Feminism and Care Perspectives

Glass half full; Glass half empty. Perree’s use of the latter idiom is a clever way to demonstrate the economic and political changes of gender perspectives in terms of the family. Right at the beginning of her article she considers the loose definition of gender analysis and its effects in terms of perceiving a glass as either full or empty; “a loose definition of gender as a variable distinguishing women and men as individuals or as defining relationships located within the context of family is omnipresent” (Perree, 2010).

Many of the articles that we read prior to this one present the change in the family and gender roles as a serious problem with negative consequences, such as Popenoe’s article on the American family decline. This is a perfect example where the glass is half empty because “family change has continued to be seen more as a crisis than an opportunity for challenging pervasive structures of societal inequalities” (Perree, 2010). With the nuclear family being so long associated with functionalism, more “emptiness is revealed by the continuing force of functionalism in defining a normative standard family…(Perree, 2010).

However there has been advancement in family studies even though Perree suggests it cannot fully include real gender analyses until economic and political changes in gender perceptions and other forms of inequality (race, class, age, etc.) are seen in a collective as well as individual way, there has been theoretical advancement. The glass can also be seen as full “in the volume of empirical research on families that takes gender relations rather than sex roles as its core analytic concept for thinking about women and men” (Perree, 2010). Unlike Popenoe who is weak in his arguments that are backed up by assumptions, I think Perree is very successful in getting her point across with all the structured studies she presents.

As Perree concludes that “attention to power and change will inevitably make studies of gender and family political”, I think it is just as important to figure out how to apply ‘deinstitutionalization’.

With more fullness of the glass being the theoretical advancement of the definition of gender perspective, which refers to the micro, meso, and macrolevels, with each “seen as relating systematically to each other” (Perree, 2010).

Feminism and Care Perspectives

After having completed the reading for this week I found myself questioning gender roles in today’s society and whether the roles described in Pyke’s research and Hochschild article are still apparent in today’s society. In Hochschild’s chapter in was stated that, “man is to woman as parent is to child” (45). Maybe in the 1950’s it was the role of the man to “take” care of his wife but I wonder if this is still so in present day society. I would like to think not but then again when you think about it women in the media are still portrayed as needing protection or to be cared for by men. For example, in a horror movie it is always the man in the relationship that goes to inspect the suspicious sound. Even romance movies depict the need for a man to take care of a woman because the female characters are always searching for the man that will sweep her off her feet and take care of her for the rest of their lives so they can live happily ever after. So, it would appear that even though I kind of wish it were not true it appears that society in ways still depicts woman as needing to be taken care of by a man. I also believe that women as described by the “feeling rules” still feel the need to pretend everything is “perfect” even when it isn’t and men do not usually feel this need to pretend quite so much. For example, when a woman is sick, especially a mother I think they feel the need to try not to show how bad they are feeling or worry anyone about it. This certainly is not true with most of the men I know who act as if they are dying if they have a simple code and expect to be taken care of by the female in their life. I do however, wonder why this is still so in today’s society.

In Pyke’s article, I found it interesting when he was discussing males and how they can be divided into two separate classes. These were working class men and men who were considered to be part of the upper class. According to Pyke, men who are from the upper class are able to provide for thei famirly and it is this that gives them power. However, it is a struggle for working class men to provide for their families and this effects their masculinity in that they have to prove they have power and are masculine in other ways such as fighting and or abusing their wives. I do not think this to be true in today’s society because I know many men who are from the middle class and they do not seem to feel the need to prove their masculinity. In contrast, I also know a few men who are from the upper class and they seem to be always trying to attain more as if what they have is not enough. They seem to be chasing a sense of power that is elusive to them because they want more and are constantly trying to have more.

1) Do you believe as described by Pyke that men from high classes attain a sense of power that middle class men have to prove in other ways because they can easily provide for their families?

2) In Hochschild’s article, she quoted Morgan’s advice, “If you put others before you, they are often quite happy to move forward and leave you behind” (p.56). Do you agree with this statement? Do you think this applies to women in society more then men?

3) Do you believe women in today’s society still use feminine wiles in order to get things that they have been thus far denied?

