Gender Inequality and the Family (3/28)

1
Gender Inequality and the Family (3/28)

• How do inequalities from different sources
  combine with each other?

2
Handicapped parking

• Suppose that someone goes into a tirade
• The only reason that most folks cant get a
  parking space is that there are set-aside
  handicapped spaces. A lot of the people with
  handicapped stickers do not need special spaces
  any more than you or I do. And the spaces are
  stigmatizing and create backlash.
• What is true or un true about each of these?
• What would you answer?
• How is the situation the same or different from
  gender and/or racial affirmative action?

3
Does Handicapped parking prevent regular folks
from parking?

• In one sense, that is the point.
• i.e. non-handicapped persons have better access,
  and the access is being equalized.
• One can estimate effects of handicapped spaces on
  parking availability.
• It is tiny.
• Even if every non-handicapped person drives past
  handicapped spaces, they constitute a tiny
  fraction of all parking.
• The same is true of gender and race affirmative
  action positions.

4
Do handicapped persons need it?

• Can only be answered pragmatically and
  statistically.
• Different handicaps are different.
• Most handicapped persons would be effectively
  excluded from govt services, medical services,
  libraries, etc without them.
• It would be cumbersome to have multiple measures
  and kinds of spaces.

5
Sexism and Racism as self-fulfilling prophecies
Dummy!

• Labeling is a positive feedback loop
• It tends to accentuate whatever the things that
  originally produced the label by
• Altering opportunities
• Altering self-conceptions
• Altering contacts and networks
• Eliciting divisive conflict
• There is no evidence that handicapped parking
  spaces produce stigma, although there is stigma

6
Policy issues

• The sciences (specifically science faculty at
  universities) can choose to
• Pass on the inequality (I.e. fail to grant tenure
  to the 1/3 of women. Its not our fault)
• Change the rules. (The requirement is supposed to
  pick talented scientists, not measure home
  stress therefore make the requirements different
  for men and women.)
• Institute supports specifically for women (e.g.
  day care.)

7
Systems and unintended consequences
oops

• In a system it is not possible to do only one
  thing. Everything that you do has multiple
  consequences.
• Many social policies may impact on the family,
  race relations or inequality in ways that are not
  intended.
• Being able to keep track of and estimate the
  relative size of multiple consequences is the
  point of thinking in systems terms.

8
Relation between gender inequality in science and
gender inequality in the family

• Much of inequality built into the 5 unequal
  hurdles of Coles model is derivative of family
  roles.
• For example, the publications crunch (6 refereed
  publications for junior faculty to get tenure)
  comes at the time when faculty are most likely to
  have children under the age of 2.
• Cole assumes that in 1/3 of the cases, the mother
  has to do most of the childcare, and so has
  difficulty completing the 6 publications.

9
Forces driving gender and family role changes
The graph p. 423 shows the single most powerful
force transforming family and gender roles
Starting in WWII and continuing through the last
generation, the labor force participation of
married women has approached that of single women.
10
Changes in family structure
p.463 Shows that in one generation, the father
knows best, Breadwinner-homemaker family went
from absolute dominance to about 10, and the
dominant form today is the two-earner family.
11
Dynamics, Policy, Attitudes

• The dynamics driving these changes are complex
  and fairly inexorable.
• They are not a simple function of social policy
  or social attitudes, and probably neither of
  those could reverse them.
• But policy and attitudes may well make a
  difference in their effects.
• Privileging the HB family will almost certainly
  not bring it back, but it will make stresses
  greater on the bulk of families.

12
The entrance of men into the paid work force.

• The Breadwinner/homemaker family does not extend
  far back in history.
• It was generated in the 19th c.
• Prior to the 19th c most men worked at home on
  the family farm or blacksmith shop.
• There was gender role differentiation, but the
  specific kind associated with the
  Breadwinner/homemaker family was the temporary
  condition when men had entered the paid work
  force and women had not.

