Reality Magazine
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April 2006
Gender Roles and False Expectations
The blueprint
for gender equality in the next generation will be created by what parents
model for their children today writes Carmel Wynne
All families have
unwritten rules that have an enormous impact on relationships both inside
and outside the family. How parents treat each other creates a blueprint
that has a powerful influence on their children. It affects what they
believe regarding gender roles when they become adults
Even though this generation is the most educated ever most young adults
are ignorant about how the beliefs, attitudes and expectations they bring
from their family of origin will impact on their adult relationships and
how they parent their children.
The expectations parents have about who does what work both at home and
outside have radically changed. When couples are unaware of their
different perceptions about the roles of men and women conflicts are bound
to arise. These can go from small rows to fights that are so serious that
the marriage relationship is threatened.
Not disappeared
It’s not so long ago that expectations about what careers and what
household tasks men, women and children should perform were limited by age
or gender roles.
In modern Ireland one would think that these divisions of labour created
by traditional gender roles would have disappeared. They may be gone in
the workplace but many outdated ways of thinking are causing problems in
families that are rarely aired in public.
At a time when previous generations were married and had started a family
young people today are studying. Students who lack the financial
independence to take on the responsibility of marriage cohabit while they
are in college.
Their psychological maturation is delayed because they are dependent
students into their twenties and enter the labour force later than
previous generations. Many still live with their parents.
Some marry their college partner when they graduate but many are not ready
for the adult responsibility of making a commitment. It’s common to hear
college students openly admit that they’re not sure if they can remain
monogamous or even if they want an intimate partnership like marriage.
Some young women put their emotional lives on hold when they graduate.
Gender roles are changing. There are probably more major shifts in the
expectations young women hold than men recognise.
The modern man
The ‘modern man’ seeks more time for personal growth. Reflecting the new
freedoms enjoyed by the 21st century male we now find guys who
admit that being loving and having children is more important to them than
a career or money.
But just as the new men are willing to settle for a more balanced
lifestyle we find ambitious women who want to get on the fast-track in
formerly male-exclusive careers. They seek independence and status and
work hard to have successful careers that allow them have personal and
financial freedom.
The number of married couples where the wife does not work outside the
home is dwindling.
When a working wife expects her husband to scrub the kitchen floor while
she puts the children to bed and his expectations is that he deserves to
stretch out on the couch, trouble is brewing.
And the number of families where the wife is the main breadwinner is
steadily increasing. One result of this is that young men find it
increasingly difficult to find a partner who will fulfil the traditional
roles of wife and mother.
Most men have expectations influenced by the blueprint that was modelled
by their parents. It’s understandable that they expect a wife to take
care of domestic matters in much the same way that happened in their
family of origin.
Young women have moved beyond those expectations. So many young wives who
observed the stress of older women who had to juggle career and children
assume that they won’t have to live through the cycle of sleep deprivation
and constant stress. They assume that the ‘modern man’ they married will
do his fair share.
Lack of clarity
Couples lack clarity about the roles of men and women in the world today.
In our society traditional beliefs about what men should do and what women
should do have been destabilised by massive ideological changes.
Without agreed rules for dividing up labour both sexes lack clearly
defined areas of responsibility. Unspoken expectations about who takes
responsibility for different areas of parenting and household chores
create a great deal of unhappiness.
In our grandparents generation the man ‘wore the pants’. He earned the
money and made decision because he was better educated. This began to
change in the 1970’s. The ban that stopped married women working in
Government Departments had gone and wives had new choices. They could opt
to stay at home or work outside the home:
In this century those choices are all but gone. The majority of women are
forced to remain in the workforce because of economic necessities. Some
welcome these changes. Others bemoan them because they have permanently
altered the quality of family life.
Modern women are well educated and assertive. Even though they may not
yet have full sexual equality they have career opportunities that allow
them compete on equal terms with men. Yet despite the affluence brought
about by the Celtic Tiger couples today will never enjoy the comfortable
relaxed middle class lifestyle that their single pay-packet parents had.
Domestic problems
The domestic problems raised by the cross over of roles are rarely
acknowledged or addressed. In theory any woman is as able to ‘wear the
pants’ in the family as any man. Yet when a working wife expects her
husband to scrub the kitchen floor while she puts the children to bed and
his expectations is that he deserves to stretch out on the couch, trouble
is brewing.
Every couple who sets up home together has expectations of each other.
Whether they are aware of it or not they make assumptions about the roles
of men and women.
If they fail to articulate their expectations of each other, as most
couple do, they are bound to feel resentful when the other doesn’t do
what’s expected.
Sustaining a happy domestic life takes ongoing planning, effort and honest
communication. Both partners need to voice their expectations of what
they want from each other. They need to negotiate about their respective
assumptions of the other’s role.
In the rosy glow of newly wedded bliss there is often the unrealistic
expectation of living happily every after. In those early halcyon
honeymoon days after a couple move in together it seems unlikely that he
or she and the true love will ever have a serious disagreement.
Dirty dishes, un-ironed clothes and smelly babies soon shatter that
illusion. There is nothing like the daily drudgery of coming home tired
to face cooking, cleaning and bed-making to erode romance and make one
question if your spouse really loves you. Figuring out who takes
responsibility for tackling what role can save an enormous amount of
conflict in the long run.
False expectations
So much unnecessary distress can be avoided in families when they identify
the assumptions that motivate behaviour. Most of us believe that our
expectations of our family members are fair. We have ideas about who
should do what chores that we have never discussed or had them agree to
do.
As roles have altered society’s attitudes to what men and women are
capable of doing have changed radically. Theoretically people have
welcomed these changes but in practice the changes are slow to filter
down. A surprising number of us act out the roles of men and women that
we saw modelled in our family of origin.
Young parents have no choice about the radical changes that are happening
in society. They have choices about how they negotiate who fulfils what
role in the 21st century family. The blueprint for gender
equality in the next generation is created by what parents model for their
children today.
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