Household Labor

This week I found the gendered division of household labor to focus more on the negotiation of the husband/father ideology than the changing expectations of the wife/mother.  As Hochschild mentions in The Economy of Gratitude, wives are constantly navigating married life in reaction to the expectations and demands of motherhood and wifehood.  Hochschild implies that these wives respond to the role of husband and the promotion of the role of father/husband in a similar way as previous generations.  This resulted in my wondering: is this gratitude lag time or simply a sustained power dynamic with a different name?  The suggestion that women will come to embody the same power position as men seems uncertain.  Further undermining this shift is the cultural significance of the male breadwinner depicted in Coltrane’s article: Coltrane emphasizes the tendency of households with egalitarian divisions of labor to reference time availability as more important than gender when determining labor assignment.  Is feminism rooted more in ideology or practice? 

If women must often rely on the changing practices of their male counterparts to alter labor divisions in marriage, than Hook is correct in asserting that policy-makers must evaluate which factors, although ideologically sound, provide females/wives/mothers with the greatest environment to promote egalitarian relations.  If ideology is mute when challenging the embedded attitudes and structural forces that influence both home and work experiences, then it becomes less important to change opinion and more beneficial to focus on structural/environmental change.  The role of feminism is an interesting one; even for families that espouse gender equity on the home front, feminism is still dismissed as radical ideology.

1. To what extent does the state replace the male breadwinner?  How are fathers/husbands released from familial responsibilities in the presence of generous social policies?  Is there a lag between the changing expectations of children and fathers as well?
2. Coltrane mentions that when parents have more equally divided child care children tend to discriminate less between parents.  Recalling previous articles on divorce outcomes, could it be that poorly invested parenting is more to blame for the negative effects of divorce than the change in household dynamic or composition?  Are there state policies that can alter this situation to promote greater parent-child bonds after divorce?  Would these policies encourage healthier parent-child relations within marriage as well?
3. It is interesting that men may cite the desire for emotional care associated with traditional marriage, yet omit the pressures from external forces to abide by traditional norms.  When couples are probed, these realities are revealed.  To what extent do external pressures shape personal relations?  In an earlier article on happiness in homosexual relationships, relationships are said to be happier when there exists a great acceptance of homosexual families/partners from friends and family.  How much do broader social contexts shape individual action with regards to the division of labor?  Is change hidden behind a traditionalist façade still valid?