Analysis Of ' From The Frying Pan Into The Fire '

Unlike the Upper-class people, the middle-class people spent a lot of their leisure time browsing or reading through mass-circulation magazines, newspapers or this era’s outpouring fiction novels. Middle-class men and women also joined a variety of social and professional organizations to deal with a lot of problems that were arising during the industrialization. Such as the American Red Cross that provided disaster relief; the National Association of Colored Women defended and helped relieve suffering for colored women; etc. The consumer culture of this era increased a woman’s domestic workload by giving them more to buy and more to clean, prepare and keep up with. These middle-class women who were expected to stay home and care for the house and children were one of the highest in the chain of consumers. Department stores, chain stores, ready-made clothes, and packaged goods competed for the money and loyalty of female consumers. Hairdressers, cosmetic companies, and department stores offered a growing and ever-changing assortment of styles. These new products and technologies improved the middle-class quality of life. Unfortunately, the benefits of this consumption were not shared with the industrial workers and the farmers as they worked long hours in dangerous conditions for very low

The family is a social institution present in all human societies. A family unit is a group of people sharing a relationship based on biology, marriage, or adoption. The conflict perspective refers to the inequalities that exist in all societies. The conflict perspective originated from out of Karl Max’s writings on class struggles. This perspective presents society in a different light than do the functionalist and symbolic interactionist perspectives. This perspective focuses on the negative, conflicted, and ever-changing nature of society. Conflict theorists challenge the status quo, unlike functionalists who defend it, encourage social change, and believe that the rich and powerful force social order on the poor and the weak. When looking at the conflict perspective in reference to family, the family works toward the continuance of social inequality, whether on purpose or unknowingly. Wealthy families are able to keep their privilege social position for the members of that family, whereas poorer families are denied this status. This perspective is also more beneficial for men than women. It allows men to maintain their power position. Inequality between the sexes is a result of this family being patriarchal. Gender roles are significant. The roles of the men in the family are much more important than the roles of the women even if the women are more hard-working than their male counterparts.

According to the textbook, Cherlin refers to the 1950s as the “breadwinner-homemaker family” (Cherlin, 76) time period. Marriage occurred at younger ages and the birthrate increased. During the 1950s, men could support their families on a single wage referred to as the “family wage” (Cherlin, 67). With the family wage women and kids did not have to enter the labor force. It also created a separation of spheres between men and women. Women stayed at home to raise their children and had limited domestic roles, while men were out in the world working. Today, people are marrying at later ages and the birthrate is not as high as it used to be in the 1950s. The idea of the family wage faded away during the time of the post-nuclear family. Today it is more acceptable for women to have jobs as well as their partner to help support their family. Today many families have variations of how they support their family and who the caretaker is. Women are no longer designated to the domestic sphere nor are men the only ones in the labor force.

In the 19th century, the Market Revolution was created, resulting significance in American history by redefining the roles for genders, especially for women. During this time, factories began to appear changing the nature of work for men and women. Although, women were employed cheaper because at the time in Colonial America, men were considered superior to women, even in terms of morality. Some women worked effectively by applying their strength of factories, while other women adapted to a private lifestyle avoiding conflicts in the market economy. However, the privileges were determined based on a family’s class status, which were middle and upper classmen that gave a higher advantage than those who were poor. Those who were married had no

Kathleen Gerson gets to know today’s young generation in her book The Unfinished Revolution: Coming of Age in a New Era of Gender, Work, and Family. Today’s young generation grew up during the gender revolution. It was a time where the family life was changing. For example, the number of mothers in the workforce increased rapidly, single headed families became more common and employment became more uncertain than before. Gerson is interested in knowing how the young generation images an ideal family life.

Foremost, the familial image has undertaken significant changes in regards to the ‘breadwinner’ and ‘homemaker’ roles within the family. In the latter of the 20th century, women’s participation in the labour force had been very little to non-existent, primarily because time allocations had been perceived as gender specific, that is, men were seen as the ‘breadwinner’, while women were viewed as the ‘homemaker’ (Seltzer, Bachrach, Bianchi, Bledsoe, Casper, Chase-Lansdale, Diprete, Hotz, Morgan, Sanders, & Thomas, 2005, pp.20). The ‘breadwinner’ role was to secure financial stability, while the

3) As a result of the outsourcing that has been happening there is a “hollowing-out” that has been happening to the middle-class job market, there are more jobs that lie on the higher and lower parts of the scale while there are little that are in the middle. One of the last problems that the article addressed was the fact that “single-parent families are more likely to be poor than other families and less likely to ascend the income ladder.” (*****) It was mentioned in the text how in the past century there have been five major trends that have changed families, one of those trends has been “a movement from homogeneity to diversity” (*** pg.5) This theme can be seen in the article where in years in the past there would not have even been a mention of a single-parent family as they were not recognized. This article shows how outsourcing and the income instability that is happening in the United States affects so many groups of

Life in the early nineteenth century wasn’t so easy different gender roles were just starting to take place; where men did the dirty work and women were taught to do the house work. Some women cleaned; took care of children; and having a meal prepared for the children and husband. The American Industrial Revolution transformed daily life by creating a middle class, shifting from predominately rural home life, to urban head-quarters and reclassifying gender roles in the home life. The middle class had started to form a few years before the start of nineteenth century. By the time the Industrial Revolution had started children and women were seen as a different matter other than just property to the man or a new way to earn money.

