Gender Differences and Household Labor Essay

Traditionally women have been known to stay at home and take care of the children and the entire household. The men on the other end have been known to be the head of the family who provide protection of any kind be it; financial or physical security. However with the changing times there are cases whereby women are working and their husbands are not working. The scenario has led on the need to change roles in the family. The working women feel that it is not fair that they are pressured at work and they also experience the same pressure at home. After work wives are expected by their husbands to cook, wash clothes, care for the children and also take care of the husband. Female employees usually lack support from their male counterparts at word in terms of advice giving. When a female employee comes up with an idea on how to improve the processes at work place they suffer setback because the larger population of the male gender at the work place fail to back her up. The most depressing thing at the workplace is the short maternity leave given to mothers, by giving them short leaves the mothers fail to bond adequately with their newborn babies. The mothers should be given adequate time to bond with their newborns since life is not only about work but raising up a family too. Employers should give flexibility on how the mothers should return back to work after giving birth to newborns.

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Generally the male gender is perceived to be dominant over the female gender, this has led to lack of respect to the females occupying high positions at the workplace. When the organization has a female C.E.O it is likely that issues are addressed to the males present at the meeting other than the female C.E.O. despite having authority the orders given by a female leader may be suppressed by fellow male workmates. Women are faced with inequality at the job place during promotions, the female workers have to work harder than their male counterparts to gain promotion to leadership positions in the organization. Other than the promotion inequality at the work place the female employees are paid lowly in the organization unlike the male counterparts at the organization. The female employees are also in a likely position to lose their job position in an organization unlike the male employees. Role overload is main cause of stress among working women, this is because the women have numerous task to fulfill within a given short period of time. The involvement in numerous roles causes the women to concentrate on either work or family meaning that one of the two categories will be ignored.

The female gender feel that there is great inequality when it comes to the family setup because the society believes that it is the role of women only to take care of the children and the elderly. However the females in the current generation feel that there is need to share roles in terms of household chores and child care giving, the argument behind it is that currently women are working in high positions like the male. Men are also faced with various kinds of stress like the women at the work place, since men are known to be the sole providers of the family they are usually stressed whenever they earn little money or lose their jobs. When a man fails to provide for the family he considers himself to be a failure unlike the women who can be comfortable when they are not working.

The current argument about the participation of men equally as the women in family activities pose a great challenge to the male. Because of the traditional concept men have lived to believe that being financially stable and having work ethics are enough traits to make a man successful. Women arguing that they also work to provide income to the family should also consider that most of their income is not used up in the family activities like those of the men. This means that men usually have to work extra hard so that they provide for the family and for their own entertainment unlike the women whose income is not followed up by anybody. Research shows that women are able to cope easily to caregiving stressors unlike the male gender, this proves the reason where there is a greater number of women working as nurses unlike the male. The gender difference in care giving provision is linked to role expectations by the society, difference in stress, coping and social support. Care giving imposes financial, emotional, physical and social burden which can be stressful if an individual is not capable of holding the burden. Recently there has been an increase in number of men who provide and engage in care giving activity, this is however overshadowed by the traditional knowledge that women are the predominant caregivers. Women are said to spend more time in caregiving than the male because their job schedule lies around the home. This statement however is not correct since there are women who also work in industries and scientific firms. Generational difference plays a big role in caregiving and household sharing roles. Men of the twenty first century are likely to adapt to the idea of sharing household roles with their wives unlike those of twentieth century and beyond. Attitude has also been identified to play a big role when it comes to sharing of household roles, men who are willing to help their wives in doing household chores are likely to experience less stress than those who believe it is solely a wives role to do household chores and provide caregiving. The sharing of roles is also dependent on whether the two parties are married or cohabiting, it is evident that couples who cohabit are in a likely position to share roles without any pressure unlike the married couples where the husband believes it is the work of the wive to ensure the family is well taken care of. Educational level plays a crucial role in maters of role sharing, educated women feel that they should do the household chores in an equal portion with their husbands while the illiterate women comply with the traditional believe that wives should care for the family.

References

Sharma, N., Chakrabarti, S., & Grover, S. (2016). Gender differences in caregiving among family-caregivers of people with mental illnesses. World journal of psychiatry, 6(1), 7.

Sweeting, H., Bhaskar, A., Benzeval, M., Popham, F., & Hunt, K. (2014). Changing gender roles and attitudes and their implications for well-being around the new millennium. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 49(5), 791-809.