The Sociology Book

318

HOUSEWORK IS

DIRECTLY OPPOSED TO

SELF-ACTUALIZATION

ANN OAKLEY (1944– )

T

he majority of women’s

work is still domestic labor

that takes place in the

home. More than a generation ago,

in 1974, sociologist Ann Oakley

undertook one of the first feminist

sociological studies of domestic

labor when she interviewed 40

London housewives between the

ages of 20 and 30, all of whom had

at least one child under five.

The pioneering study looks at

housework from the perspective

of these women.

Oakley argues that housework

should be understood as a job

in its own right and not a natural

extension of a woman’s role as

a wife or mother. This was a

controversial standpoint at a time

Housework in capitalist and patriarchal

societies is exploitative...

Housework is work directly

opposed to self-actualization.

...because it is

low-status work that is

assumed to come naturally

to women.

...because it offers little

opportunity for creativity

or self-fulfillment.

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Housework as alienation

KEY DATES

1844 Karl Marx introduces

his theory of the workers’

alienation from their work.

1955 Sociologist Talcott

Parsons sees housework as an

integral part of the female role.

1985 In Contemporary

Housework and the

Houseworker Role, British

sociologist Mary Maynard

reveals that working women

do far more housework than

their working husbands.

1986 British sociologists

Linda McKee and Colin Bell

claim that when men are

unemployed, they do less

housework: their masculine

identity is seen as threatened

and wives are unwilling

to weaken it still further by

asking them to accept greater

domestic responsibility.