During nineteenth century, American society had undergone tremendous change due to the Industrial Revolution and the Civil War, including change of gender role expectations. In the book of the American Family: from Obligation to Freedom, Peterson del Mar (2011) argues that the status of white middle-class women became higher at the end of the nineteenth century compared to the beginning. Indeed, this assertion is supported by the three guides assigned this week. In fact, various components played crucial roles in this situation. Based on the descriptions from Peterson del Mar’s work and evidence from those three provided guides, it is not hard to find that white middle-class women status had increased overtime.

Third, in a number of ways sexual obligation has changed in the modern American family. Women are working presently more than at any time previously. This much is true, however at the poverty and middle class level, men and women salaries in nearly all instances will be in all likelihood comparable to each other. Although, this is where the buck literately comes to a stop. The women that are striving to achieve exceptional goals. For instance, there are countless more women than men receiving degrees from college. Women graduating with degrees desire the higher paying positions and in nearly all cases they are receiving them. Although this may be true, women are not receiving salaries nearly as high their male counterparts. On the other

In today’s society, the head of the household is not decided via gender but more so by money. In Stephen Marche’s article, “Home Economics: The Link Between Work-Life Balance and Income Equality,” he argues that in heterosexual relationships the central conflict is not men verses women, nor is it “mother verses father” but rather “family verses money.” He states that “decisions about who works and who takes care of the children, and who makes the money and how the money is spent, are not decided by women alone or by some vague and impersonal force called society” (Marche). Marche also implies that even though today’s society may look like a patriarchy, it is but a false facade created by those who campaign for egalitarianism. He believes that the feminist movements, being dominated mainly by middle-class women, does not represent the majority, and that their push for more woman in leadership positions will

This long-establish social stratum exists within traditional family archetypes of rigid socialisation and gender roles are shaped and upheld for the rest of society to emulate; consequently plays a role to conflict and inequality between the sexes. The disadvantage suffered by Deborah has been underscored through an intergenerational cycle of social, economic, political and gender expectations. Her family’s post war history reinforces the family structure of the conservative family values era of the baby boomers, where women

Christina Cauterucci (2016) introduced shocking findings related to current gender norms in America from a recent study that was published by Indiana University researchers. These findings indicated that rigid gender expectations related to household labor continue to persist in American families. These findings may have come as no surprise during the 1950’s. However, since the 1950’s social movements and organizations have emerged and focused much of their time on the unequal division of household labor in American households. For example, Lamanna et al. (2012) explained how the feminist movement developed in the 1960’s and made strides towards abolishing inequality between males and females in American households (p. 41). This movement was inspired by an interest in adopting elements from Karl Marx’s conflict theory to explain the inequalities of the American family. From here, feminist theory arose and was used to address power differentials between individuals of American families. Overall, the theory has largely focused on gender related issues that are rooted in the idea that American society is, in fact, a male dominated patriarchy.

On the other hand, as a result of the women being more financially independent, the transformation of the family is deviating from the patriarchal norm. This is visible as the men’s role as an illusion breadwinner is being destroyed, as there is less pressure for them to be the only source of income for families. Furthermore, with both men or women being more mobile in their labour because of the international political

Separated by time traditional society and its values were more simplistic; whereas modern society provided resources and innovations, which made life certain aspects of life easier. Initially, traditional family values consist of gender roles for both men and women in order to maintain a patriarchal system. Additionally, the size of families within both traditional and modern societies serve very different financial purposes. In addition to the size of families, the expected duties of children changed, especially within the emergence of child work and labour. For example, within traditional societies children tended to work with the administration of their parents. Whereas, within modern societies, children’s work shifted into children working in factories and mills under harsh conditions. Within the eighteenth-century, the societal values regarding consumerism were not nearly as stressed. Therefore, families focused on working to purchase only the necessities; whereas, the counterpart modernity, emphasized consumerism to serve individual wants. Thus, both traditional and modern societies contain values that pertain to the realms of family, work, and the markets, however I find myself more sympathetic to traditional societies because the way of life was much more simplistic than its counterpart.