Week 3- Mothering

Family & Work Blog
Week 3
Mothering

Ann Crittendon, “The Price of Motherhood.”

Crittendon opens her article with a good quote from Teddy Roosevelt, highlighting that a good mother is more important to the community than even the ablest man. I think this is a great quote to start her article, because it not only emphasizes the importance of mothers, but does so from a male influential perspective. She instantly gives credibility to her argument by quoting one of our nation’s greatest leaders. She then goes on to write that the very definition of a mother is selfless service to another, and that we don’t owe Mother for her gifts. I disagree with the second half of that statement, and personally believe that I owe my mother for everything she has done for me. I believe that I am very thankful to my mother but I know that there is absolutely no possible way to repay her for all she has done for me. It is true that in America, no figure is praised more highly than a mother, and I think that it should be no other way. Even many other influential people acknowledge that child rearing is the most important job in the world, because it is preparing the next generation, or as economists called it, creating “human capital.” However, despite these claims, female mothering is largely taken for granted.
Somehow, a negative stereotype of housewives has developed over the last twenty years. There are wrong assumptions that all they do is sit around and watch soap operas. This belief has even permeated into the minds of children, who despite all their mothers do for them show them little respect. This ideology horrifies me and just shows me how uniformed people really are. My own mother gave up her career to raise myself and my siblings, but I guarantee you that she works just as hard, and probably gets more work done in a single day than any of the “career” women. But care giving is not seen as a valuable asset in the workplace, and it is often penalized as seen in the three examples Crittendon lists. She was right on it when she wrote that the policies of United States government and business do not align with those of the importance of family. The policies of government, marriage, and work laws force mothers who take care of the children to be in the largest risk factor for future poverty. In pure economic terms it is very financially dangerous for a woman to be the mother society wants it to be. This is especially ironic that mothers are such a risk for poverty, when one stat from Crittendon’s research shows that for all the services they do, mothers should be paid six figures, and yet are paid nothing. This just shows something that I already knew; mothers are priceless.
Crittendon next makes an interesting comparison between mothers and our nation’s soldiers. Soldiers, like mothers, render a great service to our country. However, in the case of soldiers, they are rewarded for their efforts, shouldn’t mothers be as well? I agree with Crittendon that it goes beyond just wages or benefits for mothers. What is needed is a complete overhaul of the ideology behind every aspect of the system. It needs to be recognized that what mothers do is an essential component to our society. It is one that requires as much skills as any job today, and it is one that should rewarded, not degraded by the people in power, whom most likely, would not have gotten to the heights they have reached without their own mothers.

Michelle Budig, “The Wage Penalty for Motherhood”

I was not a big fan of this article, mainly because of the structure. It was written more like an article for a scientific journal, instead of one on sociology. That being said, Budig does provide some good evidence for why there is a wage penalty for women. Initially, she hypothesizes that there is this wage penalty due to four possibilities: lost job experience, less productivity at work, the choosing of lower paying mother friendly jobs, or discrimination by employers. These all seem like justifiable reasons for the apparent wage penalty and Budig than researches the validity of each claim. In the article Budig examines and critiques many past studies that she either has taken ideas from and gone further or that she finds relevant to her own presented research. Her major claim is that it is unfair for many aspects of society (future employers, peers, spouses etc.) to benefit from the proper upbringing of a child while the burden has been placed almost solely on the mother. Because of their motherhood, women often have to work for less wages, while at the same time creating a “free” asset for the future.
Budig shows that mothers do indeed earn less if they lose a job in the time of their child rearing. I believe it is illegal for a company to fire a woman for a pregnancy, but I know that it can be discouraged or frowned upon in the eyes of promotions or assignments. Budig also claims that women with continuous working experience have higher earnings that those with the same amount of time worked yet through interrupted segments. Another possibility that Budig addresses as a reason for the wage discrepancy is that mothers are less productive at work, because they are tired from or saving their energy to take care of their children. Companies value the ideal worker that places their work above all else, but that is just not the case with mothers. For most mothers, their children will always take precedence over their jobs. Considering these facts, women often seek “mother-friendly” jobs that are flexible and with paid leaves. However the irony of the matter is that, many of the jobs that come with those benefits are predominantly male jobs. Mothers are also a double disadvantage to the subtle discriminations in the work place. Not only are they subjected to the possible sex discrimination of being a woman, they also face some discriminations as mothers. And while there are laws against overt sex discrimination, there are no laws explicitly prohibiting parental discrimination.
A final, and interesting claim made by Budig is that motherhood and a lower wage are not necessarily causal, but possibly a spurious relationship. She believes that the same individual characteristics, like low academic skills or other factors that cause lower earnings for mothers also lead to higher childbearing. An interesting fact from the article was that there was a larger child penalty for married than unmarried, and for white than black women.
After spending a few pages addressing her materials, methods, variables and regressions, Budig comes to her conclusions. She found that there is indeed a wage penalty of about seven percent per child among American women. She found that one-third of this gap is caused by a loss of employment during the pregnancy or early years when time is taken off. She also found that the effects of motherhood are in fact causal and not spurious. She could not specifically determine where the rest of the gap is derived from, but she maintains that any of the hypothesized reasons could be correct. Lastly, Budig addresses the issue of society enjoying the “free ride” of well rounded children produced by mothers. She suggests that employers help to contribute more to mothers to make a broader redistribution of child rearing costs. However, this most likely will not be taken into effect as many businesses are simply struggling to get by in this economic downturn.

