SOCIOLOGY OF WORK

Reading Guide Hochschild The Second Shift Preface What do we learn from Hochschild's story about taking her baby to work? What do we learn about solving the work-family problem? Women pay the cost of patriarchal system: both the housewife and the career woman pay a cost. "Rather, the career system inhibits women, not so much by malevolent disobedience to good rules as by making up rules to suit the male half of the population in the first place . . . men do not share the raising of their children and the caring for their homes." (p. xiii) Women speak about feeling lucky but men don't. What does this say about the outlook on home and the cultural world of work? Introduction to the Penguin Edition What is the "stalled revolution"? New Trends More couples work two jobs and workweek has lengthened. Mothers with children (at all ages) that work for pay has increased. But the wife's salary is optional right? "In a sense, women's work is a way the family has absorbed the deindustrialization of America and the decline in men's wages." (p. xxv) What is a "couple's fall back system" and what has happened to it? Trends indicate that the second shift flourishes. How Men Feel About the Second Shift The new double-bind for men urging to be new American man, but men losing pay/jobs relative to women and the rich who can afford outsourcing domestic service put pressure on other men to question what it means to be a man. "On one hand he felt, 'I'm being the active father I want to be.' On the other hand, he also had a sinking feeling: 'I'm a man doing work even middle- and upper-class women are getting out of.'" (p. xxvii) What does Juster et al. (2001) find? Are men still doing more housework than they use to? Chapter 1 A Speed-up in the Family The ideal woman a supermom of today . . . "That lady's got a maid." (1) What does the 1965-66 Szalai study show? Hochshild finds women worked an extra month of 24 hour days over a year compared to men.

the leisure gap, the second shift at home Thoits working mothers report being more anxious than any other group Statement of purpose (4). My Research Interviews and observations in the 1970s and 1980s Inside The Extra Month A Year Women are more torn between demands of work and family than men. Who felt the second shift was really their issue? Dah. Majority of men did not share the load at home. Do they get off without repercussions? Evan Holt example Women feel more responsible for kid's stuff Moms are torn between work ambition and standing apart from it Thinking of couples that share more equitably work at home, what kind of jobs are women more likely to do than the men? Women juggle three spheres and men juggle two Men are more likely to do fewer undesirable household chores and more fun things with the kids Who suffers most from the speed-up of work and family life? Chapter 17 Stepping into Old Biographies or Making History Happen Revolution in the role of women and the motor of revolution is changing economy "Just as American blacks have 'absorbed' a higher unemployment rate 'for whites,' in the same sense, the growing number of working women have absorbed the contradictory demands of family and work 'for men.'" (270) Unlike race relations, men and women live together and so the 'problem' becomes part of the marriage. To deal with demands of work and family, women pursue what kind of strategies? "I do my half. I do half of his half, and the rest doesn't get done." (271) Men used strategies of substitution What is the deeper problem than being anxious or tried for second shift women? Future Nancy Holts? A March 1988 survey indicated that only 1% of women said they wanted to be a full-time homemaker when asked to name their probable career.

Second shift problems even more dramatic for working class women. A Gender Strategy For The Nation Paid parental leave Corporations should consider the advantages of meeting the needs of workers and their families Move away from acceptance of "traditional" family roles