Understanding Society

Essay by BootieBloke December 2007

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During the nineteenth century the ideology of working for existence changed with the emergence of wage labour. It was this movement from private to public work that restricted the role of woman in most but not all cases to domesticity. It can be taken therefore that the life of a woman was that of domestic labour and the family wage was provided by the male ‘breadwinner’. Class played a major role in the working role of women; Public work became an activity for unmarried or lower class families; Daunton (2006). Stated a sign of middle class status was to have a non-working wife.

In the 1960s and 1970s we saw significant increase in public employment for women. This shifting of traditional roles can be explained in a number of ways, two examples of which are the feminist movement of the 1960s, re-introduce from the late eighteenth century, and the move to part-time employment.

This trend culminated in 2006 with employment figures hitting 13.329 million Lindsay (2006).

The role of private employment within the home has changed significantly with families opting for an egalitarian approach; many view cohabitating as a partnership with roles shared by the family group. Society has changed drastically in comparison to the nineteenth century, and it is not unusual to fine same sex partnerships in addition to single parent families. It is this diversity that has changed the perception of ‘housework’ with many males contributing to domestic labour. Even so Gaber (2003) suggests that on average women do almost four times as much housework as men. It would appear that even today in our liberal society we still have gender ideologies and that unfortunately means that women today are still linked to domesticity. (287 words)Part BThe graph opposite shows categories of lone parents. Describe what the graph...