Patricia Hill Collins, “Black Women & Motherhood”

Like many of the articles we read, Collins starts hers with a quote that emphasizes some of the issues she is trying to address. This particular quote highlights the need for black women to honor their mother’s sacrifices. They need to get their own voice out there on the issue, because in history there has been a lot of talk and writing about black women by almost everyone except black women themselves. Due to this lack of true representation, there are many stereotypes or differing images of black women in the motherhood role. However, the strongest image is one of the “superstrong” black matriarch who should be admired and respected for her hard work in a harsh society. Most black men will be the first to praise their own mothers, but then do not elicit the same respect toward the young women they impregnate. They encourage the birth of the child and do believe that because their mother was strong enough to raise them, that these young girls inherently have the same characteristics.
Collins next addresses how many African American families use support systems of women to raise children. Many black children have “othermothers” who help share the mothering responsibilities. An interesting view was that Collins says women’s centrality in the family is not due to the simple absence of fathers but rather to the genuine significance of women. Women in the community often bond together to look after all the children and their develops what Collins terms “fictive” kin. But older women were not the only ones included in this team mothering approach. Young women, often as young as ten years old were asked to also help shoulder some of the load of child rearing. Giving true testament to the strength of these ideals, they remained intact even through the horrible period of slavery. In the periods after that though, when capitalism and the white middle class began to rise, children in that sphere began to be seen as “personal property” of the parents. Therefore the idea of community-raising ran as a direct challenge to the capitalist system.
Collins spends the next few pages examining the unique relationship between black mothers and daughters. Black mothers have the tough job of preparing their girls for necessary survival in their current life, while granting them the gifts and opportunities to create their own. They were forced to work in lower paying work so that they could provide and instill the right values in their own daughters who hopefully would strive for more. They really stressed the importance of education as the key to a better life. That is why it was devastating to many mothers when their teen age daughters became pregnant and defied their mothers wishes in keeping their babies. With a pregnancy, mothers knew that their dreams for their daughters to have a better life were fading. This belief is so strong that only 4 of 32 pregnant teenagers believed they could rely on their family members for support. The rest depended on friends, which only furthers the importance of a community to raise these children.
The next section is an interesting one where Collins talks about how black mothering can lead to political and cultural activism. Especially in the black community, the symbol of motherhood is one that elicits power and respect, a position that many mothers use to work on behalf of their children and community. This is not a feminist movement though, because these women are not fighting for their own rights, but for the rights of those around them. Mothers have a special place in the black community, and that is why many young women decide to keep their children in unwanted pregnancies. Their children provide them with a purpose and something to love, in a world that is many times lacking both. It gives them a sense of hope despite their harsh realities, and that is truly an encouraging thought.

