How and why is there a gendered division of labour?

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How and why is there a gendered division of labour?

Gender is the psychological, social and cultural differences between males and females. Obvious or not, there is a gendered division of labour in society today. In this essay I aim to find a reason for this gendered division and also examples of it. Different approaches to the question in hand will be considered to remove any preconceived notions. Two main approaches to the argument will be the functionalist approach and the feminist approach. The functionalist perspective often sees society as kind of an arrangement of interlinked parts whereas the feminist perspective will dwell on what has caused this division based on events. Within these two approaches I will assess not only the gendered division of labour in the labour market but also in households.

The functionalist claims gender has been socially constructed into the two different traits, masculine and feminine. Examples of masculine traits include independency, intelligence and competence, strong and brave. Some of their female traits include dependency, unintelligence and incompetence, weak and timid. The functionalist derives a system like this as they feel that the division of men and women is biologically based and men and women work efficiently in separate roles. This can be justified by saying that biological differences provide a mean of differentiating social roles. Talcott Parsons believed that “nuclear families are the most effective form of household in industrial societies” and claimed that “stable supportive families are the key to successful socialisation”. Parson stated that families work most efficiently with a “clear-cut sexual division of labour in which females act in expressive roles and men act in instrumental roles.” These ‘expressive’ and ‘instrumental’ roles play a key part in the functionalists approach towards gender and the division of labour. As functionalists see society as a system they believe women are suited to these expressive roles and men to instrumental roles. Parson derived that expressive roles include “providing care and security to children, offering children emotional support” and instrumental roles involve being a breadwinner in the family. Parson is clearly stating that your gender automatically directs you into a certain role and this role should be filled by either gender to enable efficiency in households. This notion can be considered reasonable if you take into account tradition of households. However labelling either gender with a certain ‘role’ could be considered sexist as ‘giving emotional support’ and ‘being main breadwinner’ can both be achieved by either gender. The functionalist view certainly ties in with the fact that there is a division of genders in the labour force and the home.

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Gender socialisation is how we as humans learn gender roles through the social agencies like families and media. It can be considered a long process starting from birth when friends and relatives respond to the news that “it’s a boy/girl”. Primary socialisation is how other people engage in activities that corresponds with a child’s their sex, guiding them down the ‘right’ path. John Bowlby argued that the mother is crucial to the primary socialisation of children. The impact of the mother on her young therefore plays a strong role in the socialisation of the child, setting the child into ...

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