Household Duties: Moral judgments About Gender - Research Paper Example

In the context of globalization and rising issues around consumerism, the idea of shopping especially in the attractive malls has heralded a social revolution. The shopping centers where a wide range of commodities are available under one roof have a deep impact on the socialization and interactions amongst different groups (Villiers). When we try to see this activity from a micro viewpoint, it is found that in every household the duties are distributed and this might even include shopping trends. Moral judgments about the gender based household duties of individuals are made by people in our daily life. Each and every individual owes some kind of work as their daily chores and others placed the demand for it on the individual who owes it. That kind of work is said to be the duty of the individual that the person is obliged to perform. Gender roles are often defined in the cultural context. The overall power relations that existed between the women and the men living in a society determine the distribution of their duties on the basis of gender identity. Basic inequalities among gender exist to a large extent within the households in relation to the household works they are assigned. In many societies even in the twenty first century the professional life of women are accepted only when they could well maintained their household duties along with their outdoor works . Whereas the working of the men outside home is natural and taken for granted. This inequality implies inequalities in employment status of male and female and also their relations within the family. (Buckley and Moghaddam, 2-5; Sen) Thus the discrimination among men and women on the basis of the distribution of duties of their households in their everyday life is the social phenomenon that is intended to be studied in the paper. The paper reflects that shopping affects gender in a very extensive way through society The research hypothesis The situations of the households have changed over the years and the shares of the household chores performed by the male members of the family have experienced a significant positive change but women contributes larger proportion of the household works especially related ot shopping trends, till date. Research designs and methods Interest for the study The classic work done by Friedman in the year 1963 and then continued by Oakley in the year 1974 urged the sociologists to focus on the issue of the study of household work which was otherwise considered as a topic too marginal to be studied as relevant part of sociology (Buckley and Moghaddam, 6). Sociologists have now become increasingly interested in studying the social factors that determine the work performance of households and the topic became the focus for sophisticated research. There are certain findings that appear in literature work more consistently though the study of the household sector has not really been able to produce a consensus yet among general people. Among those findings what appears to be well documented mostly is that a greater share of the household chores and daily household works are performed by the female members of the family than the male members. Studies suggested that the females of the family invariably perform the largest share of the daily household duties though the relative shares of the work performed by the male and female members vary in terms of individuals’ characteristics and the household circumstances in which they are living their livelihood (Buckley and Moghaddam, 6). However with the changing nature of the society the situations of the households are also changing. Most of the couples in the twenty first century are trying to live a more balanced life with a more or less proper sharing of the household works. As women of the twenty first century are catching up with the capacity of their male counterparts in each and every aspects of life (be it political, social and even in economical aspects), the differences that existed among gender are also reducing in terms of their responsibility towards their families and also in their individual professional lives. Thus the evidence of the changing situations in the households is forcing the sociologists to struggle in identifying the evolving role of the men population of the society in their day to day household works. Thus in the present period the ‘inter group conflict’ among the male and the female population of the society have become less pronounced and they are generally holding concerning duties (Buckley and Moghaddam, 6; McQuillan and Belle, 2). The present study will help in identifying the participation of men in performing traditionally feminine duties and in general their participation in daily household chores. The study focuses essentially on shopping behavioral pattern within households across the two genders. Apart from hard core shopping issues, the study takes up a comparison of the involvement of genders in other respects such as caregiving and cleaning. This has helped in identifying the distribution of household duties