Barbara Katz Rothman, “Women as Fathers”

This article by Rothman was another one that struck me as odd and took a truly unique look at the power struggle over children and parenting. Her thesis is that women, do not gain the rights to their children by being mothers, but instead by being “father equivalents,” as simply sources of genetic material. She claims that patriarchy is the central relationship in all society, and even quotes a Bible verse. She says that men contribute their “seed” as the most crucial part of child formation. Our current system is not classically patriarchal but is not a mother-based one either. As a person who understands biology, the patriarchal view that only the male seed is necessary is ridiculous, because women’s eggs are just important “seed” components. Rothman says that there was a transformation to the acceptance of women’s seed, and because now men and women were even on that front, that men’s economic superiority becomes more important.
Rothman next discusses something that I had never thought of before, the difference of control relating to genetic relationships. It is interesting that even though genetically speaking a parent-child relationship is identical to a sibling-sibling one, there are great cultural and social differences. Parents are bestowed special rights and claims that are not given to siblings even though they both are related the same genetically. This really highlights the importance our culture places on the parent-child relationship.
The next topic Rothman looks at is the diminishing specialness of motherhood with the advance of modern technology. Now there are so many options to true motherhood that it has possibly lost its meaning. Now it is possible for a different woman to be pregnant with another woman’s child, and it is pretty common for housekeepers or nannies to be the exclusive care givers. Because these social relationships are not between biological mother and child, there once again becomes an emphasis on the genetic ties to determine parenthood. Mothers who are unable to spend time influencing their own children are taught to bestow upon the hired caregivers the feelings and thoughts on how to treat their children. Many of these mothers want and need these caregivers to help them raise their child on a daily basis, but yet do not want their children to relate to or desire the caregiver more. Rothman brings up an interesting point that while caregivers might not try to be the mothering figure, they are asked to play that part and I do question what their thought process is or what they are feeling as they do the most mothering of activities to a child that is not their own. Rothman agrees that maybe in a better world people wouldn’t be hired to take care of other children, but that is not a realistic concept. Some people have to work and someone has to look after the children. What must be made clear though is that one person is not a replacement for another and that they are in fact there as a separate entity.

Week 2- Historical Perspectives on Family & Work Part 2

Historical Perspectives on Family and Work 2

Joan Williams: Introduction & “Is Domesticity Dead?”

