Critically discuss Ann Oakley’s classic 1974 study on the sociology of housework, paying attention to the strengths and shortcomings of her research. PDF

Preview

Summary

This essay unpacks The Sociology of Housework, discussing the effects of housework on the housewife, families and society through the findings of Oakley’s 1971 study. It also highlights the strengths and weaknesses of Oakley’s work, referring to critics of her work gauge the effect of her work on so...

Description

SOSC222 Trimester One Monica Harris 300368954

Critically discuss Ann Oakley’s classic 1974 study on the sociology of housework, paying attention to the strengths and shortcomings of her research.

Ann Oakley’s study on The Sociology of Housework, published in 1974, was the first major empirical analysis of its kind, researching “women’s perceptions and lived experiences of housework” (Smit, 2016, p. 231) under the sociological umbrella of gender oppression. Oakley’s work was written from a feminist perspective, highlighting the issue of females being underrepresented in not only society but in the “academic domain” (p. 1) too. By conceptualising ‘housework’ as work and recognising it as an occupation, rather than a gender role, Oakley gave rise to housework as a “legitimate topic of study” (Smit, 2016, p. 235) and provoked many other social theories of women in roles, family and society. Oakley’s ‘ground-breaking’ work challenged the sexism in sociology and society, giving rise to different gendered perspectives of study that followed The Sociology of Housework. (Smit, 2016) As cited by Phillips (1976), “Oakley sets out to analyse the work task of housewives and their attitudes to them, in the same way as the task and attitudes of workers in paid employment have been analysed.” (p. 110) This essay will unpack The Sociology of Housework, and understand the effects of housework on the housewife, families and society through the findings of Oakley’s 1971 study. It will also highlight the strengths and weaknesses of Oakley’s work, referring to critics of her work gauge the effect of her work on society at the time.

Oakley’s findings in The Sociology of Housework are based off a study conducted in 1971 for her PhD in sociology, which she completed at the University of London. (Smit, 2016) The 1971 study comprised of 2 hour-long tape-recorded interviews from a sample consisting of forty London housewives born between 1940 and 1950, that were married and had at least one child under the age of five. (Oakley, 1974) Social class was an area of interest in the study, and the women were selected upon this. 40 women were selected from two London general practitioners - half from a practice located in a predominately workingclass area, and the other half from a practice located in a predominately middle-class area. (Oakley, 1974)

Oakley introduces her study on housework as an “explanatory, pilot survey”, and outlines its aims in the second chapter of The Sociology of Housework. The aims highlighted in the study are to “describe housewife’s situation and the housewife’s attitude to housework; to examine the patterns of satisfaction; and to suggest possible hypotheses to explain differences between housewives’ attitudes to housework and the housework situation.” (Harvey, 2011) Oakley’s interview for each housewife is comprised of

SOSC222 Trimester One Monica Harris 300368954

multiple sets of questions, from which ‘ratings’ of satisfaction and other factors are drawn from the answers. It is in this way that Oakley’s study contains both quantitative and qualitative data.

Where possible, Oakley has attempted to highlight the possible weaknesses of her research. In regard to sample size, Oakley can be quoted “a sample of forty is undoubtedly on the small side” (Oakley, 1974, p. 31), however she then goes on to state that while it is often assumed that large sample sizes provide reliable results, “a small sample may, conversely, meet more precisely the criterion of representativeness.” (p. 31) It is to be remembered that this was the first study of its kind in the field of housework in sociology, and while to some standards it may not be a sufficient sample size, the results are still an important contribution to the knowledge of the topic. While Oakley (1974) assures us that there is no reason to doubt the representativeness of the study, she reminds us that in any research, it will only be as good as the person carrying it out. To the best of her ability, Oakley (1974) states the questions created were made “as factual as possible” (p. 36) to reduce incorrect interpretation, and has seemingly followed many other research ‘rules of thumb’ to ensure the validity of the study. Oakley, like many other researchers before her, was limited by many factors including time and money, but ensures that the possibility of bias has been reduced by a number of techniques adhered in the research process.

