Housework vs. The Workforce

Women's Work Inside and Outside the Home
By: Shaw and Lee

This article covers a lot of different topics that fall into the differences between men and women in the workplace. One of the first things that caught my attention was that it said, "Paid domestic work is one occupation traditionally held by women of color." Now I understand that it's bad to agree with this statement, but it's true. You see it everywhere; they try to portray women of different ethnicities as maids and servants of families and businesses. In movies of all sorts ethnic women are typically maids, cleaning ladies, and nannies. Since women these days tend to work outside of the home more, they have less and less time to do household chores. The men of the relationship still refuse to do the jobs the mother would usually do, so in some cases it can break a relationship up. For some couples that are more privileged can afford to hire someone to do these chores, so cleaning doesn't become a problem for them. Another thing I found interesting was when it said, "Women are more content with husbands who take an active role in the home and this encourages sexual intimacy." This makes complete sense to me because fighting over who is going to the dishes puts a lot of stress on each partner, and causes fights. When they have a mutual agreement, they have fewer arguments and are happier with each other. They define "kin keeping", as the emotional jobs that you do in the household. Things like remembering birthday's, sending cards, and providing support. They said that these tasks are something the woman usually does in the relationship, but what they don't consider is divorces. From my experiences personally, these are things my dad does, and never forgets to do. Fathers that truly engage their selves in the family, and love their children should be willing to participate in the "kin keeping." When they started talking about labor and equal pay, there were a few acts and laws that were developed in order to give women equal rights. Title VII said that if there was a "bona fide occupational qualification" for a job, then the employer could gender discriminate. I understand that they were talking about jobs such as cleaning a men's bathroom, but I believe that is a little old fashioned because they typically clean bathrooms when no one is there anyways. Over the years they have changed and added many things to it such as pregnancy and medical leaves. The last thing I found interesting was the two types of sexual harassment because I never knew what they were. There is Quid Pro Quo, which are unwelcomed sexual advances and requests for sexual behaviors. Secondly there is Hostile Work Environment where an environment must interfere with an individual's work and or performance. Although they talked about men predominately being the harassers because they are trying to keep their power roles in the workplace, I believe that both sexes could easily be the harasser. Men shouldn't be stereotyped as the only sex that can harass the other.