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the gendered family
our focus in Chapter six is the family
and we're gonna see how power plays a role in everyday family life
from child care to the marital satisfaction
to housework to family violence
we also see the gap between the popular notions have the ideal family
and the families that exist in real life
so what do you think
if you were asked to describe the ideal family what would come to mind?
Do you have such an ideal in your thinking when you reflect on
or dream about family relationships? what comes to mind when you hear a public
figure
talk about family values? well many would argue that the idealized family
is the one that was popularised in the nineteen fifties and sixties
in television shows like "Leave it to be Beaver"
or"Father knows best" the family form popularized in these television shows
probably never existed. Stephanie Coontz writes that
shows such as these were actually an effort to get fathers to be more
involved
rather than being the 5 o'clock members at the family
the family in its various forms
shows amazing resilience to the pressures have
economics politics and other outside
sources fears that the family is in danger
have been expressed for decades even before the nineteen fifties
but these fears have been based on many quotes into mental models
at the family assorted misplaced
nostalgia that keeps us from understanding
dat a lack have social policy to support the family
in all its variations is really at the core the crisis
according to Kimmel the american family let's look at three perspectives
what's your view some social scientists believe that the family
is deteriorating for example popenoe and Whitehead trace many fair
many problems a the family to women
having entered the labor market screen it's more children unsupervised
divorces increase because people are self synergen emphasize happiness rather
than due to your family obligation
others view the family
as changing but not deteriorating
broderick in congress are examples
they know that women have always worked
especially working-class women and that stay at home moms are really a project
product
have industrialization the housewife single-parent families tripled in number
between 1900 and 1950 much of this occurred during world war 2
desertion rates were also high in
youth art now waiting longer to marry
and perhaps making better choices than before in the nineteen fifties the
median age at first marriages 22
adversity is faced with strength
and resilience by many families but if they're blamed from without
this makes it harder the Smiths
feed into this blame still
other social scientists be the family is stronger than ever before
koon's for example
or demos and they suggested even ward cleaver was a character used to make
and a to as an effort to get dads to participate more in the family as I just
mentioned
that harsh punishment in oppression within the family that existed under
a patriarchy in the past and
in abuse was informally sanction in private in the past
now there's more emphasis on emotional support
an then economic support within families in this can make for higher quality
relationships
in the future according to Macys
let's look at some trends in the US family skeezy
marriage rates have declined cohabitation rates have increased
many couples are delaying child bearing
for opting to remain childfree
22 percent of children live without their biological father
in about a third of children are born to unmarried mothers
many of these mothers are in cohabiting relationships however
divorce peaked in the 1980s but it is still high
let's look at trains in divorce a can see
the peak in the mid eighties in a decline
about one in five Americans has ever been divorced
rates are lower than those incorrectly reported by the media
hmm if you see this downward trend it
it hasn't been accompanied by a lot of media attention
are you surprised by the decline
consider why this has it made its way into the media
well Kimmel believes that the family values debate
is not really about family values at all it's really
about women in the workplace
again here's an example a gender differences
in now value statements being brooded
in power in quality this time in the workplace
to better understand the background to this here's a brief history at the
american family primarily the
the Bedini middle-class family from its European roots
to the present
unlike marriage and family in Europe colonial families were more of the Union
and individuals then a union have
lineage men and women worked together
and among the Puritans Parenthood meant
fatherhood fathers were held responsible for their children's upbringing
teaching them the rules at the community into the church were tasks
for which fathers were held responsible
frontier families also worked cooperated lead to produce what was needed for
survival
growth notions have women is weak
or man as an involved with the family didn't really exist
but with industrialization and the accompanying
economic shift where work occurred outside the family
we begin to see a separation in the roles that men and women
this is particularly true that middle-class families where men's
values and identity became associated with bread leaning
and the quote cult domesticity
propels women into roles as housewives
and mothers women begin to criticize me in for being absent from the home in to
feel imprisoned by their connection to that
men on the other hand begin to feel exiled from the home
because the emphasis on word and the separation of work and home
the home becomes a haven in a heartless world where comfort and understanding
bring respite from the harsh
correct industrialized world work
women were thought to be morally superior and in need are being sheltered
from the potential corruption in the world word
we see this reflected even decades later when
women we're not allowed to remain in the workplace and some companies in less
male relative was there to watch over them
we see the emergence at the companion it family where
romantic love begins to be seen as an important reason to marry
and caring for their husbands emotional state is synthesized
motherhood becomes a woman's calling
again remember that this primarily refers
to middle-class women the emotional impulses that the family is a haven in a
heartless world