An interesting notion from The Sociology of Housework is that while Oakley is openly writing from a feminist perspective, her methodology of the 1971 study is restrained by the ‘traditional’ methods of empirical research. While the ‘feminine’ methods such as “participant observation, small-sample deepinterviewing, and concentration on qualitative” (Oakley, 1974, p. 21) are evident in the study, the focus on more qualitative variables with data presented in tables and in numerical ratings is equally as present. This is most likely influenced by the prominent approach to conducting research in Britain in the 1970s (Harvey, 2011), and as Oakley (1974) states herself, “[feminine methods] have less academic prestige and acceptability than their ‘masculine’ counterparts.” (p. 21) Oakley’s methods and analysis of her 1971 study were met with serious criticisms. (Philips, 1976) Lopata (1978) raised the issue that the phrasing of particular questions asked in the interviews may have prompted negative responses (as cited in Smit, 2016, p. 234), while Phillips (1976) states that the sample group is small and disagrees to the fact that its selection was careful. (p. 111)

The chapters in The Sociology of Housework following the description of the study unpack the findings of Oakley’s research and draw conclusions surrounding housewives and the newly conceptualised

SOSC222 Trimester One Monica Harris 300368954

‘housework’. Through the interviewing process, Oakley essentially paints a picture of what the typical day entails for a housewife. She then records the levels of satisfaction and dissatisfaction associated with housework, in turn relaying the images of housework of the sample in her conclusions. These are both positive and negative, and at times are contradictory – Oakley (1974) stating that for example while a “woman’s attitudes to the housewife role may be positive…she may at the same time dislike doing housework.” (p. 77) Oakley’s work also looks at social class being a factor in the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of housework, analysing the working and middle-class responses of the sample. The working conditions of the housewife are also explored, as Oakley seeks to explain the reason for dissatisfaction within housework. Furthermore, Oakley seeks to understand the standards and routines outlined by housewives, stating that they can be traced back to “childhood socialisation” (Smit, 2016, p. 233) One of the last chapters, before Oakley’s overall conclusions, highlights the “division of labour in the home” (Oakley, 1974, p. 136) and the roles of husbands and housewives regarding housework and child-care.

As mentioned by Oakley, when scrutinising housework, two differing stereotypes come to thought; positive and negative. The positive stereotype of housework is linked with creativity, pleasure, and general enjoyment; more as a leisure activity rather than a chore. (Oakley, 1974) The negative stereotype of housework is linked to oppression, tasks that are degrading, unpleasant and never-ending. (Oakley, 1974) From the 1971 study, and as a major theme of her research in general, Oakley states that there is a “clear perception” (p. 41) of housework being recognised as work or labour. As cited in Prather (1977), despite the main monetary principle of employment, the domestic servant and the housewife experience parallels in their work. This is mainly due to the fact that the dissatisfactions of housework is very similar to job satisfaction in paid employment. (Smit, 2016) Technically, housework is a form of “unskilled manual labour” (Phillips, 1976, p. 111), and is “defended as ‘real’ and ‘hard’ work”. (Oakley, 1974, p. 60) An interesting point raised through the ‘images of housework’ in Oakley’s study is that while a lot of the housewives interviewed enjoyed the autonomy of the role and saw it as one of the positive sides of housework, Oakley still anchors her findings of the sample on the negative facts, concluding at the end of this chapter that a large majority of the women did not enjoy their work (Oakley, 1974, p. 60); which carries through the entire research.

In regard to social class as a factor in the satisfaction levels of housework, Oakley’s 1974 research states that “working-class women are no less likely than middle-class women to express dissatisfaction with housework.” (p. 77) This is further clarified by Hammond (1977), who states that the attitudes of

