Functionalism: Gender Flashcards
introduction to functionalist explanation of gender roles
-males and females have separate social roles based on biological differences
-helps society run smoothly; also shows gender inequality
-females reproduce so should look after and socialise kids
-females therefore have less opportunity to work coz main role is kids
-this leads to divisions of labour
list three ways divisions of labour lead to gender inequality
Parsons Expressive and Instrumental Roles (A01)
Parsons emphasises the role of the family in socialising children and stabilising adult personas. in a family there are two gender roles that cause gender inequality long term
1) instrumental: males/fathers are breadwinners
2) expressive: females/mothers; warmth, emotion, caring
-According to Parsons, they’re different but equal and leads to the development of society
+ talk further about children’s primary socialisation
Stabilisation of adult Personas (Parsons) - AO1
Married couples rely on each other for emotional support, especially in the isolated nuclear family whereby the extended family is not relied upon very much
· Family life is seen as ideal for meeting the emotional needs of the family within a stressful life, e.g. father is stressed at work and needs care
· Without support stresses of family life would be too great and could lead to emotional instability
· Males rely on their wives/female partners to provide emotional support after they experience long days working hard to provide financially for the family
· Females provide a caring and positive emotional environment in the family to help stabilise adult personality (for the male)
· This is known as the warm bath theory
what is the warm bath theory
feeling of coming home after a long day of work and experiencing comfort in the form of a warm bath both figuratively and liteally
Parsons Instrumental and Expressive Role (AO3)
(-) Leech: ignores dark side of family e.g domestic abuse
(-) James: families can be dysfunctional; unstable adults can blame their parents for their instability which isnt always true
(-) temporal validity: majority of women work (47%)
(-) feminists
(+) Marxists: women can care for home and husband so he can work productively for capitalist society
Human Capital Theory- Rastogi (A01)
-explains wage gap and employment differences between males and females
· Human capital is based on knowledge, education, training, behaviour, competency and skills a person has which will enable them to do a certain job
· each person invests differently into human capital
-males will have more human capital because they might have more opportunity to study (no pregnancy or maternity leave)
-Males tend to be more work oriented and are committed to their jobs more than females
· This causes gender inequalities to arise because males and females will have different attitudes to the labour market and different opportunities
Human Capital Theory: Rastogi (AO3)
(-) Sloane: Males paid 29% more on average same job with same skillset
(+) Sloane: investigated hct using data from social change and economic life initiative and looked at labour markets in swindon etc. (1985-88). professional qualifications made a difference. those in same job one earned 30% higher because they had a higher degree
(-) ignored causes of inequality e.g labour market divison
Sex Role THEORY AO1
Goldstein: girls perform better on 11+
Oakley: socialisation; babies treated differently according to sex
sex role ideology: ideal societal expectation base on sex
Eichler: gender roles- girls quiet, men noisy
Norman et al: children’s toys reinforce sex role
Bowles and Gintis: hidden curriculum
Scott: main priority of girl’s life is to get married
sex role theory AO3
(+) evidence of subject choices; females take food tech men take sciences and maths
(+) Licht (observational research) found females if they are successful was down to luck and not their own ability but boys blame others if they dont succeed e.g bad teachers
(-) post modernists: belief that now gender is a social construct and gender fluidity exists whereby people pick and choose a gender depending on themselves
