1.
According to Hochshild, what is the “Second Shift?”
1. According to Hochshild the “second shift” is
when a full time working mom comes home from her first shift at work and has to
start her second shift of working in the home. The work in the home is taking
care of housework, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children, etc.. The
second shirt for these women are not voluntary and the article describes the
man in the house to come home and do nothing but relax while the mother has to
take care of everything around the house.
2. Briefly describe the story of Evan and Nancy
Holt.
2.
The story of Evan and Nancy Holt is they are both full time workers with a young
child. Nancy would come home from her shift at work and begin her second shift
of taking care of the house and her child.
Nancy got really overwhelmed and decided to split the housework with her
husband to make things easier for her. However, Evan does not like the new
routine.
3. Hochschild argues that families
create “myths” about their division of household labor. Describe the family
myth created by Nancy and Evan Holt.
3.
The myth that Nancy and Evan created of the division of household labor, is
that Nancy is in charge of the upstairs of the house while Evan is in charge of
the downstairs. This may seem fair but
Nancy still seems to be doing most of the work.
4. According to Hochschild, what is
the purpose of family myths?
4.
According to Hochschild the purpose of family myths is for families to believe
the labor is split up evenly among the partners. It makes the second shift seem
less demanding than it really is and gives the partners a sense of equal labor.
5. Was this reading surprising to
you and why? How do you imagine you will divide family work (including child
care) in your own marriage or cohabitation.
5.
I thought this reading was surprising to me. I feel that if I had to work a
full shift I would not want to come home and have to do everything around the
house while my husband got to relax and watch TV. I think if I am a full time
working mom I would like my husband and I do decide about splitting up the
labor. However I am very maternal and don’t mind so much cooking, cleaning,
taking care of the children but I would definitely want my husband to offer to
help and definitely take care of other things I’m not to fond of like yard
work. I would mainly be concerned with my
husband’s involvement in our child-care. I think that would be the most
important and the rest of it will hopefully fall into place.
6. Using what you have earned
throughout this class about increasing numbers of women working for pay,
increased divorce, higher age at marriage, how might these demographic changes
influence women's role in housework. In other words, based on other demographic
changes -- how and why do you expect change in the division of household labor
by gender. And why SOCIOLOGICALLY might it not change as much as you might
expect? Give this some deep thought before writing.
6.
You would think that with more women working for pay that this we have a direct
causation on split labor but for some reason our society does not look at it
that way. Woman are getting married later, getting divorced more, and working
more yet they still have to take care of the children and run a household. Now that woman are working outside of the
home there needs to be a change in how housework is distributed. As a society
we should agree that both men and women are in charge of the housework and its
up to the household to decide what that work is.
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