Feminism and Care Perspectives

This week I enjoyed reading Hochschild’s article Gender Codes and the Play of Irony. I believe that the most interesting part was the chart called Gender Codes on page 49. It shows that in modern times a career woman should be dressing and acting in a more masculine manner in order to be taken seriously at work. I do not believe that a woman needs to become a man in order to achieve equality. I think that dressing in male colours, low heels, short hair and plain nails, does not scream success, it gives a more frumpy and boring appearance. I intend to be a successful businesswoman with long hair, brightly coloured clothing and five inch black pumps. I hope that I command attention when I walk into a room, not because of what I’m wearing but because of my skills. I believe that trying to dress or act the part of a man to gain equality furthers the gender divisions and stigmatizes the female roles of domesticity and the male role or being the one with a career and more power.

After reading Pyke’s article I wondered how different her finding would have been had she included couples that have remained married for many years. Instead she talks about current conceptualizations that view divorce as a disruption of gender arrangements in families by systematically relating gender to other structures of power, such as social class. Society creates expectations that cause men and women to act in a certain way. Men are separated into two groups. Men who are upper class are expected to provide for the family, which is what gives them power. The others are working class men who need to achieve their expected masculinity, which often results in abuse in the home. It is foolish to think that in a society that is so accepting of feminism that woman are still influenced by these outdated stereotypes and “‘culturally prepared for powerlessness.” (530) As Ferree points out, change is central to the study of families and that individuals must be studied within the institution as well as the culture.

1. Do you think that society forces us to take on these gender codes as either traditional or modern? Or is there a happy medium a woman can dress like a woman but still be taken seriously in the workforce?

2. Is it possible to live in a marriage where both spouses are equal?

3. Are the expectations different for working and upper class men when race is added as a variable?

Feminism and Care Perspectives

The clip by Kimmel brings to my mind two main issues: the first recalls the readings of the first week (Popenoe, Stacey, Glenn, Cowan, Cortez, Coontz, Hochschild) and the locational assumptions; and the second, the importance of variation with regards to marital realities.  Hochschild details an account of her mother’s depressive state during her childhood: the stereotypically bored housewife, keeping herself occupied while her husband is out supporting the family.  While her memories are an assault to the 1950s ideal traditional family, her reality is but one of many possible realities.  For the record, Hochschild makes sure to include the love and affection her parents feel for one-another, and the altruistic intent behind her father’s role as breadwinner.  However, the unseen variation in the “ideal” nuclear family comes to life through Pyke’s analysis of working-class and professional-class masculinity.  What Pyke in effect reveals, without delving into racial stigmatization, is the variation in familial realities; the home life members of the ideal family create and experience is not given mention by the authors of the first week’s readings.  Indeed, it seems that physical, emotional, and substance abuses are often part and parcel with traditional marriage.  The articles for this week have been a reminder of the racial and class expectations behind the previous readings assumptions regarding traditional marriage, while challenging my own tendency to rely on “gender role” theories when making sense of traditional marriage structures.

For this week I have three critical questions:

1.       I found myself confronting my own gendered family assumptions while reading Ferree’s article.  Using the idea of “’family’ against ‘feminism’”, to what extent are traditional gender roles defended by female family members?  Do you believe that mothers willing to take on additional work to  defend/assert their roles as mothers?

2.       Again, Ferree mentions how certain sociologists are questioning the assertion that children of gay and lesbian parents are “not different” in favor of acknowledging the need to challenge gender norms.  Is this a self-condemning act?  Is it dangerous for gay and lesbian families to assert that their children are acting as agents of social change and challengers of the social norm?

3.       Finally, to what extent are females responsible for reproducing traditional gender norms?  What would it take for wives/female mates to feel that egalitarianism does not threaten their marriage or that demanding equality at home is worth the risk (of divorce, abuse, etc.)?   

Feminism and Care perspectives

I found this week’s gender and care centered to be really interesting, especially because they come from three totally different perspectives. I found that Hochschild brought to light some aspects of gender and care work that I would have not really considered otherwise. When she said, “a Thai nanny… tells me she loves the American children she cares for more than here own children back in Thailand…” I found this absolutely heartbreaking, but was able to understand the logic behind it after reading Ferree’s Gender article and how different countries promote different roles for both the mother and the father. By using the examples of the Philippines she demonstrated how certain countries promote the migration of parents to provide more for their children, and the example of Italy for a country that recruits migrant workers for care roles, so that both women and men could work. I also found Hochschild’s evaluation of her wanting to go work based on her mother’s perceived unhappiness while being a housewife, and her father’s happiness while working full-time. I feel that I was also very influenced by the fact that I saw my mother working, and enjoying it. I’ve always said I want a career, and not to be a stay-at-home mom (although interestingly, my Mother tried to explain to me that this is a lot easier said then done, especially after giving birth).