and how it affects shopping behavior in the household. Methodology The paper undertakes a face-to-face interviews with 10 people lying between 22 to 43 years of age (all of them married or cohabitating and 6 of them have children) in order to inquire about their duties centering on grocery shopping, getting gas for the car, cleaning, paying bills, taking care of child, laundry, clearing garbage, mowing the lawn and cooking. These traditionally male or feminine jobs are now divided amongst the couples as daily duties. A set of 10 open-ended questions have been undertaken (see Appendix for the questionnaire). There are 2 men and 8 women (randomly selected from a certain neighborhood of New York) in the sample. When the specific task is responded with her or me then the weight for that response is 1 for the female. In the tabular representation of the results, if it is responded with him the eight is 1 for the male. If it is responded with both then weight is 1 for both male and female (a category ‘both’ in the table). For responses as none and non applicable the weight is kept under ‘none or n/a category) and no weight is added to either male or female. Results and analysis The tabular representation of the findings can be illustrated as follows: Out of the 10 households surveyed, it is found that there is an increasing participation of men in areas of traditionally feminine chores. For instance, in case of child care which was supposed to be the job of the female (the caregiver of the family) in traditional society, men have been participating or sharing the chore with their female counterparts. Yet in modern time with changing roles of women in the economic segment, a distribution or sharing of such works as cleaning and grocery shopping has come into play. in 4 out of 10 households both men and women share the responsibility of child care while in 6 out of 10 households filling gas in the car is distributed based on who is driving the car. Again, in 5 out of 10 cases household cleaning is done by both men and women. As women have taken a part of the economic burden of a family, men are increasingly trying to take some household burden off their shoulder. This issue could have been better analyzed if the economic statuses (working of homemaker) of the women were known. In the next illustration the categories of “both and “N/A or none” are eliminated. Only male and female participation are to be studied. This gives a general idea of the role of men and women irrespective of household specific results. The above results show a clear idea about the participation of men in the household chores. For instance, for, car gas filling, and car maintenance, in all the cases, male members are found to participate. For bill payment, garage, and mowing the lawn the percentages of male participation are 60 percent, 80 percent and 80 percent respectively. Therefore in traditional female jobs like grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry and cooking the percentages of female participation are 100 percent, 80 percent, 90 percent and 90 percent respectively. Therefore it is found that in the feminine chores, women are still the major role players. Even in case of child care 60 percent of the women are participating while in 50 percent cases men are participating. Hence there is a significant difference with the results found in the empirical studies discussed in the literature reviews. In this case we find that the overall distribution is not too much skewed towards women apart from specific jobs like cleaning and groceries. However a look into their participation in job market would have given a better idea regarding the association of economic status of a woman with their need to perform household chores. Looking at the responses to specific questions the results of the interviews may be summarized as follows: Who does the grocery shopping? When grocery shopping is concerned we find that only in 30 percent cases, men participate in the activity and in 20 percent case both men and women share the responsibility. Only in one case, it is found that only the male member participates in this activity. The female member Cindy Takurdeen is only 22 years old with a child who is newly born and at that time she was prescribed by the doctor to rest; hence her answer could be taken as an exception. Hence her husband takes care of the grocery shopping. One male participant with three children and married status and one female participant with two children stated that both husband and wife carry out the grocery shopping part. Sharing of activities are always required in the modern household where there the growing children to rear. Normally frequency of shopping also increases in such cases. However in some cases female solely does the shopping despite rearing children. Normally in such cases women are homemakers and have the entire day to themselves to carry out these activities. The trend of sharing the shopping activity is especially amongst the young generation (in one case the man is 28 years old and in the other case the female is 25 years) Who fills up the