Feminist Perspective Of The Family Flashcards
Feminist perspective
They focus on conflict within the family and how women are exploited through traditional gender roles put in force and reinforced for the benefit of men.
From this perspective family is an oppressive structure locking women in a narrow range of service roles and responsibilities
What are the different types of feminism
-Liberal feminism
-Radical feminism
-Marxist feminism
-Black feminism
- Difference feminism
Explain liberal feminists perspective on the role of the family
They argue that the situation of women can be improved by changes like new laws or individuals and families changing the way they live e.g men doing more housework.
Liberal feminists in the UK and other countries have succeeded in getting laws passed e.g the equal pay act and the sex discrimination act.
Liberal Feminists believe in a “March of Progress” view of the family. This means that they believe that the family is gradually changing for the better over time by becoming more democratic and more equal.
Sommerville (2000) argues that women’s roles within families have significantly improved as they now have better access to divorce, control over their fertility, less social pressure to marry, and better job opportunities
Criticisms of the liberal feminist perspective
-Radical feminists argue that paid work has not been ‘liberating’. Instead women
have acquired the ‘dual burden’ of paid work and unpaid housework and the family remains patriarchal – men benefit from women’s paid earnings and their domestic labour. Some Radical
Feminists go further arguing that women suffer from the ‘triple shift’ where they have to do paid work, domestic work and ‘emotion work’ – being expected to take on the emotional burden of caring for children.
- • Marxist Feminists point out that women still do the majority of housework.
• Marxist Feminists point out that Women are still the primary child carers.
• Radical Feminists point out that it is still women who are most likely to be the victims of domestic violence.
Radical feminists perspective on the role of the family.
They believe that the nuclear family is patriarchal - it suits men but exploits women. Women gain little from it and would be better off without it.
They argue that patriarchy can not be removed by the type of changes liberal feminists argue for.
Some radical feminists argue that women need to live completely separately from men.
Criticisms of the radical feminist perspective
• Ignores the progress that women have made in many areas e.g. work, controlling fertility, divorce.
• Too unrealistic - due to heterosexual attraction separatism is unlikely.
• Ignores domestic/emotional abuse suffered by men who often don’t report it.
Marxist feminist perspective
They combine the insights of feminism and Marxism. They argue the main cause of women’s oppression in the family is not men, but capitalism. They argue that women’s oppression performs several functions for Capitalism
1) Men work and have always been able to work for long hours (benefiting capitalism) because women have been doing the domestic work.
2) Women reproduce the labour force – through their unpaid domestic labour, by socialising the next generation of workers and servicing the current workers (their husbands!)
3) Women absorb anger – Parson’s warm bath theory. women are just absorbing the anger of the proletariat, who are exploited and who should be directing that anger towards the Bourgeois
4) Dual burden - women are doubly exploited in the workplace as paid employees who’s labor contributes to the ruling class profits and at home as unpaid workers who’s labour benefits men.
5) Women are a reserve army of labor- Bruegel (1979) argued that women are called into the workforce when there is a shortage of male labour and forced back into the family when there is a surplus.
Duncombe and Marsden argue that women perform are triple shift -
Ansley (1972) argues women absorb the anger that would otherwise be directed at capitalism. Ansley argues women’s male partners are inevitably frustrated by the exploitation they experience at work and women are the victims of this, including domestic violence.
Criticisms of Marxist feminists perspective
- patriarchal oppression is overt in many pre-capitalist societies. Also, gender equality has increased as capitalism has developed.
- Outdated ;
Their model of the family is still largely based upon the rather dated model of the nuclear family of working husband and economically dependent full-time housewife. Many families no longer fit into this category because modern families are extremely diverse in their organisation and structure. - They ignore recent changes to the economy especially the feminisation of the workplace and cultural changes such as Wilkinson’s genderquake which mean that women today are less likely to choose to be a stay-at-home mother. Women may have more economic and social power today and consequently may be able to resist exploitation in the home
- Undermine and attack nuclear family ; New Right and Functionalist sociologists would criticise Marxist feminists for attacking and undermining the nuclear family. They would argue that the nuclear family is the cornerstone of society, and without support for it, many social problems such as youth crime and educational underachievement can arise
Black feminists perspective
-Feel they have little in common with white feminists. They do not see all men as an enemy as they recognize that African-American men are also exploited and that problems they share with them are best tackled together.
-They argue that black women have different situations within society compared to white women which white feminists are not aware of.
Difference feminist perspective
Difference feminists emphasise the differences between men and women, and between different groups of women. They disagree with liberal feminists who argue that men and women can be equal.
Difference feminism recognises that there is increasing family diversity today and women may not be equally exploited in all family types. For example, many women are lone parents and as such cannot be exploited by a cohabiting man. There are also differences in gender relationships in families from different ethnic and religious backgrounds.
