The production of gender among Black and White women and men: The case of household labor

John, Daphne; Shelton, Beth Anne

doi:10.1007/bf02766266

Cited by 50 publications

(50 citation statements)

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“…After all, research (Bergen, 1991;Rexroat & Shehan, 1987;Sharp & Ciscle, 2004;South & Spitze, 1994) has shown that the presence of children in the household increases the amount of housework; that, together with the fact that Black households tend to have more children than White households, may help explain why Black men tend to spend more time in housework than White men do (John & Shelton, 1997). Indeed, my interviewees grew up in homes with, on average, more than five children.…”

Section: Justifications For Making Children Perform Houseworkmentioning

confidence: 85%

“To Cook, Sew, to Be a Man”: The Socialization for Competence and Black Men's Involvement in Housework

Penha-Lopes

2006

Sex Roles

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The context in which Black children do housework and its effect on adult behavior have been relatively unexplored. This article presents analyses of the recollections of 45 Black fathers of young children about performing household chores when they were children and its relevance for their involvement in housework as adults. The fathers' relatively high involvement in housework is traced to the "socialization for competence" that most of them experienced as boys. Four dimensions in the socialization for competence are discussed: the actual household chores done in childhood, the ways of performing them, the rationale for assigning them, and parents' justifications for making children engage in housework. Although the childhood socialization for competence does not translate uniformly into men's sharing housework equally, it takes away ineptitude as an excuse for resisting housework as adults.KEY WORDS: childhood socialization; housework; African-American men.Thanks to numerous studies over the past two decades, we now know that Black husbands and fathers do significantly more housework than do men of other racial-that is so, then Black women's earlier, heavier, and more continuous participation in the paid labor force than White women's (Hochschild, 1995;Landry, 2000), coupled with their espousal of egalitarian attitudes toward family and paid work as early as the late nineteenth century (Landry, 2000), may help explain Black men's higher involvement in housework. Yet, scholars have left the context in which Black children do housework and its effect on later adult behavior relatively unexplored.In this article I address those issues by presenting an analysis of the recollections of 45 Black men about performing household chores when they were children and its relevance for their involvement in housework as adults. This analysis is informed by the premise that the role of early socialization is more complex than a "baseline" for a life course (Gerson, 1985(Gerson, , 1993. To say that childhood experiences are important does not mean that adults simply replicate the lives of their role models or that those early experiences determine adult outcomes; it does, however, indicate that those experiences are available as meaningful future references, even if only 261

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Section: Justifications For Making Children Perform Houseworkmentioning

confidence: 85%

“To Cook, Sew, to Be a Man”: The Socialization for Competence and Black Men's Involvement in Housework

Penha-Lopes

2006

Sex Roles

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“…Most previous studies have focused on comparisons between African American and European American couples and families (Bergen, 1991;Broman, 1988;Hossain & Roopnarine, 1993;John & Shelton, 1997;Kamo & Cohen, 1998;Orbuch & Eyster, 1997;Sanchez & Thomson, 1997); only a handful of studies have examined the division of household labor in other racial/ethnic families. Generally, studies that include African American couples suggest that Black men are more likely to share housework than White men are (Broman, 1993;Orbuch & Custer, 1995); however, Black women are still responsible for almost twice the housework that Black men perform.…”

Section: Race and Ethnicitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender and the Division of Labor

Coltrane

Shih

2009

Handbook of Gender Research in Psychology

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This chapter focuses on the division of labor between women and men and the distinction commonly drawn between domestic work and paid work. Work performed directly in the service of familiesincluding housework and childcare -is often unacknowledged because of cultural assumptions that a wife or mother should do it in the privacy of the home. Paid work, on the other hand, is much more public and historically associated with men. Holding a job and earning a salary has been considered to be a husband's traditional family obligation, whereas tending to home and children traditionally has been considered a wife's primary obligation (even if she also works outside the home). Why do we make these gendered assumptions, and what impact do these ideals have on individuals and society? In this chapter we investigate these questions by examining how the concept of separate work and family spheres for men and women arose and by exploring how scholars have researched the division of household labor. Links Between Work and FamilyRosabeth Moss Kanter (1977) was one of the first scholars to point out that it is misleading to treat work and family as separate institutional spheres. She rejected popular beliefs about the separation of workplaces and families, and she called for an examination of the interconnections between the two and the study of how and why people make and sustain attachments to each. Today, most social scientists recognize and appreciate the numerous mutual influences between the workplace and the home (Jacobs & Gerson, 2004;Moen & Coltrane, 2004). Near the end of this chapter we summarize research in this tradition by focusing on some findings about spillover from work to family and from family to work.Although there are many different linkages between work and family, most researchers have focused on how jobs influence family life. For example, there are many studies of how economic resources and job conditions affect marital functioning, parenting practices, or mental and physical health. In general, longer employment hours, harsher working conditions, and lower wages are associated with more family and health problems, and closely regulated work environments are associated with more restrictive parenting practices. Other work-family studies are focused on the different strategies people use to coordinate market labor and household labor, who does the housework, or how people balance commitments between work and family. Most studies show that job demands have important impacts on families and individuals and that, despite substantial shifts in

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“…The extent of this configuration varies culturally-and at least in the US-also by race-ethnicity because of how race-ethnicity conditions access to resources and influences gender relations within marriages (Geist 2005;Orbuch and Eyster 1997). Black husbands do more housework than white husbands but Black wives do no more housework than White wives (John and Shelton 1997;Orbuch and Custer 1995;Orbuch and Eyster 1997). Existing studies are limited, however, because they do not explore the specific means through which race-ethnicity affects housework and compare only Blacks and Whites, meaning we know little about housework differences among Hispanic and Asian married couples.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, the historical relegation of Black women to jobs in domestic work means the gendered and racialized power implicit in the use of resources to buy out of housework may be more apparent and resisted in Black married couples. For example, black men's higher levels of housework have been interpreted as evidence that they see housework as simply part of being a good husband and not something higher earnings absolve them of doing (John and Shelton 1997). In contrast, more patriarchal familistic cultural traditions among Hispanics and Asians suggest earnings may have no association with housework for either women or men, because housework is simply considered ''women's'' work regardless of earnings.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%