SOSC222 Trimester One Monica Harris 300368954

housewives of the working and middle-class from Oakley’s research are very similar concerning “specific tasks, job specifications, identifications with their role, and dissatisfaction.” (p. 1103) While there is this found similarity between social classes, there are also, as expected, some differences of the working and middle-class housewives. An example that is popularly highlighted in Oakley’s work is that working-class housewives in comparison to middle-class are less likely to disagree or complain of the label “just a housewife”, should it be placed on them. (Vanek, 1976) While there are obvious similarities, housewives of varying social status and class are likely to experience different dissatisfactions toward housework and the role of ‘housewife’ due to the social expectations and pressures that lie within the working and middle-class. As stated earlier and brought to our attention by Oakley, it is certainly possible that while the attitudes towards the role of housewife can be positive, simultaneously the attitudes towards housework of the same woman can be negative, and vise-versa. (Oakley, 1974, p. 77) The main conclusions that Oakley (1974) draws regarding dissatisfaction of housewives is that housework is closely associated with “experiences of monotony, fragmentation, and excessive pace”. (p. 79) Oakley reminds us in chapter three that “housework is not a single activity” (p. 48) thus explaining the notion of fragmentation. Housework is divided up into many different subcategories, each of which often require a unique set of skills and equipment to be completed. The experiences of fragmentation are felt by housewives as instead of having one occupation that uses one set of skills, housework requires many. Some housework tasks are favoured over others, which is often where housewives are found to be dissatisfied with the work at hand but not with the entire role. While the tasks of housework differ from each other, creating feelings of fragmentation for housewives; housework itself is still considered monotonous by 75 percent of Oakley’s sample. Oakley states that the tasks of housework have “a ‘sameness’ about them” (p. 80), and this combined with the constant need for the tasks to be completed often on a daily basis is where the experiences of monotony lie. Another factor influencing the daily housework routine is the excessive pace that housewives adopt. With often a large amount of jobs to be completed each day, some housewives experience time pressures and “the feeling of always having too much to do” (Oakley, 1974, p. 80), of which having children to look after often increases these too. Other factors influencing the working conditions of housewives discussed in the study include social interaction, working hours, and the technical environment. (Oakley, 1974) Considering Oakley is interested in the factor of social class, it is surprising that she hasn’t included comparisons of working and middle-class as quantitative results in this section. While she has included many inserts of responses by housewives under different sections such as monotony, fragmentation and social interactions; there is no data sets or quantitative conclusions that can separate the experiences felt by both the working-class and the middle-class. Instead however, we are brought back to the central idea that housework is work, and thus the experiences of monotony, fragmentation and pace are compared to the shared experiences of

SOSC222 Trimester One Monica Harris 300368954

factory and assembly line workers. (Oakley, 1974) Oakley concludes here, that from the samples, “housewives tend to experience more monotony, fragmentation and pace in their work” (p. 87) than their factory worker counterparts. She goes on to state that these statistics give substance to the claims that housework is ‘alienating’, subtly referring to Marx’ work on alienation of workers which focussed largely on factory workers. Oakley also concludes that monotony and limited social interactions within the tasks of housework are directly linked to the dissatisfaction with work of housewives; while fragmentation of housework tasks is considered as a characteristic of dissatisfaction rather than a source. (Oakley, 1974)

As discussed in a short chapter of The Sociology of Housework, Oakley links the notion of autonomy with the unique standards and routines of housewives. As cited by Hammond (1977), “autonomy is the most highly valued dimension of housework”. (p. 1104) However, this is moderated by women believing it to be necessary to specify standards and routines in housework that they use to achieve the daily tasks presented to them. (Smit, 2016) Oakley takes this information and holds the “gender role socialisation” and “childhood socialisation” (Smit, 2016, p. 233) responsible for these unique standards and routines carried out by housewives. Oakley states that these standards and routines are not just “created as a response to the job situation” (p. 113), but more influenced by factors over the period of a woman’s transition from childhood to housewife. During this ‘transition’ a female is introduced to the domestic and housewife roles through a predetermined socialisation of her gender role, which is largely influenced by the mother and females that have direct and indirect contact the life of the female. (Oakley, 1974) The role of women in the home, at the time of Oakley’s research, was still seen and self-conceptualised as the domestic role, this being identified by many of the housewives in the study. As cited by Vanek (1976), housewives expressed “the need to do their part for the family” (p. 739), and this was seen to be achieved by setting high standards and working long hours to ensure all the tasks set were complete. Oakley recognises that the link between females and domestic duties is one that is traditional and deep-set in human society, therefore challenging this link is hardly feasible. It seems fitting that every female is directly domestically influenced by their mothers, therefore explaining the unique standards and routines carried out by housewives in their own home.