tank of gas for the car? Taking the car to the gas station to fill the tank is traditionally men’s job. However in four cases we find that only men do the job of filling gas while in 60 percent cases the job is shared by both the members. Hence in all, in all the cases male participation is dominant as far as filling the gas is concerned. Who does the cleaning? As far as cleaning is concerned we find 90 percent female participation and 70 percent male participation. Only in one case (Cindy) the male member does the cleaning job. Who does the bill paying? The results show that in 50 percent of the cases only men do the bill paying job and in 4 cases only the women handle the job. In one case both handle the bill payment. In such cases where the woman is handling the bill payment the women members are economically independent. Otherwise in majority of cases male participation in dominant with regard to financial matters. Who takes care of the children? In 40 percent households both female and male members take care of children while in one case (the exceptional case of Cindy) the male member solely does the caregiving. in 30 percent cases the question was not applicable because either the couple has no child or they are cohabitating without any reason for having children. Who does basic car maintenance? Traditionally this is a male domain and in this study it is found that 100 percent of the households have only the male member taking care of the car maintenance activities. Who does the laundry? Laundry related activities conventionally are meant for women and out study reveals that in 80 percent cases only the female members does the laundry. In one case the male member does it (Cindy) and in one case both the members handle the laundry. This activity may require people to either visit the store or to carry it out at home. Who takes out the garbage? In 80 percent cases only the male member of the household does the job while in merely 20 percent cases only female carry this out. There seems to be strict division of duties regarding this activity and there is no household where the job is shared. Who mows the lawn? In all the cases applicable the male member solely does the activity while in three cases the question was not applicable since the couples do not have a lawn. Who is responsible for cooking? In 90 percent of the cases this traditionally female activity is carried out by the female members of the households. Only in case of Cindy the husband does all the work and hence cooking also is a part of his daily duties. Discussions The above study reveals that typically feminine domains of household related works are mostly carried out by the females, for e.g. cooking, cleaning and laundry. Hence the balance is maintained by the male members carrying out jobs like car maintenance and filling the gas or mowing the lawn. Increasing male participation has been noticed in case of activities like childcare and cleaning. However it is women who still hold the dominant participation in such activities. This is similar to the results of a study made by Chukuezi in the year 2010 for the households of Nigeria concentrating on Owerri which is an urban town of Nigeria. The samples of the study were randomly selected and the research studies were completed with 406 women interrogated through semi-structured questionnaire. Only the female members of the households were interviewed. The study revealed that on an average about 8.4 hours were spent on the household chores by the women of the town with the maximum time being spent cooking and child care. Among the total number of women included in the survey only 91 women which hold about 22.41% of them reported to be dissatisfied with the burden of the household works and were conflicts with their spouses were reported in their families regarding the division of labor in the households. Thus despite of the educational qualification of these women and their capacity to earn for their families they were burdened with almost three quarter of the daily repetitive household works and forced to spend more hours in it as compared to the male members of the families. In this study of the Nigeria the cultural and the structural situation of the country are mainly responsible for this discrimination. The earning capacities of the women of this society are low and hence they are forced to take on the works of the households. (Chukuezi, 296- 297, 302) Another more or less similar study had been performed for the Amsterdam area of Netherlands. The study also revealed that the daily household chores were mainly the responsibility of the female population of the society while the male members of the families were mainly responsible for the outdoor works. The study reveals that if the time spent by the female member of the family on their educational or professional works increased then the time burden of the household works on the male members of the families also increased. However the reverse does not affect the women’s participation as the type of household work reported to be done by the men were joint shopping with their wife