1. In the twenty years since the writing of Worlds of Pain, how has employment within the family changed regarding both women and men?
2. How do the women in the book feel about the women's movement and feminism? What are their attitudes about the issues raised by the women's movement. How do African-American women regard the women's movement differently than their white counterparts in the working- class?
3. How do the men and women in the book juggle home and work responsibilities? Which male ethnics are most likely to share with their wives domestic and childcare responsibilities? How do wives feel about their roles as providers and mothers? Explain why the women want their men to feel like a king, but not want them to act like one.
4. Why do the men interviewed for Families on the Fault Line want to "wear the pants" and complain about "ball-busting feminists"? How do these men feel about their wives working and the additional income they bring to their families?
5. How wide-spread is gender and racial inequity regarding pay for employed work among the working-class? Why does this pay inequity persist?
6. How does childcare provide special problems for working-class families? How does this problem lead to conflicts between men and women?
7. Describe the sexual relationships between the men and women interviewed for Families on the Fault Line. How are their problems different from those experienced by middle-class families? How is sex used by women as a weapon against their husbands?
8. How widespread is unemployment for the Families on the Fault Line? How does unemployment affect the families interviewed by Rubin? How and why are men (as compared to women) affected differently by unemployment?
9. How does unemployment lead to other dysfunctions within the family? In you answer discuss the relationships between the following factors: unemployment, loss of income, divorce, physical and sexual abuse, and alcoholism?
10. Explain the meaning of the following quotation and then answer the question:
"We did everything we were supposed to do--worked hard, saved some money, tried to raise our kids to be decent law-abiding people--and what do we get?"
11. What does the future look like for working-class families? Will it get any better in the next 20 years? What kind of prospects do retirement bring for working-class families? In what ways are the experiences of working-class retirees very different from those in the middle-class? How is your answer affected by inheritance patterns found in the United States?
12. How and why has the dream of owning a house become a mirage for most, if not all, working-class families?
13. What are the effects of having middle-class people move into working-class area? How do you feel about the dream of home ownership?
14. Compare your own background and family with working class families characterized in Worlds of Pain. (Some of you may be from working-class families yourselves. If so, you might be able to figure out how your family is the same as those in the book and how it's different; and it probably is at least somewhat different or you wouldn't have wound up being here at St. Olaf.) As you make comparisons discuss the following areas: child rearing, communication, sex roles, and financial security. Try to figure out how your family and those in the book differ because of their social context (where they are in the social class structure), rather than just the particular personalities of the family members involved.

The following are some questions you might want to think about in writing your answer:

1. How do people feel about their work and themselves as persons?
2. How do husbands and wives relate to each other?
3. How hopeful or realistic are people about their futures?
4. How is it that people can want their lives to turn out so much, and yet "somehow" they often do not?
5. How is it that parents so often want a better life for their children, and yet somehow the lives of the children so often only reproduce that of their parents?

Go to Part III: Race and the Rise of Ethnicity

Go to Part I: The Invisible Americans

Go back to SOCIOLOGY 260 -- Sociology of Marriage and the Family Discussion Questions

If you have any questions or comments please email:

leming@stolaf.edu

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