blog 2

The selections from Joan Williams’ “Unbending Gender” discuss the rise of “domesticity” and the “breadwinner system.” Domesticity (work and home are both physically and characteristically separate) is the prevailing system in the U.S. today. The rhetoric has three main tenets: employers have a right to “ideal” workers who will not be compromised by family responsibilities, men are required to be full-time ideal workers, and mothers should be fully available to tend to the physical and emotional needs of their children. Williams argues that it caused, and now perpetuates, many of the gender problems that exist today, since only full-time workers who can give their all to the job (usually men) are considered valuable and successful. Women now have to work outside the home, but also feel they should be there for their kids. They are presented with a “choice”: be either a worker or a mom. But, most have to be both. Williams thinks that this system hurts all members of the family by stretching them too thin and restricting them to roles that might not be the best for their particular situation.
I had never heard our current work/family system referred to as “domesticity.” But I am glad that there is a name for it. I definitely agree with William’s argument that this system of domesticity, with its sharp distinction between work and home, hurts all members of the family. It puts so much pressure on both genders to stick to their role and stick to it well: men have to work 40+ hours a week, women have to have parenting as their main concern, even if they are working an additional job. Many men are all but excluded from parenting, and many women are all but excluded from workplace success. Why can’t both genders take part in both the economic and domestic sides of life? As Williams points out, it is not as if this breadwinner system is the “natural” way to go about things. For centuries, work and home were intertwined, with both men and women sharing the burdens of raising and supporting a family. Now masculinity is associated with being a workaholic at your job. As women strive to gain equality in the workplace, many have adopted these workaholic traits to be taken seriously at their professions. At the same time they are expected to give their job 100%, they are expected to give their family 100%. The math just doesn’t work out. At some point, I would like to read the rest of Williams’ book to see what alternatives she offers to this clearly flawed system of domesticity.
In “From Rods to Reason,” Sharon Hays traces the historical development of attitudes towards child-rearing. She focuses mainly on middle-class white families, but acknowledges the differences among working-class and other ethnic populations. Throughout the article, she uses a “shepherd, sheepdog, sheep” metaphor to illustrate the roles of the father, mother, and children (respectively). Parenting styles transformed throughout the centuries as attitudes towards childhood changed and the breadwinner system came into prominence (mother’s took over almost all of the child-rearing). She follows these developments through to today, where the permissive style dominates and parents look to experts like Doctor Spock to tell them how to raise their child properly.
“American Fathering from a Historical Perspective” by Joseph Pleck follows the changing role of fathers in the family throughout the decades. Up until the 19th century, the father was the “moral overseer” of the family and was responsible for guiding the children and wife in worldly affairs. From the early 19th to the mid-20th centuries, when work and home spheres became separate, the father became the “distant breadwinner” who earned the money but spent little time with the children. During this phase, the father also became idealized as the model of masculinity for his children, teaching his sons how to be men. Today, the breadwinner model still dominates, though Pleck acknowledges that a “New Father” is emerging, who involves himself more with the day-to-day aspects of childrearing.
Like the other authors we read this week, Sharon Hays and Joseph Pleck laid a great historical groundwork for the study of work and family. The history of work/family issues isn’t just interesting to learn about; it helps us better understand what is going on today. As they both demonstrated in their articles, styles of parenting and running families have changed pretty drastically in the last few centuries. They can be broken down into distinct stages. But these stages didn’t just happen out of nowhere. As with most social trends, they developed on top of one another. For example, the “new father” of today, with his involved style of parenting, is a direct reaction to the breadwinner system. Many men did not like how absent their workaholic fathers were when they were young, so now they are very present in their children’s lives. The passive parenting method, which dictates that children should be allowed to develop relatively unhindered by parental restrictions, didn’t just show up out of nowhere. As Hays said, parents have been getting gradually less authoritarian ever since the 17th century, when the notion of the child as an innocent came into fashion. When studying today’s society, it is so helpful to look at in historical context, to better understand where we are today. Also, I liked how both Hays and Pleck acknowledged that the childrearing trends varied (and still vary) between classes and ethnic groups.