Symmetrical family, conjugal roles, segregated conjugal roles, integrated conjugal roles, instrumental role, expressive role, living standards, geographical mobility, Eilzabeth Bott, status of women, paid employment, commercialisation of housework, division of labour, Young and Willmott, Anne Oakley, decision-making, emotional side of family, Duncombe and Marsden

1. Symmetrical family?
Gender roles, domestic labour and
power in the family

2. Symmetrical family
• A family where the roles of husband and wife or
cohabiting partners have become more alike
(symmetrical) and equal
• Less patriarchal and male-dominated
• Young and Willmott found this in the modern
family
• 1970’s research – valid for modern family?
• Small sample size
• Questionnaire – may have lied

3. Conjugal roles
• Conjugal roles – roles played out by male and
female partner in marriage or in a cohabiting
relationship
• Segregated conjugal roles – shows clear
division and separation between male and
female roles
• Integrated (joint) conjugal roles – few
divisions between male and female roles

4. Conjugal roles
• Instrumental role – the provider/breadwinner
role in the family, often associated by
functionalists with men’s role in family life
• Expressive role – the nurturing, caring and
emotional role, often seen by functionalists as
women’s natural role in the family, linking to
women’s biology

5. Reasons why Britain has gone from
segregated roles to more integrated roles
• Improved living standards at home
• Decline in extended families
• Improved rights and status of women
• Women in full employment
• Weaker gender identities

6. Improved living standards in the home
• Central heating, TV, computers, internet
• Encouraging partners to become more home
centered
• Building of relationship at home

7. Decline of close-knit extended family
& greater geographical/social mobility
• Bott
• Less pressure on partners to retain traditional
roles (won’t be teased)
• Increased dependency on each other
• This results in men helping out in childcare

8. Improved status of women
• Accepted as equals
• Not simply housewives and mothers anymore
• More respect

9. Women working in paid employment
• More authority and power due to less financial
dependency on men
• Men doing more house work because women are
working; recognition that women can’t do two
jobs at once
• This domestic work is usually masculine-defined
tasks e.g. DIY, gardening, ‘fixing’
• More money for commercialized housework
• This results in both contributing to decision-
making; duel-worker households and shared
control of finances

10. Commercialization of housework
• Consumer goods and services
• Automatic washing machines and dryers,
dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, takeaway
foods, online grocery shopping (e.g. Tesco,
Sainsbury’s)
• Housework easier – women doing less, men
doing more
• Organization of these services usually done by
women

11. Inequalities in division of labour
• Research shows that women still perform
many more housework chores than men, even
when they are in a full-time job

12. Perception of “equality” (Oakley)
• Young and Willmott’s evidence for equality of
housework was that 72% of men helped with at
least one piece of housework a week, however
this is very small compared to the women’s
workload
• Oakley argues that this could mean anything from
tucking children into bed to ironing one pair of
trousers, and fewer than ¾’s of the research even
did this much
• Hardly convincing evidence for symmetry

13. Public belief in sexual division of
labour
• A 2005 report showed that most of the
general public still believe that the women
should take the expressive role and there
should be sexual division of labour

14. Unequal distribution of power and
decision-making
• Many of the “important” decisions
are still made by the men alone
• Men often the major earners in a household,
leading to more authority

15. The effects of housework and
childcare on women’s careers
• Duties within the family holding women back
from progressing in careers
• Constraints on the hours and work they can
do
• Seen as “unreliable” by employers because
they will put family first.
• Having children may lead to missing time from
work during which most men can be
advancing their careers; women are held back

16. Emotional side of family
(Duncombe and Marsden)
• Found that many long-term relationships were
held together by women
• Women who care for emotional side of family
• Not symmetrical because otherwise the men
would deal with emotional side equally