Sexual History: Should it be admissible in a court of law?

[Curdis]

DISCLAIMER :- I'm totally on the side of sex history not being available.

This is more a bit of historical background. Sometimes where we are coming from helps to decide a future direction. But to start a couple of digressions.

@Dragon Wench, you previously objected to the use of hypothetical arguements. I would just like to point out that in determining (your position) on what the law does or does not allow, you are engaged in a hypothetical arguement, because you are trying to determine (certainly on the basis of what has gone before) what is likely to be the best fit to all future (hypothetical) situations.

@Snoopyofour, It is up to, ultimately, the readers of this thread to decide whether your arguements have 'carried the day'. We, like jurys, are sometimes swayed by the emotive and attitudinal components of the proponents. Could you please moderate your writing style (this should be a friendly discussion) and clearly state what your arguement actually consists of. I have read all your posts and I have no idea what you are proposing. It would be additionally useful if you could point to how your proposal is relevent to the the topic of this thread.

Unfortunate as it is, the statutes of law in most of the jurisdictions in the world (And certainly all of the ones occupied by the members in this thread) predate the comparitively recent advents of women's rights and birth control. Women were considered as chatels, and the effects of rape were seen as, to a large extent, in terms of a property crime. As the result of a rape was commonly a pregnancy and this had effects beyond the immediate assault event (including the extremely high incidences of death during child birth) the penalties for the crime were commensurately harsh. The prior sexual history WAS seen as relevent in this context, as a woman who took 'little care of her honour' was not deemed to have been as effected by the crime. A broad brush strokes picture but worthwhile in considering the topic at hand. - Curdis !

[mr_sir]

[QUOTE=Lestat]

"sexual history of complainant in rape case"
|
(logical connection being: -blank-)
|
"truthfulness of complainant in rape case"

[/QUOTE]

I don't think there is a legitimate answer to go in the blank space (at least I can't think of one that even comes close). Its the same issue as with other crimes, just because someone has done something in the past it does not mean that they did it this time. A case should be decided based entirely on the facts and evidence for that particular case. In my opinion, the only person that should have access to previous criminal activity or previous sexual history is the judge, and even then should only be used if this previous history involves a conviction for illegal activity (just because someone was accused of rape on more than one occasion, it does not mean they actually committed that rape so it should not be used in sentencing, but if they were found guilty of rape on a previous occasion then this should be taken into account. This however does not apply to the victims sexual history, as I fail to see how that has any relevance at all to sentencing).

[Fallenhero]

I think the underlying reason for the defense lawyer to bring up the sexual history of the victim is not to simply discredit her veracity but to discredit or demean her in the eyes of the jury.

Rape is a crime of shame, less now than it used to be but still it is there. Before the trial even begins there is an element of shunning present. The vic failed, somehow, to preserve herself. She is damaged goods.

For much of history women have been the property of either their father or husband. A womens sexuality had to be controlled if society was to be controlled. Any question of a childs paternity would cause chaos and so any unsanctioned intercourse had to be avoided. Known fornication, adultery, or rape often didn't matter when it came to the women. If it was widly known a womens status in most societies would be lowered. She might be cast out or killed along with her "lover".

Even the act of making her private history public demeans the victim in the eyes of the jury. If these things aren't discussed in public isn't the victim now outside of decent society? Isn't she to be shunned? If the victim now has less value is the crime that important?

These ideas might never be spoken or even thought out loud but I think they are often there and do impact the outcome of the trial. It's much easier to believe she's lying or had it coming if the women is shown to be of lesser value.

[Fiona]

University of Chicago Law School > Contest and Consent: A Legal History of Marital Rape

This may be slightly off-topic.It presents itself to me as relevant because it discusses at length the history of the law on marital rape and the challenges to the exemption.The article is a bit repetitive and is avowedly feminist in orientation.

One of the problems minority groups often have is that each generation has to rediscover the problem and the arguments anew: the narrative is written by the "establishment" as ever. Thus the mainstream view is supported by a shared and articulate version of history and ideology; while the challenge is newer, less elaborated, and therefore harder to sustain. In short, the minoirity is not standing on the shoulders of giants.

