The Housewife Role

Gap-fill exercise

Fill in all the gaps, then press "Check" to check your answers. Use the "Hint" button to get a free letter if an answer is giving you trouble. You can also click on the "[?]" button to get a clue. Note that you will lose points if you ask for hints or clues!

   burden      culture      economic      factories      Feminists      functions      housewife      Housework      Industrial      naturally      socially      state      women      Young   
sociologists broadly agree with the following points:

1.The family is not a voluntary unit based on love and choice, but an unit which creates and maintains female dependence.

2. The family is not efficient at performing its . Many women, children and old people eventually depend on support and care from institutions.

3. Childcare is explained, not in terms of family relations, but by its functions in industrial society.

4. is real productive work, and women are exploited by men.


Ann Oakley (1974) believes that the unpaid role of the was socially constructed around the time of the Revolution. With the change from the Domestic to the Factory system men stopped working at home and started leaving home everyday to work in . A new role of "housewife" was constructed for married women and quickly became a deep seated part of the . Domestic work became to be seen falsely as (biologically) women's work.
In contrast to Willmott and , Oakley claims that the division of labour within families remains unequal with the burden of domestic work still falling on even when they are also in paid employment. This is referred to as the "double" or "dual "