Williams begins her book with an introduction addressing the issue of whether we are seeing the end of the system of domesticity in this country. As we will later see in her writing, Williams disagrees with that assumption, and I believe her when she claims that “domesticity remains the entrenched, almost unquestioned, American norm and practice.” It is incredibly difficult for a system that has been the “norm” for so many years to just disappear. It is so entrenched in our society that it influences both the family and work dynamic. As Williams points out, the current work system demands “ideal workers” for success, and that is almost impossible to commit to as a mother. I know that my own mother is one of the most intelligent and driven women I know and would undoubtedly have been successful had she stayed in the working world, but she instead followed the path of domesticity set forth in our country and raised myself and my siblings. A telling fact from the Williams article is that nearly two thirds of Americans believe it would be best for women to stay home and care for the family and the children. This percentage was higher than I thought it would be at this day and age, but I do wonder if it has gone since the hay day of the domesticity era in the middle of the twentieth century. Williams has an interesting point in saying that domesticity did not die, but rather just mutated. It is true that there is more women in the workplace now, but still there remains double standards in reduced pay and hours for women, and especially for mothers.
On the surface it appears that a system of domesticity only limits and hurts women, but in reality it affects all. It has led to increased divorce rate as men are often too busy at work for their families (just under a third of fathers work fifty hours a week or more), and that not only negatively affects both the separated spouses but also any children. Before the Industrial Revolution, men were intricately involved in the raising of children because the spheres of work and home were one in the same. But now that they reside in separate arenas of life, men are often forced to make a decision between being the ideal worker necessary for success or constantly there for their children.
Williams stresses the need to change the definition of the ideal worker to be more inclusive. As it stands mothers are not able to work overtime or be flexible to move around without breaking the taboo of having their kids be raised by “strangers.” Williams says that studies have shown that businesses with “family-friendly” policies are both feasible and cost-efficient, which if is actually true is very encouraging. Williams next tackles the issue of the “he-who-earns-it-owns-it” argument. I disagree with this statement, and feel that in a marriage it is a partnership in which each person has a predetermined role but that the benefits are shared. As in my family, my father is the one earning the income but in no way does he lord it over or keep it from my mother because he realizes that she has just an important job as he does in maintaining our family.
Williams puts forth the idea that the negative aspects of domesticity can be brought to an end, but that first there must be more of a focus on them. Instead of focusing so much time and energy on sex and violence to shift to the family/work dynamic. I agree with Williams, but unfortunately I don’t know how effective this shift will be because people are drawn to the shock and awe value of the issues of sex and violence more than the blander family work issue. But that doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t try to get her message across. As she says, around 90 percent of women will become mothers during their working lives, and unfortunately for them, the conventional family life just does not work well for those living in it.
Williams opens her first chapter entitled “Is Domesticity Dead?” with a good use of an anecdote to elicit the general viewpoint of women that she is trying to combat. She is adamant that many women use the excuse that they have personally made a choice to play their part in a domestic system, but that in reality they really do not have as much freedom to choose as they think. Williams believes that a lot of these women’s evacuation from work is done out of necessity of the system not of choice. There is much societal pressure on women not to be mothers who “say good night to their children on the telephone.” I agree with this and do feel that children are best suited to be raised by one of their biological parents, and hope that my future children will be, but every family and every situation is different. She also highlights how this system can be tough on men as well, often forcing them to choose between their highest success and their families. This is a decision that I hope I do not ever have to make, but as I’ve seen done with my father, the choice of family really should be an easy one.
Williams looks back at history, and contrasts it to the current system. It was interesting that in the early nineteenth century child care was not a full time task for the parents, and that the family was seen not as an intimate, emotional unit, but as an economic one. Women were seen as inferior and subordinate to men in all aspects, and it was even backed up by religious and legal practices. I found it interesting that Puritan women were supposed to hold toward their husbands an attitude of “reverence and awe,” qualities I normally associate with respect to God. In this sense, the eventual progression to domesticity was a welcomed step forward. It no longer highlighted that women were less than men, but rather that they were just different, and thus the system set about to exploit those differences.
The next major topic for Williams is the one that I believe is the major force keeping domesticity in play today. For years now, it has been the assumption of “masculinity with breadwinning.” Men feel like they have to be the ones to provide for their families and many would be too ashamed to admit that they could not do that. It is not that men do not feel that their wives could not work, but that they believe they should not have to. “Virtually all men believe that being a good father means first and foremost being a good provider.” I think that many women also understand this male desire to be the provider, and while some might not agree with it, they do understand that they are fighting years of precedence. Williams even quotes a housewife expressing this same ideal that no “good” wife would want to rob her husband of full masculinity. They believe that men should earn the living and women should have their time free to give to their children. It is this belief that fits nicely with the picture society paints as normal, and thus prevents many conflicts. Both parents usually want what is best for their children, and society says that in order for that to occur, children should not be raised by strangers. I personally would like to see statistics of success rates of kids raised by mothers and those with mothers who worked full time. I am not sure what those stats would look like, but I do know, as does Williams it seems, that domesticity is not dead at all, and as steeply entrenched it is in our culture and in the minds of many women, it might not be for a while.


Sharon Hays, “From Rods to Reasoning”

