Womens roll in society
Grimmerick
Posts: 3,342 Member
Do you think since women have been in the workplace that now their responsibilities have doubled combining working and the older female roll, now they work, clean, cook and take care of the kids? Or do you feel men have stepped up their roll in the home since most women work now too?
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It seems to me that women are still expected to do the majority of the child-rearing and housework, even if she works outside the home. My mom worked and still did EVERYTHING for us. Sociologists have called it "second shift...." i.e., going to work all day and then coming home for even more work. I have a partner that is very supportive, though, so I hope that this will not be the case if we have kids. Things are chaning slowly but surely...I think the fact that there are more stay-at-home dads is awesome! It doesn't always have to be the mom!0
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I don't know that I would say their responsibilities have doubled, just changed. While they're at work, someone else is taking care of their children. While it's true that some still have to go home to cook and clean, they would have done that anyway. A full-time working mom needs a housekeeper for sure!0
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I think this relies heavily on the couple in question, but that this does, sadly, tend to be the case. My mom made most of the money growing up and still did most of the "raising kids" type activities as well. I don't know about doubled responsibilities, but certainly increased responsibilities. Not even just with raising families. One of the biggest struggles with my ex focused around this very issue. I was in grad school, working an assistanship (research/teaching about 25 hours a week) plus making pizzas on weekends. He was a cook at Outback. He would clean the whole house once a month, but I would pick up every single day while he played video games. He just... expected that I would do it. That taking care of the house was part of my job. And he wasn't overtly sexist, he just would always comment on how much harder his job was, that my job was to sit around and learn, so I should do the dishes, pick up the trash, do the laundry, etc.
My sister, on the other hand, has a wonderfully supportive husband who has an extremely active role in their kid's lives. He also does a lot around the house, and works really hard to makes things even with my sister. So... it all comes down to the individual couple in question. The unfortunate part is that you may not know what kind of person your SO is until you move in with them!
Here's a news article I read a week or so ago on this very issue: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2016910331_multitask02.html0 -
My parents were always pretty good about sharing the duties. When Mom stayed home with us, and later when she worked from home, it made sense for her to do more of the housework & cooking. But when she went back to teaching full-time, Dad (and we kids, too, because we were old enough at that point) took on more of the laundry & cooking. But in many families I've seen, that would not have happened. From what I've observed, the woman ends up doing the lion's share of the work in most situations. Another reason I've never gotten married...
My sister has a Master's degree and married a guy who didn't even graduate high school, so (surprise, surprise) she's the main breadwinner. She works all day long, while he stays home with their baby. But then when she comes home, somehow she's the one who ends up cooking supper, and then she has to do household chores on her day off... WTF? She was always a feminist, so when she finally realizes what she's doing I predict that the fit will hit the shan, sooner or later. But right now I'm watching them and just biting my tongue really, really hard.0 -
Although most, or a lot, of women work outside the home now, they are still expected to take care of the children, clean the house, etc. This is what we are taught by society and it is reinforced through media all the time. From a young age, girls are taught to take care of babies and cook/clean. They're given baby doll toys and pretend kitchens. That's not to say that men don't ever participate or share these duties, but I'm saying that the job is still mostly thrust onto women.0
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I was very fortunate that we split the housework, kid raising, other stuff duties. I am 59 and most of my age group were not as fortunate. I think I see a trend now though that the couples who are both working full time outside of the house also tend to split obligations etc... with home and family. I know my daughter and my son both have working spouses and both splite the household stuff. Like katatak1 said, it relies heavily on the couple in question, but I think the trend is more husbands taking an active role.0
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I think there are some women who still take on the double role, but for the most part that has become a rarity and more seen with older generations rather than young. My father worked full time, cleaned the house, cooked dinner and got me and my brother ready for school every day. My mother who also worked full time, did the laundry, did the "intense" weekend cleaning, and made sure the bills were paid. It was as evenly split as it could get.
If your husband expects you to do all the housework plus work, I think it might be time to kick that SO to the curb. You're not his mother, you shouldn't be babying him like one.0 -
I am actually very lucky, well..........he is my ex fiance now but we still live together for the time being. He is a neatnik and actually does a huge part of the cleaning, dishes, dusting, laundry, bathrooms, you would have thought I had won the man lottery. It just bothers him when things aren't clean it's like he can't concentrate on anything else.....and god help me if someone is coming over, he folds the toilet paper into a V on the end like at some hotels haha...........I am really going to miss that. What are the chances of finding another guy that clean and organized. But he is few and far between, they always say you look for your dad in a mate, well I found my mom instead lol.0
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Not all working women have other people raising their kids, and I hate that assumption.0
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In my house, much like this thread, the man's role is to correct the spelling. Hehehe,,,
We split pretty reasonably. I mostly cook, she mostly cleans. I take care of the outside, she won't let me touch the laundry. We've mostly worked it out.0 -
My dad used to brag that he never changed a diaper. Finally one day a few years ago my mom pulled him aside after he said that to a friend and she told him "You know, we had 3 kids in diapers at the same time (I was 15 months old when my sisters - twins - were born). I'd think you'd be embarrassed, not bragging." He realized that he didn't pull his weight (it was the early 1970s - most men didn't do anything with kids/household duties) and he's never said that since.