13
A. Hochschild The Second Shift (Viking 1989)

• Hochschild investigates how families today, with
  two earners, deal with housework.
• The 1st shift is 900AM to 500PM
• The 2nd shift is the housework, 500PM to
  1100, when both partners get home tired.
• The 2nd shift is also the crucial family
  maintenance work (PTA, talking to Billys
  parents, scouts.)

14
Hochschilds methodology

• Intensive surveys and minute to minute
  participant observation of 2-earner families.
• Interview each spouse separately.
• Interview them together.
• Observe them for at least a day.
• Joint interview to discuss results.
• The methodology drastically lowers the N to a few
  dozen cases.

15
Hochschilds 4 Family types
Agreed division of labor Disagreement and conflict
Egalitarian SS 50-50 Modern Dysfunctional
Male-dominant SS womens Work Traditional Ambivalent
My terms, not Hochschschilds
16
Traditional Families

• Both husband and wife said that the second shift
  was womens work
• When observed, the wife did all the cooking,
  cleaning and childcare.
• Traditional families are not complex.
• There were few of them, mainly immigrant.
• Even if all Breadwinner/homemaker families are
  traditional, they are still a small minority.
• If she has a full-time job at home, she is not
  going to be able to have much of a law career.

17
Modern families

• Both husband and wife said that the second shift
  should be shared 50-50
• When observed, it was.
• Modern families are also not complex.
• There were even fewer of them.

18
The effectiveness of modern and traditional
families

• In the case of both modern and traditional
  families, there was relatively good agreement
  between what people said and what they did.
• Both kinds worked well neither worked
  outstandingly better than the other.
• Many of the families were neither,
• and lacked agreement between what people said and
  what they did
• And did not work well.

19
Ambivalent Families

• Both husband and wife said that the second shift
  should be shared 50-50
• When observed, the wife did the overwhelming
  majority of the 2nd shift.
• E.g. she cleans the house he cleans the garage.
• (the house needs to be cleaned every day, the
  garage needs it once a month)
• She does the cooking he clears the table
• Cooking takes an hour clearing 2 minutes.
• Why arent they just traditional?

20
Dysfunctional Families

• A very common pattern was that the husband and
  wife said different things arrangements were
  unclear.
• When observed, no-one did the second shift.
• Some family maintenance is optional
• Some essential maintenance looks optional
• But the result is a dysfunctional pattern, in
  which essential tasks did not get done.

21
The Ineffectiveness of Dysfunctional Families

• In a situation of turbulence, change and conflict
  it is often true that if you volunteer, then the
  job is yours forever.
• There is no longer someone whose full time job
  is family maintenance.
• A lot of maintenance does not get done.
• This can be disastrous in the long run.

22
Hochschild shows that much family stress and
breakdown stems from

• Family roles and norms have not changed as much
  as the economy.
• There are very high pressures for labor force
  participation, in the U.S. but
• a relative absence of formal or informal
  supports,
• Producing ambivalence and double-binds

23
Which guys share the 2nd shift

• Hochschild found some interesting results with
  regard to two prevalent theories
• The theory that people are conditioned into
  gender attitudes early, and so men from more
  traditional families would not share the 2nd .
• The theory that it is a matter of power and
  reward in the society that it depends on whose
  income is essential to the family.
• The data is not decisive because of small N.

24
1. Childhood socialization

• People are conditioned into gender attitudes
  early,
• and so the theory men from more liberal families
  would share the 2nd shift is plausible.
• But it is wrong.
• Hochschild found the opposite.
• In a situation of turbulence and conflict, change
  often comes about by a conscious decision.

25
Importance of the Income

• Power and rewards have pervasive effects
• And so the theory that it would depend on whose
  income is essential to the family is plausible.
• But it is wrong.
• Hochschild found the opposite.
• She suggested that men found womens work not
  just different but degrading and they would
  do it only if they were confident of their own
  standing and esteem.