Social Reproduction : A Woman 's Duty

There is a huge debate going on today about gender. Society believes you’re a boy if you like blue, and like to play sports and go hunting; and you’re a girl if you like pink and have long hair and pig tails and play with Barbie dolls. Society has forced us to choose between the two. I believe that both women and men can both have it all. As Dorment says, ‘competing work life balance and home as much as women’. (Dorment 697) I believe in this article Richard Dorment, has argued his opinion very well, I think both men and woman equally need to be involved in housework as well as taking care of the children. In today’s world were judging who were going to be even before were born. Throughout this article Dorment effectively convinces his audience that men and women should be equal by using statistics and emotional stories, Dorment uses personal stories and extensive research to make readers believe in his credibility, and lastly Dorment employs the rhetorical appeals of pathos and ethos effectively.

In regards to employment, women today can do paid work, but their work is usually menial, badly paid and lacking in status (Krieken et al, 2000). Kate Millet (1970) saw women as a reserve labour force who are made use of when they are needed (for example in war time) but are discarded when not required (Krieken et al,

Male dominated relation in the household is seen by feminist social theory as another patriarchy structure. Such approach holds that traditional family is an institution shaped to impoverish and disadvantage women in order to maintain stability and social order (Saul, 2003, p.5). Accordingly, feminist social theory explains that man expropriates the household labour of woman, and provides her maintenance (Walby;

Talcott Parsons’s sex role theory was based and structured according to a more traditional family structure in that the man was the work-oriented contributor (breadwinners) and the women was the domestically oriented partner (housewives) of the man ensuring the home, children and day to day household functions were tended to. In retrospect this structure was seen to produce future laborers who became contributing members of society which is all part of a capitalist system (Conley, 2013).

Firstly one must look at the division of domestic labour and conjugal roles. Conjugal roles refer to the roles performed by men and women in relation to housework, childcare and paid work. Traditionally men had the instrumental ‘bread-winning’ role which the women had the

Within Okin’s “Vulnerability by Marriage” article her thesis is similar to Beauvoir’s idea in previous readings that the oppression of women in contemporary liberal societies is primarily continued by the gendered division of labor (GDL) in a family, for the most part the fact that women are assigned responsibility within the home and are not paid. Also, Okin believes that women’s oppression is caused by feminine gender socialization but she also adds that she believes that a major contribution to the oppression of women in liberal societies is due to women’s role inside the home. Even if women do work a full time job, they truly aren’t done working when they get home after work, they tend to do necessary things around the house such as laundry, washing dishes, taking care of children, etc., and women on average work more hours per week than a man even though they may not be paid for it. Even though I think that Okin’s view is true and her arguments are acceptable, I do think that there are some additional arguments she could have made that would have made her case better. In this paper I will address Okin’s arguments as well as present some of my own additional arguments that I feel could have beneficial.

In addition to defining gender, Padavic and Reskin coin the term “gendering” to describes circumstances or outcomes that, like gender, are socially constructed and tend to give males certain advantages over females. Three key components—the assignment of tasks based on workers’ sex, a higher value placed on men’s work than on women’s work, and employers’ and workers’ social constructions of gender on the job—make up gendering. (Padavic and Reskin, 6). It allows males to maintains certain advantages over females, thus maintaining the force and coercion dimension of inequality. Sex and gender differentiation have existed since the beginning of the labor force, and have paved the way for the assignment of different tasks to men and women throughout the years. When the labor force first emerged following the Industrial Revolution, it was comprised of people who either worked for pay or were actively seeking paid work. The labor force split working people into three different groups—wage workers, unemployed, and nonemployed. This distinction between paid work in the labor market and unpaid domestic work by the “nonemployed” has had important consequences for gender inequality. Since then, men have been more likely than women to belong to the labor force, and women have been more likely than

In the capitalist system, two types of labor exist, a division stressed by Marxist feminists like Margaret Benston and Peggy Morton. The first is productive, in which the labor results in goods or services that have monetary value in the capitalist system and are thus compensated by the producers in the form of a paid wage. The second form of labor is reproductive, which is associated with the private sphere and involves anything that people have to do for themselves that is not for the purposes of receiving a wage (i.e. cleaning, cooking, having children). Both forms of labor are necessary, but people have different access to these forms of labor based on certain aspects of their identity. Women are assigned to the domestic sphere where the

This paper will refer to both domestic labor and women’s labor in similar respects, but the two are not necessarily interchangeable. The use of the phrase “domestic labor” refers to work done within the home, particularly childcare, elderly care, and the upkeep of the household. The term “women’s work” or “women’s labor” encompasses domestic labor, but not all women’s labor is necessarily domestic. In her chapter “Industrialization, Wage Labor, and the Economic Gender Gap”, Estelle Freedman describes historically feminized fields of work that include other types of labor, such as industrial work in textile mills, retail, clerical, and teaching jobs. When referring to sex work, Laura Agustin uses the term in “Migrants in the Mistress’s House” to encompass everything from prostitution, sexual services in bars, clubs, and flats, erotic phone sex, peep shows, massage parlors, and lap dancing (110). However, she often does not differentiate between sex work and domestic work “because migrants often move between these sectors or work in two at once, and because a separation into two groups reproduces a scheme of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ girls” (97). For the sake of clarity, however, this paper will differentiate between “traditional” women’s labor