Both Curdis and Fallenhero have introduced some of the wider social meanings of sexual history for women, and this article also addresses that in slightly different terms. Although the assumptions made about women are specific to the case of marital rape, I do not think it is unreasonable to acknowledge that all of us are strongly influenced by the history of perceptions of gender which existed for centuries and are demonstrable in law and the way the issues were discussed. Such assumptions are deep-rooted and it is difficult to recognise them and to question them; even to bring them into consciousness. That applies to men and women alike, because we all swim in the same water. It requires as sustained effort to tease things out and I believe that we have made mistakes. I have mentioned before that the focus on "equality" can be used to undermine progress for women, and I have long abandoned that in favour of the pursuit of "equity". I see that as a more useful concept. It meets with opposition from men and women alike and I am often misunderstood as holding a biologically determinist position on this. Let me disclaim that at once. I merely take the view that we must start from where we are now, and in that sense it is irrelevant how we got to that position. Indeed progress towards a more equitable outcome for men and women might well help to settle those questions in the very long term, (though it matters little, in practice that would be a positive benefit if true). I do struggle to articulate this position and this part of the article helps to make my problem clearer, I think

Statutes that explicitly classify by sex are automatically subject to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause, which relatively few statutes have managed to survive. Once a statute has been made formally gender-neutral, however, it is subject to heightened scrutiny only if a plaintiff can establish the equivalent of legislative malice: that the gender-neutral statute was enacted "at least in part 'because of,' not merely 'in spite of,' its adverse effects upon" women. This is precisely the sort of malignant motivation that is least likely to be uttered in the constitutionally conscious age in which we live. So, as a practical matter, modern marital rape exemptions are subject to rational basis review. Although a small number of state courts have found exemptions unconstitutional on a rational basis analysis, a marital rape exemption is likely to survive this relatively unrigorous level of constitutional scrutiny, which asks only whether the legislature has articulated one reason for the exemption that the court is willing to accept as rational.
Modern feminist critics, including most prominently Robin West, have provided an excellent doctrinal analysis of the status of gender-neutral laws under contemporary equal protection doctrine, and explained the difficulties that the modern feminist campaign against the marital rape exemption has encountered as rooted in the inadequacy of that doctrine. But feminists have not devoted nearly as much attention to the question of why the Supreme Court might have chosen to privilege gender-neutral laws in the first place, and whether there is something more behind the states' move to gender-neutral marital rape exemptions than a desire to survive constitutional scrutiny. The fate of the historical struggle over marital rape, and the nature of the modern arguments put forth in the exemption's defense, suggest that the focus on gender-neutralization is tapping into a larger cultural story about mutuality in relations between the sexes, particularly in marriage.

The effect of the current equal protection doctrine on gender-neutrality is to treat men and women as occupying interchangeable roles, in all cases except where the text of the statute or explicit legislative statements of malicious intent force the court to do otherwise. It is a doctrinal methodology for denying the possibility that the interests of men and women may be unaligned, differentially affected, even antagonistically opposed to one another, and not interchangeable at all. Marital rape exemptions are not the only statutes to have undergone recent revision into a gender-neutral idiom. . . . Yet the strength of the yearning to insist within the law that the interests of men and women always harmoniously coincide is nowhere more apparent than with the marital rape exemption, where the sex-specificity of the underlying conduct is extraordinarily pronounced, but equal protection doctrine nonetheless treats husbands and wives as though they occupy unassigned positions.

Some of the language here is intemperate, but it is worth trying to see past that to the underlying point. I am the first to admit that I argued for "equality" and "gender neutrality" very vigorously in the past. I was addresssing the most obvious problems of "fairness" and I have concluded it was naive, both because of the unintended consequences of that ( women now end up doing the bulk of the work they traditionally did and having full time employment outside the home as well); and because of what I have described elsewhere as "bandwaggonry" (I do not mean to be offensive when I use that word, btw, I just don't have a better shorthand for it), the process whereby one instance of minor injustice is balanced against a societal problem and treated as if it were of equal concern. The examples of relative rates of false acquittal and false conviction I cited above are instances of this, to my mind.