As seen in her creative title, Hays examines the evolution of mothering through the past from the age of beating in discipline to the age of scientific reasoning. At first, Hays importantly acknowledges that child rearing, as with most things, are very culturally dependent, and that what might appear weird in one culture is perfectly normal in another. For example, in America, child rearing is very mother dominated, and that is a rarity in most societies. Hays though, focuses on that mother intensive culture, and the changes it has undergone.
As far back as the Middle Ages, children were viewed as demonic and things to be feared. Children were often abandoned or led to be cared for by others. This might have been because many children died so young at that time that parents felt it fruitless to invest vast quantities of time until they knew the child would survive long enough to become a valuable asset. This view was maintained until the middle of the eighteenth century when Jean-Jacques Rousseau began to emphasize the importance of childhood and highlight their valuable innocence.
In the earliest Puritan American families, children were not held as special, and often there was no distinction made between a families own child and the slave child working for them. Outside of New England, there were many different practices, and as with all aspects of life, child rearing was dictated by religious beliefs. Hays said that it was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that mothering was synonymous with mothering. I have to assume that this has to do the booming of the Industrial Revolution and beginning of the domesticity system. Mothers now had the valuable job of keeping children innocent and away from the viles of outside society. The good mothers built a morally acceptable home and were a model for their children to learn virtue from. Around this time, clothing and other items began to emerge that were child specific, which also increased the price of child rearing. Inevitably with the increased costs, the fathers had to work longer, thus making the mother’s role even greater. Also, gone were the days of land inheritance for a son’s future livelihood. Now a mother had to train their children to be independent and self motivated to succeed on their own as adults. Hays makes a great point that unlike the career mothers of today who face a challenge of where to place their time and energy, there was no doubt that those mothers dedicated their entire lives to domesticity.
However, as the industry began to boom, there became increased differences in class structure and wealth. It was much easier for the upper and middle class women to raise their children, but not always a viable option for those lower class mothers. Often these women had to still work and need the help of others to raise their children, who once they were old enough, had to find their own way to help contribute to the well being of the family. This did not sit well with the middle class and many tried unsuccessfully to impose their ideals on the lower class.
The most interesting thing about this whole movement though, was in the beginning of the twentieth century when a new belief that women had to “scientifically” trained to raise their children developed. New child experts insisted that children be kept to strict schedules and denied motherly affection. I think this is ridiculous, but many books were written and followed that read how to treat children and make mothers less nurturing. It can seen that this “Progressive Era” was just another way to solve the issues the middle class had with the child rearing practices of the lower classes. These “experts” genuinely believed they could solve societal conflicts with strict schedules and other technical solutions. However, this scientific revolution of mothering was short lived, and thankfully an return to the belief of nurturing and children’s innocence occurred quickly.
In the “Permissive Era” though, an ideal that I thought was common sense but apparently wasn’t came into fruition. Finally, child rearing became child centered and not guided with adult interests at heart. Also at this time, psychology and cognitive development theories began to emerge in manuals on how to once again appropriately raise children. I think it’s funny how each generation has their own “experts,” but I can understand that no one wants to raise their children wrong and taking advice from a so called expert does provide some insurance to one’s actions. One of these new theories called for children to have almost absolute freedom, which I do not think is the answer either. It will still be a few years before I have children of my own and I have to reexamine what parental style I want to use, but I think that there should be a happy medium between the “rod and the reasoning” as Hays describes it.

Joseph Pleck, “American Fathering in Historical Perspective”

In his article, Pleck recognizes that there has been a cultural change in the ideology of what fatherhood is all about, but that the application has been more gradual. This he claims is due to the fact that past ideals about fatherhood are so deeply engrained in our culture, that it is very hard to craft new ones.
In colonial times, the father’s role was one of moral leader and educational teacher. The basis for these roles were the beliefs that men were superior in almost all aspects to women, and that therefore they should be the ones who were shaping the youth. Pleck writes that children were viewed as inherently sinful, and thus men were the only ones morally strong enough to provide the right influence for them. Unlike today, in those times, the father was there daily, and “fathering was part of much routine activity.” Again the availability of the father to be relates back to the work and family sphere overlapping at this time, and I can only assume that the distant father would begin to emerge with industrialization. With this change, fathers not only began to be phased out of the picture, but mothering was thrust in its place. Now mothers were very involved in their children’s lives, all the way now from birth to adulthood. Also, an ideology shift about what demeanor was best for the children arose. Previously, it was thought that men were the only ones morally capable to raise children, but now women were seen as having the purity necessary for child rearing. Mothers began to achieve child custody in divorces and it was believed that in their formative, schooling years, children required a feminine influence. This rising maternal influence was met with mixed reviews in the scientific and psychological communities. Some preached about the importance of mothering, while others thought it was unnatural for the father to be so excluded.
As I thought, Pleck goes on to describe that as the realms of work and home separated, men were forced away from their hands on fathering roles. Instead now, their main job was to provide for their family. These new roles did not sit well with some fathers, as Pleck quotes one saying that he feels he is a “rotten dad” and he never spends any time with his children. In an effort to be more involved, the father after the war became a sex role model for the kids. This movement was part of a larger one that critiqued “over-mothering” and called for a change, as it was believed to be creating supposed negative influences, like homosexuality, in the culture. This is why fathers as an appropriate sex role model for their sons became the prevailing ideal. Now fathers were encouraged to be there for their children, but in appropriate gender contexts.
The “new” father of today is one still set in the breadwinner mold, but now is more involved in the lives of his sons and his daughters, from day one. There are pieces of old theories that still remain, like the father as a sex role model or moral leader, but a genuine change has been in the call for a father to be more of an active influence in the everyday working of their children’s lives. I agree with this model the most, and I can say from personal experience that a father’s role in a son’s life growing up is irreplaceable. I learned countless things about life and being a man from my own father, a fact that I know I am very lucky to have.

