Problem 8:

Middle
Class and
Domesticit
y
Family and RoleDivision

Author - Karin Hausen

- Born 1938
- Studied history, German language, literature, and sociology
- 1976: Family and Role-Division
- 1978 - 1995: professor for economic and social history in Berlin
- 1995: found Center for Interdisciplinary women's and gender studies and
lead it until retirement in 2003
- Influential in establishing gender studies in Germany

Articles Main Point

Five parts - most important points:
1. Character of the sexes
2. Enlightenment
3. Education
4. Socialization
5. Work

1.Character of the Sexes

based on nature, not social roles
complement each other
normative statements

men

women

active

passive

rational

emotional

public

domestic

individual

universal

2. Enlightenment
autonomous, rational, free person
social contract applied to marriage (love marriage)
new form of legitimation for the subjection of women to husband and
domestic sphere
Nature: transgression of boundaries is "going against nature"

3. Education
Not sponsored by state
Different subjects
Class difference

4. Socialization
the process of acquiring norms and value
mother: emotional security
father: rationality

5. Work
Public life vs Domestic life
Paid vs unpaid domestic work gets devalued
Bureaucratic (abstract/rational) vs traditional (emotional/concrete) work
Class distinctions

Support
- Encyclopedias, dictionaries
- Legal aspects, legal scholars (also shows Wecklers critical thinking)
- Philosophers (Kant, Humbold)
- Politicians (Gervinus)
- Lots of other academic work
- Very cautious, often acknowledges the need for further research

Importance of Main Points

Link information together
Genuine interest in the field
Gender studies not institutionalized
Not much research done

Embraced Points
social-constructivism
gender roles
related to production
social change
ideology
socialization/education

Structure
1. general introduction, approach (role theory), aims
2. description of the characteristics
3. function (patriarchal authority)
4. emergence/reproduction relating to civil servants, divided work and
education
5. greater significance: family work not modernized, influences on family
structure/perceptions; socialization

Argumentative Steps
Overlaps with structure
Inductive reasoning
Qualitative research
Positivist

Theoretical Concepts
dichotomies/polarization/complement
- disposition: male is individual, female is universal
- household/bourgeois family
- forms of work (domestic/wage)
- marriage: meaning changed

Quotation 1
Thus in the male form the idea of power prevails, in the female more the idea
of beauty... the male spirit is more creative, having greater effect on the
outside world, more inclined to strive, to precess abstract subjects, to form
wide-ranging plans; of the passions the swift, volatile ones belong to the man,
the slow secretive, inward ones to the woman.

Quotation 2
Reproduction is only possible through the cooperation of both; however, the
female has mistakably the largest part to play in this operation - while the
woman in the main lays the foundation for the ties which bind the family, the
man is the link with the external world; he is the bond between family and
family, it is he who is the basis of the State.

Critical Statement
Creative linking of different ideas
Jumps back and forth in time
Sections do not coincide with content
Little reference to theoretical concepts of introduction
Distinction between reality and ideology

Questions?