The Gendered Division of Labour Within the Domestic Sphere

1821 Words4 Pages

Sociological study on the gendered division of labour within the domestic sphere has perennially been characterised by evidence of a clear inequality concerning the allocation of unpaid chores within the home between men and women (Warren, 2003:734). While men have traditionally been regarded as primary breadwinners, the management of home-maintenance has remained largely women’s responsibility (Breen & Cooke, 2005:47). A number of theories exist to explain this unequal distribution of domestic labour, in particular the economic exchange model (which argues that women perform domestic duties in ‘exchange’ for financial support from their husbands), and the gender display model, which asserts that household labour is divided on the basis of the symbolic importance of gender (Baxter, 2002:401). While this paper will argue the inherent features of both models, it will also discuss the importance of gender stereotypes in maintaining the unequal distribution of household labour, despite women’s increasing involvement in the workforce. The paper will also demonstrate that the issue of a gendered division of labour holds great significance for sociological study, particularly surrounding issues of power, dominance and authority in the gender regime.

The basic assumption of the economic exchange model as a mechanism for the gendered division of labour is that those who contribute more to the economic worth of a household (traditionally males), contribute less to the mundane household tasks that are routinely required (Brines, 1994:653). Thus, it is argued, women are forced to perform housework in exchange for economic support (Baxter, 2002:403). As recently as the mid-1990s, men were far more likely to be involved in full-time paid em...

... middle of paper ...

...’s Saying?”: Investigating Domestic Discourse in Young Cohabiting Heterosexual Couples. Gender Issues, 2, 59-77.

West, C. & Zimmerman, D. (1987). Doing Gender, Gender and Society, 1, 125-151.

Dempsey, K. (1997). Women’s Perception of Fairness and the Persistence of an Unequal Division of Housework. Family Matters, 2(48), 1-11.

Berk, S. (1985). The Gender Factory: The Apportionment of Work in American Households. Plenium Press, New York.

Ritzer, G. & Goodman, D.J. (2004). Sociological Theory, McGraw-Hill, New York

Natalier, K (2003). ‘I’m Not His Wife’: Doing Gender and doing Housework in the Absence of Women. Journal of Sociology, 39(3) 253-269.

Macionis, J.J, & Plummer, K. (2005). Sociology: A Global Introduction, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow

Ritzer, G. (2000). The Blackwell Companion to Major Sociological Theorists, Blackwell Publishing, Massachusetts.

Show More
Related

  • My Antonia Essay: The Character of Lena Lingard

    1791 Words  | 4 Pages

    Weiner, Lynn Y. From Working Girl to Working Mother: The Female Labor Force in the United States, 1820-1980. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. 1985.

    Read More

  • Women During World War II and Beyond

    1520 Words  | 4 Pages

    Smuts, Robert W. Women and Work in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959. Print.

    Read More

  • A Modern Division of Labor and Gender Norms

    1069 Words  | 3 Pages

    Modern feminists might gasp if I assert patriarchy once allowed efficient economic organization, but the tools of modern political economy unveil the mystery of why inegalitarian gender norms were once economically efficient. Evolving modes of production and material constraints necessitate an efficient division of labor guided by socialized gender norms that adapt to economic macroconditions. Gary Becker and Torben Iversen understand an economic division of labor differently given their different historical-material conditions. In his “Theory of the Allocation of Time,” Becker models an ideal economic division of labor with the household as a single entity seeking maximum utility. Men specialize in marketable skills due to a comparative advantage in hard labor; women specialize in general household skills and motherhood. Iversen’s concept of an efficient division of labor does not view the household as a single entity and instead views the individual as the basic economic unit—less gendered social norms result. Thus, as society evolves from agricultural to industrial and then to postindustrial modes of production, gender norms adapt to society’s needs and wants to yield efficient divisions of labor. When material macroconditions advance, households restructure gender norms and behavior out of demand for a more efficient division of labor. In this paper, I argue the evolution of the modes of production alters power dynamics in household bargaining, which force gender norms to conform to market demands for a revised division of labor.

