Social Class and Domesticity

This chapter traces the patterns of domesticity in the present sample of housewives. These findings are tied in with assertions about social class differences in domesticity which abound in much of the literature dealing with women's place in the family. As the study indicates, there is no social class difference in the frequency with which housewives are satisfied or dissatisfied with their work. The predominant feeling is one of dissatisfaction — twenty-eight of the forty women come out as dissatisfied. If education is taken instead of social class, there is still no difference between groups of women: equal proportions of those educated to sixteen and beyond are satisfied and dissatisfied with housework.

Marriage and the Division of Labour

This chapter looks at data on marriage obtained from the forty women interviewed. In only a small number of marriages is the husband notably domesticated, and even where this happens, a fundamental separation remains: home and children are the woman's primary responsibility. Thus, doubt is cast on the view that marriage is an egalitarian relationship. Psychological intimacy between husband and wife, an intermingling of their social worlds, and a more equitable distribution of power in marriage are undoubtedly areas in which marriage in general has changed. However, the importance of women's enduring role as housewives and as the main rearers of children continues. Inequality in this area is often overlooked, and sociologists surveying marriage are no exception to the general rule. They bring to their data their own values about the place of men and women in the home, values which repeat the popular theme of gender differences.

Standards and Routines

This chapter focuses on two dimensions of the housewife's job definition: standards and routines. In describing her daily life, every woman interviewed outlined the kind of standards she thought it important to stick to in housework, and the type of routine she used to achieve this end. There was, of course, a great deal of variation between one housewife and another. Some set what could be called ‘perfectionist’ standards, while others adopted a more casual attitude to order and cleanliness in the home. For some there were rigid routines repeated in the same way from one day to the next; for others, routines were more flexible. Different criteria are used in defining standards. Cleanliness may be the basic aim, with untidiness tolerated; or there may be an attitude of ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’ while the dust under the beds and the dirt hidden in crevices pass relatively unnoticed.

Images of Housework

This chapter discusses how housewives themselves perceive the housework situation. Two conflicting stereotypes of housework exist in popular thinking today. According to one, the housewife is an oppressed worker: she slaves away in work that is degrading, unpleasant, and essentially self-negating. According to the other, housework provides the opportunity for endless creative and leisure pursuits. Throughout the forty interviews, a clear perception of housework as work emerges. The women in the sample experience and define housework as labour, akin to that demanded by any job situation. Their observations tie in closely with many findings of the sociology of work; the aspects of housework that are cited as satisfying or dissatisfying have their parallels in the factory or office world. This equivalence is emphasized further by the women's own tendency to compare their reactions to housework with their experience of working outside the home.

The Invisible Woman: Sexism in Sociology

This introductory chapter provides an overview of sexism in sociology. In much sociology, women as a social group are invisible or inadequately represented: they take the insubstantial form of ghosts, shadows, or stereotyped characters. This issue of sexism has a direct relevance to the main topic of this book: a survey of housewives and their attitudes to housework which was carried out in London in 1971. The conventional sociological approach to housework could be termed ‘sexist’: it has treated housework merely as an aspect of the feminine role in the family — as a part of women's role in marriage, or as a dimension of child-rearing — not as a work role. This book thus departs from sociological tradition and takes a new approach to women's domestic situation by looking at housework as a job and seeing it as work, analogous to any other kind of work in modern society.

Conclusions

This concluding chapter addresses the problem of the kind of awareness housewives have, or might be encouraged to have, of their situation as women. When the housewives in the present research sample were asked for their opinions on the women's liberation movement, the attitude revealed was a predominantly negative one. This is perhaps not surprising, since the interviews were carried out in early 1971 when public opinion was much less alert to the women's liberation issue than it is today. The chapter then argues that the systematic correction of sexism in society is an operation which has to proceed on many different levels simultaneously. Theoretical analysis constitutes one level; another level consists of the practical measures which must be taken towards institutional equality; yet a third is concerned with the erosion of biases against women in social attitudes.

Socialization and Self-Concept

This chapter explores the connection between the socialization of women and their later performance of the housewife role. Many of the women made it clear in the interviews that their concern is not simply to get housework done in the most efficient way and the shortest possible time. Instead, they are bound up in the replication of previously set standards and routines which may actually frustrate the straightforward goal of simply getting housework done. To the extent that these ways of behaving are inherited from the mother, it can be hypothesized that they are not directly taught from mother to daughter: rather they are indirectly and unconsciously assimilated. The ‘nurturant’ child-caring relationship that exists between housewives and housewives-to-be serves to make this assimilation more likely than not. Subsequently, the learning lesson of domesticity sets up what is essentially a relationship between self (feminine) and role (housewife).

Work Conditions

This chapter examines the role of the structure and content of work in the case of the housewife. Answers given by the forty women in the sample to questions about work tasks suggest that certain characteristics of housework may be more or less uniformly experienced as dissatisfying while others are potentially rewarding. A look at the social class dimension also indicates that there is a considerable area of shared response to housework which may reflect on the nature of the work itself, and the conditions under which it is done. Hence it would seem both helpful and important to examine a number of aspects of work that industrial sociology has highlighted as critical in the explanation of job satisfaction. These are the experiences of monotony, fragmentation, and excessive pace in work and social interaction patterns. Two other dimensions of work looked at in this chapter include working hours and the technical environment.

Description of Housework Study

This chapter describes the study of housework. The sociological neglect of housework was demonstrated in the last chapter. Because so little material exists, the study presented in this book was conceived as an exploratory, pilot survey. A first aim is to describe the housewife's work situation and the housewife's attitudes to housework. A second is to examine patterns of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with housework in relation to a number of variables, including social class, education, the division of labour in marriage, technical equipment, and patterns of social interaction. A third aim is to suggest possible hypotheses directed towards explaining differences between housewives in attitudes to housework and the housework situation. The sample consisted of forty London housewives, all aged between twenty and thirty at the time of interview.

Children

This chapter studies the subject of children in the case of the housewife. The interviews document well the dissatisfying social context in which the role of mother is carried out today. Social isolation and constant responsibility bring about discontent. Competition with the demands of housewifery means that to the mother as houseworker, the child is sometimes seen as an obstacle to job satisfaction; for the child, the need to juxtapose its demands with those of housework cannot but be experienced as frustrating. Although men do something to remedy this difficulty by involving themselves in child-care, the trend could be seen as a retrogressive one from the women's point of view. Ultimately, satisfaction with housework may be increased, but only at the expense of satisfaction with child-care.