Part two of my Sociology revision! Today, I'm looking at the domestic division of labour...
Let's start off with Oakley (1974), a fairly prominent feminist sociologist when it comes to the course we're doing. She said that the 'housewife role' was socially constructed, and began through industrialisation, when work was taken away from the home. Then, women started leaving the labour force to undertake housework and childcare, making men the sole breadwinners, and leaving them economically dependent. Hence, the housewife role was constructed. Oakley criticised Young & Willmott's findings, saying that it was
exaggerated. Based on her own research, she concluded that husbands were
helping with housework, but not in a way that made their role
symmetrical to women. For example, only 25% had a high level of input
in childcare, and this tended to be based around the 'good' aspects,
like playing with the children. No smelly nappies here!! Boulton (1983) agreed with these findings, and reinforced the view that men helping with tasks here and there was not equal to the role women were taking.
Other theorists have seen a trend towards equality in recent years- for example, Gershuny (1994) found that married women in full time did less house work when compared to those in part-time or no work; Sullivan (2000) agreed with this.
Another way of looking at the issue is to take the studies
done by Silver (1987) and Schor (1993), who said that economic and
technological developments mean that there are affordable goods and
services to help with housework. Therefore, there's less of a burden in
this area. Schor even went so far as to call it the 'death of the
housework role'. However, critics argue that such goods and services
aren't an option for poorer women, and that the housework that remains
is still divided unequally.
Though this trend towards equality is looked on positively by some, others see it as causing women to have a dual burden- they have to work and take care of the house/children. Ferri and Smith (1996) found that, though female employment has increased, they remain the primary carers, meaning that women go straight from work in the daytime to constant childcare in the evenings. Arber and Ginn (1995) said that this was worst for working class women, who couldn't afford the childcare that the middle class could. The idea of the dual burden can even be extended to include another element- emotion work, for example making sure that everyone in the house is mentally okay. Duncombe and Marsden (1995) said that women now have a triple shift- they have to do paid work, housework/childcare and emotion work.
As with many things going on in society, it can be difficult to assess things because so much of our lives are steeped in subtle tradition. In this case, the gender roles of a male breadwinner and a female homemaker are so ingrained into our minds and societies, that it's difficult to change them, or even to look beyond them. It could easily be argued that every relationship has someone who takes all the work- in most couples, it just happens to be the woman. However, Dunn (1999) studied lesbian couples, and found that these relationships tended to be more equal, including in terms of housework and childcare. This supports the view that women in heterosexual relationships do more housework not accidentally, but due to the ongoing impact of the patriarchy.
So yeah... Um, that's the domestic division of labour!!