GENDER ROLES AND DIVISION OF LABOUR

 Gender ROLES AND DIVISION OF LABOUR

ü  Gender roles can be conceptualized as behavioral expectations based on biological sex.

ü  Traditionally for men to be masculine, they are expected to display attributes such as strong power and competitiveness and less openly display emotions and affection (especially towards men)

ü  The traditional view of the feminine gender role prescribes that women should behave in ways that are nurturing.

ü  One way that a woman might engage in the traditional gender role would be to nurture her family by working full time within the home rather than taking employment outside of the home.

ü  According to Caroline Moser women are subjected to triple burden in most of the developing countries. They perform three types of roles i.e.

REPRODUCTIVE

PRODUCTIVE

COMMUNITY MANAGING AND COMMUNITY POLITICS

ü  Reproductive roles played by women include child bearing, child rearing, taking care of elders in the family and domestic household work.

ü  Along with reproductive roles women also perform productive roles by becoming secondary income earners but their economic activities are not included in the system of National Accounts.

ü  The economic activities performed by women include part time jobs, agriculture wage earners, taking care of milk animals and doing jobs in informal sector.

ü  Men on the other hand are presumed by traditional views of gender roles to be leaders.

ü  The traditional view of the masculine gender role, therefore suggests that men should be the heads of their household by providing finances for the family and making important family decisions.

ü  In broader terms men’s roles are related to economic activities and it is accounted for in the system of National Accounts.

ü  Every society, ethnic group and culture has gender role expectations but they can be very different from group to group. They can also change in the same society in different times.

ü  For example some cultures expect women to stay at home and do household chores while men should go out to work.  

GENDERED DIVISION OF LABOR

ü  The division of labor can be defined as the organization of work into specialized roles which entails the division of work into multiple components, each of which is performed by a distinct individual or group of individual.

ü  The division of labor of work process may be classified according to age, sex, class or race and it exists in almost every society.

ü  The most fundamental division of labor appears to be based on Sexual orientation or gender.

ü  Gender division of labor refers to how work is organised/ allocated between men and women.

ü  Women are subordinate in the family and society due to the way of division of labor operates in contemporary society.

THEORIES

TRADITIONALIST: argue that gender division of labor is natural, god ordained, complementary and even necessary for the human race’s survival.

ü  According to them it is originated as a result of biological differences between male and female.

ü  Women’s biological weakness is said to have been at the root of the social institutionalization. Men expected to perform more difficult jobs and women performing simple household chores.

ü  Feminist sociologist Ann Oakley in her Housewife (1974) rejected biological theories and said that it has strong cultural basis.   

ü  According to her sex is natural or biological but gender is cultural construct and it assigns different social roles for both genders.

MARXIST FEMINIST : argue that sexual division of labor is not just a technique to divide work but further it conceals the fact that men’s wrok is human while women’s work is perceived as determined by their nature.

TALCOTT PARSONS: described two important functions in isolated nuclear family.

ü  Primary socialization of children

ü  Stablization of adult personality

For socialization to be effective a close, warmth and supportive group is essential. Parsons characterizes women’s role in family as expressive. It means she provides warmth, security and emotional support to her husband as well.

 Men role is instrumental which leads stress and anxiety, the expressive female relieves the tension by providing him with love, consideration and understanding.

Parsons argues that for the family to operate effectively as a social system there must be a clear cut division of labor.

In feminist texts, the gender/sexual division of work has become a major issue. Feminists believed that throughout history, males and females noticed the work done by women as being less significant than that of men.

The Sexual division of labor was explained as a women’s biological destiny. Childbirth was explained as a part of a women’s biological make up. Women stay at home, rear children and undertake all the domestic chores, while men undertake all the arduous tasks as a part of their biology. The work of men was productive and valued as labor. The concept of division of labor conceals the fact that the relationship between men and women is a relationship of dominance.

Is the gender-based task division adequate to account for the differences in male and female power? In the New Guinea Highlands, for instance, women are responsible for raising pigs that men use as currency. However, there is controversy over how much women participate in the politics of pig and other forms of exchange, which is related to the question of whether or not the sexual division of labor axiomatically results in male dominance in all spheres of life.

In Ethiopia, historically, women are expected to be subservient, conservative, self-speaking, and shy, whereas males are expected to be bold, competent, forceful, and to exhibit attributes of leadership. Boys are typically encouraged to play with more aggressive and action-packed games and toys in order to prepare them for future masculine behavior, whereas girls are encouraged to play with dolls in order to prepare them for their future role as the nurturer and care giver of the household. Gender disparities in views about work and gender roles, according to Campa and Serafinelli, are important determinants of gender disparity on the job market. Before the industrial revolution, which separated women from the world of men and put them in a subservient position, men and women both played significant roles in the economic structure of the majority of countries. Due to the gender-based division of labor that emerged as a result of socially established gender norms, women are largely in charge of laborious, repetitive, exhausting, time-consuming, and monetarily unrewarding tasks, which limits how they may interact with their surroundings. In contrast, males benefitted from the gendered division of labor that limited their responsibilities to a few seasonal tasks, allowing them to rule the public spaces, engage in lucrative work, and uphold their domination over women.