Household Labor & The
Routine Production of Gender
• Doing gender sustains and legitimizes
existing gender relations.
• Would inappropriate gender activity
challenge that legitimacy?
• Or when people fail to do gender
appropriately, are their individual
characters, motives, and predispositions
called into question.
Shared Parenting
• Fathers said:
• Father-infant interaction helped them
develop “deep emotional trust”
• “It [childcare] was not something innate, it
was something to be learned.”
• Most fathers not equal caregiver for
children under one year.
• What does this tell us.
Practicality & Flexibility
• Couples said it makes sense to share
labor and be flexible in division or labor.
• One mother said, [Being flexible and
changing division of tasks] “keeps things
interesting. I think that’s why its satisfying.”
• Studies show flexibility benefits
relationships.
Ideology
• Underlying Ideology: Child-centered &
equity ideals.
• Child-centered: Placed high value on
children’s well-being
• Equity ideals: Treated children as
inexperienced equals. [Cultural]
• All said that no one should be forced to
perform a specific task b/c they were a
man or woman
Divisions of Household Labor
• Sample couples can be characterized as
sharing an unusually high proportion of
house-work and child-care compared to
others.
• But still partially conformed to traditional
division of household labor.
Divisions of Household Labor
• 25% of tasks performed mainly by mothers
included clothes care, meal planning,
repetitive house cleaning.
• 20% of tasks performed mainly by fathers
included outside chores, home repair, car
maintenance, lawn care.
Managing Vs. Helping
• Mothers were often the managers: told
husbands what to do and how to do it.
• Husbands were helpers.
• Some mothers found it difficult to share
household management; Did not like
relinquishing control à This links housecleaning
styles to essential gender differences.
• Managing housework becomes the woman’s
domain
Adult Socialization
Through Childrearing
• Parenting is an essential part of the
mother’s nature but is a learned capacity
for fathers.
• Couples talked about fathers being
socialized to become nurturing parents.
Adult Socialization
Through Child-Rearing
• Father: Described as being transformed by
parenting experience, developing
increased sensitivity.
• Evaluated by fathers adopting vocabulary
of motives and feelings similar to mother’s.
• Father: learns to notice subtle things from
mother à enhances Child-rearing and
marital interaction.
Gender Attributions
• Manager-helper couples: Legitimated their
divisions of labor & reaffirmed the
“naturalness” of essential gender
differences.
• Equal sharing couples: Gender similarities
hypothesisà some women nurture better
than others; some men nurture better than
other men
Gender Attributions
• Parents most successful in child care were
most likely to claim that men could nurture
like women.
• (i) Those who believed that men could
nurture like women attempted to share all
aspects of child care
• (ii) Successful sharing of child care
reinforced beliefs that men could nurture
like women.
Normalizing Atypical Behavior
• Father received more credit for family
involvement than mother b/c it was
expected that she would perform child
care and housework.
• Father labeled as fantastic, wonderful,
incredible.
• Father: praised for performing task that
would go unnoticed if mother performed it
Normalizing Atypical Behavior
• Fathers: Discouraged from talking about
family and children at work
• Co-workers disappointed that repeatedly
turned down invitations to go out w/ boys
• Co-workers perceived them as not serious
about their work.
• As a result, fathers hid extent of family
involvement.
• What are the macro-level and micro-level
functions of these societal sanctions
discouraging men to be involved with
family and children?
