assignment 7 the second shift

The second shift is the shift worked at home after a full day of working at a job. The second shift is predominantly related to women having to be the ones in charge of taking over the second shift at home which includes cooking dinner, cleaning the house, doing laundry, taking care of the children, etc. The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home by Arlie Russell Hochschild with Anne Machung highlights in numbers the way women are highly affected by this second shift more so than men are. Their article mentions information from a national survey which “…found that working women averaged three hours a day on housework while men averaged 17 minutes”, as far as time with children “…women spent fifty minutes a day exclusively with children, men spent twelve minutes”, and as for leisure time “…working fathers watched television an hour longer than their working wives, and slept a half hour longer each night” (124). This shows us how women are the ones to suffer as far as having more put responsibility to spend time with children and do housework, and less time to relax and watch television. When Hochschild and Machung looked at other past studies, they also found “…that women worked roughly fifteen hours longer each week than men. Over a year, they worked an extra month of twenty-four-hour days a year.” (124). Not only is her time being taken up, but the second shift is putting an emotional strain on women as well more so than on men. “More women than men questioned how good they were as parents” (125). Having thoughts like that can have very negative impacts on a woman because not only does she have to manage her work life and house life, but it becomes more hectic with her worrying about such things like how she is as a mother or employee due to each role being so demanding.

Due to these negative factors affecting women who have to take charge of the second shift, it is important to get men to share the responsibility. Unfortunately, The Politics of Housework by Pat Mainardi of Redstockings highlights common issues with getting men to truly commit to splitting the list of responsibilities associated with the second shift at home. Men’s comments such as “I don’t mind sharing the housework, but I don’t do it very well”, “I don’t mind sharing the work, but you’ll have to show me how to do it”, and “I’ve got nothing against sharing the house work, but you cant make me do it on your schedule” are attempts to appear as if they want to help but end up having excuses or getting out of it. Those comments really mean he is trying to say he’s no good at doing chores like washing dishes or cooking, he doesn’t like doing boring jobs, he will complain and annoy you so badly you’d rather do it yourself, and the last comment means I will do things around the house on my time, if I even do them at all (196). All in all women are left with the majority of responsibility, and therefore have to deal with the affects it takes on her emotionally and physically.