After reading Pyke’s essay, I felt a little underwhelmed. I like the perspective that she’s taking, but I think that her research would have been different and more reliable had she interviewed people that stayed married, rather than those that divorced and remarried. This is because perhaps these masculine and feminine clashing that she says was a reason they got divorced, is able to function properly in couple’s who do not get divorced. It’s very hard to know. She also assumes that gender role discrepancies are often the reason for divorce, rather than other factors such as falling out of love, such as the example of Phil and Jean. As well, she uses loaded language in order to get her point across, for example she says “this need for a wife to serve as a maid and a nanny,” instead of just saying that a high salary earning husband sees the need for a more domestic oriented wife. I understand it is still not an example of gender equality, but is much less malicious.

1. In Ferree’s filling the glass, she states that after interviewing employer’s, the reason that was given for the low wages for care work, “so that only those who are willing to do this work for love would be willing to do this work.” Do you think that higher wages would change people’s commitment to care work?

2. Do you think that Pyke’s article was written from the perspective of a neutral researcher? Why or why not.

3. Why do you think that there are differing “user manuals” in order to act feminine? Are any of these codes in play today?

Feminism and Care Perspectives

In her introduction, Hochschild discusses addressing the question, “why do we care?”. I believe that it is equally as important to ask, “why do some people not care for families?”. As mentioned in class, it is not necessarily deviations from the traditional family structure that create problems for children or spouses, but rather neglect, lack of social support, or abuse from a family member, and the effect these relationships can have on an individual or society when institutionalized, (I'm not talking about divorce or people who choose not to have children). As discussed by Ferree, this can be viewed in terms of both locational and relational intersectionality. Locationally, this is partially addressed by Pyke’s discussion of masculinities and Hoshschild’s take on balancing femininities. We can examine why men and women act a certain way by viewing their place within these somewhat set expectations of men and women. Expectations placed upon men within society tends to separate them into upper-class ideologies in which the man can solely provide for the family, and working-class tendencies which can result in abusive or domineering “male” tendencies due to pressures to achieve this expected economic masculinity. However it is equally important to realize that we create these enduring expectations, and to examine where they come from.

I think what is left out of these discussions is the truly intersectional nature of the individual. Expectations and norms from society and the groups we belong to shape us all, however no two individuals experiences can be derived from generalizations regarding groups, simply because there are too many complex and competing ideas. It is important to examine the individual when looking at families that did “not work”. This makes policy creation harder, however as brought up by Pyke, policy is already established on a somewhat faulty basis of the traditional family, and should be rearranged.

Questions:

1. In last weeks class we discussed life courses and institutionalized gender norms. Do both kinds of masculinities (working and upper class) discussed in Ferree’s article fit in with the life course approach? If not, how does is differ for these two groups? What other factors could influence the differences between masculinities?
2. Ferre touches on race in discussing masculinities yet focuses on white middle class men. Can “cultural differences” create different expectations on working and upper class men of different races? Do the same class divisions hold as much weight when other factors are introduced?
3. We see how inequalities become normalized through advertising, social expectations and policy. What changes could be made to promote gender equalities? What about policies regarding the family (and care) specifically?

Week 3: Feminism and Care Perspectives

Week 3:

Hochschild’s article Gender Codes and the Play of Irony was a very interesting read. The emphasis on gender codes reminded me of the Intro Women’s Studies class that I took this past summer. In the lecture we talked how the changing gender codes are a paradox to what the feminist movement actually stood for. Instead of reaching a stage of egalitarianism, the striving to have more rights as men in the public sphere tends to lead to a more stigmatization of women. Women who are fighting for more equality, in my perspective, argue that they want what men have rather than to what women want. It seems to me that, to them, egalitarianism equals to a more masculine identity. For example, if we look at the chart of Gender Codes in the book (Hochschild, 49), in the modern codes we are able to see a pattern of subtle masculinity taking place. A career-woman look consists of business suits in subdued “male” colors and short hair while women should use male vocabulary in order to be taken seriously at work. Perhaps in their minds, achieving equality with men means becoming a man themselves. However, wanting equal rights should not equate as having to become an exact replica of the counterpart. I believe that this will only to further division along the gender lines and further stigmatize the female “domesticity” roles and male “aggressive/career” roles. Hochschild argues that we could either hold on or let go of these advices through irony. I do not see how this is possible when the society imposes upon us to take on these gender codes either traditional or modern.

