Download Symmetrical family 21 10 15

Sociology
Feminism and the Household
Objectives:
• To introduce the concepts of the ‘Symmetrical Family’
and the ‘March of Progress.’
• To assess whether couples are becoming more equal.
Young and Willmott (1973)
• Take a ‘March of Progress’ view of the history of the family.
• See family life as generally improving for all its members.
• Argue the long term trend is away from segregated conjugal roles and
towards joint conjugal roles and the ‘symmetrical family’.
• Symmetrical family = one in which the roles of husbands and wives
are similar
Symmetrical family
• Women now go out to work – although this may be part-time.
• Men now help with housework and childcare.
• Couples now spend leisure time together instead of separately
• More common among younger couples, those isolated from extended
family
Why?
Rise of the symmetrical family is the result of social changes:
• Changes in women’s position – work
• Geographical mobility – couples living away from where they grew up
• New technology and labour saving devices
• Higher standards of living
• How might geographical mobility help to give rise to symmetrical
families?
Feminist view of housework
• Feminist sociologists reject the ‘march of progress’ view.
• Men and women are unequal and women still do most of the
housework.
• This is because the family and society are male-dominated or
patriarchal
• Ann Oakley criticised Young and Willmott’s view – although they said
that husbands interviewed ‘helped’ wives, this may have been taking
the children for a walk or making breakfast on one occasion – not
symmetry.
Ann Oakley (1974)
• Found only 15% of men had a high level of participation in
housework.
• Only 25% had a high level of participation in childcare. This may have
been the more fun parts like playing with the kids rather than
housework.
• Research by Mary Boulton (1983) supports this – she found fewer
than 20% of husbands had a major role in childcare. She argued that
Young and Willmott focused on tasks rather than responsibilities.
• Says the ‘housewife’ role is a social construct, not natural like the
functionalist and New Right view.
Alan Warde and Kevin Hetherington (1993)
• Found that sex-typing of domestic tasks remained strong
• Wives were 30 x more likely to have been the last person to have
done the washing
• Husbands 4 x more likely to have been the last person to have washed
the car.
• Generally, men would only carry out routine ‘female’ tasks when their
partners were not around to do them
• Slight change of attitude among younger men – less likely to assume
that women do the housework.
Future Foundation study (2000)
• Partially supports Warde and Hetherington.
• Survey of 1000 adults found that 60% of men claimed to do more
housework than their father.
• 75% of women claimed to do less housework than their mother.
• BUT – women still do more housework than men and there are still
gender differences in the amounts of time spent on particular
household chores. Women spend more time than men.
Women, Parenting and Work
• Read through the statistics and answer the questions on the sheet as
far as possible.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50yVKPIQOLY
Homework - research
• www.sociology.uk.net ‘Are couples becoming more equal?’
• Design a questionnaire using the questions given and use it to
interview 2 people each.
• We will pool our results after half term.