5 Pm-10 Pm: Interrogating Domestic Inequality

William J. Goode proposed rightly that world revolution toward industrialization and urbanization has led to the change in family pattern from extended towards conjugal. Talcott Parsons emphasized that in the absence of extended kinship ties, nuclear family has become important in the respect that it meets two major societal needs: socialization of children and satisfaction of emotional needs of family members namely husband, wife and dependent children. Modern nuclear families and their members i.e. husband and wife are not handicapped by multitude of obligations often conflicting to extended relatives and can take full advantage of occupational opportunities. Demands of modern industrial life and more recently globalization have brought about myriads of changes in the way in which traditional gendered roles and division of labour was constructed. Women today are empowered, independent, working in the public space along with the man. But what we need to interrogate at this juncture is how far the division of labour and responsibilities between spouses inside family space become degendered? Do we have a situation of role-reversal for both the genders or do we have a situation of role addition/burden for the female gender. Contemporary educated, urban woman is a career woman working in the office from 10 am to 5 pm like her male counterpart, but after coming back home she has to play the traditional, ascribed role of the mother, wife, care-giver,nurturer and home organizer. Inspite of the women working and earning, there is internal stratification of family life, in which men are in a more advantageous position. Husband-wife relationship can be identified as power relations, in which men dominate over women. Ideological legitimations of gender inequality are more often than not internalized by women themselves. My paper, on the basis of primary data would examine this gendered inqeual domestic space in Kolkata.