    Read More

  • Negotiating Fine Lines between Women’s Work and Women’s Worth

    2507 Words  | 6 Pages

    McBride, Kari Boyd. “A Boarding House is not a Home: Women’s Work and Woman’s Worth on the Margins of Domesticity.” The University Book second edition. 472-487.

    Read More

  • Persisting Gender Roles: A Barrier to Progress

    1525 Words  | 4 Pages

    Caregiving and homemaking are the primary roles given to women by society. And as Brigid Schulte stated in her article “Women aren’t the only ones trapped by gender roles”, “As long as women are expected to do the bulk of the caregiving and housework, and work cultures respect and reward people who don’t, women will remain at the disadvantage”. This quote simplicity sums up the effect traditional gender roles on the potentials of women. As long as these societal expectations are set in place, men will be the ones consistently given the rewards because their position in society is seemingly “superior” to women. According to an article from Forbes magazine entitled “The 5 Most Damaging Myths That Keep Women From Advancing and Thriving In Our World Today”, the second most damaging myth is the thought “that gender equality is just a workplace issue”(Caprino). Though this is a major issue surrounding traditional roles, the behavioral and physical expectations of men and women cannot be overlooked. “Social roles are the part people play as members of a social group. With each social role you adopt, your behavior changes to fit the expectations both you and others have of that role”(McLeod). Women are expected by society to be dependent, passive, emotional, and nurturing and look graceful and petite. Opponents to the aforementioned statements would suggest that

    Read More

  • Evolution of Gender Roles in Society

    1012 Words  | 3 Pages

    Let’s talk a little bit about what is male gender role, it is similar to gender-role, however it isn’t just assigned characteristics like gender-role. For many decades the phrase stay-at-home dads was unimaginable. In today’s society for every stay-at-home father there are 38 stay-at-home mothers (Sociology a brief introduction [262]). Along with the gender-role of society, the actual male gender role is slowly changing. With men working women jobs it also sheds light on those men that can now be accepted as being stay-at-home fathers, they go hand in hand together. Men now being able to have different gender roles in society they still feel the need to respond how a society male gender role should respond. For example, those in the women’s job being a teacher, he must not be too much of a “sissy” (Sociology a Brief introduction) he needs to react to situations more stern, as a male should. The effect this also has on society is women having to accept males being capable of having the ability to do their jobs. For instance, a man goes out clubbing and meets a women he claims he is ‘“a carpenter or something” ‘because women were just not into a male nurse. Reality men are not only being able to work women’s jobs, by doing so it expresses to society multiple masculinities. This is men having the

    Read More

  • Gender And Gender Inequality In The Workplace

    1452 Words  | 3 Pages

    For example, males are identified as the head of the household and the provider for the family. This concept affects society because women are told that they should be nurtures and should be dedicated to their children. This shows that women were told that they shouldn’t work and should instead focus on being a housewife. This results in the mother and children being dependent on the father. Men are told that they should provide financial support for the family. Also, men are the authority in the household because they discipline their children. Ridgeway says” Gender beliefs are a continual referent for people’s own behavior and sense of identity in the home, and because household tasks themselves carry a gendered connotation, the performance or non-performance of those tasks can be a symbolic gender display for the person “(135).So, gender beliefs effect on how we view gender in the household because it is based on expectations of gender roles. Moreover, gender in household affects household division because women spend more time in the household. For example, since males are the providers they are rarely at home. They are not able to help with household duties. The mother does all the housework in the household. Also .the mother spends her whole time attending to the children and doing chores. Ridgeway says “One way to see the power of gender as an organizing force in the household division of is to examine that extent to which people sex category alone predicts the amount and nature of the household work they do in comparison to their other identities” (139) .Household division the results would show that the women do more household chores than

    Read More

  • Women and New Deal Programs

    1194 Words  | 3 Pages

    Women throughout history have been considered to have an active role in the family life as the caretakers, while the men are considered the “breadwinners” of the family. However, a few women still have had to provide for their families throughout the years and as a result have sought employment in industries that “were highly segregated by sex” (Goldin 87). Women employm...

