, their gender ideologies and what they actual did in the second shift. The Mendoza and Ortega family had one person, the wife/mother, doing more of the second shift, housework.

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