Short End of the Stick

There has been a drastic change in the definition of marriage ranging the past fifty years. Today more and more women are joining the workforce rather than staying home to take care of the children. It is evident that women have been getting, so to say, the short end of the stick, where in heterosexual marriages with or without children (same sex marriages are being left out for arguments sake), the husband is seen as what Steve Mitz in New Rules; Postwar Families 1955-present commonly refers to the "breadwinner father." This husband's responsibilities are to take care of the financial aspects of the family while the "stay-at-home mom"(Mitz, 16) takes care of the children, does all the laundry, cleans the house, goes to the grocery store, takes little jimmy to the hospital, to school, to his soccer game, does the dishes, is the husband's secretary, all on top of working full-time. The reason for this long list of responsibilities is to compare whether the husband's contributions to the family are equal to that of the wives. No, they are not equal. Women are not happy with having to go to work on top of cooking, cleaning, and

his wife, and he was entitled to sexual

proper roles of husband and wife has also been

Finally, wives are going to continue to get "the short end of the stick" until husband's start to really help women with family responsibilities. Today's society is ever changing and through education and reexamination of social norms and laws, the definition of gender roles are going to have to be redefined in order to distribute the family responsibilities in a fair and neutral manner.

considered the husband to be 'head and master' of

taking care of the children, while the husbands have the same responsibilities as before. It seems only fair to split the family responsibilities down the middle taking into consideration general male muscular superiority.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Postwar Families, Douglas Societal, American Family, African American, Short Stick, short stick, getting short stick, getting short, Steve Mitz, unjust laws, increased education, women getting, family responsibilities, cooking cleaning, care children, societal norms, women getting short, Rules Postwar, rules postwar families, top cooking cleaning, responsibilities fair, husband start sharing,
Approximate Word count = 1676
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)