Women Play a More Important Role Than Men in Families Today
Some critics may argue that the male and female role in families today are becoming less distinct from each other.This is because of the dual role held by many women has made it necessary for men to step up and play a greater role in the family. As more and more women are giving up their aprons to join the workforce, there is a greater need for the men to take up greater responsibilites in taking care of the welfare of the family as the women now work about the same hours as the men. Thus, women have just about the same amount of time to take care of the family as the men. As a result, the men have to compromise and take up a greater role in the family such as doing household chores which men did not have to do in the past or sitting down with their children to supervise them while they do their homework. These are becoming more prevalent in our society today. Roles which were distinctly divided between the genders in the past are now overlapping. In Singapore, the number of househusbands here has increased by seven times from 323 to 2151 between 2000 and 2005. These numbers show that as more women work, there are also more men who leave their jobs to take up the former role held by the women which includes taking care of the children and doing household chores. This means that while women can take on the traditional male role of breadwinning, the men can also do the same by taking on the traditional female role in families. Hence, even though women may take dual roles, this does not necessarily translate into greater or lesser importance of either the men or the women’s role in families today.
However, we cannot deny the fact that the women play a more important role in families because they are taking on more duties than the men. While the men may be helping out in families today, the women are no longer just bounded by household chores and taking care of their children as it was in the past.