Family: Marxism Flashcards
Engels
Houswfife is treated as a ‘glorified prostitute’ - expected to provide sex for the husband to stabilise the relationship. Financially dependent on the husband
Marriage developed once people owned private property they wanted to ensure the offspring that inherited their property that died were definitely their own.
Control the women’s sexuality to ensure that any children she has are from your bloodline, so that they can inherit your private property
Zaretsky
capitalims is expoitative and work provides little fulfulment so people seek refuge and comfort in the family.
Houswives keep capitalism going, perofming free houshold labour and socialising the future generations of workers
Family is a unit of consumption: they buy many consumer goods (eg for the children), this triggers the prodiction of more goods to meet demand, which stimulates the economy and keeps capitalism going.
Disney
Disney culture brainwashes families to believe that Disney is a rite of passage, and that Disneyworld is the happiest place on earth
to encourage consumption of disney goods, fuel capitalism
Althusser
Family as an agent of socialisation is part of the ideological state apparatus: institutions of the bourgeoise that brainwash the proletariat to accept ruling class capitalist ideology,
Convince people to accept capitalism and inequality, that society is meritocratic. Agents of socialisation: family, education, media, workplace, religion, peers
Cooper
Family mirrors the hierarchy of work, where parents act as the bosses and the children act as the workers. This socialises children to obey, which trains them for the workplace.
Bourdieu
your famuly’s social class will affect your future - oppotinities, privilege. Bourgeoisie have an instant advantage.
3 types of capital
Economic capital - money. Inherited wealth, family wealth, if you grow up in wealth you will learn that capitalism is good.
Cultural capital: education, culture, skills, knowledge
Social Capital: Who you know, powerful connections to give you advantages in society. Bourgeoisie has much more connections - lobbying, bribes
Hochschild
Family is commodified - turned into something that can be bought and sold. Relationships have become transactional
For example, dating sites.
This has now meant that people can become alienated from emotional attachments and then themselves.
capitalism creates alienation as workers produce products but did not own the products of their own labour. Become detached.
Hochschild said this has now gone further with people being alienated from their own feelings
alienation and commodification: Indian surrogate mothers
Akanksha Infertility Clinic: infertile couples or single parents can hire an Indian woman to stay in the hostel for 9 months and bear their child. Can no longer live at home, have sexual contact with their husband and must leave other children behind to live at the hostel.
SOme did it to earn enough money to send their children to college, or to pay off debt.
ANsley
Women are Takers of shit: absorb the man’s anger at capitalism, to prevent it from eing directed at the bourgeoisie, keep the proletarian man in line.
The man takes his frustration at his exploitation out on his wife - domestic violence
Benston
Women are the unpaid workforce - housework, children. Because if women were paid mimumun wage for working this would require a large redistribution of wealth
Women are slaves of the wage slaves: do just as much work inside the home as the man does for no pay. The woman must be a housewife: tend to her husband’s needs, feed him, clean his clothes, do his chores so he can go to work, do his job.