[fable]

( women now end up doing the bulk of the work they traditionally did and having full time employment outside the home as well);

That's your opinion, not fact. I don't know of a single home that matches this statement.

[Fiona]

@ Fable. No, it isn't
http://www.britainusa.com/sections/arti ... 41084&a=26

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/ ... Gender.pdf

Gender equality - Theme

Gender equality report 2005 shows advances, but inequality remains

UNFPA: POPULATION ISSUES: Promoting Gender Equality

HRDC - Gender Equality in the Labour Market

Blackwell Synergy: Gender Work & Org, Vol 13, Issue 4, pp. 383-402: Collapsing the Boundaries? Fatherhood, Organization and Home-Working (Abstract)

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-7 ... 0.CO%3B2-W

http://web.mala.bc.ca/limi/pdf_files/HouseworkProp.pdf

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Blow to machismo as Spain forces men to do housework


[quote="european union report on gender equality 2005]Reconciliation between work and family life remains a challenge for
both women and men. Women with small children7 continue to show
employment rates 13.6 p.p. lower than women without children
while men with small children show 10 p.p. higher employment
rates than men without children . This is the result of limited access
to childcare and gender stereotyped family patterns. Women perform
the major part of the domestic work and consequently have
more limited time for paid work. Men do less than 40 % of all
domestic work and between 25 % and 35 % of childcare work in
couples with children aged up to 6 years8.[/quote"]

[fable]

Fiona, I tried the first four sites you listed, and didn't find anything to establish this:

( women now end up doing the bulk of the work they traditionally did and having full time employment outside the home as well);

What I *did* find were remarks that many women were still doing the majority of household work, at least in the areas being statistically studied. This is not under dispute, though in at least a couple I would have liked some clarification form the authors as to whether household work also included repair and upkeep tasks "traditionally" assigned in Euro-American homes to the male (yard maintanence, home improvements, etc). From a resource standpoint, this might help us to understand better the actual division of labor in the home between couples.

None of those four sites I checked said anything to your statement that these same women were also maintaining fulltime jobs outside the home. As some of these links were to 14 page studies, could you just post the relevant points in any of the links that back up what you claim? Thanks.

[Dowaco]

[QUOTE=Lestat]

"sexual history of complainant in rape case"
|
(logical connection being: -blank-)
|
"truthfulness of complainant in rape case"

[/QUOTE]

Linking an arguement (sexual history) to a single facet of the overall picture (truthfulness) does not invalidate it's use. There might be other uses for such information. Anyway, I can think of several instances where the victim's veracity can be challenged based on past sexual history.

1. The victim is found by a forensic examination to be a virgin.
Sexual history - none
Lied when she said she was raped.

2. A physical exam shows that the victim was a virgin the day before the alledged rape and not a virgin the day of the rape. Here the prosecution would want the past sexual history (or lack of one) admitted and may help prove that the accused lied when denying the rape.

3. When one of the litigants has a sexually transmitted disease.
She has AIDS and claims the rapist infected her. He is not HIV+. Her past sexual history would help determine if the virus came from some other source. It did not come from the accused but that does not mean he did not commit the rape. It does mean that she lied about part of her story casting doubt on the whole case.

[dragon wench]

While trying to hunt down actual case histories on the subject, I came across the legalistic article to which I've linked below. I am not proposing that it should be used to back up any arguments supporting the admission of sexual history in a court of law. For one, I really don't think sexual history would apply to the case that the article refers to. (Indeed, the article concludes that sexual history is not relevant). It is worth reading for the background information, context and analysis.

[url="http://wwwcj.mnstate.edu/classes/CJ400/Monograph/Proclaw1.html"]Procedural Law on Rape[/url]

[Lestat]

[QUOTE=Dowaco]Linking an arguement (sexual history) to a single facet of the overall picture (truthfulness) does not invalidate it's use. There might be other uses for such information.[/QUOTE]Such as?
[QUOTE=Dowaco]Anyway, I can think of several instances where the victim's veracity can be challenged based on past sexual history.

