Chapter Four Standards and routines
Abstract
‘Work’ has no single definition or shared meaning for the individuals who do it; the meanings of work are as various as the kinds of job that exist. Nevertheless, for most people, the idea of work contains some notion of externally imposed constraint. Even if one’s occupation is freely chosen, it usually carries with it a set of rules about what should be done, when, how and to what standards. A train driver follows printed schedules and rules controlling speed and safety; accountants are accountable to their clients and are governed by rules of ‘professional’ conduct, and so forth. But housewives are impressed by their freedom from the constraints of externally set rules and supervisions. The housewife is her own supervisor, the judge of her own performance, and ultimately the source of her own job definition.
The two dimensions of this job definition are standards and routines. In describing her daily life, every woman interviewed outlined the kind of standards she thought it important to stick to in housework, and the type of routine she used to achieve this end.
Barbara Lipscombe, a cheerful, warm woman, lives in a rented three-bedroomed house and has three children under five. She used to be a typist and is married to a car patrolman on shift work. Most of the Lipscombes’ family life takes place in the room off the kitchen, at the back of the house, furnished with a table and chairs, a sofa and a television. Barbara’s day goes like this:
I get up when the children wake up about a quarter to eight.
Abstract
‘Work’ has no single definition or shared meaning for the individuals who do it; the meanings of work are as various as the kinds of job that exist. Nevertheless, for most people, the idea of work contains some notion of externally imposed constraint. Even if one’s occupation is freely chosen, it usually carries with it a set of rules about what should be done, when, how and to what standards. A train driver follows printed schedules and rules controlling speed and safety; accountants are accountable to their clients and are governed by rules of ‘professional’ conduct, and so forth. But housewives are impressed by their freedom from the constraints of externally set rules and supervisions. The housewife is her own supervisor, the judge of her own performance, and ultimately the source of her own job definition.
The two dimensions of this job definition are standards and routines. In describing her daily life, every woman interviewed outlined the kind of standards she thought it important to stick to in housework, and the type of routine she used to achieve this end.
Barbara Lipscombe, a cheerful, warm woman, lives in a rented three-bedroomed house and has three children under five. She used to be a typist and is married to a car patrolman on shift work. Most of the Lipscombes’ family life takes place in the room off the kitchen, at the back of the house, furnished with a table and chairs, a sofa and a television. Barbara’s day goes like this:
I get up when the children wake up about a quarter to eight.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Sources of extracts iv
- Foreword by Germaine Greer vi
- Preface ix
-
Sex and gender
- Introduction 2
- The difference between sex and gender 7
- Genes and gender 13
- A kind of person 21
- Childhood lessons 31
- Science, gender and women’s liberation 41
-
Housework and family life
- Introduction 54
- On studying housework 59
- Images of housework 63
- Work conditions 75
- Standards and routines 87
- Marriage and the division of labour 93
- Helping with baby 103
- Housework in history and culture 109
-
Childbirth, motherhood and medicine
- Introduction 118
- The agony and the ecstasy 123
- Lessons mothers learn 139
- Medical maternity cases 151
- Mistakes and mystiques of motherhood 179
-
Doing social science
- Introduction 184
- The invisible woman: sexism in sociology 189
- Reflections thirty years on 207
- On being interviewed 211
- Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms? 217
- Who’s afraid of the randomized controlled trial? Some dilemmas of the scientific method and ‘good’ research practice 233
- Paradigm wars: some thoughts on a personal and public trajectory 245
- General bibliography 251
- Bibliography of work by Ann Oakley 281
- Ann Oakley: further reading 285
- Index 295
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Sources of extracts iv
- Foreword by Germaine Greer vi
- Preface ix
-
Sex and gender
- Introduction 2
- The difference between sex and gender 7
- Genes and gender 13
- A kind of person 21
- Childhood lessons 31
- Science, gender and women’s liberation 41
-
Housework and family life
- Introduction 54
- On studying housework 59
- Images of housework 63
- Work conditions 75
- Standards and routines 87
- Marriage and the division of labour 93
- Helping with baby 103
- Housework in history and culture 109
-
Childbirth, motherhood and medicine
- Introduction 118
- The agony and the ecstasy 123
- Lessons mothers learn 139
- Medical maternity cases 151
- Mistakes and mystiques of motherhood 179
-
Doing social science
- Introduction 184
- The invisible woman: sexism in sociology 189
- Reflections thirty years on 207
- On being interviewed 211
- Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms? 217
- Who’s afraid of the randomized controlled trial? Some dilemmas of the scientific method and ‘good’ research practice 233
- Paradigm wars: some thoughts on a personal and public trajectory 245
- General bibliography 251
- Bibliography of work by Ann Oakley 281
- Ann Oakley: further reading 285
- Index 295
