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What do gender roles play in todays society
Gender roles in present
What do gender roles play in todays society
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There are a lot of things that happened in history that helped make family and consumer sciences what it is today. I am going to talk about some specific things that happened that I think helped shape what family and consumer sciences is today. They are the beliefs of family and consumer sciences, the history of family and consumer sciences, and who was involved in making family and consumer sciences a discipline.
In the begining the beliefs of family and consumer sciences were to educate women on how to be leaders. Family and consumer sciences historically taught individuals to be well rounded and also helped raise the standard of living for American families . Originally the components that made up the discipline of family and consumer sciences included taking care of the family, cooking, cleaning, sewing, and knowing how to take care of money. At that point in time, that was what the woman's role was in society. However, the time period has changed and women's roles have changed as well. It is no longer a society in which the man goes out and works and the woman stays home and takes care of the house and the children doing the cooking, cleaning and sewing. Now you often see the roles reversed where the woman goes out and works, and the man stays home and cooks, cleans, and takes care of the home and children. Both sexes need to know how to do all those things as well as how to balance a check
book, how to pay the bills or sew a button on a shirt. With single parent families on the rise, it is even more important that men and women both have skills that were once thought as just a man's or ...
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...mics for this new field. This helped the Family and Consumer Science discipline tremendously. Annie Godfrey Dewey also helped organize getting home economics included in schools and universities for students to learn. Almost a century later at the Scottsdale Conference in 1993, the name home economics was changed to the modern day family and consumer sciences because it better fit the focus on helping strengthen individuals, and helping communities thrive .
These were all very important parts of family and consumer science, that has helped it evolve to what it is today. It is not just something for women, it is something that everyone can learn from and be a part of today. Family and consumer sciences has become more than just cooking, cleaning, and sewing; it is being able to take skills and apply them in real life to improve the quality of life for everyone.
Betty Friedan describes that after World War II, becoming the esteemed housewife was ultimate goal of most women. In the article Friedan states, “By the end of the nineteen fifties, the average marriage age of women in America dropped to 20, and was still dropping into the teens.” (Friedan, p. 359). Describing even further how important getting married was at the time she says, “A century earlier, women had fought for higher education, now girls went to college to get a husband.” (p. 359).The housewife status was seen as a true feminine fulfillment and considered a man’s equal. “As a housewife and a mother, she was respected as a full and equal partner to man in this world; she had everything that women ever dreamed of.” (p. 359).
After viewing an episode of I Love Lucy, positive aspects of family and financial issues can be clearly seen in the 1950s. The Ricardo's are middle class, Ricky works as a club band leader and Lucy stays home and `poured all her energies into their nuclear family.' (37) This is a positive side of the 1950s because compared to a few decades before, `women quit their jobs as soon as they became pregnant,' (36) and concentrated more on raising children. These families were much more stable and made almost `60 percent of kids were born into male breadwinner-female homemaker families,' (37) which is a important factor for children to have a good childhood.
However, Stephanie Coontz (1997) wanted to take their finding into her own perspectives and research what made it possible to have such a family like that of a nuclear one. While Parsons and Bales completely ignored policies like the FHA and GI Bill and believed modern families would and should be well-off and self-supporting, Coontz found out that it was not only industrialization that was influential to family life but the result of family stability was due to the social factors and economic policies. The Great Depression was an era where the economy plummeted and left people in a financial struggle. However, following the Great Depression and World War II, the economy became stabilized and allowed for families to go back to the values surrounding the nuclear ideal. There policies put into place that made it easier for families to adhere to the nuclear family organization. The first policy was the Federal Housing Act which made it possible for families to buy homes and mainly “restructures home mortgages” (Kelsey, lect. 01/25/17). Moreover, the GI Bill helped approximately 40% of men further their higher education and acquire a college degree due to the fact that the economy needed men in the professional field who had been educated. Coontz (1997) showed how with the arise of social and political policies, men were able to make a good income
The major change was in women’s lifestyle. Before, twenty years ago, women worked in the house doing household chores and taking care of their families. Even if they worked out of their house, however, their wage was very low compared to what men got. Now, things are completely upside down. Women have come to paid labor force in such numbers that employment is no longer based on gender (Fraser). Women now contribute equally as men to the household expenses. Women are more focused on career and sometimes they have much more responsibility than men. Families in which both the couple work, is classified as dual-income family. This shows the amount of freedom women has now and the importance in a family.
To begin, the Great Depression caused many societal changes within families. During the Roaring Twenties, males were considered as the “breadwinners” of the family. They provided the family a stable income. However, after the 1929 Stock Market Crash, many businesses lost investments, ceasing production and manufacturing. Without profit and consumers, many men lost their jobs, along with their dignity (“Suffering America”). Men were humiliated and felt like failures by not being able to support their families. In efforts to adjust to this economic crisis, some married women began to work outside home, providing the sole source of income. Many soon recognized “that working-class women played a key role as decision-makers in their families” and
Throughout history women have always been subordinate to men. At the start of the 1800s, women were still looked upon primarily as the homemaker. But due to and along with the Second Great Awakening, women decided that they wanted to make changes of their own. This started the evolution of women’s roles and women’s opportunities in the family, the workplace, and society.