Week 1 - Historical Perspectives on Family and Work

Historical Perspectives on Family and Work

- Chapters 2 & 3 from From Marriage to the Market, by Susan Thistle

In the second chapter of her book, Thistle examines women’s role in the domestic sphere in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Early in this time period, women had to undertake a large set of domestic tasks in order to insure the survival of their family. These “domestic chores” as she describes them, were given the utmost priority. However, as the twentieth century progressed, women began to turn more to paid employment outside the home, a change that was met with hostility from many men. Thistle spends the rest of the chapter examining the cause of this shift from the perspective of “focusing on the interactions between gender and a developing market society.”She claims that with the rise of the market economy, specifically in the form of the Industrial Revolution, there was a decrease in the old ways of production. This change was not drastic though, and many women worked increasingly hard to sustain their old domestic chores. I think that this hesitation on the part of women is a completely natural response. For years they had provided for their families in a certain fashion, and thus it would difficult to try a new, unproven method. The change toward industrialization also brought differing changes in the lives of white versus African American women. Modernization did little to alter the domestic responsibilities of white women, who consistently remained “steered toward housework.”However, for African American women, they were expected to not only maintain their old duties but also contribute to the burgeoning demands of the new market economy. I found the strong gender roles between the African American families to be very interesting. Even within a family, the men refused to entertain domestic tasks, even choosing whippings instead as punishment. I found myself wondering where that ideal came from, or if it is still strong in the African American community today.

The next phase of the chapter examines what Thistle describes as another challenge to women working in the home, wage work new industrialization. Women wanted to work and be considered valuable in the changing industries, but at the same time did not want to jeopardize their duties in the domestic sphere. Laws were even passed in order to limit the number of hours women could work. Now if that law was passed for the betterment of women or created by men to make sure women still had to maintain some semblance of domestication, I am not sure. Around this time, new appliances that eased housework became available, but it was only a very limited number of families that enjoyed them. Most women were still completing household tasks without technological aid. My favorite quote of the chapter is from a homemaker claiming that “(her) work is never done.” This stood out to me, because it reminded me of my own mother. She is in a sense of the word a typical homemaker, but she is constantly busy, and on more than one occasion between preparing dinner and completing another load of laundry I have heard her mention the same mantra.

Thistle closes this chapter with an effective summary that the process of industrialization was presenting a threat to the gender roles and division of labor that had been established throughout the last century. For many women, especially African Americans it placed an unfair demand on them to complete new tasks on top of their already full domestic work load. This is a fact that I had never considered before. I had always assumed that the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and beyond only eased the lives of people, but as it can be seen, it took a while before the changes enacted could be seen in a positive light.

