Gender Inequality in the Family and Labor Market

This essay aims to focus on the inequalities that exist in the family household and the labour market with the purpose of analysing how men and women’s roles in society have been affected by them. When an individual is born they are given a sex, male or female. This is an ascribed status an individual has no control over. Gender is a social status, man or woman. This is given to an individual by society and decrees the traditional stereotypical qualities associated with the specific gender. Traditionally a man is known to be dominant, strong, and competitive where as a woman is known to be caring, giving, and compassionate.

Holmes (2007) argue that the distinction between sex and gender is the former, being the biological differences between

According to BSA, men reported working as little as 10 hours per week on housework compared to the 23 hours that women worked. Studies by (Bianchi et al. 2000; Hochschild 1989, 2003 in Legerski 2010) indicate that man will still do less housework than a woman even if she is in full time employment and he isn’t, “rather the more a man is dependent on his wife economically the less housework he does, most likely to reassert his masculinity” (Brines 1994: 652-688, in Suzanne et al 2000). By this he means there was evidence of male inexpressiveness and complicit masculinity. Moreover any family help that was received was from female members hence housework maintained gendered distinctions (Strauss and Corbin 1998 in Scott

The studies presented in this essay argue that gender inequalities exist, men and women both still ‘do gender’. Social role dictates your social position. The ‘traditions’ of gendered assignments such as a man being dominant, strong, and competitive where as a woman is known to be caring, giving, and compassionate are still at play within a society. Men are affected by crisis and complicit masculinity. Women are affected by stereotypical notions of their natural abilities and are discriminated against in areas such as the labour market where inequalities still exist even though legislation such as the Equality Pay Act 1970 and the Equality Act 2010 are in place. Reviewing the studies presented in this essay it could be said that as a society men and women both have a long way to go to eliminate gender