1. The victim is found by a forensic examination to be a virgin.
Sexual history - none
Lied when she said she was raped.

2. A physical exam shows that the victim was a virgin the day before the alledged rape and not a virgin the day of the rape. Here the prosecution would want the past sexual history (or lack of one) admitted and may help prove that the accused lied when denying the rape.

3. When one of the litigants has a sexually transmitted disease.
She has AIDS and claims the rapist infected her. He is not HIV+. Her past sexual history would help determine if the virus came from some other source. It did not come from the accused but that does not mean he did not commit the rape. It does mean that she lied about part of her story casting doubt on the whole case.[/QUOTE]
1. Medical examination - not sexual history.
2. Medical examination - not sexual history.
3. She could very well have believed that it was the rapist that infected her, not having known about her infection.But as he is not HIV+ there is no reason to delve further into her history since it is established he didn't infect her and that part of her story does not correspond with the truth. Again the medical examination is enough to establish the facts.

So all three cases rely on medical examinations, and sexual history does not need to be used in court.

[Fiona]

@ Fable. I did not understand your original post, and took you to mean that you did not agree women do the bulk of the household tasks. I am glad this is not in dispute.

On your first substantive point:

Both sexes spend similar lengths of time gardening or looking after pets. DIY and car maintenance are the only chores that men,
in general, spend more time on than women.

I now see that you disagree that those same women who do the bulk of the household chores are working in full time jobs outside the home. While it is true that more women than men have no paid employment or have only part time paid employment, there are a number of factors which affect this. For example, in this country it is extremely difficult for a woman bringing up children on her own, since child care is scarce and expensive. So a higher percentage of women with partners have jobs, and this is reflected in the comparison figures. Ethnic background also has an impact.

Many women work shorter hours than men, and in particular women with young children do so. They report that they choose to do this, and given the situation as regards domestic work this is perhaps not surprising - a wee bit chicken and egg, though, I accept

Having said that, the government statistics office in the UK reports in 2002:

The working-age employment rate for women in the UK in spring 2002
was at its highest ever level, standing at 69.6 per cent (seasonally adjusted), 2.8 percentage points above its former peak in 1990 (see Figure 2). The rate has increased by 2.2 percentage points over the past five years and 1.0 percentage point over the past three years. The working-age employment rate for men was 9.7 percentage points above that for women in spring 2002, although the gap has closed by 1.5 percentage points over the past ten years.
Women in ethnic minority groups had lower employment rates than White
women. Some 50 per cent of ethnic minority women were in employment.
This rate differed across the broad ethnic minority groupings, ranging from
45 per cent for Asian or Asian British women to 57 per cent for Black or
Black British women. These groupings disguise larger differences for individ-
ual ethnic minority groups. Less than 20 per cent of Bangledeshi women
were in employment compared with around 60 per cent of Indian women.
Of Black African women, 47 per cent were in employment compared with 64
per cent for women of Black Caribbean descent. White women had a much
higher employment rate of 71 per cent.

Around 57 per cent of female employees worked full time.

woman’s being in employment varied with age; from 75.7 per cent for
women aged 35-49 to 43.1 per cent for 16 to 17-year-olds (see Figure 5). The female employment rate rises with age up to and including 35 to 49-year-olds, then falls to 65.3 per cent for women aged 50 to retirement age.

From National Statistics for 2006

The number of people in full-time employment was 21.61 million in the three months to April 2006,up 109,000 from the three months to January 2006.
Of this total, 13.95 million were men, up 63,000 over the quarter, and 7.66 million were women, up 46,000 over the quarter.

The number of people in part-time employment was 7.33 million in the three months to April 2006, up 21,000 from the three months to January 2006. Of this total, 1.65 million were men and 5.68 million were
women.

So more women work full-time than work part time, it seems

http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/Members/m ... dissem.pdf

In the Netherlands full-time work by both parents of young children has virtually disappeared. In the UK,Germany and the Netherlands the mother working part-time is the more common actual pattern and in each case, along with Ireland, is strongly the preferred pattern.For these countries this appears to indicate a significant un-met demand for part-timework by mothers of young children. It is hard to see these variations as expressing
cross-national differences in maternal instincts. Rather, the patterns have to be interpreted as actual and preferred choices, given the availability and quality of childcare support on one hand and the availability and quality of part-time jobs on the other. In spite of the explicit extension of anti-discrimination regulation to part-time work the evidence is that for many women the terms of this trade-off are not good and may be deteriorating.

