MEN and WOMEN

– the Challenge of New Roles

Labour-saving devices in the home, ideas on Women’s Liberation, and an increase in the numbers of unemployed have all contributed to a change in the relationships between men and women in the USA, Britain, and other countries. How is society adapting?

Women’s role in society began to change with the advent of the industrial revolution. Previously most women had spent their lives at home, primarily as carers – of husbands and family, or of parents or relatives. When they took paid employment, most of the jobs available to them were in areas such as teaching, nursing or domestic service. Many women were employed as cheap labour, once industries such as factories and cotton mills were established. Although their wages were low, their earning power gave them a certain amount of independence.

Two world wars gave women more opportunities. They did work on farms and in factories previously done by men, and did it well.

This changed society’s view of their role; it also changed their own views of their potential. But until the 1950s it was unusual for a woman to be in a senior position in government service, law, banking or other aspects of business; although many women became adept at developing small businesses, such as shops, guest houses, etc. Until 1946, women in the civil service had to resign if they got married. The law gradually acknowledged that women should not be treated differently from men. The Married Women’s Property Acts, starting in 1879 in Britain, for example, enabled women to hold and dispose of property as they wished.

Previously, a woman’s property passed to her husband on marriage. The Representation of the People Act gave British women the vote at the age of 30 in 1918 and at age 21, the same age as men, in 1928. Today both sexes can vote at age 18.

But how have these changes in women’s roles affected men? As American civil rights leader Martin Luther King used to say, “No one is free until we are all free.” There is a sense in which the development of rights for women freed men from the rigid stereotypes imposed on them by the old attitudes. They began to feel able to express their emotions more openly and behave differently. Until recently not only in the USA but in many other European countries it was a custom that a man would pay for the girl if he had invited her to go out.

As many women work today, they think it is unfair for men always to pay for everything when they go out, and they pay for themselves. Some women also say that if a man pays for them they feel like they owe him something. Some modern women prefer to pay because they like to feel like an equal partner on a date. They say that if they are taken places and paid for they don’t feel free and equal. However, lots of British, German, American and French men still pay for women on dates. They feel it is the man’s role to do so, but with women’s and men’s roles changing so fast everywhere, it is often confusing to know what to do. Of course, a lot depends on one’s cultural assumption or belief about the way the world works, a way to understand reality. And as cultures vary, cultural assumptions are different in different countries as well.

Our cultural assumptions are so much a part of us that many times we cannot believe that the whole world does not see things as we do. That is why trying to understand cultural assumptions of other people can help explain their way of thinking and acting.

American parents, for example, assume young people will never learn to act responsibly unless they are given some responsibility and independence. Because of this, American parents allow their unmarried children to go out alone on dates after they reach a certain age. It is not that they don’t care about their children. Rather, American parents feel their children must learn to become independent. According to the Latin American and mostly Hispanic cultural assumptions, the worst may happen if parents let their daughters go out alone with a man. So it is actually a norm there that a girl by origin Italian or Spanish by origin girl is accompanied by another girl not necessarily a relative when she goes out. Most Latin parents feel that it is their responsibility to make sure that their daughters are not left alone on a date.

As to bringing up the children in general, we have to say that today in families where the wife works, the father is often more involved in the process. Many men in the USA and in the majority of European countries have found a new type of relationship with their wives and their children as a result of sharing responsibilities and spending more time with the family irrespective of this or that cultural assumption. Of course, initially the man who stood at the kitchen sink or did housework was a figure of fun to his work mates or colleagues. There was a suggestion that such a man was losing his masculinity, becoming “too soft”. Twenty years ago it would have been unthinkable for a government minister to say that he began his day by cooking breakfast for five children and delivering them to their different schools. Yet, Britain’s Energy Secretary, Peter Walker, stated in 1987 that this was part of his daily routine.

Nevertheless, running a home and having a job is still expected from mothers of single-parent families or married women who take a job outside the home, as more than 70 per cent of wives in Britain alone do today. It is still exceptional when a man runs a home and a job. Even more exceptional is the reversal of roles, when the woman becomes the only earner for the household and the man remains at home.

For a few couples this is a matter of choice, but recently others have had to accept this reversal of roles because the man has been made redundant and the only work available is that for which the wife is better qualified. Ironically, the jobs which employ women – mainly service or light industries – have survived the recession better than heavy industry, which employs more men.

Very often nowadays, due to the idea of shared responsibility, husbands and wives share their duties about their homes, and it is really of no importance who cooks in the family-providing the cooking is good.

Fast food is becoming less and less loved and respected both in the USA and Europe. Actually canned, frozen and processed foods – which became very popular, especially in the USA in the 1950s when the American food industry tried to convince Americans that those foods were more timesaving, modern and safe – are becoming less popular today. There is a certain revival of family values, good home-made dinners included, all over the civilized world. People are tired of frozen pizzas, potato chips and TV dinners, and prefer plain old cooked meat with potatoes, or even health food. That is why, putting the question of sex equality aside, men do cook, if they like good food, can cook well, and understand that their wives may be good or better than they are at some other domestic duty.

So men and women in Britain, the USA and elsewhere are developing a flexible approach to their roles, and society is starting to follow suit, although the concept of equal rights between men and women still has a long way to go, no matter what culture one represents and what cultural assumption one has.

By Natalya Predtechenskaya