or helping them in some other indoor works (Schwanen, Ettema and Timmermans, 2754, 2771-2772). The study also focuses on the impact of the positions of the households in the decision of the distribution of the household work and emphasizes on the need of considering the social factors along with the mind sets of the family members concerned regarding the distribution of the household works among the family members. The idea is essentially to look at the shopping related activities which involve equal participation in most cases while the typical household chores are more specifically divided amongst the genders. It has to be noted that taking care of children in modern times is not a typical domestic job and also involve shopping related jobs for buying clothes toys and books. As more women are becoming economically independent (as in case of 4 females taken up for the study), they are also growing more comfortable with taking care of their children but again men mostly play the dominant role related to finance and hence it is often seen that the buying task related to rearing of children are mostly carried out by men while domestic care is given by the women. However this issue is not adequately captured by our questionnaire. Thus to conclude the research it can be said that the research hypothesis proved to be true based on the secondary research and that though the contribution of men in the household works have increased there still exists an inequality in some aspects. Yet the primary survey results show an increase towards equality in chores distribution compared to the literature reviewed. A collection of larger sample for the study could have lead to a better and more transparent idea since a small sample of 10 might have biased results. Yet the study gives a preliminary idea necessary to explore the scopes of further research on this subject. References 1. Buckley, Alexander, E and Fathali, M, Moghaddam, the influence of Gender on Perceptions of rights and Duties, Rights, Duties and Gender, May, 2010, pp1-44, available at http://dspace.wrlc.org/bitstream/1961/8576/1/Alex%20Buckley%20Final%20Thesis.pdf (accessed on 25th April, 2011) 2. Chukuezi, Comfort, O, Women Participation in Household Labor in Nigeria, European Journal of Social Sciences, 2010, 13(2), pp296-305 3. Handels, Gender Inequality in the Labour Market and in Family Life, report from Handels, 2005 4. McQuillan Kevin, and Marilyn Belle, Who Does What: Gender and the Division of Life in Canadian Households, (1997), paper no.97-16,pp1-22 5. Sen., Amartya, Many Faces of Gender Inequality, India’s national magazine, 2001, Vol-18, no-22, available at http://www.hindu.com/fline/fl1822/18220040.htm (accessed on 25th April, 2011) 6. Schwanen, Tim, Ettema, Dick and Harry, Timmermans, if you pick up the children, I’ll do the groceries, Environment and planning, 2007, 39, pp.2754-2773 7. Villiers, Hendrik De. The social importance of shopping malls, associated content, May 19, 2011 from: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/428344/the_social_importance_of_shopping_malls.html?cat=46 Appendix Questionnaire 1) Who does the grocery shopping? 2) Who fills up the tank of gas for the car? 3) Who does the cleaning? 4) Who does the bill paying? 5) Who takes care of the children? 6) Who does basic car maintenance? 7) Who does the laundry? 8) Who takes out the garbage? 9) Who mows the lawn? 10) who is responsible for cooking ? 1) Nalisha Taneem 25 years old Cohabitating Anwers: 1) Mostly me 2) depends we both kinda help eachother out 3) ME 4) BOTH 5) none 6) HIM 7) ME 8) ME 9) NONE 10) me Kim heralall 22 years old married 1. Me 2. Both 3. Me 4. Me 5. N/a 6. Him 7. Me 8. Mostly him 9. N/a 10. Me Sanita Manyram 43 years old Married has two children 1. Me 2. 2.Both depends who is driving 3. both of us 4. him 5. both 6. him 7. me 8.him 9. him 10. me Gaitri Ramsingh 42 years old married has one child 1.me 2.him 3.both 4.him 5.me 6.him 7.me 8.him 9.him 10.me Marcus Brian Bisram 28 years old married 3 chidren 1.both 2.both 3. both 4.her 5. both 6. him 7.her 8. him 9.him 10. her Ran Ramdin 35 years old two kids married 1.her 2.him 3.her 4.him 5.both 6.him 7.her 8.him 9.him 10. her Nalini Aziz 25 years old married and has two children 1. both 2. him 3. Me 4. Me 5. Me 6. him 7. both 8. him 9. him 10. Me Cindy Takurdeen 22 years old married 1. him 2.him 3. him 4.him 5. him 6. him 7.him 8.him 9.him 10. him Tasha Shambudat married 24 years old no child 1) me 2) both 3) BOTH 4) me 6) HIM 7) ME 8) ME 9) him 10) me Danny mohan 28 years old married one child 1. Me 2. Both 3. both 4. him 5. both 6. him 7. me 8.him 9. him 10. me Tabular representations Male- female participation   Grocery shopping car gas cleaning bill payment child care car maintenance Laundry garage mowing lawn cooking only male 1 4 1 5 1 10 1 8 8 1 only female 7 0 3 4 2 0 8 2 0 9 both 2 6 5 1 4 0 1 0 0 0 N/A or none 0 0 1 0 3 0 0 0 2 0   Grocery shopping car gas cleaning bill payment child care car maintenance Laundry garage mowing lawn cooking male participation 3 10 6 6 5 10 2 8 8 1 female participation 10 6 8 5 6 0 9 2 0 9 Read More