Family and Households Flashcards
What is a household?
A person or a group of people living together, who may or may not be related.
What is a family?
An institution made up of a group of people who are related through kinship: blood, marriage, adoption or civil partnership.
Domestic division of labour
The Husbands Role?
Parsons (functionalist)
The husband has the instrumental role, achieving success at work so he can provide money for the family. he is the breadwinner.
The domestic division of labour
The wife’s role?
Parsons (functionalist)
The wife has the expressive role, undertaking primary socialisation and meeting the family’s emotional needs. she is the homemaker and a full-time house wife.
What are segregated conjugal roles?
Functionalist view- Elizabeth Bott
The couple have separated roles, and do not spend leisure time together.
What are joint conjugal roles?
Functionalist view- Elizabeth Bott
The couple share tasks, such as housework and childcare, and they spend their leisure time together.
What is a symmetrical family?
Young and Willmott (functionalists)
Roles of men and women are now much more similar.
Why have symmetrical family’s become more popular?
Young and Willmott (functionalists)
Changes in women’s position (working)
Geographical mobility (more couples living away from the communities where they grew up means they are more dependent on their partners)
New technology
Higher standards of living
(Married women working means more income therefore higher standard of living- these are interlinked)
Feminist view of housework
Feminists believe little has changed, men and women remain unequal, women still do most of the housework. They believe society and households are patriarchal. They do not believe in the ‘march of progress’ view.
Are couples becoming more equal?
The march of progress view
Young and Willmott
They believe women going to work is leading to a more equal division of labour at home. Men are becoming more involved in housework and childcare, and women are involved in work outside the home.
A feminist view
Are couples becoming more equal?
They believe that women going into paid work has not led to greater equality in the division of domestic labour. There are still little signs of the ‘New Man’ who carries out equal housework and childcare.
Dual Burden
Feminist view
Oakley
A dual burden is when women have to do paid work, and also help with housework, such as chores and childcare.
Triple Shift
Feminist view
Ansley
Triple shift is when the woman have to undergo paid work, housework and emotional work. Emotional work incudes managing the emotions of family members, for example the husband had a hard day at work or the child is being bullied at school. At this point, women are also known as the ‘Takers Of Shit’.
What is domestic violence?
Any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, or threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are or have been intimate partners or family members regardless of sexuality or gender.
Types of domestic violence and abuse
Physical, psychological, sexual, financial, and emotional
Radical feminist explanation of domestic violence or abuse.
See family and marriage as key parts in patriarchal society and the main source of women’s oppression. Within the family, radical feminists believe that men dominate women through domestic abuse or the threat of it.
Critiques of the radical feminist view
Radical feminists fail to explain female violence, including child abuse by women and violence against male partners and within lesbian relationships.
Radical feminists use patriarchy to explain why most victims are women, but they assume all women are at equal risk of patriarchal violence. They fail to explain which women are most likely to be victims
The materialist explanation of domestic violence and abuse
Focuses on economic and material factors such as inequalities in income and housing to explain why some people are more at risk. They see it as a result of stress caused by social inequality.
How can inequality cause stress and thus domestic abuse and violence?
Worries about money, jobs, housing cause tempers to rise and lack of money and time restricts peoples social circle and reduces the social support for those under financial support
Criticisms of the materialist explanation
They do not explain why women are more likely to be the main victims.
Marxists feminists see inequality causing domestic violence, and women become ‘takers of shit’. Domestic violence is the product of capitalism as males are exploited at work and take our their frustration on their wives, which fails to explain why not all male workers abuse wives, and doesn’t take account reports of violent women.
Define socially constructed
Something that is created and defined by society
Separateness from children and adults
Modern Western childhood
Pilcher
Childhood is a clear life stage with a status from adults. There are laws regulating what children aren’t allowed (alcohol), what is required and what they are forbidden to do. The way they dress, toys, books, food, play areas.
‘Golden age’ of happiness and innocence
Children are seen as vulnerable and in need of protection from e dangers of the adult world. They are ‘quarantined’ and separate from it. Adults provide for them and protect them. Children lead lives of leisure and play and are excluded from paid work
Modern Western childhood is not universal
Not every childhood is the same for every child. All children go through the same stages of physical development, different cultures define this process differently
Has the position of children changed?
The march of progress view
Aries and Shorter
The position of children has improved and is better than it has ever been. Children are more valued, better cared for, protected, educated, healthier, and have more rights.
How are children today protected by laws?
March of progress view
Aries and Shorter
Children are protected from harm and exploitation by laws against child abuse and child labour. The government spends huge sums on education for children
The child centered family
March of progress view
Aries and Shorter
Higher standards of living and smaller family sizes lead to more parents being able to afford to provide for child’s needs properly. They believe that children have become the main focal point of the family as parents invest a great deal into their children emotionally and financially. Parents have high aspirations for their children to have a better life and greater opportunities.
Toxic childhood
March of progress view
Palmer
Rapid technological and cultural improvement means damage for child’s physical, emotional and intellectual development (video games, junk food, exams, intensive marketing).