In Chapter 3, Thistle again takes on a wider perspective of history in looking at women’s domestic economy after World War II. The old ideals and cultural norms regarding gender division of labor began to crumble away, and a paradox of new opportunities yet restrictive laws arose for women. I particularly like the way Thistle sets up the next part of the chapter, stating openly that she will address two prevailing incorrect myths; the first that industrialization did not lessen household chores, and the second that the major thrust of women into industry was in the 1920s. Thistle effectively uses time use studies to show that in fact there was about 20 hours less time spent on housework in the 1970s than the 1920s, a fact that undeniably shows industrialization played a positive role in domestic chores. Thistle makes a good point though, that while time was reduced on these chores, it takes more than just technological advances to change the structure of women’s lives. Social structures, frameworks, and ideologies have to be shifted about the possibility of women doing more than just household chores. This shift began in the 1950s and 1960s, when a large influx of women joined the workplace, and subsequently many Americans were thrust into middle class status. As expected with any major change though, there were challenges to women’s shift into working outside the home. Many husbands disapproved of their wives working, a fact I wonder brought on by feelings of inadequacy at not being to solely provide for their family. Black couples were more open to a married women working than white, but black wives’ actual work brought increased tensions and fights. These facts seem contradictory to me, and left me questioning what caused the greater initial approval and then subsequent fights amongst African American marriages. The chapter than leads into a very well crafted few pages about the progression that changes in the sphere of work led to changes in the family. A shocking fact for me was that in the mid 1970s, 60 percent of men saw marriage as restrictive. It had never dawned on me, but in the same technological advances that aided domestic chores to allow women more freedom, it caused women to lose some of their appeal to men at the time. No longer were men reliant on women for domestic chores and therefore the importance of getting married fell and the divorce rates rose rapidly. The ideology and laws for divorce, contraception, and abortion also changed. These laws once again appeared positively in the favor of women, but were actually in the best interest of those in power; men. It seems to me that in a way, many of the simple technological advances we take for granted these days like a washing machine or even birth control indirectly led to start of the astonishing divorce rates in this country. While these changes in legislation had hidden agendas for men, laws removing barriers to women’s employment and discriminatory practices were long overdue and so effective that laws are still in use today.

- Wives and Work, Kingsley Davis

In this chapter, Kingsley Davis acknowledges that there has been a revolution of sex roles, and attempts to explain it and the consequences. A self admitted difficult task as often “great precision goes into describing a trend, while the explanation is either ignored of treated casually,” but one that Davis does quite well. The chapter begins with a lot of data and charts depicting the consistent rise of married women in the workplace throughout industrialized countries. The relation between how developed a country is and the percentage of women working matches up, with the exception being the Communist countries, which I was unsure of why. This article provides an interesting look as it was written in 1984 and makes predictions about what will occur in our generation considering married women in the workplace. Davis predicts that by 2000 that the married women’s labor force would equal that of men’s. While I could not find the exact data of what the ratio is currently, I know it has to be close.

As discussed in the earlier articles above, with the emergence of the Industrial Revolution, there was a shift of work out of the home for men. This led to the evolution of what Davis describes as the “breadwinner” society in which men are the sole monetary providers for their family while wives maintain the household chores. This is the traditional or nuclear family that was commonplace at the beginning of the twentieth century (think the Cleaver family in the old sitcom “Leave it to Beaver”) and can still be seen to a lesser extent today. The system continued the ideal of male dominance and women’s focus on child rearing and homecare and therefore has persisted for a long time. However, in the last forty years, there has been a gradual shift toward what Davis titles the “egalitarian system.” This was brought in part both by a new ideal of equality but also by the gradual appearance of the flaws of the breadwinner philosophy. In that family dynamic, the father solely controls the family’s economic well being, but yet in attaining it, is forced to limited contact with them. A man’s job may not only take him away from his family but also lead him into contact with a person who may eventually break up his own family. Another factor that I had never considered was that as women began to have less children and less time constraints, a wife might need to seek out other means of subsidence. Also with the new divorce laws, the only way for a women to protect themselves from divorce would be a means to earn her own income outside of her husband. But as women head more into the workplace there are inevitably sacrifices that have to be made other places. The invention of the “latch key” kid is a relatively new by-product of this system. As Davis writes, there are now three major spheres for two people in a marriage, and only one of them is a joint venture. Davis recognizes these potential flaws and puts forth a few solutions like the return of the workplace to the home or a system with a division of labor without the unequal roles in either the work or family realm.

Even though this article was written twenty five years ago, I still found it incredibly insightful and some of the predictions were quite impressive. All three of these articles brought up points that I had never considered in the progression and intertwining between family and work, and also how influential in the entire scheme of American society that these issues reside even to this day.