Family Status and Criticism of Gender Inequality at Home and at Work

Abstract

The literature on gender attitudes indicates that acceptance of women's involvement in the laborforce is greater than acceptance of changes in the domestic division of labor. We argue that this difference exists because challenges to inequality in the home are especially threatening to men's interests and that women's dependence on men plays a role in shaping interpretations of gender inequality. To test these claims, we explore the relationship between family status and criticism of gender inequality in the home and at work. Family ties discourage criticism: marital status is particularly important in predicting women's criticism, while parental status is especially important for men. Therefore, we conclude that interests play a part in shaping men's gender-related attitudes and that dependence on men is a factor in shaping women's attitudes. The complex interplay between gender inequality in the home and in the workplace has been of great interest to feminist scholars. In this article, we address Americans' perceptions of gender inequality in these two spheres and the impact of marital status, parental status, employment status, and women's economic dependence on such perceptions. We focus particularly on criticism of gender inequality at home and at work, considering both men's and women's levels of criticism using recently collected data from a national probability sample of adult Americans. We argue that men's social dominance, women's dependence, and men's and women's interests relative to gender stratification are all central to shaping perceptions of gender inequality. As an institution, the family has tended to foster men's dominance and women's dependence. As Lerner (1986) notes in her historical analysis of gender relations, women's subordination has been