replaces the productive role that the family played
prior to industrialization
fatherhood declines family holidays are created
as an effort to bring the family back together
the progressive area 19 hundreds through the twenties
we see the migration of families in two cities accompanying industrialization
this led to the greater visibility
children many children were living in the streets in poverty
as a result dove this disruption created
by the shift
this is the birth have social work in other
audience is focused on the well-being of children
Theodore Roosevelt hosts the White House Conference on children to try to promote
support the
widows in their children living in poverty
editorials at the time proclaimed the death at the family as we know it
fearing the presents a single women known as flappers
who are working in the office is surely they'll pose a risk to the sanctity of
marriage
divorce rates rise slightly
the great economic depression of the 1930s impacts the lives and many
families through
unemployment in accompanying poverty disease
divorce rates decline but desertion rates increase
nearly left their families sometimes taking the oldest son with them
in order to leave more food for the remaining family members
so the hardest hit families clean the fields in order to survive
others lived in caves tuberculosis and scurvy made its way
into families
in the 1940s women entered the workforce is part of the war effort
they worked in factories and many other factories provided child care
and the quality a bridge has been debated
women gain power in the absence admin
but the return of men from combat ultimately meant
women had to leave the workforce and were encouraged to focus on their
domestic duties
often this returned a father was traumatic for children
and swell he felt that they no longer need their father
during world war 2 marriage rates rose
the divorce rates increase to
couples you know who had married in haste may have found that they no longer
knew one another
the course the trauma of separation in the experience of war
was *** families
the nineteen fifties post were economics
work good a larger percentage of families could survive on a single
breadwinners wage
however this is still fewer than half at forty-three percent
the roles of men and women became more separate with the has been slash father
focusing on bread winning and the mother slash why
on childcare and housework the culture
childhood grew with the introduction and television
in children's cereals more to raise
and a music there was no longer that shared by parents
rock and roll was a driving force in building a youth culture
GI Bill made it possible for fathers he returned from World War two
to go to college and GI's build classrooms
many at the previous trends in family were reversed
during the nineteen fifties fertility rates were up
when asked how many children was ideal the typical response was four
and many middle-class families had
just such families couples married at younger ages than before with the median
age
her first marriage it around 21 or 22
and it was not uncommon for women to be engaged in high school
the instrumental and expressive roles that we previously discussed
Esparta Parsons functionalist view and the family
dominated divorce rates declined
however the lives a middle-class women proved to be an into existence for
meanie Bedford and captured this suburban isolation in 1963 with the
publication for book
the feminine mystique this book was instrumental
in the feminist me that if the nineteen seventies
race relations Student Rights in equality between the sexes
concerned about you being drafted to fight in vietnam
were all part and the 1970s this was a time a
challenging the status quo and renegotiating
roles and rights divorce rates had begun to
ahead began to increase again and in 1974
there were more marriages dissolve from divorce then through the death of a
spouse
this was the first time ever but it has been the case
since middle-class couples call for equality
but within households colony doesn't really exist
in the 1980s their waste less
economic support for the family and we see an economic downturn
more men and women are in the workplace for longer hours
and children are enrolled in before and after school programs to accommodate for
this
the 5 o'clock dad becomes an endangered species
and skill describes it while it was possible to be ready to hurt in a high
school diploma
in the nineteen seventies by the nineteen eighties more education was
required for work
that was increasingly white-collar meaning and
jobs that require degrees service occupations
rather than manufacturing or blue-collar jobs
in in this too more time away from family life
well since then we know people are waiting longer to Miri
the median age at first marriage now for women's closer to 27
close to 20 min nine for me and as women delay having children fertility rates
have declined
now when you ask how many children are ideal
people are more likely to say to 149
n 25 percent of families are single-parent families
home
so let's a discuss gender issues
in marriage we begin with a classic work from sociologist Jesse Bernard
who examined the differences between his marriage
and her marriage Bernard found marriage to be more beneficial to me and then to
women
million enjoy the benefits of having lives to help them monitor their health
ease and continuing to pursue their
occupations in hobbies and interests and have having someone in him to can pride
women however find that marriage brings them more work
in addition to the work they perform outside the home less psychological
support
and less support for their careers married men are better off than single
men
and married women are worse off
and single women so
marriage increases gender inequality we've also seen that marital
satisfaction has declined
many couples find that inequality grows
in their relationship particularly once they have children
having children dozen improve marital happiness
unless both mother and father planned on the child
but more often than not
children are not planned then they put a strain on a marriage
traditional roles start to take shape the couple find debt
the you know tasks and duties associated with marriage
start to you fall on gender lines
well marriage has long
a been advertised as the way to improve your health
