Gender Roles and Work - The Conflict
By Darrell Victor
Social adjustment.
Issues concerning the family are often debated and are inextricably linked with women’s issues. During a discussion in a library with a schoolmate a few years ago, I heard a statement that was likely to be perceived as controversial. An erstwhile schoolmate of mine articulated that the reason for the apparent decline in social order was that women are not as involved in family life. He also stated that women should not work if it diminishes their role in the family. This view was influenced by the ideology of the religious sect to which my friend belonged. I was a bit concerned about the statement. My understanding is that there exists an imbalance in modern families. It may be that the required compensatory changes in the social order that were required have not yet been properly effected.
I disagree with the statement made by my erstwhile schoolmate, since it would appear as if women are to blame for family abandonment. The problem is a lot more structural in reality. One reason for this is that there has been a change in the structure of work without a resultant social adjustment in the mechanisms of the family. The fact that we have more mothers working and pursuing careers has impacted on their family time. However, I feel that the golden days of yore were a myth, since it is apparent that fathers typically never spent much time with the family the time when they were the sole “breadwinners”. This probably has not changed much, even though the reality of the workplace changed long ago. Far from being a problem of social drift, this was more of an upheaval. The problem arose when this upheaval occurred and there were not changes in they way we thought about gender roles to compensate for this.
That we must work is a social constraint. Most of us must work to survive. Even those who do not have to work benefit from the fact that other people do. So the time a woman has for their family is now in direct competition with the imposition of work. One change that was supposed to occur at the upheaval is that men were supposed to get more involved with the children and the home in general. This simply did not happen as warranted. Many times women were expected to do the chores that they traditionally did, after a full day’s work. That certainly defines an untenable situation. It is too much of a burden for women to be solely responsible for that without much support from their partners. The argument that some women succeed in so doing is a moot point, since even more sacrifices have to be made for that to happen. Considering that this change in the social order took place decades ago, it is perturbing to know that the traditional views of family life are still held.
The unsuccessful negotiation of gender roles has lead to the break-up of several families and relationships. In the previous era, this was hardly a basis for negotiation. That it is now another challenge to the modern family. Partners with different points of view of this issue will usually be at war unless the issue of roles and participation is resolved satisfactorily. This is something that needs to be addressed. Competing ideas must not be allowed to continue to divide couples and cause families to disintegrate. The different ideologies that are now manifested have made a perceived consensus impossible. I feel that men generally should be more involved in the home because the new social conditions demand it. A couple needs to apply a level of rationality in dealing with issues of roles. This should ideally be somewhat independent of traditional considerations. We must practically modify the notions that we grew up with and assess the situation according to context.
There has been a slow reconstitution of social thinking in recent times. My point all along is that the resulting confusion is because the majority has not embraced the change similarly. The view that women’s working is the reason for social decadence is stretched. Some single mothers clearly must work when they are abandoned by their irresponsible partners anyway. What must be found is a new way of navigating through the modified social system. It is difficult to do a survey and determine what the new social order should be, but instead of leaving it up to the forces, we should reason what the order should be. We should operate on humanitarian principles instead of simplistic categorisations. The principles we used should also be influenced by context. What I advocate would augment the required intellectual effort required for social interaction. It is something that needs to be done for us to operate with less conflict within and without the home.
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