Summary:

Chapter 1 and 2 serve generally as an introduction to the book as a whole. The reasons for writing the book are explained, and it introduces some more unknown results of the gender revolution. Generally it seems like women at the moment are doing more work and are busier than they were before the gender revolution. This mainly so because men haven't been changing and adapting as quickly to the new times as women have. While women have started working out, they have not got much more help with the housework and duties at home. As the author explains, most quarrels seem to "result mainly from a friction between faster-changing women and slower-changing men". While an average woman would spend three hours a day on housework, her husband would only spend 17 minutes. Similar numbers are presented when it comes to childcare, and it also seems like women have to do the least amusing part of the housework. To shorten it up, women clean the toilets while their men take the kids to an amusement park. Because the revolution only seemed to occur on some areas of daily life, the author suggests that changes in more atmospheres must and should take place. She thinks this is the only solution if we should not be induced to return to the traditional family.

Reading note:

"If we can't return to traditional marriage, and if we are not to despair of marriage altogether, it becomes vitally important to understand marriage as a magnet for the strains of the stalled revolution, and to understand gender strategies as the basic dynamic of marriage".

This is how the author concludes one of her final arguments in chapter 2, and evidently the research on marriages and how they function is important. But for some reason it seems like the author has a better understanding of the marriages than the married couples themselves, and this is probably not always a good thing. Even though she impresses the readers by explaining how she only listened in on conversations and was close to invisible in the room, it still doesn't take away all the doubt I'm feeling towards the entire project as a whole. It seems like a daunting task for an outsider to rank a marriage, and happiness and the total success of a marriage can probably not be rated on a scale. All sociologists, antrophologists and the like strive to make as objective and correct judgements as possible, but observing a marriage must be one of the most challenging missions there are. A marriage is more than anything else a life arrangement between two people, most often a woman and a man, and they alone are the only ones who can truly be "inside". In contrast to other societies, tribes and organisations one would like to study, one can never really become a part of a family. Therefore will the sociologist never seize to be a mere observer, and the married couple will remain the insiders guarding their vows. I will certainly never know what the interviewed couples in the end felt about the conclusions drawn by the author, but I very much doubt they would agree a hundred percent with neither the author's positive nor negative remarks. Even though one could get reactions from the other side, it would in the end be a totally subjective decision to decide who's right and who's wrong.

Apart from that I enjoyed reading how none of the interviewed women would identify with the working mother in the picture who strides forward, with a briefcase in one hand, a smiling child in the other. Yet this seems to be, no matter what one might think of the development, the reality many modern women must face if they want to enter the workforce. The conclusion is right though; Even though many women haven't yet realised who they've become, they are the hectic and busy woman in the picture. Life is never like it is in the movies, and I guess that we within a few generations will find out if most women felt the gender revolution was for the better or worse.

Summary:

The third chapter discusses the ideal of the modern woman, the one who is doing so well "because she is personally competent, not because she has a sound social arrangement". It explains that many modern women often are forced to adapt to an overly demanding schedule, and that it is not always just a question of choice. An example the author brings up is black women, who are usually perceived as being dominate matriarchal. The author claims this is not the problem though, but thinks the problem rather arises because black men aren't able to share the responsibilities. Also there is a common perception that machines have greatly lightened the burden of housework. This is also opposed, and numbers are shown to prove that women are spending just as much time on housework now as before. The rest of the chapter is mostly used to present more evidence on what the author claims is society's and men's difficulties of adapting, and that they have to do so before one can reach the goal of full equality. Especially she brings up the fact that women and men are used very differently in commercials, and that is almost seems like the woman is supposed to do "both shifts".

Reading note:

It's very difficult to relate to much of chapter 3, especially to what is written about African American couples in bigger cities. Still the author has a good point when she claims that a sound social arrangement is essential for a modern family, and that it takes much more than a personally competent woman. In many countries, I dare to say most, there is evidently a profound lack of day-care and similar options available. This situation often makes it not only difficult for a modern woman to pursue a career, it probably makes it close to impossible. Even harder is it when so many modern marriages end with divorces, for Nancy Holt this option probably wouldn't have benefited her career as she likely would have ended up with their son.

In commercials one very often sees how women are being used differently than men. One can safely say that this is a result of a male dominated society, which especially shows in Japan. Still I think it is obvious that commercials directed towards women will look differently than those which are directed towards men. This is also one of the reasons why you see less naked male bodies on television, than you do female. It is seldom easy to decide what's sexist though, and people of both sexes will probably disagree on this issue. In Norway we just recently had an add going on for a new telephone company, and the slogan was that "Even though my brain isn't my biggest organ, I'm still able to choose the right telephone company". There were two versions, one with a male bodybuilder and the other with a female rather big-breasted woman. Even though the male version showed much more nakedness than the female version, only the last got banned due to discriminatory reasons. Issues like these generate much discussion, and in this case the modern women who had made the campaign stood staunch against more radical feminists. Knowing where to draw the line can often be difficult, and not everyone wants to draw a line at all.

If I should make a conclusion on what I've read of Hochschild's book, I must say that I am quite surprised what a difficult path one has to walk on the road to equality between the sexes. Now there's obviously much disagreement on what equality means, and many marriages may obviously seem problematic when only this issue is being surveyed. Most definitively there are many more issues that decide the total happiness of a marriage, and these are of course interesting even though they might fall under the field of philosophy. Still it is a fact that couples with two working parents on average make more money than couples with one working adult. Yet this figure is of course not the double. For examples a recent British survey showed that men with working wives in general would make less money than those who had not. This is obviously due to the fact that men who have to care less about the second shift will be able to concentrate just the more on their work, and they are therefore more easily promoted and earn higher wages. Even though the difference in salaries usually is only around 10-20%, it still will be a dramatic change for families which are mostly supported by the male. In addition to this, one has the expenses connected to day-care, and these are often quite noticeable (this of course depending on the number of children in the different age-groups). Therefore I think it in general is wrong to conclude that families with one working parent will be much worse off than families with two. The economic issue does therefore not need to be vital to all families, I would think this is especially relevant to many middle- and upper-class couples.

At the same time, I have to make a comment on the general welfare and happiness of adults after the second world war. Many will think of GNP when asked to ranked human development over the last 50, but this only describes progress in sheer economic terms. A more recent factor is the GPI (General Progress Indicator), which is now being more widely used in especially America and Canada. Even though one has seen a dramatic improvement in sexual equality over the last 50 years, there has been a decline on many other areas like crime, family break-ups, intellectual poverty and similar issues. Even though I have no reason wanting to return to the 50ties, I think one should be able to stop up and think about what one calls life improvement and social progress. The GPI in the US hasn't risen since around 1955, even though there is much that has changed considerably for both the better and the worse. Progress may not always lead to happiness, and I think this needed to be noted after what I consider to be Hochschild's pretty radical attack on both present and more traditional marriage arrangements.