The Double Life of the Family by Michael Bittman Jocelyn Pixley

Author:Michael Bittman, Jocelyn Pixley [Michael Bittman, Jocelyn Pixley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367719753
Google: UhAwzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2021-03-31T05:03:52+00:00

A digression on gender differences in standards of housework

Since the claim that there is a gender difference in standards of housework is so frequently encountered, in 1995 a subsequent study was undertaken to investigate these issues (Bittman & Pixley 1995).12 Standards are a set of normative expectations about how things should be done. The survey aimed to measure a variety of dimensions of normative expectations about housework—(1) the level of tolerance for tasks left undone, or how frequently respondents think tasks should be done; (2) the level of awareness of the intricacies of the task—their stock of knowledge and skills or ‘competence’ in labour process terms and, (3) which tasks are considered to be most important or urgent.

In relation to norms about frequency, respondents were asked to decide how often a particular task should be performed. For example, respondents were asked ‘When do you think the washing up should be done?’ and were then offered various set responses: ‘straight after a meal’, ‘at the end of the day’, the ‘next day’, ‘when you run out of dishes’ or ‘at another time’. Similar questions were posed about cleaning floors, the bathroom, oven, fridge and curtains; vacuuming under the furniture; making beds; doing the laundry, and ironing; and preparing fresh home-cooked meals. It is presumed that frequency is related to the stringency of standards, so that the greater the frequency with which it is believed that a task should be performed, the more demanding the expectations (standards). Conversely, responses indicating that tasks need only be performed at the lengthiest intervals reveal the lowest standards.

With regard to awareness, competence and skill, respondents were asked to comment on some statements of laundry folk wisdom by indicating the level of agreement on a 5-point scale. In the time-honoured tradition of scaling, some items are reversed to inhibit automatic responses. Respondents were invited to comment on the following statements.— (1) These days clothing standards and modern washing machines mean that very little can go wrong in the wash’; (2) ‘Before doing the laundry it is important to check the pockets of clothes for tissues’; (3) ‘When doing the laundry, it is important that towels and other items are washed separately’; (4) ‘Handwashing anything today is unnecessary’; (5) ‘When doing the laundry, it is important that light colours and dark colours are washed separately’.

Respondents were also asked to rate the completion of each housework task on a four-point scale ranging from ‘very important’ to ‘not important at all’. To provide more depth in the analysis of expectations about items that should be ironed, respondents were asked to indicate which specific items on a list of common household articles they thought it was ‘important to iron’. The articles, which were designed to represent various levels of presumed fastidiousness included trousers, shirts, skirts, jackets, tablecloths, pillowslips, bedsheets, and even socks.

The most striking finding of the study is the level of consensus about the frequency with which tasks should be performed. The results are shown in Table 6.2.

Table 6.2 Women's

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