Power and control in the family

Power and control in the family

1. Gender roles and the domestic division of labour

   • Conjugal roles
     • The roles played by a male and female partner in marriage or in a cohabiting couple.
     • Segregated conjugal roles
       • A clear division and separation between the roles of male and female partners in a marriage or in a cohabiting couple.
     • Joint conjugal roles
       • Roles in marriage or in a cohabiting couple where male and female partners share domestic tasks, childcare, decision-making and income earning.
   • Functionalist view: Talcott parsons
     • Instrumental role
       • The provider/breadwinner role in the family, often associated by functionalists with men’s role in family life.
     • Expressive role
       • The nurturing, caring and emotional role, often linked by functionalists to women’s biology and seen as women’s ‘natural’ role in the family.
   • The symmetrical family
     • A family where the roles of husband and wife or cohabiting partners have become more alike (symmetrical) and equal.
   • Domestic labour
     • Unpaid housework, including cooking, cleaning, child-care and looking after the sick and elderly.
     • The feminist view of housework
     • The rise of the housewife role
     • The commercialisation of housework
     • The dual burden
       • When a person is responsible for two jobs. Usually applied to women who are in paid work but also responsible for domestic labour.
       • Triple shift
         • The three types of work which create a burden for women: paid work, domestic work and emotion work.
         • Emotion work
           • The time and effort involved in thinking about and acting to produce the emotional well-being and happiness of others.

2. Resources and decision-making

   • Power and decision-making
   • Power and money

3. Domestic violence

   • Any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are, or have been, intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality. The abuse can encompass, but is not limited to: psychological, physical, sexual, financial, emotional
   • Official statistics
   • Explanations
     • Radical feminist
       • A feminist approach which focuses on the problem of patriarchy. For radical feminists, the main focus of research is on the problem of men and male-dominated society.
     • Inequality and stress