Thursday, November 10, 2011

Women in the Workplace

Recently in class, we read and discussed an article about women in the paid labor force and the effect that this can have on a marriage and on a family. The author, Hochschild, conducted an 8-year study on 52 different couples, using interviews and observations to draw his conclusions, stating that he saw many forms of conflict: money issues, child issues, arguing & fighting, divorce, etc. Hochschild believes that quarrels between husbands and wives in households across the nation result mainly from a friction between faster-changing women and slower-changing men. In other words, women's roles in society are evolving much more quickly in the workplace and at home, and men's roles (of basically just being the "bread winner") are staying about the same. This issue can be looked at from several different standpoints. Of course, it is great that more women are contributing their knowledge and skills to our workforce. But, it coming at a price? Over the years, more women have begun to work outside the home, and more and more have divorced. Why do you think this is? Maybe husbands and wives aren't getting to spend enough time together. Maybe one is putting in more effort than the other. Maybe one makes more money than the other. There are numerous explanations for this, but we'll look at one big one...

A functionalist might look at this issue from the point of view of the actual function of women in the workplace. There are 2 different kinds of functions: manifest and latent.  A manifest function is the initial intended function, and the latent function is the unintended consequence. For instance, the manifest function of women going into the workforce would be to make more money.  The latent function of this would be that now she basically has 2 jobs - her career, and then taking care of the family at home. This issue could be key in figuring out problems in the household and/or marriage. It seems, when looking at the problem this way, that the "workload" between husband and wife is not quite equal. No, I'm not saying that every marriage is this way, but we're looking at this as a "social issue". Anyway, if the household duties aren't split up more evenly, then this could cause major problems in the family. As we talked about in class, it may seem that duties are evenly split up, i.e. the wife does the dishes and the husband mows the yard. However, think about the difference in frequency of those chores. Dishes are done every day, usually multiples times a day, but the yard is mowed maybe once a week? Sounds even at first, but the reality is different. This is just a small example of the effects of having both spouses working outside the home, and there are many more ways that this can create tension in a family.

Not all situations where husband and wife both work are bad, however. Some arrangements really do work to the advantage of the family. I'll use my family for example. My mom is a lawyer and my dad is a musician. They are both very successful and what they do and I'm very proud of what they've done for my family. When I still lived at home, my mom worked during the day at the courthouse and at her office, and my dad always played his shows with his band at night.  Because of the different work schedules, my dad was able to stay home with us kids during the day, and then the roles would switch when my mom came home and my dad went to work. This created a system where it was pretty much mandatory for each to do their share around the house. My dad would clean the house, cook, mow the yard, and feed the kids during the day, and my mom would do it all at night. They found that this worked well for them, and neither felt that one was taking advantage of the other.

Hochschild said in his article that "the happiest two-job marriages (he) saw during (his) research were ones in which men and women shared the housework and parenting." Saying thanks to one another for their efforts played a significant role. Sharing the jobs of taking the kids to school, helping them with homework, cooking, and cleaning were the "silver and gold" of the marriage. From what I saw of my parents, this is how they made it work. Society is still studying techniques and trying to make a shift towards making this happen in more and more families. What do you think? What other examples have you seen of successful two-job marriages?

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