My hubby is wonderful. I'm a SAHM and have been since before our oldest was born (14 years). I work from home in my own tax/finance business now but I don't put in a lot of hours the latter half of the year. When the kids were little I didn't do much with my business. DH still helped out. He'd say "They're my kids too." and had no problem at all changing a diaper or giving them a bath. I do almost all of the cooking but that's because I'm better at it and I have more time. I can start something at 2:00 so we can eat at 6 where he wouldn't be able to start until 4. I've also done most of the housework but he does help a lot with that too. Right now he's on vacation until next year so this morning he got up and cleaned up the kitchen for me including taking apart my cook top (gas with cast iron grates and a center grill) and cleaning it so that was quite a bit of work.0 -
Not all working women have other people raising their kids, and I hate that assumption.
Not sure if this is directed at my comment, I said someone else is "taking care of the children" while mom is at work. Not "raising" them. What I mean by that is, SAHMs take care of their children all day. Working moms take care of their children when they're not working.0 -
Actually, I don't roll in society. I bounce a little though. 0
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Actually, I don't roll in society. I bounce a little though.
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I think it depends on the family. In an ideal world I would like to stay at home and be with my kids until they are atleast in school.0
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national surveys in several western countries suggest that men's responsibility for domestic labour has increased in a smallish but respectable degree since the 70s. However, they also demonstrate quite clearly that women overwhelmingly work the double shift of paid work and unpaid domestic labour at a disproportionate level.0
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I don't believe they should make rolls our of women. Or any other baked good for that matter.
Being a culinary ingredient is not one of the ROLES women should be driven to.0 -
word lolActually, I don't roll in society. I bounce a little though.0 -
I stay at home. My husband still helps though, otherwise I would have to roll him out the door.0
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Not all working women have other people raising their kids, and I hate that assumption.
Not sure if this is directed at my comment, I said someone else is "taking care of the children" while mom is at work. Not "raising" them. What I mean by that is, SAHMs take care of their children all day. Working moms take care of their children when they're not working.
You're forgetting that some families, like mine, have two full-time working parents who do not rely on daycare at all. I am a SAHM during the day, and then my husband is home with our kids at night while I work. So unless you count their own father as a 'someone else' that is caring for my kids (which I don't, since it's their own dad), this statement is not entirely accurate.0 -
In my relationship, we've gone through different phases, and we always divide labor based on who is working more (at their job). When I was doing student teachig for 40 hours a week, and also having to do full-time student stuff on the side, my hubby stepped up his share of the chores considerably. When He was working 60 hours being an exec, and I was not working a job, I did all of the household chores. Right now, I'm working 40 hours, and he is looking for a job, so he does a bigger share of the house chores. He cooks dinner every night and handles laundry and shopping and a lot of the cleaning.
As long as both partners feel like they are valued and their contributions are important, then you can achieve balance. Even if it looks different from day to day and from couple to couple.0 -
Not sure if this is directed at my comment, I said someone else is "taking care of the children" while mom is at work. Not "raising" them. What I mean by that is, SAHMs take care of their children all day. Working moms take care of their children when they're not working.
Then I change it to read, "someone other than yourself" is taking care of the children while you're at work.You're forgetting that some families, like mine, have two full-time working parents who do not rely on daycare at all. I am a SAHM during the day, and then my husband is home with our kids at night while I work. So unless you count their own father as a 'someone else' that is caring for my kids (which I don't, since it's their own dad), this statement is not entirely accurate.0 -
"What I mean by that is, SAHMs take care of their children all day. Working moms take care of their children when they're not working. "
Oh right. Cause putting bread on the table isn't taking care of my child, is it?0 -
Split it as best as you can. If someone in the house is doing infinately more than the other and both have jobs of equal hours, then the person getting taken advantage of needs to talk to their spouse. I'm a stay at home Dad. I cook about 80% of the meals, I'm in charge of the kitchen cleanup and general cleanliness of the house. My wife still does the laundry. We take turns on everything else.
