SOCI 371 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Heteronormativity, Undoing Gender, Sexual Orientation
19 Jun 2018
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02-27-2018
Divorce and Fragmentation of Families
No fault divorce- you are able to end a marriage after you have been separated for a year, you do not have
to present a reason for the divorce to the law. Divorce is not sanctioned today as it was historically.
50% of marriages end in divorce.
Family breakdown- outcome of divorce. Breakdown includes everyone in the family
Divorce- legal process. Involves only the monogamous relationship. Only applies to people who are
legally married.
03-13-2018
Growing number of families are splitting paid and unpaid work differently.
This change has to do with a change in earning patterns in society. Men still have more earnings than
women, most families still have a male as the main earner in the family. When men continue to earn
more, and one person must stay home, it is often the lower earner, which is often the women. This
reinforces the stereotype that in heterosexual families, men are the main providers.
In the 2009 recession recovery, a lot of men have lost their jobs and have been unemployed for a long
time, which has also propelled a growing proportion of women who are earning more than their partners.
The recession saw more men laid off than women.
Oriel Sullivan- evidence of change: in gendered division of labour over time, in attitudes about gender.
We need to reconsider what we think change is- change is incremental and trickle-down.
We need to look at gendered division of labour longitudinally. There has been changed over the past 100
years. Average increase per day of housework by men- 9 minutes.
We perform the expectations of gender, including in all everyday interactions.
Undoing gender- pushing back against traditional gender roles- ‘going against the grain’ Ranson was
reading research about how the gender revolution has stalled. She went on a search for families who were
undoing gender. She picked couples with preschool aged children and couples with school aged children.
Both homo and hetero sexual families.
Preschool age:
Cross overs- men in skirts and women in pants
Shift workers- taking shifts for childcare
Dual dividers- outside childcare and equal sharing. Families who earn the highest on SES. They outsource
the ‘unpaid work’ often to poor women of colour
School Age:
Challenges on path to change- women were doing more of the emotional work. Among all three family
types in the end both parents acted like peers in raising these school aged children in ‘against the grain’
families.
Conclusions:
1. This research includes parents who were functionally interchangeable- they do what is needed at
the time it is needed regardless of the gender of the parent.
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