View Single Post
Old 08-28-2006, 09:54 PM   #14 (permalink)
KungFuGuy
Insane
 
The sort of relationship the picture describes is from the 1950's. It's been exaggerated of course with the language, but we can't forgot the time period those gender roles came from.

Back in the 50's, it was common for the man to go out to work and for the woman to stay at home and keep things neat and tidy. Since the family unit was able to support itself on one income, this delegation of duties was seen as far and equitable. Not that the gender roles were EQUAL, they weren't. A woman doing the wage earning would have been looked down upon, but the delegation of duties between wage earner and housekeeper made sense.

Things like keepign the house clean and preparing meals seems pretty fair when one is not earning a wage to support things financially.


That brigns us to today. TODAY, it is practically impossible to support a family on one income. Therefore, it becomes NECESSARY for both husband and wife to be employed in order to financially pay for everything. With todays mindset, it's almost a little off putting when only one person in the marriage has a job. It's like the "housekeeper" is not pulling his or her weight financially, even if they are doing things like housekeeping and cooking. And it's even worse if its the husband.

Personally, I feel like economics have affected gender roles more than anything else. A fairly solid case could probably be made that the feminist movement started succeeding in the 70's when the economics of living started demanding a larger overall household income. That's a topic for a thesis though, not a single post.

I also second what GILDA said and USTWO quoted.
KungFuGuy is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360