Problem 8: Middle

Class and Domesticit

yFamily and Role-

Division

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

- Published several journals on that topic - also on colonial and

technological history

Article’s Main PointFive parts - most important points:

1.Character of the sexes

2.Enlightenment

3.Education

4.Socialization

5.Work

1.Character of the Sexesbased on nature, not social roles

complement each other

normative statements men women

active passive

rational emotional

public domestic

individual universal

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"

2. Enlightenment

3. EducationNot 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 Weckler’s critical thinking)

- Philosophers (Kant, Humbold)

- Politicians (Gervinus)

- Lots of other academic work

- Very cautious, often acknowledges the need for further research

Importance of Main PointsLink information together

Genuine interest in the field

Gender studies not institutionalized

Not much research done

Embraced Pointssocial-constructivism

gender roles

related to production

social change

ideology

socialization/education

Structure1. 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 StepsOverlaps with structure

Inductive reasoning

Qualitative research

Positivist

→ dichotomies/polarization/complement

- disposition: male is individual, female is universal

- household/bourgeois family

- forms of work (domestic/wage)

- marriage: meaning changed

Theoretical Concepts

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 StatementCreative 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?