Gender Divided Labor

Introduction The unequal gender advantage of finding work has been a long running topic of discussion among anthropologists. According to Philip Cohen, ''Gender segregation in the labor market is high, fueled by gendered and discriminatory practices and assumptions'' (Cohen). There is no question that before the twenty first century women did not hold a lot of civil rights. They were not even allowed to vote until shortly after World War I. And during this time it was mostly men that made the decisions both at home and at work. The goal of this project is to look at how labor became divided among the sexes in common households. I found the topic of gender divided labor to be compelling because I see it everyday. I see how stereotypes shape

Gender divided labor exists both at home and in the work place. Women are treated unfairly at work simply because they are women. A hundred years ago women had no say with public matters. Today is a much better time though. Although there still is inequality, it has declined. At home labor is not divided like it is in the work place. At a job some sexes are forbidden to do certain tasks because of their gender. Unfortunately this applies to mostly women. At home, it is just general practice that the mom does the laundry and the dad goes to work and cleans the gutters. This can cause a divide between men and women, usually leading to one of them being worse off ''We find, however, that a gender division of labor is not Pareto-improving; one gender is made worse off''' (Baker and

Carly provided much better feed back. Carly is eighteen and has just given birth to her first baby back in October. She also has a part time job at the local outlet mall near our residences. I knew that since Carly has a baby now, her work load would be a bit heavy. Taking care of a child is no joke. I started off with slow questions at first. I asked her if she had any chores around the house to which she responded ''like, keep clothes off my floor, put away clean clothes, do my child's laundry, do my laundry. Sometimes I do the dishes, if the dishes are piled in the sink. I vacuum occasionally when the floor looks dirty. I put away Colby's toys. Colby's my dog''. Her parents help out with the baby whenever she needs to sleep or go to work. Throughout the interview with Carly, she had to attend to her baby which gave me time to think of questions. Most of the answers I received from Carly indicated to me that she takes care of herself for the most part. I would say the same also goes for Peter. They both do their own laundry and cook for themselves. There did not seem to be much physical labor that Carly did, although she did say ''occasionally ill leaf blow the