Can this be a driving factor for a mother waning their daughter(s) to go out to the public sphere and have a career-oriented life? This relates back to what Hochschild wrote in her introduction chapter. She writes how even though her mother was a good mother, she had never seen her mother to be genuinely happy in her domestic/caretaker role. As a result, Hochschild claims that she “developed the simple, mistaken, idea that staying home to care for children was sad and going to work was happy” (Hochschild, 5). This idea that care does not necessarily bring about joy is new to me. In fact, I do not believe that I have ever though of it. I have never noticed my mom being ever being unsatisfied with her primary role as a mother/wife/care-taker. After becoming a professional artist in her early 40s, I have never seen my mom being overjoyed that she had a career outside the domestic sphere. She seemed to enjoy her different roles within the different spheres and she was able to balance it very well. If Parsons were here, he would be terribly surprised to find out that our family was not a dysfunctional one (since my mom was not a “traditional”/exclusive homemaker in his eyes)—rather I was brought up in a stable, loving, and functional family. Has this shaped my (future) career life or my perspective on care? I do not think so.

Q1) Is it possible to just let go of these gender codes imposed upon us by the society?

Q2) Is it possible to want equal rights as men without taking on a subdued form of a masculine identity?

Q3) Do you believe that “female depressive solution” affects the way one sees her own future (career-wise) or perspective on the domestic sphere?

Feminism, Race, Class and Care Perspectives

Betty Friedan in her 1963 book entitled "The Feminine Mystique" gave voice to what she called "the problem that has no name" experienced by many white, middle-class women enmeshed in the Parsonian functionalist reality:

"The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning [that is, a longing] that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries … she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — 'Is this all?"


In so doing, she touched off what it is now popularly referred to as "the women's movement", "the feminist movement", and, in academic circles, "second-wave feminism."  In this book, she drew upon her experience at a class reunion of her 1942 Smith College and a subsequent questionnaire to argue that women who committed themselves to husbands and family lost their identity, value and meaning in the act of becoming housewives.  An educated (in 1942), upper-class white woman, Friedan explicitly critiqued Parsons as well as popular incarnations of the Parsonian narrative ("family studies") in the book, arguing:

"In colleges that would never stoop to the 'role-playing lessons' of the so-called functional family course, young women were assigned Talcott Parsons' authoritative 'analysis of sex-roles in the social structure of the United States,' which contemplates no alternative for a woman other than the role of 'housewife,' patterned with varying emphasis on 'domesticity,' 'glamour,' and 'good companionship'.....Parsons, a highly respected sociologist and the leading functional theoretician, describes with insight and accuracy the sources of strain in this 'segregation of sex roles.'...True equality between men and women [in his estimation] would not be 'functional'; the status quo can be maintained only if the wife and mother is exclusively a homemaker or, at most, has a 'job' rather than a 'career' which might give her status equal to that of her husband.  Thus Parsons finds sexual segregation 'functional' in terms of keeping the social structure as it is, which seems to be the functionalist's primary concern....
      Functionalism was an easy out for American sociologists.  There can be no doubt that they were describing things 'as they were' but in so doing, they were relieved of the responsibility of building theory from facts, of probing for deeper truth.  They were also relieved of the need to formulate questions and answers that would be inevitably controversial (at a time, in academic circles, as in America as a whole, when controversy was not welcome).  They assumed an endless present, and based their reasoning on denying the possibility of a future different from the past.  Of course, their reasoning would hold up only as long as the future did not change...Social scientists under the functional banner were so rigidly present-minded that they denied the future; their theories enforced the prejudices of the past, and actually prevented change....
      Unfortunately, the female objects of functional analysis were profoundly affected by it.  At a time of great change for women, at a time when education, science, and social science should have helped women bridge the change, functionalism transformed 'what is' for women, or 'what was,' to 'what should be.'...In all the concern for adjustment, one truth was forgotten:  women were being adjusted to a state inferior to their full capabilities.  The functionalists did not wholly accept the Freudian argument that 'anatomy is destiny,' but they accepted whole-heartedly an equally restrictive definition of woman:  woman is what society says she is."


