During the course of this study we have been inspired by Carin Holmbergs essay ’It’s Called Love’ (1993). Our purpose with this study has been to examine how gender works among young Swedish heterosexual couples without children. This was done by examining how couples distribute housework among themselves, with certain focus on how class interacts with gender. We asked three questions: 1). How is gender made in relation to expected characteristics of how women and men should be? 2). How is gender made with distribution of household work within the couples? 3). In what way does class play a role in distribution of domestic work? Qualitative method was used in order to answer our purpose and questions. We interviewed ten couples, five whom had a university degree and five whom had secondary education. Our theoretical framework consists of the perspective of symbolic interactionism, Yvonne Hirdman's theory of the gender system, asymmetric role-taking and class. The analysis of our empirical material showed that the individuals within the couples attribute themselves and each other with properties that are in line with the traditional gender distribution in society, regardless of which class the couples belong to. When it came to all housework activities women were initiators. The distribution of household work took place according to what the men thought was interesting, regardless of class. Class, on the other hand, plays a role in the distribution of domestic work that took place on the basis of what was natural or not. Couples with upper secondary education distribute household work based on what is natural for the sexes in relation to the traditional gender roles, while those with an academic degree carry out household work that is not tied to the traditional gender roles to a greater extent. We found that women's and men's genders contribute to the maintenance and reproduction of the woman as subordinate and the man as superior, which contributes to an uneven distribution of labour in the home where the woman still has the main responsibility for the care work.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-87955 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Sjöström, Jannie, Eriksson, Clara |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för samhällsstudier (SS), Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för samhällsstudier (SS) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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