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Chores allocated to siblings also followed a similar pattern as that between the parents of the interviewees in that they were distinctly reflective of a marked gendered divide between the girls and boys.

5.3.1 Working Class Experiences

Half the working class respondents stated that the girls had the designated tasks of assisting with the cooking and cleaning while the boys engaged in errands such as helping the fathers with the business or odds and ends.

Zainab (late-teens) stated,

“…but I feel if you‟re in the house and if you look at your brothers doing dishes, you feel like ok that just doesn‟t look right you know… so we‟d adopt our own ways of like separating chores.”

Anjali (late-30s),

“We [she and her sister] used to help out with the cooking and the cleaning of the house and gardening… my brother was a bit of a lazy one, he used to be out with friends... my sister and I used to do most of the cleaning and cooking.”

Even while the other half of the respondents reported that both boys and girls were required to help out equally in the home, the boys still were never expected to assist in cooking or washing. Rarely were the boys treated completely equally in terms of allocated tasks within the home.

Razia (late-40s),

”As children everybody had a turn as to who‟s gonna clean what... even my

brothers... they used to scrub and polish and do everything else, except the washing of course.”

5.3.2 Middle Class Experiences

Sibling chores with the middle class respondents demonstrated some consistencies with the working class women.

Kavina (70s),

“Yah I helped cooking, cleaning... my brother no, he never used to do... he used to play soccer and go with the boys.”

Some respondents said that only the girls attended to the cooking and cleaning while the boys did not lift a hand or else helped only when it came to the business.

Praveena (late-40s),

“Mainly it was just us [girls doing housework]... they used to sort of just go to the shop and do the men stuff and we had to do the cooking and cleaning and baking and everything... typical behaviour.”

She however does not treat her own children differently in terms of their chores in the home which is reinforced by her daughter who stated:

Rupee (mid-20s),

“There are no differences in the chores between my brothers and I… they help out a lot, especially the youngest one who helps my mum a lot, even in the kitchen.”

Another interviewee, also from the younger generation, highlights the equal division of chores between her brothers and sisters:

Geeta (early-20s),

“Between myself and the smallest child [a girl], we do the kitchen [cleaning]... the boy does the vacuuming... there‟s two boys... they clean all the floors... and then the middle sister does all the bathrooms... and the small one helps me in the kitchen... so everything is quite spread... everyone‟s got their set duties.”

5.3.3 Class and Generation Differences

Here again we see how discrepancies between roles of women and men were also reflected in the tasks allocated to the interviewees growing up whereby girls carried out more of the domestic chores than did boys. In addition, the tasks were very specific as girls were primarily concerned with assisting their mothers with cooking or washing. These tasks reflect gendered prescriptions of femininity where girls are expected to learn them, not boys. This in turn illustrates how gendered norms and expectations are

socialised and ingrained from an early age (Giddens, 1989). This household division of labour was more marked amongst the working class interviewees while growing up.

Although the middle class interviewees did display this division of labour within the home, it was more marked amongst the older generations who while growing up were more subjected to the sharp divide between the prescribed roles for men and women. Again this can be related to the fact that many of these middle class women were

originally more on par with the working class families while growing up. Thus with the younger generation interviewees who grew up middle class, we can see that these socialised roles for men and women are no longer strongly adhered to as with their siblings, tasks are more equitably distributed between boys and girls without the previous prescribed roles of tasks designated for girls or tasks designated for boys.

Therefore, we see that gendered division of labour gets socialised from family life (Castelli, 1989). These different roles take on different meanings in the subjective experiences of different individuals and become part of „respectable‟ gender and class identities through varying ways (Skeggs, 1997). Thus for working class women, these roles and attributes associated with women create a respectable body as women create

meaning for their sense of „self‟ from the tasks expected of them from an early life. On the other hand, gender socialisation operates differently within the families of the „daughter‟ generation of middle class interviewees given the more equitable distribution of household tasks. Thus respectable identities are constructed differently for these respondents.

This respectability derived from the acceptance of sexual division of labour by the working class women in particular, is demonstrated through their acceptance of domestic labour as rewarding and natural. Thus given the expectations that women were not expected to work in those days, being socialised into domestic work becomes a

respectable solution to a future that does not involve formal employment. These women therefore gain self worth and moral responsibility through maintenance of family life and the home (Skeggs, 1997). With the middle class „daughter‟ generation however,

respectability is created by balancing of household work with formal employment and gaining responsibility and self-worth from both public and private spheres. These

gendered notions of femininity have implications with regard to freedom awarded to girls and boys (while growing up) in terms of going out or having romantic relationships.