In one of Oakley’s last chapters in The Sociology of Housework, she pays full attention to the “area of the division of labour in the home” (p. 136), probing the interviewees about the involvement and participation of their husbands’ in both housework and child-care. At the beginning of this chapter, Oakley sets the

SOSC222 Trimester One Monica Harris 300368954

scene by confirming that social changes in both marriages and women’s occupation have occurred since the 1950s. She shares the knowledge that more women are now employed outside of the home, and that husbands in the family and home setting participate more. (Oakley, 1974) As cited in Smit (2016), the responses of the interviews saw that very few husbands “participated in the performance of domestic task responsibilities” (p. 233), with only 15 percent having significant housework participation. It was found to be more common that husbands participated in child-care, rather than in housework and domestic tasks. (Oakley, 1974) Oakley’s research also found that many of the women in the study disagreed with their husband having heavy involvement in domestic duties around the house; and many of these women referred to housework as “my work” (p. 159). When referring to their husband’s domestic tasks, the women of Oakley’s study tended to use the word ‘help’ to describe this; suggesting that even if their husband takes on some of the domestic tasks, it is still the housewife’s responsibility. (Oakley, 1974) Oakley concludes this chapter by explaining that “in only a small number of marriages is the husband notable domesticated” (p. 164), and including these cases, a fundamental separation of men and work versus women, house and children still occurs, as it is a deep-set central ideology to family.

Ann Oakley’s 1974 works on The Sociology of Housework is still acknowledged as one of the most fundamental pieces of research surrounding women’s perspectives and experiences of housework. It was the first of its kind in many ways, especially as widely received feminist approach to housework in sociology. The research and findings in Oakley’s published work were based off Oakley’s PhD study conducted in London in 1971, which was a sample size of 40 London housewives from both working and middle-class areas. While some of the vocabulary used and the social setting that the research was analysed in could be considered outdated, Oakley’s work contributed significant knowledge and awareness to housewives and housework. The strengths of Oakley’s study lie in her approach to present her research to the sociological world. In the first chapter of The Sociology of Housework, Oakley straight away sets the scene of the inequalities towards women and feminism in society and in the academic realm of sociology. She calls sociology out for being sexist “because it is male-orientated” (p. 2), and states that feminism is essentially “a perspective rather than a particular set of prescriptive values”. (p. 3) This approach creates Oakley a platform to present her findings in a less-restricted setting, as she effectively stands up to the maleorientated, sociological domain. The major strength of Oakley’s work is that she essentially opens the doors for future studies from a similar approach.

SOSC222 Trimester One Monica Harris 300368954

The weaknesses of Oakley’s study are largely in the methods and analysis of her research, which were subject to heavy criticisms at the time of publishing. Self-admitted is the relatively small sample size of 40 London housewives, with the main critique being that this sample won’t be an accurate representation of housewives across the world. It is to be remembered that Oakley stated in the beginning it would be an “exploratory, pilot survey.” (p. 30) Another major criticism to her work is that while the interviewed housewives did not see themselves as oppressed, Oakley constantly interprets high levels of dissatisfaction as oppressiveness of the domestic role. (Vanek, 1976) With Oakley’s research being the first of its kind, it undoubtedly adhered shortcomings in the process, and was heavily criticised. Despite this, the impact of The Sociology of Housework is still significant in contemporary society, as many studies owe Oakley’s work the thanks of opening the door for discussion and acceptance of feminist views.

Word Count: 2992

SOSC222 Trimester One Monica Harris 300368954

REFERENCES Hammond, A. (1977). Social Forces, 55(4), 1103-1104. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.helicon.vuw.ac.nz/stable/pdf/2577592.pdf?refreqid=excelsior %3A7779f4f8e8253d84585aab9b9f2e3615 Harvey, L. (2011). Critical Social Research. Retrieved from http://www.qualityresearchinternational.com/csr/genderoakley.php#Gender4 Oakley, A. (1974). The Sociology of Housework. Bath, Great Britain: The Pitman Press. Phillips, D. (1976). The British Journal of Sociology, 27(1), 110-111. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.helicon.vuw.ac.nz/stable/pdf/589579.pdf?refreqid=excelsior %3Adf13f54eaed55a0c8...