Keeping it clean: housework’s gender divide

The following piece appeared in the National Times on 21 February 2011.

As the television series Mad Men apparently spawns a new desire among women to wear aprons over gowns,  lippy smothered ear to ear, while vacuuming the floor – a new study suggests it is lesbian couples that have modernised the meaning of housework.


For the past two years, I have been involved in the Work, Love, Play study at La Trobe University. We have surveyed lesbian parents about their everyday family lives and how they organise their household tasks. Who does the dishes? Who takes out the garbage? Who puts the kids to bed?

We were essentially interested in whether same-sex couples organise their households differently to heterosexual couples, particularly once children are in the mix.

Our findings are that lesbian couples are more likely to report a fairly equal division of labour in their household, compared to their heterosexual counterparts. On the whole, lesbian mothers are less inclined to feel like they shoulder more of the housework or parenting responsibilities than their partner.

This is not to suggest lesbian couples are better on the home front than heterosexual couples. In fact, sexuality is, in many ways, a minor plot line in this story. Gender is the main topic of interest here.

The common thread was that women in lesbian relationships were doing what millions of heterosexual women do everyday – simultaneously managing the competing demands of work and family. Not only was there a more egalitarian sharing of household tasks, lesbian couples were much more likely than heterosexual couples to manage their work and family demands by both working part time.

Not the only gay in the village

In June this year the first child ever born through IVF in Australia turned 30. In this same month, the NSW Parliament debated whether to allow lesbian and gay couples to adopt children; journalists clamoured to ask the new Prime Minister to clarify her stance on gay marriage; and the media revealed findings from a high profile US study: children of lesbian parents grow up well adjusted. Like it or loathe it, the past few decades have ushered in a whole new social landscape for Australian families. Within this, lesbian and gay parents have achieved unprecedented levels of visibility. But for all that visibility, what is life really like for these parents and their children?


There are pockets in inner city areas where lesbian and gay parenting is pretty normalised and there is a lot of support available. There are 'Rainbow' playgroups where kids and adults find like minded friends, it is not hard to find services that openly promote themselves as gay friendly and most schools have pretty good anti-homophobia programs. Living in the inner city, however, isn't an option or a preference for many people – even gay people.

I am involved in some research at La Trobe University looking at the experiences of lesbian and gay parents. Surprisingly, of the 450 families who took part in our study, close to 60% did not live in the inner city. Instead, these families lived in the outer suburbs or regional/rural areas of Australia.

There is a lot of idyllic imagery associated with rural life. The pace is slow, towns feel safe and community bonds are strong and genuine. But the flip side of this can be a lack of anonymity and diversity that makes it hard for people to be 'different' in small towns. Sadly, a lot of what we hear about gay life in rural Australia relates to the high rate of suicide among young men who can't bear the shame or pain of 'coming out' to their small community.

Clip-art: you've come a long way baby ... maybe?

When searching for images with which to decorate this site, I typed the word 'gay' into the Microsoft Office online clipart search engine. Twenty-eight images appeared, seven of which depicted same-sex couples with children. The researcher in me started counting:

• female couples: 4

• male couples: 3

• non-caucasians: 1

• semi-decent artwork: possibly 2 but mostly 0

It should be said that all of these images are reasonably ambiguous. To a heterosexist eye they could easily appear to be 'mother, daughter and granddaughter' or 'Male Friend One congratulating Male Friend Two on his son's soccer prowess'. But they do come up under the category of ‘gay’, so at least someone at Microsoft has decided they must be same-sex parents.

Are clip-art images a good way to measure representation? Most likely NO. But it is interesting nonetheless.

Jen

Welcome

Welcome to the Work, Love and Play Blog!

This blogsite is dedicated to discussion about the politics and culture of same-sex parented families.

The blog has been created by the research team who are running the Work, Love and Play study. Work, Love and Play is a longitudinal study looking at the experiences of families parented by same-sex attracted (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex) couples and sole-parents. The study started in 2008 and we have funding to keep it running until 2014. So far over 450 families from Australia and New Zealand have been involved in the study.

The study is being run by the Bouverie Centre at LaTrobe University, with involvement from researchers at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, the Division of Health Studies (Counselling & Psychological Health) at LaTrobe University, Relationships Australia, Melbourne University Department of General Practice and Deakin University School of Nursing.

The study is being funded by the Australian Research Council, Relationships Australia (national and Victorian branch), Vic Health (the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation) and ACON (formerly the AIDS Council of NSW) with generous in-kind support from Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria and the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities.

The aim of the study is not to try to demonstrate whether or not the children of same-sex attracted parents have equal outcomes to other children. We feel like this work has been done. Instead, the focus of our study is the way in which same-sex families operate on a day to day level. Some questions we are interested in, among many others, are:

• How do same-sex couples with children organise their work and household responsibilities?

• What childcare options have same-sex parented families chosen?

• Do same-sex attracted sole-parents find support within the GLBTI community as parents?

• Are same-sex attracted parents connected to community networks and their extended families?

• Do same-sex attracted parents feel supported by community, welfare and health services?

We feel that questions such as these will help us better understand factors that support resilience in families parented by same-sex attracted couples and individuals. We also plan to use the findings from this study to provide some education and support to health and community services in working with same-sex parented families.

If you are reading this you may have been involved in this study in some way or have an interest in the study findings. We would love for you to stay in touch with us via this blog (if you are the sort of person who likes to read blogs!).

The purpose of the blog is partly to keep readers up to date with the study and our findings. But also to be a forum for discussion about political, social and cultural issues concerning same-sex parented families. We will post information about relevant current affairs, upcoming events and conferences and general ideas and commentary about issues relevant to same-sex attracted parents.

More formal information about the study (including publications of our findings) can be found on the Bouverie Centre website.

Cheers,

Jennifer Power
Principal Researcher on the project
Email me here