Ideas, Interactions, And Institutions Chapter 11 Summary

Throughout history, women have been groomed to be the best they can domestically. To place them in the man’s position of being the sole provider of the family seems irrational at best. Although the natural gender roles may be overpowering during the start of having a family, through time duties between husband and wife, regarding domestic life, tend to balance out once financial security is established. Like many major changes, it starts out bumpy but eventually a solution is found and both husband and wife find their “happy-medium.”

On the other hand, when both partners share the breadwinner role men are more likely to increase their core housework tasks in companion to men in the ‘new traditional’ and male-breadwinner families. Consequently, many studies found that gender attitudes are still primary indicators of who does housework, thus women still do two-thirds of housework where men do two-thirds of paid work. It is noticed that there have been significant changes for women over the last 6 decades to participate in the labour force, yet there was hardly any change to the division of core household work between men and women.

Women for years have been automatically given the role of the domestic housewife, where their only job is to cook, clean, and take care of the children. Men have usually taken the primary responsibility for economic support and contact with the rest of society, while women have traditionally taken the role of providing love, nurturing, emotional support, and maintenance of the home. However, in today’s society women over the age of sixteen work outside of the home, and there are more single parent households that are headed by women than at any other time in the history of the United States (Thompson 301.)

Whether it is the past or the present, there have always been gender roles in society. In most homes, it is the woman’s responsibility to take care of the house. This includes cleaning, meal preparations, raising and taking care of the children as well as the husband. Compared to the men who take care of the more physical activities, such as yard work. It was known throughout many years that it was a woman’s responsibility to stay in the house while the man would go out and look for work to provide money for his family. Although the intensity of gender roles has changed, it still exists.

Women’s role within the household has changed considerably over a period of time. In the later days in the United States women were to attend to the children and to the house and not do much more than that. Children are now being raised by stay at home dads instead of the stereotypical stay at home moms. According to Gardner, "Real-life families have changed considerably since 'Mr. Mom ' appeared, with more men sharing child-rearing and household chores." (Gardner 2010) This is occurring because women’s jobs are no longer labeled as being just for women. Men have gotten a lot of criticism for being stay at

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

In light of Willmott and Young’s inaccuracy she conducted her own research on 40 housewives between the ages of 20 and 30, and found some evidence of husbands helping around the home, but no evidence of a symmetry trend, being that only 15% of husbands had a high level of participation in housework and only 25% participated in a high level of childcare. Also from her research she found that industrialisation lead to the segregation of family roles around the home. Mary Boulton also suggests that many surveys done exaggerate how much childcare is actually done by husbands. Her argument is that while men may ‘help’ with childcare, it is the wives who take main responsibility for looking after the children, often resulting in them having to restrict their own lives. A patriarchal ideology still sees women’s work to be looking after the children and doing housework.

Women face special challenges because they often bear more of the responsibilities at home” (Posner 15). With more independence given to women, some of them have to deal with a long job during the day, and then return home to a different job of taking care of the family and the house. However, some may argue that this is actually a good thing, or at least as bad is it seems, because it is usually what happens to fathers with absent wives, which means that by having men and women take on the same role in such a situation, there truly is equality between the genders. In the 30’s more people immediately married out of the shame of being potentially caught with a child whilst unmarried, and were left in sometimes poisonous

As a result of the increase of pregnancy rates in the 1950s there was a decrease of employment. Instead of going to work, mothers cared for their children at homes. This reinforced the roles of women as wives and mothers. Today, women are now more liberated from these roles. That being the case Author Natalie Angier, of the article, “The Changing American Family, explains, 62 percent of the public, and 72 percent of adults under 30, view the ideal marriage as one in which husband and wife both work and share child care and household duties…” This quote demonstrates that majority of women are no longer the housemakers of the family. The twenty-first century women are through with stereo gender jobs and proved to be a family's breadwinner. In the 1950s, Author Brigid Schulte, of the article, “Unlike in the 1950s, there is no ‘typical’ U.S. family today,” points out, “....in the 1950s, 65 percent of all children under 15 were being raised in traditional breadwinner-homemaker families. Today, only 22 percent are.” This quote supports the belief that both husbands and wives should share the responsibilities of supporting their families with financial income and responsibilities in the

Today, many men and women earned income independently of each other under the dual household income model. This contrasts the breadwinner model which was prevalent in the Fordist era. In this model, men and women had specific roles in the household, defining the roles as gendered. Men were to be the “breadwinner” and earn income for the household while the women performed domestic duties. Some women earn extra income through part-time or precarious work but the main source of income for the household was from the man.

The Second Shift After the 1960s, the Cultural Revolution and Women’s Movement launched. During this rapidly changing decade, women’s roles were no longer strictly confined to homemaking. They were employed by factories, corporations, and businesses alike. As women began to share the breadwinner role in the family, was this change reflected in the home as well? Were spouses also splitting the work at home?

In relatively recent years, gender roles have changed because women are able to take on roles that would be considered something only a man should do. These changes in gender roles are a good thing because it gives women opportunities they never had before. For example, it was believed men were the supporters of the family but it has become more and more common for women to help support a support and in some cases be the only spouse who brings in income. However, these changes are seen differently in diverse cultural images. Twenty to forty years ago it may have been extremely common for women to be stay at home mothers and not play a significant financial role or no role financially in the household. In those generations where this was common, it may be looked down upon that women are taking the lead as men used to. Within the last century the

The role of housewifery is not as commonplace as mothers who work, as both authors agree, but Hekker focuses on how she chose to be a stay-at-home mother and how society looked down upon her for being a housewife, while Edelman says that she did not have the choice of becoming a housewife. Back before it was acceptable for women to work in professional the workforce began really allowing women to join, women were just housewives. However, when the 1960's came around, more women were beginning to seek jobs. In the 70's, no more than sixteen percent of women were full-time housewives (Hekker 413). In present times though, it is so common for women to work, that it is considered unusual for a women to quit her job or reduce their work hours to stay home with a child.

The initial answer is that women today can not simply give up their roles of motherhood and wife because they have gained ground outside the home. Household and child care responsibilities still apply to women even if she wakes early to start her 9am job and doesn't return home until 5pm. Yet, this answer is inherently problematic. The responsibilities discussed above should not mean an inequitable amount of time spent on her children and family as compared to her husband. House-hold responsibilities should not result in less sleep than her husband and having less time

The Change in the Domestic Tasks Between Women and Men In the past it was obvious that woman did considerably more domestic work than men, this being mainly due to traditional views taken by society. The husband was seen as the breadwinner and protector whilst the woman was seen as a housewife and child carer. This view is known as the traditional Nuclear family (not including the offspring). In recent years it has become apparent that woman were not happy with this 'traditional' system so began to try and change it through a movement known as Feminism.