 | GetTextbooks.co.uk Compare Prices & Save up to 90% | | |
|
| Login | Sign up | Settings | New! iPhone App | My Wish List | My iBundle |
 | | The Second Shift by Arlie Hochschild, Anne Machung ISBN-10: 9780142002926 ISBN-10: 0-14-200292-5 ISBN-13: 9780142002926 ISBN-13: 978-0-14-200292-6 Paperback 2003-04-29 Penguin (Non-Classics) Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description Fifteen years after its first publication, The Second Shift remains just as important and relevant today as it did then. As the majority of women entered the workforce, sociologist and Berkeley professor Arlie Hochschild was one of the first to talk about what really happens in dual-career households. Many people were amazed to find that women still did the majority of childcare and housework even though they also worked outside the home. Now, in this updated edition with a new introduction from the author, we discover how much things have, or have not, changed for women today. | ||
Reviews | ||
Good book Using it for a paper - excellent book for discussion of the conflict between family versus career for women. | ||
Interesting point, but lacks support for her theories As a student of sociology, we are taught two things when formulating theories: Never take your theory as being true. Always assume it is false. You must justify your theory with evidence that is not necessarily statistical, but should NOT be anecdotal. Which is the first problem with this book. She does not provide any statistical measures other than the trend that more women are entering the workplace. She gathers information across a broad spectrum of sources, but does not provide any evidence showing an overall trend that indeed, women are addled by a "second shift". When measuring domestic labor, she does not take into account other tasks which could be done by a male; for instance, household maintenance, technical work, etc etc, the hours involved, and the difficulty of said labor. Instead, she focuses solely on the tasks that are done by women. Furthermore, interpreting the findings of your data are just as important as the quality of the data itself. She assumes that men and women are bound by different social roles, and therefore women are relegated to doing housework despite entering the workplace. However, this is not necessarily true; it's only an assumption. For example, data has shown that african american males make up over 99% of the US prison population. Do you think that, automatically, the first conclusion should be that african americans commit more crime? she doesn't bother to explore other reasons why women are committed to doing housework: it could be that women simply elect to do so because they find these roles the most comfortable for themselves. Granted, that could be a product of socialization, but this is a very troubling aspect of sociology in general: is your behavior predetermined by society, or is it a product of your own choices? it seems as if she has the answer to this question, a question that has haunted academia in the past as well as the present. I guess no one bothered to inform us that she has the answer to one of the greatest philosophical questions of all time. And she provides no evidence that it's a product of socialization. Rather, she again simply assumes that this is true, despite how problematic it is for the validity of her thesis. Lastly, the answer to her problem is disagreeable. She says that the nuclear family has become an antiquated notion in a world without gender roles. She offers a solution to struggling families: rely more on communities for support and solidarity. Uh, what? if anything, what allowed males and females to transcend the roles of the nuclear family is the breakdown of local communities and the concentration of people into cities. After people moved to cities is when women entered the workplace en masse. It's a nice, quaint picture of American life, but what sustained the nuclear family was the dependency on communities. | ||
as always Hochschild reads wonderfully. Hochschild makes a wonderful job in bringing us into the lives of these couples. Her insights and comments on why people act a certain way are really great. I can't help but lose myself in her writing- often with tears in my eyes about why patriarchy is so embedded within us. | ||
So Much Time. So Little Change This book has been reissued with a new introduction to an old and important message. "A man may work from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done" is an adage older than any of us. Hochschild draws a bleak and accurate picture of the increasing number of women with two jobs. As the economy worsens, and as more women want to maintain their careers, this number grows. The number of men pitching in at home, Hochschild reminds us, has not grown. Women come home from work to a full set of responsibilities. Women take off for the sick child, the doctor's appointment, the school play. Yes, some men stay home, and yes, some men do their fair share. But things cold get better. I'd like to see this as required reading in high school - let's see if we can create a new trend. | ||
Polemics, not scholarship. To reach her spurious conclusions, the author presents decades-old data on men and housework as if these studies came out last week. Credible research from the University of Michigan shows that men and women work about the same amount of time when you include both work done inside and outside the home. Ladies, if you want to read a great book that will help you earn more money, read "Why men earn more" by Warren Farrell. Studies show that the claims of feminism are questionable at best, and at worst misleading and damaging to women and all who earnestly seek the truth. "The second shift" is part of the backlash against equality that has been gradually building up steam in western culture since the Renaissance. | ||