When she gets off work, we usually go to the gym. Sometimes she I drop the kids off at her parking garage after she gets off so I can go to do martial arts. Some times she goes to the chiropracter. Sometimes as soon as she gets home she gets to be in charge of the kids so I can go diffuse before I explode. Sometimes whe gets home and goes and takes a nap. It all depends, and if one of us is stressed, we try and compensate. There are no man/woman jobs in our house except for the breast feeding.0 -
"What I mean by that is, SAHMs take care of their children all day. Working moms take care of their children when they're not working. "
If I'm working outside the home, someone is taking direct care of my children at home. My point is that although our roles have changed, I don't know that they've necessarily doubled. We're not in two places at one time.Oh right. Cause putting bread on the table isn't taking care of my child, is it?0 -
I think that the responsibility only doubles for a woman if each family *allows* that to happen.
I used to do it all... with the exception of the trash. I worked, cooked, cleaned, did the bills, changed stinky diapers - ALL. He worked and took the trash out. The unfairness of the situation caused multiple arguments. Now - we attempt to spread the work evenly at home. The kids (now 18, 13, and 9) do the chores (dishes, laundry, and trash or cleaning the living room - well - the youngest is in training - lol). The adults pick up the slack at the house as needed. We are each responsible for cleaning our room / our stuff. When the kids move out - we will split duties again.0 -
"What I mean by that is, SAHMs take care of their children all day. Working moms take care of their children when they're not working. "
If I'm working outside the home, someone is taking direct care of my children at home. My point is that although our roles have changed, I don't know that they've necessarily doubled. We're not in two places at one time.Oh right. Cause putting bread on the table isn't taking care of my child, is it?
You're absolutely correct in that when I'm not with my child someone else is. However, you might reverse the situation and say "when you're not working, you rely on someone else to support you." So I suppose it's a personal matter entirely dependent on the family.
I do disagree with your last statement. The tasks may not directly have doubled (for time management) but certainly have increased. If I'm working full time and going to school full time I may have less hours in a day but I can confidently say my tasks have doubled (in comparison to completing only one at a time).
Just because someone else is "raising your children" for a few hours a day (phenomenal satirical article on this by the way, if I could find it) does not mean that you are doing one job because you have the same number of hours in a day. Your 24 hours are likely to be much less hectic then the 24 hours of a working mother. And this is coming from someone who has seen both sides of the spectrum, not intending it to be out of sheer ignorance but rather experience.0 -
"What I mean by that is, SAHMs take care of their children all day. Working moms take care of their children when they're not working. "
If I'm working outside the home, someone is taking direct care of my children at home. My point is that although our roles have changed, I don't know that they've necessarily doubled. We're not in two places at one time.Oh right. Cause putting bread on the table isn't taking care of my child, is it?
No. We just work much, much longer hours.
Here's a typical snapshot of my day for you.
6am - up. Mark student work
7am - get my daughter up. Make lunches, tidy round, do her hair. walk the dogs.
8.30 am - school run
9.15 am arrive at work. Work through. No lunch break.
2.30 pm leave work to pick daughter up from school (3.30 if she has sport)
3.15 - 5pm - spend some time with daughter, do domestic work
5-6pm - put in an hour's work
6pm make and eat dinner
7.30pm put in an hour's work
8.30 pm daughter to bed
8.30-10pm gym
10pm - midnight - put in two hour's work
Flexible working hours just mean you end up fitting it in. I reckon that is, as Hochschild suggested about fifteen years ago, a full double shift.
the women I know who have school age kids and who don't have flexible hours nonetheless don't have massively different looking schedules from mine. They still cram all the domestic work and child care in around work. They might have a child minder or use and afterschool club for maybe two hours. But that hardly means they're not functionally doubling up, does it?0 -
Don't believe we should get all caught up in what "traditional roles" for men and women should be. Each couple should be working towards what works for them and their families and lifestyle.
My wife and I share all the duties at home. Laundry, Cleaning, Yardwork.
I do all the cooking. She handles the bookkeeping.
When the kids were still home, our schedules were such that we could split the duties of caring for the kids. She went to work later and took the kids to Daycare. I went in earlier and was able to pick them up. When they got older, we found ways to get them to their many events. One of us was alway available, but we planned things usually so that we could both be there for them. And many times we had a carload of other familie's kids to help them out.
We are in it together. We're going to celebrate our 20th Anniversary this year and I can look back and know that our sometimes non-traditional roles made our household run very smoothly. I can also look forward and see that we , having survived, we are a team that will always be together and alweays overcome any obstacle.
You take the hand you are dealt and make it work. There is no cookie cutter formula.0
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