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Connecting Gender, Power and the Household

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Gender, Power and the Household

Abstract

Theoretical and empirical research on gender, the family and the household has tended to focus upon work conducted within the home, and the negotiation and allocation of resources within households (Oakley, 1974a; Whitehead, 1981; Harris, 1984; Pahl, 1984; Berk, 1985; Morris, 1985; Brannen and Wilson, 1987; Mansfield and Collard, 1988; Van Every, 1995). The origins of many of these studies can be traced to Oakley’s work in the early 1970s which heralded a new approach to research on women, the home, and (paid) work. Oakley’s study of housework not only concerned an examination of the housewife role but also the division of labour in the household and ideologies of domesticity (Oakley, 1974a; Oakley, 1974b). She argued that ‘the kitchen is the symbol of women’s domesticity, and the lifelong activities and identities of women outside the kitchen are determined and defined by their domesticity’ (Oakley, 1974a: 222). Change in women’s role would only follow, Oakley argued, from the abolition of the housewife role, the family and gender roles. At the time this was considered a radical approach to the study of gender and the household and it was one which placed and re-emphasized conceptions of the household, power and hierarchy between men and women as central to the analysis of women in society.

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Authors
  1. Linda McKie
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  2. Sophia Bowlby
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  3. Susan Gregory
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Aberdeen, UK

    Linda McKie (Senior Lecturer in Health Education) (Senior Lecturer in Health Education)

  2. University of Reading, UK

    Sophia Bowlby (Senior Lecturer in Geography) (Senior Lecturer in Geography)

  3. University of Surrey, UK

    Susan Gregory (Doctoral Student) (Doctoral Student)

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© 1999 Linda McKie, Sophia Bowlby and Susan Gregory

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McKie, L., Bowlby, S., Gregory, S. (1999). Connecting Gender, Power and the Household. In: McKie, L., Bowlby, S., Gregory, S., Campling, J. (eds) Gender, Power and the Household. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230376632_1

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