Gender Roles in the Family

1. Gender Roles in the Family • Roles are not innate but are learned • Progress toward Egalitarian roles in family • However, women still engaging in “second shift” • Equal sharing closely tied to marital satisfaction

2. Role Relationships in Happy vs. Unhappy Couples Olson & Olson, 2000

3. Key Concepts • Sex:who we are biologically as male or female • Gender:includes psychosocial components that characterize us as masculine or feminine • Gender Identity: an individual’s personal, internal sense of maleness or femaleness • Gender Role: expectations about attitudes and behaviors based on whether male/female

4. Key Concepts • Masculinity:constellation of traits traditionally associated with men: • Aggressiveness • Independence • Dominance and competence • Femininity: constellation of traits traditionally associated with women: • Passivity and dependency • Sensitivity and emotionality

5. Multicultural Perspectives on Gender • Mexican American • Stereotype of male machismo • African American • Egalitarian marriages • Economic marginalization • American Indian • Communal orientation • Asian American • Filial piety • Segregated sex roles

6. Gender and Socialization Theories • Social Learning Theory • Cognitive Development Theory • Family Systems Theory • Feminist Theory

7. Social Learning Theory • Learn sex appropriate behavior • Learning involves: • Observation • Imitation • Reinforcement • Understanding standards and rules

8. Cognitive Development Theory • Learning changes with maturation • Children create: • Gender identity • Gender role stereotypes • Gender values • Once learn—seek congruence

9. Criticisms of Social Learning & Cognitive Approaches • Assumes children of same sex develop similar identities • Favors traditional role identities as desirable • Focus is on childhood processes—overlooking adult processes

10. Family Systems Theory • Gender role development and change occurs within family context • Change difficult • Balanced families more open to change • Unbalanced families resist change and independence

11. Feminist Framework • View that women have been exploited, devalued, and oppressed • Focus on institutional restrictions on women’s development • Focus on changing conditions

12. Bases of Family Power • Power Bases or Resources • Power Processes • Power Outcomes

13. Power Bases or Resources • Resource theory of family power • Power balance relative to resources each partner brings to relationship • “more resources equals more power” • Principle of Least Interest • Person with least interest in relationship has most power in relationship

14. Conflict Theory • Conflict Theories are oriented toward the study of social structures and institutions. Conflict theorists see whatever order there is in society as stemming from the coercion of some members by those at the top. Maintain that society is held together in the face of conflicting interests because either (a) one group in the society has the power to enforce the rules (and thus make subordinate groups follow rules that may primarily serve the interests of the superordinate group) or (b) there are so many overlapping and divided interest groups that individuals must learn to cooperate. The overall argument made by conflict theorists, however, is that through the structure of conflict in society, order can be maintained in one of these two ways. • Social conflict assumes various forms. Competition describes a conflict over the control of resources or advantages desired by others where actual physical violence is not employed. Regulated competition is the sort of peaceful conflict which is resolved within a framework of agreed rules. Markets involve competition, both regulated and unregulated. Other conflicts may be more violent and not bound by rules, in which case they are settled by the parties mobilizing their power resources. • Conflict perspective focuses on the struggle among different social groups over scarce rewards. conflict (conflictual) - A view that sees society and social phenomena, past, present, and future, as a result of conflict (a social process). Conflict is seen as a creative, inevitable fact of social life and not merely a destructive avoidable deviation. Conflict is generally held to be inevitable because of the inherent limitation of a finite universe of "knowable" social reality and because of misunderstandings in communication. Conflict is usually direct conscious struggle between individuals or groups for the same goal (as compared with competition, which can take place without contact and individuals and groups being aware of others striving for the same goal) with the intent of the individuals or groups involved to inhibit the goal striving and goal attainment of others.

15. Power Bases and Resource • Coercive • punishment • Reward • Ability to provide rewards • Legitimate • authority • Expert • special knowledge • Referent • Respect and/or love • Informational • knowledge Raven, Centers & Rodriguez, 1975

16. Family Power Processes Interaction techniques that occur during decision making • Assertive • Expression of wants or desires • Aggression • Demands of conformity • Control • Effectiveness of attempts to change behavior of others

17. Power Patterns in Marriage

18. Study: Helpful Dads Damage Mother's Self-Esteem at HomeFriday, March 19, 2010 FOX News • The competence of diligent dads helping out at home is damaging the self-esteem of "super-moms" who feel caught between work and traditional child-rearing roles, according to a new study revealed by LiveScience. • The University of Texas at Austin interviewed 78 dual-earner couples who had eight-month-old infants, measuring them on two types of self-esteem — self-liking and self-competence. • Researchers asked the parents to talk about their partner's strengths and weaknesses and rated their responses. • They found that among mothers who thought their partners were competent caregivers, the more time those fathers spent alone with their children, the lower the mother's self-competence rating was. • "In American society, women are expected to take a main role in parenting despite increasingly egalitarian sex roles," said study researcher Takayuki Sasaki of the Osaka University of Commerce in Japan. • "Thus, we believe that employed mothers suffer from self-competence losses when their husbands are involved and skilful because those mothers may consider that it is a failure to fulfill cultural expectations," Sasaki said. • "Husbands do not suffer from self-competence losses even when their wives are involved and skilful because that is consistent with cultural expectations." • Not surprisingly, mothers were found to spend nearly three times as much time child-rearing by themselves as their husbands did. • And this was noticed by husbands who gave their wives top marks in parenting skills. In contrast they got a much lower rating from the mothers but even so, the women often said their husbands were good parents. • "Many wives would say care-giving by their husbands is helpful but at the same time wives give their husbands negative feedback because their husbands' care-giving style is different from their own," Sasaki told LiveScience. • "For example, a wife appreciates when her husband feeds their baby but also tells her husband that after all it makes more work because the way the husband feeds is messy." • The gender divide was also evident in how parents judged each others' skills. • "Husbands are often told by their wives that they are good parents when they are involved in care-giving that their wives normally do, such as feeding, changing diapers, and soothing," Sasaki said. • "In contrast, husbands do not tell their wives that they are good parents even when their wives exhibit such behavior - probably because it is taken for granted."