Commitments, emotions and family: a study of sources of change and stability in gendered domestic relationships

Abstract

While the employment options available to women have undergone significant change in recent years, and they have much more control over their fertility, gendered domestic responsibilities and relationships have proved rather more resistant to change. These gendered patterns of domestic life have been linked with women's 'oppression' and disadvantage both within family households and beyond them. This exploratory study has charted some of the processes by which twenty New Zealand families came to adopt and sustain unconventional arrangements for the gender division of domestic work, childcare and employment responsibilities. These couples, it was argued, were likely to have to resist or at least become conscious of the processes which shape and stabilise more conventional practices, thereby providing insights into how those patterns are sustained. This research develops out of a strong line of feminist scholarship that has focused on the character and significance of women's household activity for understanding domestic politics and 'oppressive' relationships between women and men in family households. These explanations have been criticised for ignoring or misrepresenting diversity in women's experiences. This study uses in-depth interviews and focus group interviews as a means to both explore complexity and meaning as well as to identify commonalities in the experiences of those who have attempted to 'do things differently'. An important part of this project has been to identify some of the limitations of conventional approaches to the investigation and analysis of domestic relationships and activities. It was found that the processes of establishing and maintaining non-conventional patterns were complex and multifaceted. Sources of constraint to change lay as much in the 'intangible' and emotional dimensions of household activity as in the material forms most often measured in studies of family households. This thesis argues that an exclusive focus on economic measures may misrepresent domestic processes and logics, and that strategies for researching the less visible dimensions of domestic relationships need to be developed. This research contributes to on-going debates about the nature of gender relations in family households and to the very few studies of domestic politics in New Zealand family households.