Ruth’s Sociology Resources Blog

Thinking about the previous post on women’s happiness in marriage and men and women’s roles, reminded me of Fay Weldon’s short story ‘Weekend’ (which can be found online as a PDF here).

Weekend is a fictional story of a normal weekend for a middle class family of five, told from the mother’s point of view as she juggles paid, domestic and emotional work along with social expectations from her husband and other adults.  It is a powerful tale which makes the reader think about contemporary gender roles and although the story was first published in 1978 it does not feel dated and in some ways is possibly more typical now than then.

If you’re a teacher then this would be a good story to use with students to introduce topics around gender or conjugal roles or to contextualise work already done and would promote some interesting discussions.  I would look at the different roles, attitudes and expectations of the characters with students, looking at viewpoints, maybe getting them to write a short piece from Martin or Katie’s point of view and comparing.  The British Arts Council website has some suggestions for questions to ask when looking at the story.