Sociology: Gender Role and Roles Essay examples

Submitted By Jaime Lee-O'Reilly
Words: 1383
Pages: 6

Gender roles in modern society

The Gender and relationships in modern life is quite unrealistic, socialists may say that men are starting to have an attitude change towards housework but however this is not the view of feminists, feminists Ann Oakley’s view of house work is that inequality still persists in a patriarchal family giving a clear definition that men within a relationship only do about 15% of taking part and 25% of childcare by which in my view should be at least 50% as women do more of childminding so the care should be shared equally but in some areas said that men where only taking interest in housework as Ann is very critical of Willmott and Young , sociologists Warde and Hetherington agree with Oakley by insisting that work shows sex typing of such domestic tasks enhancing that women as such in the home where the last to either do dishes or washing with a staggering of 30 times but in this means men get of easily with only having the simple task of doing 4 times, in my point of view I think men get away with it easily and not take as much responsibility as women have to take as mostly men expect women to take the responsibility.

Change of attitude is also persistent and roles amongst these can vary as such as family diversity as diversity is all about differences between family households so many families and household diversity is the difference between family members but also the differences between different types of family model as such that we ask our selves can we really question single parent families, step families, childless couples, large families, families of mixed races and same sex couples as all have different roles by going by their belief and values wither the gender role is set already by religion or class. As in Muslim society is that gender roles and families roles for wives and daughters is set and bound by that women and daughters that house work and housewife roles are primary and nothing else can be achieved.

While the actual structure has changed, many of the assigned roles within a family have not for starters the children are expected to respect and obey their parents, attend school and have a job/extracurricular activities. The women are still expected to put family first and their husband's job before their own however the roles will depend upon each family's particular structure e,g, in a single-parent family, the mother/father may have to make work the top priority in order to financially provide for the family so mostly share equality amongst themselves.

Sociologist Gershuny view of men is that since women have decided to dedicate their time to full time employment so that it is leading to a more equal division of labour so meaning that women who worked did less of the domestic work within the home, meaning that men starting to make more effort in taking part in the role of women with helping out in the home and the housework involved Gershuny calls this the ‘New Man’, but can we really can it the ‘New Man’ in certain ways yes in many roles and relationships roles have changed but many are due to dominant female mothers who raised their sons to help with house work but others had a dominant father, in other conclusions can be argued that men take part in housework because there is whole lot more technology to help them do it easy and quickly e.g. dishwasher, hover, hand hover and much more it is questioned do men take part because cleaning has become a lot more easier over the years Gershuny also states that couples whose parents who were in a equal relationship were more likely to share the house work equally.

Agreeing Oriel Sullivan has said the same thing that trend towards greater equality as men are taking part and doing more in domestic labour which is similar to other sociologists Willmott and Young. Functionalists Willmott and Youngs March of Progress of such says that family life is improving with roles and gender associated with conjugal roles as