Traditional Gender Roles In The Family

Throughout the course of our history, gender roles in the family have undergone a variety of changes. For the most part, each person in the family served to have a role and was in charge of a certain aspect of the family, in order for the family to be structural and in harmony. One can use the example of men working in order to provide for the family while women take care of children and keep the home tidy. These are some roles that were placed upon gender, and are now seen as traditional. With this information one is able to look at the history of roles, the reasons why these roles exist, and how they are changing and how sociologists interpret these things at hand.

For starters, gender roles have been established ever since social life has (1970). Also, families are “composed of subsystems that are” related. In other words everything in the family is interrelated. From a functionalist perspective these roles played as a system in order for everything else in society to work especially the family. If there was not a harmony within the family, ultimately everything would fall apart, and nothing would get done. The roles within family have been based on gender for some time now. Within the family, each person had a different responsibility from each other. Views that apply to people on the basis of their socially identified sex are the basis of the division of labor in most societies. The idea that men work to gain income, while women tend to children is viewed as traditional, but this traditional way of living is very common even nowadays. Some examples of traditional family roles would be men taking care of money, women cooking and cleaning, men repairing household things.

Women would usually take care of kids all while maintaining the house together, and according to the National Institute of Statistics, time spent on caring for children was 38 hours a week, while men only 23 hours and for household chores women would spend 20 hours a week, versus men only spent 11. These numbers consist if a really big gap, showing how much these roles affect the family. This can be viewed as a patrifocal family, because it was seen as the man was the head of the family, thus the focus was on him. But still, both the father and the mother contributed into making the household run, so even this aspect of the family wouldn’t make sense. With these statistics one can see the extent of impact these roles have on family life. Not only will women suffer because they won’t spend time focusing on their work, but the male will also suffering by spending less time with family, and more time focusing on work. With recent studies, they also show that society believes that fathers and mothers should be equal when pertaining to the workforce, but not the household chores. This is shown to be because of the fact that many people believe women and men have different skills that apply to these chores. For example, women are usually more nurturing and more caring while men were more masculine therefore leading in the society. Regardless, these are all generalizations of how one is supposed to act within the family. Also, this study was realized by a sociology professor, one who teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago, therefore one looks at the correlation between sociologists and the study of gender roles in the Family. Each party may even feel inclined to practice this, since it is what society has normalized for decades, therefore what they are used to and what seems normal to them. Back then, it was only like this but family roles might have differed depending on where one lived.

This was a situation that mostly pertained to western society. But this wasn’t always the case for every family. In some families, women would produce goods and get some type of income all while taking care of children. Also, those families who lived on a farm, the labor would be divided among everyone.But this was only the case in these specific scenarios. So one is able to say that women did not work regardless of their desires, unless, they really needed to or the family would benefit from it but even then it wasn’t something that came as they pleased. Also, even if women could work from inside the home, they didn’t have the means to start a career like the man was able to, this of course has now changed. This often causes conflict between the family for both parties. According Wood and Eagly (2010), Gender roles are essential for understanding the work-home interface. “They are shared beliefs that apply to individuals on the basis of their socially identified sex which are the basis of the division of labor in most societies”. Once again, backing up the idea that the society plays a big part in these roles as well as culture. Furthermore, these roles not only have an impact on the couple, but the family as a whole.

Not only do the different roles within the traditional family impact the parents themselves, but it also impacts the children. Based on a study that was conducted, it showed that many people would often marry people who are similar to them, therefore ensuring these roles to have effect on their children. Children often look up to their parents for behavioral aspects, often leading to them associating their gender to the roles they have; whether it is in the household or outside. For example, little girls will automatically feel that they have the responsibility to clean, keep the house organized while little boys will automatically feel that once they grow up they are supposed go out and work and not have to do anything to contribute in the household and not have to share the same responsibilities. Also, in this particular example, little girls may be succumbed to the idea that women didn’t need to work therefore being more dependent on the male. This often seems wrong due to the fact that this type of mindset is placed upon the child at a very young age contributing to the gender roles that have been placed upon the family in pervious times.

Furthermore, this may enable girls to help their mom out more while the boy connects to their dad, causing some barrier between communication, therefore not really bringing any value to the interrelationships. This creates conflict, because the traditional family roles will continue to exist if we don’t put these ideologies to a stop, therefore it will pass down generation to generation. Another conflict one should take into consideration is whether or not this even creates a problematic outcome between the family, perhaps that lead to divorce between the couples (because of the pressure placed upon them by social norms.) or kids feeling as if parents don’t understand them enough. Referring back to the example used above, depending on where the family lives this may be different. For example, families who live on the farm may have the mother and even the children working, but that is beyond the matter. We should depict the roles of both the father and the mother as equal and balanced, in order to end the usual stereotypes that surround the family structure to further prevent conflict. Regardless, the ambience around the traditional family roles have changed due to a variety of reasons.

Families now have changed and the roles within them. Dual career families were first introduced about fifty years ago, and now both men and women were encouraged to pursue life-long careers. With a theoretical perspective, when the “two-career family” was first introduced it was this new and fresh idea, which people thought would finally end these stereotypes, but in our society it is very hard to adapt to these new ideas. Most likely because it has been the status quo for so long, it can even be viewed as part of our culture. Today both parents work and will earn income in order to provide for the family (1970). We can now see a shift in culture and the way society has changed. For example, feminism has been growing for quite some years and they encourage the equality for women as for men. This may very well be one of the factors that play into why people want a change in how the family used to be. With newer generations, they often see things differently and add different perspectives, for example the traditional way of life is also seen differently by Millennials. They often feel that women should be granted the same opportunities as men, therefore having the same responsibilities in a household.

According to Svenson (2003), It has been hard for men to be able to balance both the new responsibilities they have with the work they need to complete, but one further analyzes it it should not be a problem if both parties help keep the harmony within the family. However, some of these attitudes have not changed and people around the world still depict traditional family roles as the way to go. This probably goes hand in hand with the fact that one really isn’t able to force social change upon a society, but rather they are the ones have to omit to this change. Also, according to research one of the big reasons as to why men are still seen as the ones who are supposed to go out and work rather than help with other things is because of: government policies; “Paid family leave, subsidized child care and flexible schedules are not widespread.” This shows that even with the differing perspectives and the change of attitudes there has to be further implementations, in order for the problem to be fixed. Particularly because by not implementing them the government would be also buying into these ideas. This also shows the way culture impacts gender roles in the family. Since these institutions are part of our culture and the way we value things of importance or not. If ending the general ideas behind family roles is of importance in our society, then that is something we should aim to do. But it is something that does take a lot of dedication seeing as to how changing the mindsets of people is often very hard.

All in all, the gender roles in the family have changed and will continue to do so. The family is a complex institution studied by sociologists from different perspectives in hopes to help us understand the problems surrounding it and the issues surrounding it. Furthermore, with change on how society views traditional family roles and wanting a more equal and balanced family due to things such as feminism and time, the family structure is now shifting. The idea that men should be the provider of the household and that the woman is the caretaker will slowly be no longer; of course there are always people who oppose of this but by getting rid of stereotypes and generalizations is the first way to go.

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