Part-time work plays a major role in the adult working life of the contemporaryBritish woman. Of women aged 22 and over who have been in employment for 5 years or more in the period 1975-2001, 35% have always worked full-time, 13% have only ever worked part-time, while 52% have worked in both capacities. So a working life comprising both full-time and part-time work is the modal pattern, and two-thirds of adult women spend at least part of their employment life in part-time work.

Female Employment Child Care and Mothers

There are two distinct patterns of more-or-less continuous participation by mothers in European labour markets. In Scandinavia, almost all mothers take `long-hours', part-time employment (equivalent to four days per week), for which they are paid full-time hourly rates. In contrast, South European countries (including France) exhibit a marked polarization between women who remain in full-time employment and those who leave the labour force often even before they become mothers and never return. These patterns are clearly associated with differing patterns of child care provision, and a high participation of mothers in employment is always associated with public commitment to daycare. Such an association cannot prove cause and effect, but many mothers in the UK claim that lack of adequate child care provision constrains their participation in paid work.

>>snip

Joshi's simulations of typical earnings paths indicated that a woman with two children (at ages 25 and 28) will forgo 57% of lifetime earnings after age 25 some £224,000 in the UK, 49% in Germany, 16% in Sweden, and only 1% in France (if she remains on the continuous employment track). These differences reflect, among other things, contrasts in these countries' subsidies to child care.

When Gender Trumps Money: Bargaining and Time in Household Work

The Australian Time Use Survey of 1992 provides the best time-diary data available for testing hypotheses about the allocation of husbands' and wives' time to household labor in affluent societies. Our analysis isolates effects of spouses' relative contributions to household income. One finding is consistent with the view of household bargaining derived from sociological exchange theory and economists' game-theoretic threat point models: as women move from complete economic dependence to providing equal income, their money is parlayed into less household work, even holding constant each spouse's hours of market work. But three of our findings show how the scope for bargaining is constrained by gender. First, although women's earnings reduce their own unpaid work, they do nothing to increase their husbands' unpaid work. Second, women's earnings only work to reduce their housework when they contribute less than half of family income. When women contribute more than half, their housework increases with their contribution to income. We interpret this as an attempt to neutralize the gender deviance of the husband earning less than his wife. Third, when spouses' hours of market work and earnings are equal, women still do more household work than men, especially if the couple has young children. Taken together, the findings suggest resistance to male participation in roles or activities identified as "feminine."

[fable]

@ Fable. I did not understand your original post, and took you to mean that you did not agree women do the bulk of the household tasks. I am glad this is not in dispute.

My experience has led me to observe a variety of households, from those in which the male does all the housework to those in which the female does it all, and everything in between. I've also seen statistics that claim what you state, and the opposite. So lacking any firm evidence, I don't have an opinion on this, one way or the other.

I now see that you disagree that those same women who do the bulk of the household chores are working in full time jobs outside the home.

No, I didn't write that. I wrote that you gave an opinion, not a fact. In other words, you haven't proven your argument yet, only stated it.

Around 57 per cent of female employees worked full time.

But what percentage of these women are also doing the bulk of the housework? And again, I think it would matter greatly how housework is defined in such a poll. If housework includes yardwork and repairwork, then speaking strictly from a standpoint of several US cultures I've witnessed and lived within, I'd tentatively conclude the "housework" is on the whole male/female balanced. In other words--and I think this is important to consider--when we speak of housework, we are considering nonvocational upkeep of the home requiring personal time and effort. The men I've observed do this just as much as the women. But again, I haven't seen any statistical confirmation of this, so I can only draw tentative conclusions.