    Read More

  • The Gender Revolution: Uneven And Stalled By Maudia Wland Analysis

    1277 Words  | 3 Pages

    Paula England, the author of “The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled,” sheds light on how the gender system has progressively become unbalanced. England 's main focus for this article is to provide the reader with an understanding of how women 's drive to change hasn 't just affected their labor, but men 's labor as well. She states “Since 1970, women increasingly majored in previously male-dominated, business-related fields, such as business, marketing, and accounting; while fewer chose traditionally female majors like English, education, and sociology; and there was little increase of men’s choice of these latter majors” (England and Li, 2006, 667-69). This quote supports the fact that women have been branching out in the workplace, however

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Cleaning: The Final Feminist Frontier

    827 Words  | 2 Pages

    She brings up statistics of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics quoting that 55% of mothers that also work full time go home and do some housework on an average day, while only 18% of full time employed fathers do some housework on an average day (1). Grose then furthers her point by adding that “even in the famously gender neutral Sweden, women do 45 minutes more housework a day than their male partners” (2). Another statement that strengthened Grose’s argument was from her interview with David Michael Perez (publisher and editor of Kindling Quarterly) that even if a man does more decorating and cleaning (as he does), the wife will receive the reward or credit

    Read More

  • Gendered Social Reproduction

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    Social reproduction encompasses all the necessities such as activities, relationships, and behaviours in order to sustain life and social institutions such as the family. It is a framework that strives to explain capitalism and how it institutionalizes the dependency of the private and public spheres (Trotz, 2016). Domestic work such as caring for household members and homemaking are products of social reproduction that is heavily gendered. In the majority of households, the women are the ones who take on the task of being the homemaker and caretaker. Social reproduction is meant to be a non-reductionist way of exhibiting the relation between gender stratification and capitalism to demonstrate how this unpaid, domestic labour has been enforced

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Cleaning: The Final Feminist Frontier, By Jessica Grose

    1077 Words  | 3 Pages

    One thing my grandma would always say every time she was doing work around the house is that, “A woman’s work is never done.” Posted on an online magazine website author, Jessica Grose, wrote an article titled “Cleaning: The Final Feminist Frontier,” published March 13th, 2013. As she got into the article she argues that men in our lives more recently started taking on more of the childcare and cooking, while the cleaning still falls unfairly on women. Jessica Grose starts to build her credibility with personal facts and using reputable sources.

    Read More

  • Gender Inequality at a Workplace

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    Historically, males and females normally assume different kinds of jobs with varying wages in the workplace. These apparent disparities are widely recognized and experienced across the globe, and the most general justification for these differences is that they are the direct outcomes of discrimination or traditional gender beliefs—that women are the caregivers and men are the earners. However, at the turn of the new century women have revolutionized their roles in the labor market. Specifically in industrialized societies, the social and economic position of women has shifted. Despite of the improving participation of women in the labor force and their ameliorating proficiency and qualifications, the labor force is still not so favorable to women. The opportunities available for women in the market are not as diverse as those presented to men. Still, the construct of gender ideology influences how employers undertake economic decisions, and that is why companies still have jobs labelled as “men’s work” and occupations categorized as “women’s work.” Indeed, the pervasiveness of gender differences in labor markets is undeniably true, specifically with respect to salary gap between men and women, occupational gender segregation of men and women, and the challenge that women face in terms of juggling their time and attention between their career and family life.

    Read More

  • A womans work is never done

    658 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Gender Inequality: The Allocation of Household Chores

    1249 Words  | 3 Pages

    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).

    Read More

More about The Gendered Division of Labour Within the Domestic Sphere

Open Document