{"id":187,"date":"2022-03-30T10:02:55","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T09:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.exeter.ac.uk\/genderatwork\/?p=187"},"modified":"2022-03-30T10:02:55","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T09:02:55","slug":"will-a-womans-work-ever-be-done-not-when-it-involves-doing-housework-and-doing-gender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/genderatwork\/2022\/03\/30\/will-a-womans-work-ever-be-done-not-when-it-involves-doing-housework-and-doing-gender\/","title":{"rendered":"Will a woman\u2019s work ever be done?\u00a0 Not when it involves doing housework and doing gender"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Paula Lovelock<\/p>\n

Finding myself living in a London house-share with four guys in the mid-1990s, it only took a few weeks before I went on strike with the cleaning.\u00a0 I explained to them that our kitchen was becoming a health hazard and that I wasn\u2019t prepared to work full-time and<\/em> maintain basic hygiene in our three-storey semi.\u00a0 Their answer was it wasn\u2019t that bad (your stockinged feet would get stuck to the floor) and we couldn\u2019t afford to hire a cleaner.\u00a0\u00a0 I hired a cleaner.<\/p>\n

Looking back, this has become interesting in many ways.\u00a0 I have never really analysed why it was me who felt obligated to deal with the housework issue in one way or another.\u00a0 \u00a0I had little money to spare.\u00a0 But these men were all wealthy, ex-public school professionals who could easily afford to hire a cleaner.\u00a0 I had to wonder if my female presence combined with my efforts at keeping us out of squalor just felt natural to them.\u00a0 Why get a cleaner when there is a woman in the house?<\/p>\n

\"\"It seems unlikely that they just didn\u2019t see the dirt.\u00a0 When participants in one experimental study were shown pictures of an untidy room, there were no gendered discrepancies in perception; both men and women evaluated the level of mess and degree of urgency to clean it similarly.\u00a0 However, when the gender of the occupant of the messy room was known, moral judgments emerged, with female room dwellers held to a higher standard than men (Th\u00e9baud et al., 2019).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To investigate how these gendered notions of housework have evolved, the classic sociological paper on \u2018Doing Gender\u2019<\/em> provides insight into the way gender is constructed through our daily performances.\u00a0 The authors, West and Zimmerman (1987) detail the influential sociological work of Goffman (1977) on symbolic interactions in our social lives. These practices cumulatively come to shape the broader structures of society that categorise us by sex. The model of \u2018gender displays\u2019 elaborates the socially approved conduct that rewards \u2018deference\u2019 from women and \u2018dominance\u2019 by men.<\/p>\n

\"\"However, while Goffman sees these performances as optional, West and Zimmerman disagree.\u00a0 They view that people are made \u2018accountable\u2019 for their performances in their socially approved sex categories of \u2018women\u2019 or \u2018men\u2019.\u00a0 Through consensus of expected, \u2018appropriate\u2019 behaviour, people are kept in order.\u00a0 In the patriarchies of the West, men top the hierarchy. \u00a0So, while gender is enacted at an individual level, these interactions are institutionally inscribed.\u00a0 As a result, apparent \u2018essential\u2019 differences continue to segregate women and men in normative ways. The gendered division of labour appears to be normal and natural.\u00a0 So, the fact that women\u2019s work is never done is accepted, even useful, in maintaining the status quo.<\/p>\n

My 1990s experiences seem fairly unremarkable according to research from the decade prior. \u00a0In one study on the housework attitudes of heterosexual married couples, Berk (1985) found wives did the majority of housework and childcare, even if employed outside of the home.\u00a0 Staggeringly, in this example, both husbands and wives felt this to be a fair arrangement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By the mid-1990s, research in Western societies continued to find that women performed disproportionate levels of housework, despite patterns of increased paid employment (Brines, 1994).\u00a0 Such studies refer to doing housework as symbolic displays of femininity in the service of maintaining gender relations.<\/p>\n

So, have things changed much for women since then?<\/p>\n

It seems not. \u00a0Recent studies assert the life dissatisfaction experienced by women who work longer hours than their male partners, while continuing to do the majority of unpaid labour in the home (Fl\u00e8che et al., 2020).<\/p>\n

Indeed, YouGov statistics in February 2020 show that the majority of housework was being done by women, with over half saying they have sole responsibility for the laundry and cleaning bathrooms.\u00a0 While this is clearly a very generalised depiction, it highlights how women continue to conform to gendered expectations of housework.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

However, it seems the Covid 19 pandemic has made more visible the chasm of gender inequality in housework in the West.\u00a0 Brigid Schulte, social policy director at a US think tank, cites the \u201cbreadwinner\/homemaker\u201d model that operates in our culture (Gross, 2020).\u00a0 This is expressed through the stereotypical gender performances that sustain the inequality of domestic labour, despite the unfairness in task distribution.\u00a0 Interestingly, she cites research on housework between same-sex couples that reveal that there is more harmony in their decisions over the division of household chores.\u00a0 This can probably be explained by the absence of gendered assumptions over \u2018male jobs\u2019 and \u2018female\u2019 jobs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The evidence illustrates that the dynamics over allocation of tasks between genders have broader impact.\u00a0 The actions we take in our social contexts are both a cause and effect of social organisation and a means of perpetuating and legitimating gendered divisions.\u00a0 Whether it is challenging partners, siblings or incredibly lazy and entitled housemates \u2013 for women, doing gender requires work on top of doing housework.\u00a0 Perhaps that work can be consciously channelled in new, resistive ways.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Further Reading:<\/u><\/p>\n

Brines, J. (1994) \u2018Economic Dependency, Gender, and the Division of Labor at Home\u2019, American Journal of Sociology<\/em>, Vol. 100, No. 3 pp. 652-88, November 1994<\/p>\n

Fl\u00e8che, S. et al. (2020) \u2018Gender norms, fairness and relative working hours within households\u2019, Labour Economics<\/em>, Vol. 65, June 2020, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.labeco.2020.101866<\/a><\/p>\n

Gross, T. (2020) \u2018Pandemic makes evident ‘grotesque’ gender inequality in household work\u2019 NPR, 21st<\/sup> May 2020, [Online] Pandemic Makes Evident ‘Grotesque’ Gender Inequality In Household Work : NPR<\/a><\/p>\n

Th\u00e9baud et al. (2019) \u2018Good housekeeping, great expectations: gender and housework norms\u2019 Sociological methods and research<\/em>, Vol. 50, No. 3. pp 1186-1214, 2021, Sage, August 2021<\/p>\n

West and Zimmerman (1987) \u2018Doing gender\u2019 in Gender & Society<\/em>. Vol. 1, No. 2., pp 125-151, June1987<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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