Friedan's analysis resonated with many housewives and became a best-seller in 1963.  What followed were successive efforts to reform the labour force, education, and the law to knock down barriers which kept women from realizing their "full capabilities."  In turn, feminists theorists in the academy have alternatively drawn upon and critiqued Friedan for both calling attention to the effects of the unequal distribution of power in the functionalist family (and between women and men in general) as well as for her class, race, and sexuality biases.  Friedan, for example, later went on to become a founding member and President of the National Organization for Women and discouraged its involvement in lesbian causes, famously (and allegedly) calling lesbianism the "lavender menace."

It is in tandem with these political changes that feminist theorists in the academy first called attention to the significance of gender and inequality that characterized most political, institutional, and family life in North America.  The readings this week embrace the significance of gender, but have expanded their analyses to account for interactional dynamics that reproduce inequality to the intersectionality of other forms of oppressions such as race, class, and sexuality which constitute most individuals' lived experiences.  In this, three points are of import:

1.  Ferree provides a nice overview of the academic field, including especially the notion of intersectionality first defined by Kimberle Crenshaw and the effects of which are interestingly addressed in this clip by sociologist Michael Kimmel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgaOK74HqiA

2.  Kimmel also represents the expansion of the field to address the notion of masculinity and which is addressed in the second article (Pyke) with respect to class.  She importantly discusses men's and women's power in these arrangements, including how women enforce and reproduce gender inequality in their relationships.

3.  Finally, Hochschild brings together sociological analysis and cultural representation with the lived, emotional experience of many women.  While we will explore "feeling rules" more in-depth more next week, she importantly addresses how difficult it is and how we navigate expectations of our own and others' emotional understanding of care and emotion in the (post)modern family.

Please label your posts with your name and "Feminism and Care Perspectives".

Anna-Liisa

Feminism, Race, Class, and Care Perspectives

According to Ferree (2010), there have been theoretical advances in the gender perspective since the macro-micro dynamic is central and considers gender as a social relation: “rejects gender as a static norm or ideal (the so-called gender role), and instead defines gender as a social relation characterized by power inequalities that hierarchically produce, organize, and evaluate masculinities and femininities through the contested but controlling practices of individuals, organizations, and societies” (p. 424). However, I am not sure that the gender perspective from Ferree or Pyke’s (1996) exposition of the multilayered relationship between social class, race and sexuality consider the social relation of women with other women.
Pyke (1996) differentiates men in terms of their occupation as lower class versus middle and upper class but seems to leave out women’s social class assuming it is the same as the husband’s. She argues that “for the sake of clarity, however, I have centered this discussion almost exclusively on white, heterosexual, class-based masculinities. The construction of femininities can perhaps best be understood in relation to men” (p. 546). Is this true? Shouldn’t the construction of femininities consider also how women relate with each other for or against the enforcement of gender differences, or inequalities as feminists prefer to say? Arlie Hochschild talks in the introduction about her relationship with her mother and how that shaped her career and personal life. This supports my point of studying gender and femininities also with a women-women perspective.
Another point I would like the readings of this week to cover is the women in power and female politics participation. I was living in the United States during the past elections and it was interesting to read and hear different comments about Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. These comments ranged from the “soccer mom” to the comprehensive and supportive woman that forgives his husband after the Lewinsky scandal, and so on. Another example illustrative of the relation of women with other women and of women in power comes from the Argentinean case. The current president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, an attractive woman with a strong character and wife of the former president (if you have never heard about her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristina_Fern%C3%A1ndez_de_Kirchner) won the election (45.3% of the vote) followed by another woman, Elisa Carrió (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisa_Carri%C3%B3), conservative and less attractive (with 22% of the vote). During the campaigns, at some point the female electorate was more inclined for Carrió and there were reports about the fear and distrust that women felt for Fernández. The male electorate preferred Cristina Fernández. Much of the discussion in the US and Argentinian cases were centered in female and male stereotypes. But stereotypes are hard to change and are there to remain long time. I am not convinced from the readings that feminist studies, the gender perspective and the race and class perspectives can help us break stereotypes.
Questions:
1) Do you agree with Connell that “all forms of femininity are constructed in the context of the overall subordination of women to men” (Pyke, 1996, p. 546)?
2) Isn’t it easier to talk about men and masculinities than it is to talk about us? Isn’t it easier to criticize others than being auto critical? Why are the authors of the acting manuals for women that Hochschild (2003) analyses mainly women?
3) To what extent current research enforces or reduces stereotypes of social relationships? How can our own research agendas challenge this?