I apologize for not quoting both your remarks and the majority of your own quotes in this reply. If I provided an endlessly long post it would lack focus, ramble, and pick at everything. Also, most of your quotes have nothing to do with proving the point you initially made. So let me concentrate on the one quote of yours that does deal directly with it:

The Australian Time Use Survey of 1992 provides the best time-diary data available for testing hypotheses about the allocation of husbands' and wives' time to household labor in affluent societies. Our analysis isolates effects of spouses' relative contributions to household income. One finding is consistent with the view of household bargaining derived from sociological exchange theory and economists' game-theoretic threat point models: as women move from complete economic dependence to providing equal income, their money is parlayed into less household work, even holding constant each spouse's hours of market work. But three of our findings show how the scope for bargaining is constrained by gender. First, although women's earnings reduce their own unpaid work, they do nothing to increase their husbands' unpaid work. Second, women's earnings only work to reduce their housework when they contribute less than half of family income. When women contribute more than half, their housework increases with their contribution to income. We interpret this as an attempt to neutralize the gender deviance of the husband earning less than his wife. Third, when spouses' hours of market work and earnings are equal, women still do more household work than men, especially if the couple has young children. Taken together, the findings suggest resistance to male participation in roles or activities identified as "feminine."

I tried downloading this paper, myself, but kept getting an application error statement on their end.

A few points on this quote, though. 1) I gather that this study is about part of the white culture in Australia as measured in the early 1990s, correct? Because you didn't quote the cultural source, size, or date of the sampling. This information is very important to have in evaluating the results. 2) Even so, I would question whether this material is automatically exportable to various US sub-cultures or every European nation, 15 years later, or across economic boundaries. There are many, many differences between these nations and cultures, so superficially similar and otherwise so vastly different.

3) This part bothers me: When women contribute more than half, their housework increases with their contribution to income. We interpret this as an attempt to neutralize the gender deviance of the husband earning less than his wife. The fact that people engaged in a survey would also issue speculative interpretation that cannot be shown by numbers is cause for concern, especially as they do not offer any numbers backing up their speculations. 4) Again, I have to wonder how they define housework. This is very important, as I mentioned above.

No, I'm not quibbling. Especially as you appear to base the proof of your earlier remarks entirely on this survey--so it must bear a heavy burden of scrutiny. If you can shoot me a copy, I'd be very appreciative!) I've simply seen too much that leads me to conclude the report you excerpt a quote from automatically represents many cultures, or cultures of today, or all housework. I'm not at all sure that any clear statement can be made for this lot.

[Chanak]

@Fiona: I wonder about the following statement you made concerning the roles of women in the present-day:

...I was addresssing the most obvious problems of "fairness" and I have concluded it was naive, both because of the unintended consequences of that ( women now end up doing the bulk of the work they traditionally did and having full time employment outside the home as well);...

I've seen this assertion in a number of places both in print and on the web, and can't help but wonder: what's the definition of "work they traditionally did?" Also, of "housework" used in these studies? What's the context?

Is the idea that women with careers still do everything they used to do back in the day when it was very rare for mothers to work outside of the home? I'm curious. Is that the point you're making?

[Fiona]

I don't have access to subscription only studies and those tend to be newer. And I am not that good at research in any case. So bear with me, while I try to find the evidence which supports my daily experience. Most of us start with that so I do not think it unreasonable; nor is it unreasonable to ask for more objective measures

http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/nsfhwp/nsfh73.pdf

This seems reasonable though, again it is quite old.

when housework and employment are jointly considered,genderinequality in the combined workload is clearly less on the average than one would conclude from household tasks alone--at the same time that the "double shift" is highlighted in both countries for women who are employed full-time.

Given the longer hours of men's employment, it is not surprising that when household and labor-market hours are considered jointly, gender inequality is much less than implied by a focus solely on household tasks. Furthermore, we see no country differences in men’s contribution to
household production. Men's average share of the combined workload measure is approximately 48 percent in both Japan and the U.S. (see the bottom panel of Table 7.1). We must again note, however, that while we believe this measure moves us conceptually in the right direction in thinking about gender inequality, it under-represents women's contributions by excluding childcare, and men's contributions by excluding such male household
tasks as home and auto repair. Men are more likely to engage in such "do it yourself" activities in the U.S. than in Japan, and U.S., men report almost as many hours for these tasks as for the tasks examined here.

the gender division represented by this measure of combined workload is
clearly favorable to wives who are full-time homemakers or who are employed for only a few hours. Given that many wives who work few or no hours are mothers of small children, and that childcare time is not considered here, differences between men and women are understated and those between wives employed full-time and those not employed are understated. Nevertheless, even when we limit our analysis to couples without preschool children, this main point still holds
(data not shown).

