Rachel Deere

Access the view that family relationships have become more equal.

Different sociologists have had different views to whether family relationships have become equal. Researchers have measured different aspects of equality/inequality in family relationships. Some have concentrated on the division of labour in the home, examining the allocation of responsibility for domestic work between husband and wife and the amount of time spent by each sex on particular tasks. Willmott and Young are amongst those who have argued that family relationships and roles are equal. However, Ann Oakley has researched into the area of family relationships and has found little evidence that couples share equal division of domestic tasks. Rather than seeing a march of progress towards symmetry since the 19th century as Young and Willmott do, the feminist Ann Oakley (1974) shows how the housewife role has become a more dominant role for married women. The rise of industrialisation in the 19th century was said to have led to the separation of paid work from the home meaning women were gradually excluded from workplace and confined to the home with responsibility for housework and childcare while men became the breadwinners. Parsons claimed that this socially constructed the housewife role and that is wasn’t a ‘natural’ role brought upon by the economic dependence on men. Oakley views that although there was an increase in the number of married women working in the 20th century, it hasn’t changed the fact that the housewife role is still women’s primary role and that women who do work are employed in low paid jobs that link to the housewife role e.g. nursing etc. Today, three quarters of married or cohabiting women in the u are economically active, compared with fewer than half in 1971. Willmott and Young on the other hand, agree with the statement that family relationships have become equal. During the 1970’s they announced the arrival of the symmetrical family, a family in which the roles of husband and wife were similar. In the home the couple ‘shared their work and shared their time’. Husbands were seen to be increasingly helping with domestic chores, child rearing and decision making about family life. Willmott and Young interviewed husbands and found that most helped their wives at least once a week. Oakley criticized Young and Willmott, claiming there interview results were ‘exaggerated’ as the help they offered their wives could have simply been making breakfast on one occasion. Oakley thought this was not convincing evidence so did her own research on housewives and found only 15% of husbands had a high level of participation in housework and only 25% had a high level of participation in childcare. Research which shows Oakley’s views are more convincing than Willmott’s and Young’s is that of Mary Boulton (1983) who found that fewer that 20% of husbands had a major role in childcare arguing that Willmott and Young overstated men’s contribution by looking at the tasks involved in childcare rather than the responsibilities e.g. a father may play with the children to entertain them critically leaving the mother responsible for the shills security and well being. Warde and Hetherington nevertheless found that there has been a slight change in attitude amongst younger men. Evidence to support this view came from Future Foundation’s 2000 study of 1,000 adults found that 60% of men claimed to do more housework than their fathers and alternatively 75% or women claimed to do less housework than there mother. Feminists take a critical view on the family and argue that is oppresses women. They focus on issues like unequal division of labour and domestic violence against women. Feminism is a broad term covering several different types of feminists with each approach being different and offering different solutions to the problem of gender inequality. Liberal feminist champagne against sex discrimination and for equal rights and opportunities for women, arguing that women’s oppression is being gradually overcome due to peoples changing attitudes and changes in the law e.g. the sex discrimination act(1975) but has not yet been completely achieved. Liberal feminists also believe that everyone is moving towards greater equality but full equality will depend on further changes in attitudes and socialisation patters of both males and females. Although they believe full gender equality has not been achieved as of yet, they argue that it’s in moderate progress. Some studies conjured up that men are doing more domestic labour while the way parents now socialise their sons and daughters is more equal than in the past and they now have similar aspirations for them. Marxists feminists argue that the main cause of women’s oppression in the family is capitalism, not men. Women’s oppression performs several functions for capitalism. They appeal that women absorb the anger that would otherwise be directed at capitalism. Fran Ensley (1972) describes wives and ‘Takes of shit’ who sponge the frustration their husbands feel because of the alienation they suffer at work which Marxists perceive as the reason for domestic violence against women. Marxists feminists also deem that woman are seen as a ‘reverse army’ or cheap labour who are only taken on when extra workers are needed and let go when no longer needed to return to their primary role of unpaid domestic labour. Radical feminists see the problem as patriarchy, meaning a whole system of male power over women. For radical feminists the key division in society is between men and women. They see men as the ‘enemy’ and the source of women’s oppression and exploitation and state that men benefit from women’s unpaid domestic labour and sexual services. They believe men dominate women through domestic and sexual violence or the treat of it. Radical feminists say this system needs to be overturned and that the only way to achieve it is through separatism arguing that women must organise themselves to live independently of men. What’s more, they dispute for ‘political lesbianism’ as they see heterosexual relationships as oppressive as they involve ‘sleeping with the enemy’. This touches on Germain Greers (2000) argument for the creation of all ‘matrilocal’ households as a substitute for the heterosexual family. Liberal feminists like Somerville (2000) claim that radical feminists fail to recognise that women’s position has improved considerably with better access to divorce, better job opportunities and the control over their own fertility. She also believes that separatism is never likely to work due to heterosexual attraction. Jan Pahl and Carolyn Vogler (1993) target how each partner’s contribution to the family income effects decision making in the interior of the family. They pinpoint that pooling and the allowance system are the two main types of control over family income. Pooling is simply when both partner’s have access to joint responsibility e.g. a joint bank account to pay household bills. The allowance system is where men give their wives an allowance to meet the family needs. The man retains a surplus income for himself. Vogler (1994) found a large increase in pooling (from 19% to 50%) and a sharp decrease in housekeeping allowance system (from 36% to 12%). Pahl and Vogler likewise found that men usually made the major financial decisions even among couples who were both full-time workers. Women usually earn less than their husbands and have less say in the decision making due to the women being dependant on the men. Feminists however, argue that inequalities in decision making are not the results of inequalities in earnings and that it’s likely to remain and unequal part of family relationships. In conclusion from the evidence presented it is clear that there is little support to Willmott and Young’s study that family relationships have become equal whereas Ann Oakley’s study in 1974, shows ,much more evidence and support suggesting family relationships have not become equal, but are becoming more equal.

Rachel Deere