Gender roles and family structures Notes

How Did Gender Expectations Shift Over Time?

1. Gender expectations have never been fixed.
2. They change whenever society experiences major shocks: war, industrialisation, reform movements, new technologies, or economic upheavals.
3. Each change opened new opportunities for some people while reinforcing limits for others.

How gender roles were traditionally structured

1. For most of history, societies organised daily life around a strict division of labour:
   1. Men → public work, politics, wage labour, military
   2. Women → home-based labour, childcare, domestic management
   3. Family structures → often large, extended, and patriarchal
   4. Legal systems → usually gave men authority over property, finances, and decisions

What caused gender expectations to change?

Industrialisation: when factories replaced households

1. As factories grew, work moved outside the home:
   1. Women and children entered textile mills and urban factories
   2. Families depended on multiple wages instead of home production
   3. Urbanisation weakened village-based patriarchal controls
   4. Middle-class ideals of the “breadwinner husband” and “homemaker wife” emerged

Education and reform movements

1. Access to schooling and new reform ideas pushed society to rethink gender:
   1. Growing literacy → women participated more in public debate
   2. Feminist movements argued for rights to vote, study, and work
   3. Campaigns targeted child labour, temperance, and welfare reform
   4. New female professions emerged: teaching, nursing, clerical work
2. Result: social expectations expanded, but still unevenly.

Technological change

1. Every new invention changed the balance of labour at home and at work:
   1. Sewing machines → more women in garment factories
   2. Typewriters and telephones → women became clerks and operators
   3. Contraception (later) → more control over family planning
   4. Household appliances → reduced domestic labour but increased expectations of cleanliness

Case study

Gender Roles During World War II (Britain)

• Why women entered the workforce
  • Male conscription left massive labour shortages.
  • Women were needed in farms, factories, transport, hospitals, and civil defence.
  • By 1943, 9 out of 10 single women and many married women were doing war work.
• New roles women took on
  • Munitions factory workers
  • Mechanics and engineers
  • Bus and tram conductors
  • Code workers and clerical staff
  • Agricultural labour in the Women's Land Army
• Social impacts
  • Women gained new skills and confidence
  • Gender stereotypes were challenged
  • Many enjoyed financial independence for the first time
  • Childcare and domestic routines had to be reorganised
• After the war
  • Most women were expected to return home
  • Men reclaimed “traditional” jobs
  • But long-term change had begun:
  • more women stayed in paid work
  • rising expectations for equality
  • momentum for later feminist movements
• WW2 didn’t end gender inequality, but it cracked the foundations.

How family structures shifted over time

Industrial era → smaller families

1. Urban living = less space
2. Lower child mortality due to medicine
3. Rising costs of raising children
4. Women increasingly managing both wage work and home

Post-WW2 changes

1. Baby boom followed by smaller households
2. Growth of single-parent families
3. More dual-income households
4. Changing social expectations about marriage and divorce

Modern era

1. Greater gender equality in education and employment
2. Parenthood delayed due to careers and living costs
3. Diverse family structures: blended, same-sex, cohabiting, single adults

Why gender expectations are never fixed

1. Gender roles shift when:
   1. Economies change
   2. Wars disrupt labour patterns
   3. New technologies reorganise work
   4. Legal reforms expand rights
   5. Social movements challenge stereotypes
2. In other words: gender is shaped by history, not biology.