Discuss the View That Roles of Men and Women in the Family are Becoming More Equal

The aim of this essay is to adjudicate to come to a conclusion as to whether the grammatical sex activity roles deep down the modern-day family argon qualified, whether they ar becoming much impact, and whether they sh in all ever be equal. In doing this, we shall sport to study the views and opinions of m either schools of opinion, the results of different studies, and recognise and to the full appreciate the arguwork forcets of different people and groups.The title question itself raises umteen debateable points, as it makes assumptions that ignore the diversity of the family. Firstly, and intimately obviously, the question assumes we shall only deal with heterosexually establish families, not same-sex relationships. While same-sex families most definitely exist, they ar a minority and do not really come into the issue of gender, therefore I shall ignore them for the argument of this essay. Secondly, no two families ar exactly the same. Families in different countr ies will no doubt redeem different attitudes on the subject of equality, and there will be noticeable differences across race, house and close divisions, as well as in the midst of two different families with (superficially at least) a lot in common. This type of diversity would require its own set of studies and essays, and so for the sake of this essay I shall cumber my studies to families from this country, and to statistical evidence rather than individual families.There are many different views concerning the equality between men and women in the family. The traditional nuclear family as we consider it today would be a matrimonial man and woman with children, with the man going out to paid employment and the woman staying at mob to do housework and look after the childrenWillmott and Youngs views are corresponding to those of Postmodernists, a sociological school of thought that developed in the 1980s. Postmodernists regard that we live in a postmodern world, where di fferences in gender, race, class etc are now obsolete. As a result, they see gender roles in the family to be equal and egalitarian, and direct that any inequality or dissimilarity between gender roles in individual families is due to the choice of the members deep down the family.Many people have attacked Willmott and Youngs study, claiming insignificant evidence and inaccurate methodology to back up their conclusions. Edgells in-between Class Couples (1980) claims that patch the division of housework is more equal than in the past, the vast volume of families are far from being egalitarian. Edgell as well as puts emphasis on the fact that the division power at bottom the family also still seems unequal, with men making the majority of decisions for the family. Many feminists also claimed that the statistics show that men still do a disproportionately small amount of work at home.While some more large-minded feminists trust we are on a steady path to gender equality within the family, many more hard-line and radical feminists fence that gender roles are far from equal. Ann Oakleys The Sociology of Housework (1974) and Housewife (1976) betoken that modern women work a double-shift, juggling full-time employment and housework. Oakley claims that One occupation in particular, that of housewife, is but feminine. In Britain, 76% of all employed women are housewives and so are 93% of non-employed women Housewife (1976).She argues that while feminism has forced change in waged employment, kindly attitudes in the home remain the same. According to Oakley, men do very little in the home, with dishwashing being the only housework men do more than women. She also argues that men see doing housework as a favour to their wives, rather than a duty and that childcare for most men is merely a spasmodic activity of recreation.Many former(a) sociologists attack Oakleys views, accusing her of hypocrisy as she attacked Willmott and Youngs methodology, while her own studies into housework completely ignore the more traditional male jobs, such as DIY, op ageting machinery, gardening, simple household repairs and so on.A. Wardes Domestic Divisions of campaign (1990) offers a more well rounded view *Male PartnerFemale Partner shared outPlastering3242Tidying Up26723Cooking47717Checking Car Oil7992Bathing Children224433It may also be important that the female-dominated jobs (Tidying up, Cooking, Bathing children) are much more frequently shared than the male-dominated ones (Checking Car Oil, Plastering)Burghes (1997) argues against Oakleys dismissal of male childcare, stating that more fathers are taking an active role in the steamy development and support of their children.Marxists argue that the traditional nuclear family was merely a way for the capitalist class to control and exploit the proletariat through ideology. Therefore, Marxist-Feminists believe in a patriarchal ideology, in which girls are socialised into a male-led world to exper ience their role as housewives, and make marriage and family their main goal. In turn, this will benefit the capitalist society by keeping the status quo, and creating a new coevals of similarly socialised male workers and female housewives. Marxist-Feminists believe this patriarchy occurs at all levels of society, from making girls usurp skirts to advertising dolls on television, and that to truly achieve gender equality we must dispense with socialising our children into gender roles.People often dismiss this view, claiming that gaining equality should not mean compromising identity, and many other feminists believe that retaining their femininity is as important a part of the struggle for equality as gaining equal rights.The vernal Right believe that the nuclear family is the ideal family structure, and that Britain went through a Golden Age during the 1950s. Since then, they claim that feminism and equal rights have caused women to demand jobs, and thus be absent from home. A s a result, the New Right argue that this puts stress on the nuclear family, often tearing it apart, and that absent parents cause deviance and social problems amongst their children. They claim that this has caused a decline in the family, and an increase in what they consider social problems (egg divorce, single-parent families). They believe that the current equal rights movement is wrong, and that people should return to the traditional nuclear family, which gives everyone an equal but separate, individual role.These views are similar to those of functionalists. Functionalists also believe that the nuclear family is the perfect and desired family type, as each member is supported within the family unit, and each person agrees on their role within the family to keep it working. Robin Fox (1969) argued that roles in the family were based on biological rules, while Talcott Parsons (1955) took a similar view, claiming that naturally women are best at expressive roles, such as caring , empathising and socialising, while men are best at instrumental roles, such as working for money. Therefore, functionalists believe that biological factors determine gender roles within the family, and the traditional roles within the nuclear family are the perfect histrionics of these roles. What is more, functionalist claim there is a consensus within the family, whereby all members of the family agree to these roles.These functionalist and new right views are savagely attacked by Marxists, feminists and postmodernists, all of whom agree that gender roles are culturally, not biologically, determined. Marxist-feminists claim that the consensus is an illusion, as women only accept their roles in the traditional family as they have been socialised to do so by patriarchal ideologies. whole feminists also disagree with the New Right idea of the perfect nuclear family and the Golden Age, claiming that all these things did were control and pull wires women, and that roles within su ch families were never equal.As this essay has shown us, views on gender roles in the family are ferociously contested, and opinions differ drastically. Functionalists and the New Right insist that gender roles in the family are biologically intended to be different, and were most equal in the traditional, nuclear family. Postmodernists and followers of Willmott and Young claim we have moved into an era of egalitarianism, where gender roles are shared and equal. Feminists argue that while there has been a small amount of progress, gender roles are far from equal, and females still have a much worse deal than males.I have try to fully understand all these points of view, and come to a fair conclusion. In truth, it seems to me that the real nature of gender roles within the family is somewhere between all these points of view. I believe that as we currently stand, gender roles are equal, but not egalitarian. More males share more of the housework and childcare than ever, while more fe males are pursuing careers and learning what were traditionally male skills (eg DIY, repair, vehicle maintenance etc).People tend to still do jobs that were traditionally considered right for their sex, and there are most definitely still differences between the genders, but these boundaries are being pushed every day, and more and more families are sharing more jobs and decisions. I think we must remember that social attitudes take more time to change than social actions, and we must recognise that change is occurring. Since the 1970s, when Ann Oakley wrote her books on housework, we have seen the rise of the new man and house-husbands. Meanwhile, more and more women are proving Foxs and Parsons theories of biologically determined roles to be wrong.Not all families will follow the statistics there will always be a few male-dominated households, just as there are now role-reversal families. And families will always differ slightly from each other. But within a few generations, I bel ieve that Willmott and Youngs vision of an egalitarian family will become our view of the majority of families, as were halfway there already.