Discuss the ways in which women’s domestic role

Beginning in the home, a woman’s role is socially constructed from an early age. A woman’s role models are traditionally her parents and many women naturally follow in their mothers footsteps. However, this can often work In reverse and women of whose mothers stayed at home In a domestic care role then go on to carve careers for themselves. Although these days women do have careers they are still socially seen as the homemaker regardless of this.
A woman’s domestic role is often run alongside other work and a great number of women choose careers which are care eased. The sexual division of labor is at the heart of gender inequality, which is underpinned by the patriarchal family structure where the man Is the highest authority and sole provider and there Is a rolled dolls of tasks and responsibilities, all of which have been regulated by social norms that have become constructed and ingrained over time. Florence Nightingale was a great influence in creating the nursing/caring role.
She acknowledged that a great number of women naturally progressed into care roles and so she introduced the role of a nurse yet it was not a consider profession at this point Medical stations in the Crimean war were poorly staffed with awful medical and sanitary conditions. This was reported by the media In Britain. Florence Nightingale, one of 38 voluntary nurses traveled to Turkey to help relieve the situation. Nightingale worked towards improvements in sanitation, nutrition, and activity for the patients of the hospitals.

Death rates were reduced dramatically with the introduction of such measures. Nightingale kept meticulous records of the number of deaths, and the causes of deaths, so that on her return to Great Britain she could Justify the need for Improving conditions In hospitals. Criticisms of Florence Nightingale have been that she created a female occupation, excluding males based around her view that women were naturally caring and naturally gifted at looking after people.
This only emphasized ‘female virtues’ especially in the media as they made this her main point even though there was much more to her than Just this point. As a result of what she did the beliefs of the male professionals were further supported. Those beliefs being that women are innate males in the workforce and the nursing role was stereotyped as a role which only women performed bringing with It the stereotype which we still hold today. Even now, with many more men taking on the role of the nurse we seem to find this unusual and sometimes quite a surprise.
During this time the education system excluded women from the ability to gain scientific knowledge and the medical profession denied access to women who actually had managed to gain education. After Florence Nightingale, Ethel Bedford Fenwick (who is she) said that by 1901 , although we had moved on from the workhouses there was still no professional nurses in Britain and campaigned for a nationally recognized training system to create an actual nursing ‘profession’ This era was such named the era of the ministering angel’ She worked to elevate nursing from the time of Florence Nightingale.
During much of the 20th Century there was little progress with the imbalance of male to female care professions, even with the introduction of the INS women still made up the majority of the workforce in the INS with the male professions making up the majority of top rank Jobs, such as surgeons and insulates, much higher paid, recognized and respected professions. Domestic service of all kinds was the single largest employer of women (40 per cent of female occupations stated in the census of 1851 in provincial cities and 50 per cent in London).
The textile and clothing sectors came a close second (http:// www. BBC. Co. UK/history/British/Victorians/women’s_work_OLL . SHTML) A greater number of women than men choose Job roles in the care industry. Ann Oakley refers to this as being the influence of gender oscillation and the women’s domestic role in the home throughout history. This fact adds to the divide between men and women in the health and social care sector with statistics showing that in 2010 for an example, women made up 74% of the workforce in the INS and men only 26%.
Even the most educated women earn less than men, women generally receive a lower return on their education and workplace discrimination against women is reflected in pay irrespective of educational level. In 2009 the BAM report was released, highlighting the inequality in male and female salaries within the health care industry. An average gap of El 5,245 between men and women in the same reversions. “Our results show that men and women with identical experience and expertise are paid differently – which suggests evidence of discrimination” (BAM 2009) It seems women are discriminated against due to her weakness in her ability to move.