| |
Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
 | |
|
Taking 'women's work' 'like a man'
— husbands' experiences of care work | | Author(s) | Toni Calasanti, Neal King |
| Journal title | The Gerontologist, vol 47, no 4, August 2007 |
| Pages | pp 516-527 |
| Source | http://www.geron.org |
| Keywords | Husbands as carers ; Attitude ; Management [care] ; Women's movement ; Theory ; Qualitative Studies ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | A feminist, structural approach to husbands' experiences of caring for wives with Alzheimer's disease (AD) was adopted. This framework posited that men and women draw upon gender repertoires - situational ideals of behaviour based on their respective structural locations - that create gendered experiences of stress and caring strategies. A qualitative, constructivist approach was used to analyse in-depth interviews with 22 spousal caregivers and observations within support groups. Analysis focused on the nine husbands, the strategies these men reported using to deal with problems that arose in their care work, and the extent to which these are congruent with the masculinities of White men in the US. These husbands' approaches to caregiving and the strategies for dealing with the work and feelings involved were rooted in their sense of selves as men. The authors outline husbands' overall approaches to caregiving. They identify six strategies husbands used to deal with problems stemming from care work - exerting force, focusing on tasks, blocking emotions, minimising disruptions, distracting attention, and self-medicating - and tie these to husbands' structural positions as working-, middle- and professional-class men. Theories of gender differences in the performance or quality of care work should tie these to structural arrangements. Unless the gendered bases upon which different styles or experiences are removed (i.e. structural inequality), designers of interventions cannot and should not expect to use the experiences of one group to inform appropriate strategies for the other. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-080407203 A |
| Classmark | P6:SNA: DP: QA: SH:TM8: 4D: 3DP: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
|
| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
| |
|