In both countries, wives significantly reduce their own time on housework with increasing hours of employment. This, of course, will tend to increase husbands' share even if men do not pick up more of the work at home. In both countries, however, the increase in men's share also reflects an increase in their own household hours.

On the other hand, as wives' employment hours increase, their combined workload increases, clearly revealing the "second shift" of unpaid housework among wives who are employed full-time (Hochschild 1991). Not only do a higher proportion of Japanese wives work long employment hours, those with long employment hours also spend more time on household tasks--resulting in an estimated 85 hour week of combined workload for the highest employment
category compared to 77 hours among American wives.6

Having small children reduces husbands’ share of housework in the U.S. despite the fact that both husbands and wives do significantly more housework. This, of course, is a consequence of the greater effect of children on wives’ workload than on husbands’. In Japan, however, preschool children n not significantly affect husbands' share in housework, primarily because Japanese husbands, unlike their U.S. counterparts, do not respond to the presence of small children by spending more time on housework. As expected, Japanese wives, like their U.S. counterparts, spend significantly more time on housework when they have small children. The presence of school-age children significantly reduces husbands' share in housework in both
countries by disproportionately increasing wives' workload.

Evidence from the U.S. shows that, even taking into account employment hours of both spouses, the presence of small children increases wives' housework time dramatically while only slightly increasing that of husbands' (Kamo 1988;Rexroat and Shehan 1987).2 Analyzing dual-earner couples in the U.S., Presser (1994) also found that the numbers of non-adult children reduces husbands' share of housework, not because husbands do less housework, but because wives' housework increases more than husbands’.

Abstract

Although much recent research has explored the division of household labor between husbands and wives, few studies have examined housework patterns across marital statuses. This paper uses data from the National Survey of Families and Households to analyze differences in time spent on housework by men and women in six different living situations: never married and living with parents, never married and living independently, cohabiting, married, divorced, and widowed. In all situations, women spend more time than men doing housework, but the gender gap is widest among married persons. The time women spend doing housework is higher among cohabitants than among the never-married, is highest in marriage, and is lower among divorcees and widows. Men's housework time is very similar across both never-married living situations, in cohabitation, and in marriage. However, divorced and widowed men do substantially more housework than any other group of men, and they are especially more likely than their married counterparts to spend more time cooking and cleaning. In addition to gender and marital status, housework time is affected significantly by several indicators of workload (e.g., number of children, home ownership) and time devoted to nonhousehold activities (e.g., paid employment, school enrollment)--most of these variables have greater effects on women's housework time than on men's. An adult son living at home increases women's housework, whereas an adult daughter at home reduces housework for women and men. These housework patterns are generally consistent with an emerging perspective that views housework as a symbolic enactment of gender relations. We discuss the implications of these findings for perceptions of marital equity.






Housework in Marital and Nonmarital Households
Scott J. South, Glenna Spitze
American Sociological Review, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Jun., 1994) , pp. 327-347

This seems more to support your position, though it comes from a different perspective, I suppose

http://www.massey.ac.nz/~kbirks/gender/econ/unp4web.htm

Bristol University | News | Department of Economics

IPRNews-Fall 2002-Housework in Double-Income Marriages Still Divides Unevenly

That last one gives a wee bit more detail about the study Fable asked about though it is still not the full text.

Comparing men's division of time in 1986 with that in 1996, time reduced from paid work and commuting, etc., is being spent on primary and tertiary activities rather than housework, etc., with the result that within secondary activities, the amount of time spent by women and men respectively on paid work, etc., and housework, etc., has remained virtually unchanged (Figure 22).
Figure 22: Couples' use of time

Figure22
Source: Compiled from Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities (1986, 1991 and 1996), Management and Coordination Agency

[Fiona]

[QUOTE=Chanak]@Fiona: I wonder about the following statement you made concerning the roles of women in the present-day:

...I was addresssing the most obvious problems of "fairness" and I have concluded it was naive, both because of the unintended consequences of that ( women now end up doing the bulk of the work they traditionally did and having full time employment outside the home as well);...

