Have the attitudes of men and women toward family changed?

The role and attitude of man and women in a family have not always been the same. Historically,

women have had a lower position in the family than men had; they did only the housework and

looked after their children, whereas men were the head of the family. However, during WWI and

WWII the roles changed. Women started to work in gun factories or as nurses because all men

were in the battlefront. This lead to a series of changes after several social struggles such as the

right to own a property, right to work, vote, etc. Both genders have similarities and differences in

terms of gender role and commitment to attitude.

Regarding similarities, men and women have some aspects in common. Firstly, both work and

are the economic support of the family. In the last years, the number of women workers have

highly increased. In other words, they can also contribute financially to the family. Another

similarity is the commitment to marriage. According to a poll carried out by Dirección General

de Estadística y Censo del Ministerio de Hacienda (as cited in El Clarín, 2017), the marriage rate

has descended 47% since 1990. The high number of people who choose to live together informally

can explain this statistic.

In spite of these similarities, both genders share some differences. According to the newspaper

El Clarín (2017), the age of marriage differ greatly; women marry at 25 years whereas man at 33

years. Another difference is who carry out the housework, there is still a tendency of women to

do it. As stated in The Daily Mail (n.d.) “Researchers found that they spent three times as long

on domestic chores, such as cooking, cleaning, and washing, as their husbands or partners.”

Society does still have the view of women as the only one who must do the housekeeping chores.

In conclusion, the legacy of years of social struggles has shaped the attitude of men and women

toward the family. There are similarities in the fields of work and marriage, however, in the latter,

the difference can be seen in the marriage age. Just as women could now work, men should share

the daily duties to alleviate women’s life.

Yañez Maximiliano Ismael

Reference:

Yapp, R. Working women 'still do housework'. Retrieved from

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-206381/Working-women-housework.html

Clarín. Dar el sí cada vez más tarde: las parejas ahora se casan a los 34. (2017). Retrieved from

https://www.clarin.com/sociedad/dar-vez-tarde-parejas-ahora-casan-34_0_BysBlmDff.html