1 Couples Flashcards
Functionalism
See two roles: Instrumental and Expressive role
New Right agree that biologically based division of labour is best way of organising family life
The ‘March of Progress’ view
Segregated roles are separate
Joint conjugal roles
Symmetrical family (roles are more similar and equal)
Most women now go out to work
Men help with housework and childcare (the ‘new man’)
Couples spend leisure time together. Men have become more house centred and family more privatised
Feminism
Reject the March of progress view
Seen as patriarchal
Women still do most of the house work and childcare
Feminist on couples being more equals
Responsibility for children:
Dex and Ward: 1% of fathers took responsibility for caring for a child
Braun et al: Most fathers were ‘background fathers’. They held a ‘provider ideology’, role of breadwinner, not primary career.
Responsibility for ‘quality time’
The triple shift: Duncombe and Marsden found that women were required not only to carry a dual burden, but a triple shift
Decision making and paid work
Allowance system, where men work and give non working wives an allowance from which their budget to meet the family’s needs
Pooling: Partners work and have a joint responsibility
Professional couples and decision making
Material: Men have more power in decision making because they earn more
Cultural: Feminists argue that gender role socialisation in patriarchal society instals the idea that men are decision makers
Radical Feminists explanation to Domestic Violence
Oppression
Men dominate state: Explains why Court and police fail to take domestic violence seriously
The Two Dobashes: Evidence was triggered when husbands felt authority was being challenged. Concludes that marriage legitimates violence by giving power to men
The Materialist Explanation
Lack of resources: Low income and poor housing -> Suffer more stress and increases the risk of violence
Marxist feminists: See inequality producing violence: Ansley argues that male workers exploited at work take out on their wives
Has the position of children improved? (March of progress)
Children are better cared for in terms of their educational, psychological and medical needs
Most babies now survive: the infant mortality rate in 1900 was 154; now it 4
Higher living standards and smaller family sizes mean parents can afford to provide for children’s needs
Children are protected from harm and exploitation by laws against child abuse and child labour
Position of children (conflict view)
Gender differences
Ethnic differences
Class inequalities
Inequalities between children and adults
Functionalist perspective of the family
Body is a system made up of different parts that function together to meet its needs and maintain it
Society is a system made of different but interdependent parts of sub systems
The functions of any part is the contribution it makes to maintaining the social system as a whole
Murdock: four functions of the family
Stable satisfaction of the sex drive
Reproduction of the next generation
Socialisation of the young
Satisfaction of members’ economic needs
Practically and universality
Parsons ‘functional fit’ theory
Extended family- was multi functional
Nuclear family- Geographical and social mobility
Two irreducible functions- Primary socialisation and Stabilisation of adult personalities
New Right Perspective
A biologically based division of labour
Families should be self-reliant
Cross-cultural differences in childhood
They have more responsibility at home and work
Less value is placed on obedience to adult authority
Children’s sexual behaviour is often viewed differently
