Work, family, and gender relationships

Work, Family and Gender

In the book, The Second Shift: Working Parents and The Revolution at Home, by Arlie Hochschild gives a lot of detailed information as well as additional tactics through which men and women in two career marriages manage the burdens of work and family desires. During the early and mid-eighties, Hochschild and her investigation acquaintances talk to fifty married couples at boundless lengths. Furthermore, Hochschild viewed the lives of families in a twelve homes. At the center of the book are the accounts of eleven pairs. Everyone but two are associates of the middle and upper-middle class. With that said, I believe and support Hochschild's purpose for writing this book. In my opinion, it was to bring to society's awareness the necessity for change in how accommodating communities are to women giving another income and the majority of the "second shift in their household.

I did not have a hard time at all agreeing with the author regarding the struggle between husband and wife. I concur with Hochschild concerning the point that it is not just the conflict between the husband and wife about partaking in household duties and childcare obligations, but the basis behind the strain and the fact that it is not easy to resolute plummets on the shoulders of our culture and anticipated and learned gender beliefs (Hochschild 16 ) Through the reading, I was not surprised to learn that throughout her study Hochschild concluded that the majority of marriages that did not collapse or that did not last with an endless fight and emotional stress on the husband and wife, were the marriages where both couples shared the task of the "second shift (Hochschild 215). I agree with her quote: "In my investigation the men who took on the second shift had a happier family life (Hochschild 216). I can compare this with society today because men that step up and help in the partnership, take a load off the female and bring balance to the marriage since I think it takes two to make it work.

I felt that in supporting her argument about the second shift, Hochschild revealed three main points that were from her standpoint. I can agree with her first point regarding that society depicts the woman that works as busy, entertaining, and to her daughter, a positive role model. Basically, she is seen as a woman that is able to do everything. I was astonished regarding her passion for this point, especially when she went so far to support this with an article from the New York Times Magazine. On the front page of this article, it depicted a working mother strolling home, holding the hand of her daughter. I felt that this article was a great example in supporting her point. According to Hochschild, "The Times article portrays the image that the woman who works is doing a good job because she is individually skilled, not because she has a good social plan. Certainly, I think and agree with the author regarding her opinion that the appearance of the woman's reserved characteristics complicates all that is missing in public support (Hochschild 23). I think that this precedents to Hochschild's second main point which talks about how working mothers are required to be the "supermommys" and manage old-style roles at home as well working a second job outside the home and to not be influenced by the remarkable workload.

This is relevant today in some households but not as much. Women are still expected to do it all, however with more women getting more and more independent, the typical depiction of the supermom is changing. Today in our society, I think that that these traits of a working woman suggests that she is ' active ' and ' capable ' because these are her individual personalities, not because she has been pushed to adjust to an excessively challenging agenda. I also concur with the third main point Hochschild discloses, because it explains that unless our culture starts to back male contribution in the household and childcare tasks, the transformation for women will move forward without society and support from the spouse. We can relate to this in today's society in some homes but there are a growing number of households where the roles are being reversed. Men are staying at home more and taking on the duties of child bearing; much like the women did 20 or 30 years ago.