I've seen this assertion in a number of places both in print and on the web, and can't help but wonder: what's the definition of "work they traditionally did?" Also, of "housework" used in these studies? What's the context?

Is the idea that women with careers still do everything they used to do back in the day when it was very rare for mothers to work outside of the home? I'm curious. Is that the point you're making?[/QUOTE]

No I am not saying women do everything they traditionally did. We are not stupid and we are not robots. Labour saving devices have reduced the work in the home, and women do a lot less housework than they used to do anyway. One of the studies is called " Is anybody doing the housework" and it shows that we just live in dirtier houses and cook less really. No bad thing, IMO

This was really only meant to be an illustration of why I shifted my position over time. I work with a lot of women who are in full time employment and have children. A great many of them remain primarily responsible for the child care and this means in practice that the school phones them when the kid is ill, not the father: that they are responsible for organising pre- and after-school care (no easy task in this country); and have to juggle when the arrangement falls to bits; that they are more likely to take time off to care for a sick child (and therefore to have to lie to the employer) etc etc.

I am not trying to say that nothing has changed. And I know there will be differences in different countries. But I just don't see a fair division of labour in many families. I know men who regret this. I suspect there are a lot of them, and they do not get the same slack from employers in a lot of cases. Please don't see this as bashing men- it is much more complicated than that. This is deeply entrenched. For this reason I think we need to start where we are. If women are going to continue to take more responsibility for children (and I really don't see that changing any time soon) then we need to arrange things so this is not such a big disadvantage. That is what I mean by equity. I do not think this is trivial. I am not going to do a lot of hunting about on the next bit, but it is possible that the falling birth rate is related to this situation. At least that is worth considering, perhaps

[Lestat]

I've got only two samples to jugde Fiona's opinions by (my brother's and my sister's households). But in general those tendencies described seem to correspond to a reality.

[Maharlika]

@Everyone:

As much as I would want to see more of the recent exchanges in this thread, I would want to point out the original topic.

You may want to start a new thread on housework and gender-issues related to this.

[fable]

Mah's point is well taken. Fiona, if you want to continue our discussion, feel free to start a new topic and copy over our responses. I'll gladly reply (and was going to do so, this morning).

[snoopyofour]

"sexual history of complainant in rape case"
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(logical connection being: -blank-)
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"truthfulness of complainant in rape case"

Most obviously in cases where there are no facts to decide the most relevant issues (yes kiddies these do happen. are your minds sufficiently blown?). A women was seen going home with a man, left his house some time later, then at a later date filed for a rape charge. The man says there was consent the women says there was not. Alcohol was involved and there are no marks or signs of struggle on the women. The man says there was consent, the women claims there wasn't. Yes, it is relevant to know whether or not this women goes home with and then sleeps with men on a regular basis. Of course its detrimental to her case, it doesn't matter. This isn't deductive logic, court cases very rarely are about deductive logic so don't ask for a logical connection when you're excluding an entire branch of logic and an entirely cogent argument. Furthermore, a trial can't be expressed in syllogism and the niavety in thinking so is astounding. Anyway, I need to go to Tuckermax right now, maybe that will do something about the bile rising in my throat.

[Fiona]

Against my better judgement:

Most obviously in cases where there are no facts to decide the most relevant issues A women was seen going home with a man, left his house some time later, then at a later date filed for a rape charge. The man says there was consent the women says there was not. Alcohol was involved and there are no marks or signs of struggle on the women. The man says there was consent, the women claims there wasn't. Yes, it is relevant to know whether or not this women goes home with and then sleeps with men on a regular basis.

No it is not. It is relevant whether she falsely accuses men of rape on a regular basis, and I think we are all agreed about that. It is of no relevance whatsoever that she regularly sleeps with men.

Of course its detrimental to her case, it doesn't matter.

If anything, if she does this a lot and does not accuse the other men of rape it should be beneficial to her case, in this instance. But you are correct, it doesn't work that way. That is why it is inadmissable either way.