Is it proper for women to involve into workplace and give economic contribution to family as men do? This question has perplexed people for decades. It gained various comments, but can hardly be given a clear judgment. Basically men want their wives focus on domestic work and take good care of children so that they can go to work without worries, whereas women want to work outdoor as well to fulfill their self-actualization. Although women in workplace want be fully accepted and respected, they can hardly make it happen in the near future.
There are several reasons that block on the way and the most important one is the historical perception of husband’s duty and wife’s duty. As the text said, “Historians now agree that the traditional family as we came to know and practice it in the United States had its roots in English common law of the tenth or eleventh century, which at that time reflected Christian beliefs about marriage. ” (Landry, pg18). It is known as the husband is the legal head and the provider of the family, the wife is responsible for nurturing children and meeting her husband’s needs.
Most people would feel familiar because that is what they are experiencing in their society. Children typically spend much more time with mother than father at home. What’s more, during 1830s, the cult of domesticity rooted the stereotype of men and women deeper in people’s mind. Between 1830 and 1860, even the women magazines emphasized that the “True Womanhood” was to be found in the home, in the nurturing of children, and in the care of husband (Landry, pg22). This kind of brainwash changed people’s perception unconsciously and passed through generations.
It is a man’s dream that when he gets off from work, the home is clean and tidy. The dinner is ready and his wife and children are waiting for him. The traditional family is exactly what most men dreaming of. The wife can stay at home also indicates that the husband has the ability to support his family. The traditional family not only fulfills a man’s dream, but also keeps a man’s self-esteem. The black women, due to their special racial identity, started to defend their virtue through developing a new definition of womanhood (Landry, pg57).
What they tried to do was to make men accept that women can involve into workplace, instead of staying at home all the time. They made the society transformed from traditional family to dual-worker family. However, not everything went well. The second reason is that men are not keen on doing domestic work. Studies have shown that husbands spend much less time on housework than wives and the household labor remained highly segregated by gender (Landry, pg153). What wives do most are shopping, cooking, and cleaning. On the contrary, husbands focus more on outdoor work and car maintenance.
It’s easy to understand this because of the general gender differences. Males prefer to do works that are more masculine, simple, and less time consuming. Females prefer to do works that are organized and with details. That’s why the time distribution is so unbalance on household work. Wives do most of the time consuming work, for example, cooking. Before cooking, wives have to go shopping and decide what to cook. Back home, they wash, cut, and maybe marinate those ingredients, which all processes cost plenty of time.
Though nowadays husbands are willing to share domestic work with their wives, it takes time for them to truly involve into domestic work. The last but not the least, the dilemma of child care raises problems. Some well-formed corporations have the condition for child care, however, it’s just not good enough. In 1972, both houses of Congress had passed legislation to establish a national day care system (Landry, pg172), which offered a “better” way for dual-worker families. It seems that the child care canter is a good choice, nevertheless, new problem appeared.
The qualities of child care canter depend on family income. Apparently, parents want their child receiving good care while they are at work. The better the facility is, the higher price would be. Most of the dual-worker families can’t afford the fancy child care, instead, they would choose those which they could afford that are less expensive. As it mentioned in the text, a 1995 study of four states by the University of Colorado, Denver, Identified only 14 percent of child care centers as providing “good quality” care.
A 1994 study by the New York-based Families and Work Institute claimed 13 percent of regulated and 50 percent of unregulated family day care providers offered “inadequate” care. These studies agreed that the problem is most acute for poor families, like African American and Latino families (Landry, pg174). The day care center is not only limited to basic health and safety standards but also influence children’s cognitive and emotional development.
Childhood development is the most significant phase in a human’s lifetime. It is a phase that would shape a majority of a person’s personality. Many children who didn’t get enough care during childhood would have problem getting along with others after grown up. What’s more, a number of studies have found that children who spent the most time in high-quality day care from infancy on had more friends in elementary school, were more assertive and better adjusted, and performed well academically (Landry, pg182).
How can parents leave their child in a low-quality day care center with no worry? In the real world, most of the dual-worker families are not capable to afford a good quality day care center. To conclude, the halo of domesticity on women won’t easily disappear. Women will still be expected to play the domestic role. After people’s perception changed and the improvement of child care center had be done, women can fully involve into workplace and be accepted and respected.