insurance rates for married versus single individuals have reflected this
and overall married people have had better health and singles
but since bernard's word we found that marriage has an impact on health in a
different way
in fact those who really bad marriages
where conflict and stress and tension or long-lasting
experience a decline in there immune system
making them more vulnerable to chronic disease read
anderson's article entitled you make me sick for more on this
sorry I had these slides a little bit out of order
let's look at the most common household composition
and more contemporary composition 2007
relook at US households we find 26 percent
have households contain one person living alone
22 percent contained a husband
why in children whether you know their adopted or biological
twenty-eight percent of households have a couple with no children
and nine percent had a single parent
with children 4 percent of households contain an
and unmarried partners with or without children
so
let's look at how housework
and child care are gendered kill states that the biggest single shock the family
has had two
absorber quotations is the entrance and women into the workplace
and by this he primary lean means middle-class women
this rivalry in the workplace challenges the gendered hierarchy we've seen in
such families for several decades
why do women work well many words because they like it and it's good for
them
and they have a lot to offer working women are less depressed than women to
stay at home
they have higher self-esteem than those who stay home either way it might be
interesting
to ask yourself the question why do men work how would they feel that they
stayed home
but women who work outside the home are less satisfied with their husbands in
with their marriages
I would this be the major reason
is because their workload increases at home when they work
the experience higher levels of stress something we call overload
is they try to both work and take care of the family in
and housework what Arlie Hochschild calls
the second shift
that housework is a woman's domain and that housework is a woman so maybe is a
result
had male dominance min still do very little housework
in the type to do he said they perform at home are typically outside
in only need to be done now and then you know searches
lawn care versus the daily chores within the home such as cooking and laundry
and cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms
she does two-thirds of the household chores
and this is seen is her duty he
quote pitches Ian men start doing more around the house
min started doing more around the house from the 1970s until the mid eighties
but then their contributions leveled off
there is some variation and based on social class and race for example
black knee and help out more than delight me and
in working-class men do more than middle-class million
couples may notice it there 50/50
arrangements with respect to the housework changes
considerably after the bridge to the first child roles became increasingly
traditional many men say they'd like to get
spend more time with their children if it didn't jeopardize their income
in those men who are more involved with their children are happy about it
still the situation is not likely to change
endless national social policies change
to support families
well the remainder this chapter focuses on problems that have been constructed
as families try to do the
all that they have to do without an adequate support
somebody's are described as real problems others are somewhat
on constructed by the media and politicians
and his family value issues rather than
due to lack of government support for families so for example
the debate about the quality of child care and whether
children are better of being cared for by their mothers
then by being in daycare
implied that daycare was bad for children
in that mothers should stay home
the focus by the way was for middle-class mothers rather than
working-class mothers which is interesting
research on the psychological and social impact a day care on children however
has been
positive the real problem is that there's not enough governmental support
for daycare the US is the only industrialized country in the world that
doesn't have a national system to support daycare
the problem teen pregnancy is really
about the reluctance to provide teens with adequate sex education
any information about birth control
as you read about the quote problema fatherlessness
considered the complexity of the issue
how to skim or argue against Pope a nose assertion that the
quote unattached nail is the cars have numerous social skills
divorce per Kimmel is a real problem
but it's not because and it's a sign
and the disappearance of the family people still believe in marriage in
almost half of all marriages
are remarriage for at least one partner
divorce is a real problem because at the gender inequality that exist
as couples break at her income declines while his increases
in many min city into the marriage as synonymous
with the end a father team junior plays a role
in child custody outcomes as well while most children live with their mothers
following divorce
children who live with their fathers do equally well
however in in most cases after a divorce
noncustodial fathers become absent
in nearly half in the united states pay no child support
this withdrawal seems to be most damaging
to be the relationship the between fathers and daughters
mother-daughter relationship seems to suffer the least
from divorce
another problem the problem gay and lesbian families is a politically
generated problem
there's no evidence that children are negatively impacted by being
raised in same-sex households and some studies show that these children benefit
from being reared in this way still
the popular debate is cured more toward shoring up
a traditional family values perspective
finally family violence reflects
male dominance
so what about the family in the future the research shows us that the quality
have relationships
within a family are more important for children's well-being than the structure
and the family
you know one way to think that this is how does it feel to be in this family
read it and who is in this family
we do well to recognize this into right
in implement family policy that recognizes the importance of support
for all forms and the family