It makes sense why this is important. If you narrow the family down to series of variables – female homemaker, male breadwinner for example, than moving away from this structured idea looks like decline. The main defender of the family decline theory to be used in this evaluation is David Popenoe’s article, American Family Decline, 1960-1990 A Review and Appraisal. In this piece, Popenoe claims that there is an ideal family and there should be a push to go back to this ideal. The definition of a family found in American Family Decline is as follows; a family is “A group in which people typically live together in a household and function as a cooperative unit, particularly through the sharing of economic resources in the pursuit of domestic activities”(Popenoe). This evaluation will attempt to show how this definition is inadequate in encompassing every modern variation of family and through the use of standpoint theory, comes to the conclusion that no definition is possible. Furthermore, Popenoe’s use of this definition to show family decline is
It’s not like women couldn’t work before, they could, but they didn’t have too much social freedom like getting divorced or not having children. Their voice wasn’t as important as men. Most of the time, men had to decide everything in the family and had control over the family. Coontz believes that today women have more control over their own lives and they can choose however they want to live their lives. Kuttner also agrees that “most Americans, after all, believe women should not be consigned to the nursery and the kitchen” (122).
Recollect all the regulations society has placed on girls, ladies, and women through history until now. These regulations, teaching females to conform to each foolish rule society have created. In creating this American society, society has always had its grip on females by constraining them from reaching their fullest potential and limiting their minds to what is possible. The responsibility of women was always defined as a homemaker, babymaker, cooker, cleaner, peacemaker, as well as wife. However, as time continues to change these social roles are rapidly being refined, enabling girls, ladies, and women to determine whichever path they desire to lead.
Traditionally, the standing of the nuclear family symbolized that of American morality. Unfortunately, in the period spanning 1960 to 2000, the percentage of households formed by nuclear families sharply declined from 45 to 23.5 (“The Changing”). Similarly, married-couple households also diminished, as between 1970 and 2000, this type of unit bowed from 40 to 24 percent (Fields). The pattern continued with homes of families containing their own children under the age of eighteen, and throughout the years of 1970 to 2000, the percentage of households such as the described dwindled from 45 to 33. Statistics such as these displayed the drastic lifestyle alterations experienced by American women because of second-wave feminism. Due to an increased proportion of women working outside the home, additional stress was placed on marriages; men were no longer the sole income-earners, a characteristic that defined American culture in this period, and women became progressively uninterested in traditional feminine roles. This sudden shift created irreparable discontinuities, frequently resulting in divorce and the apparent loss of American morality. These developments were specifically harmful for women, as fifty percent of female college graduates desired a career in homemaking and were unprepared for life
In the 1800’s ladies were required to stay in the particular place in American culture, which was known as “ladies’ circle”. While the “men’s circle” was the bigger open universe of work and legislative issues outside the house, “ladies circle” was the private universe of the family and the home. In her home, a lady should bring up and ensure her kids, to
As I look back on everything I learned from pre-k through college, there are a lot of key points I can reflect on from learning different sociological perspectives in college. This leads to the perspective [separate spheres], which according to Skolnick (2011) is “the distinction and expectations of men and women roles” (Skolnick, 2011 p84). When I was younger I never looked at my parent’s occupations and placed them in the [separate spheres] perspective, until I entered college. After taking a couple of sociology courses, I connected my parents to the expectation of the perspective [separate spheres]. My mom always worked and came home to cook dinner, clean, and prepare clothing for the following day. While my dad on the other hand always worked two jobs, and rarely came home to help my mom contribute to any of the house norms she did every day after work. This made me realize that this perspective not only took place in 1840-1890, but it still consists in society norms
This is not all sewing and baking cookies. A modern Home Economics class, is actually called Family and Consumer Sciences, or FCS. An average FCS class teaches on the subjects of nutrition and cooking, financial skills, and other life skills, including: child care, and also home repairs (Qrcodesticker). Education on these life skills improves the education in how to take care of oneself, therefore, providing an opportunity to take pride in something that is entirely up to that single person. Some argue that this is a promotion of an outdated or sexist lifestyle, however, being able to take care of ones finances, cook a nutritious meal, and make repairs around the house are all translatable skills for whatever gender a person may be. Being able to problem solve, read and follow directions, and pay the bills are all vital skills to survive in American
In her article, Housework is obsolescent, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich exposes the secret revolution in housework; American women just do not do housework anymore. While many authors agree that as more and more women have entered the work force the amount of time for housework has diminished, many others argue that the majority of women are still caving in and cleaning up. Amongst those maintaining that housework still occupies a large percentage of the American women's time is author Juliet Schor. Schor argues that the time devoted to housework by the American housewife has remained relatively constant since the beginning of the 20th century. The oddity of this, she explains, is that the consistency of hours "coincided with a technological revolution in the household" (Schor, 87). Not only did most homes have indoor plumbing, electricity, and gas, but many other labor-saving devices could be found such as "automatic washing machines and dryers, electric irons, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators and freezers, garbage disposals" (ibid). Why, with all these new devices, did housework time not diminish? Schor argues that as technology improved, the standard of cleanliness also rose in America. Schor argues that "Contemporary standards of housecleaning are a modern invention, like the vacuum cleaners and furniture polishes the make them possible" (Schor, 89). Who would have thought that the instrument used to clean our house is the same instrument that keeps us in the never-ending nightmare of HOUSEWORK!
In American society, the woman has always been viewed in the traditional viewpoint of what role she should play in the home; that she is the homemaker or caretaker. Even when women break from the stereotypical role of "housewife" and join the workforce, they still are not given an equal opportunity at acquiring a job that is seen to be as advancing or of higher recognition, as they would like to have. Men usually already take those positions.