Institution, ones traditions, and everyday lives are filled with examples of men in positions of authority over women” (Kay, 2012). Inequalities in gender can be seen in marriage as well as parenting. It is believed that by many that a man should have a higher income than a female. In some cases women are being paid less than men in their work place and yet they hold the same credentials as men, this is where secondary status comes in. In most households it’s the female who cooks and clean look after the kids while the men work but roles can be divided when faced with certain duties, to accommodate one another. “Gender inequality forms the basis of sexism, misogynist and the prejudiced beliefs that males overpower females” (Anon. 2016).

Women and men have had certain roles in society that were understood amongst them to be specified for their particular gender. Males were known to have the leading role as head of the house hold and the bread winner while the woman’s duty was to stay at home and take care of the house and children. While many people years ago deemed this way of life and practice to be the right and ethical thing to do, times have changed and so this kind of treatment towards a woman’s equality must be questioned. Even though times have changed, this mindset of a woman’s ability to be as good as a man has not completely gone away. In today’s society a woman contributes to the economy and her family as equally as that of a man. Therefore, women should share equal rights and opportunities as their gender counterparts.

Women’s unpaid labor in maintains a systems of oppression in many ways. In Susan M. Shaw and Janet Lee’s Women’s Voices Feminist Visions unpaid labor done by many women is, “undervalued as women’s formal productive paid labor in the workforce is prioritized” (Shaw & Lee, 2015, 471). Shaw and Lee are saying that women work at home is devalued because it is viewed as informal and as work that is done out of love or is natural work. Since the work being done is viewed as natural work, it further reinforces gender stereotypes by stating that women are supposed to do the household work which is deemed more as feminine. This thought process follows patriarchal thinking, where women are expected to do the

8). The traditional views of gender roles are indeed quite different from the modern views. The men in society are the bread-winners where as the women take care of the children and home. There are basic and common work roles, however in terms of behaviour and involvement there are gender role distinctions. The sex roles generally play out in modern society as well, some sex roles and stereotypes for girls are that they are “nonaggressive, nonathletic, emotionally expressive, tender, domestic, and nurturing. Boys on the other hand are “aggressive, value achievement, attain goals through conflict, and work towards monetary success” (Whicker and Kronenfeld, 1986; pp. 8). The males in the society are “emotionally anesthetised, aggressive, physically tough and daring, unwilling or unable to give nurturance to a child” (Lewis and Sussman, 1986; pp. 1). These traits are carried out by this particular gender mostly outside the society to demonstrate their strength. Those individuals who ignore to carry out these personality traits are seen as weak and unmanly. The women on the other hand are given the responsibility of looking after the family and are supposed to have the opposite personality traits. For instance a woman can show emotions but not outside of the family because of the shame that would bring to the

The economics of intimate partner relationships play a role in patriarchy and the reinforcement of women abuse. Martin (1981) states that meritocracy is a discourse that everyone has equal opportunity in the workforce. It fails to recognize the barriers that prevent people from having the same opportunities as others. For instance, women face many social pressures that prevent them from working in the public sphere such as discrimination, sexism, being pushed down to apply for certain jobs because it dominated by males and may not have the physical requirement like body mass. Martin (1981) argues that capitalism supports patriarchal families and the idea that a woman's place is considered to be in the private sphere, the home, while a man is to be in the public sphere. Martin (1981) states that capitalism is about competition and succeeds when barring disadvantage or vulnerable populations including women from advancing to the top of the hierarchy so that people, predominantly white males, would remain in power. One strategy to prevent women from advancing in their career is to receive minimum wage and less income than men which therefore makes them easily replaceable in the work force. This defines women as temporary workers (p. 41). This leaves women economically dependent on men and gives a reason

Although the economic exchange model provides a historical account of why the gendered division of labour may have been an accepted part of life during a time when women’s workforce participation was considered unusual, it is not able to explain why a clear inequality persists in a time of more inclusive workplace involvement (Maher & Singleton, 2003:61). Evidence indicates that women who spend longer hours in paid employment do less unpaid domestic work, clearly owing to a reduction in the available time to perform such tasks (Baxter, 1992:16). The same does not hold true for men, however, with research indicating that less time spent in paid employment is correlated with a reduction in the amount of domestic work undertaken (Bittman et al., 2003:187). Shamir (1986, as cited in Baxter, 1992:403) argues that