key concepts Flashcards
4 reasons families have become more symmetrical
Changes in women’s position
Geographical mobility
New technology
Commercialisation of housework
In the household, what is the inequality in who does what, and the inequality in who gets what
Men often gain more from women’s domestic work than they provide in financial support
Financial support often has strings attached
Men usually make decisions about important items
How men are controlling family income
Pooling: where both partners have access to income and joint responsibility for expenditure
Allowance system: where men give their wives an allowance and retain a surplus for himself
Talcott Parsons ideas on the family
clear division of labour in a nuclear family
ie. husband (instrumental role, breadwinner, achieving success at work to provide for family), wife (expressive role, socialisation of the children, and meeting family’s emotional needs).
based on biological differences, and is beneficial to both men, women, children and wider society.
Young & Wilmott views on family + 4 factors
“march of progress” family life as becoming gradually more democratic and equal ie. women going out to work more, men taking more responsibility around the house. They call this the symmetrical family.
4 interlinking factors: changes in women’s position, geographical mobility, new technology and higher standards of living
Bott
Segregated conjugal roles where the couple have separate roles: a male breadwinner and a female homemaker/carer (ie. Parsons)
Joint conjugal roles where the couple share tasks such as housework
Anne Oakley
housewife role is the result of changes in the 19th century that excluded women from factories and industrial production and confined them to the home, housework and childcare.
economically dependent on men, and forced into housewife role – therefore not biologically suited, but socially constructed.
Inheritance of property marxism
Monogamy is essential in a capitalist society because it ensures that a person’s legitimate children will receive their property when they die. The rise of the monogamous nuclear family represented a “world historical defeat of the female sex” and turned women into an “instrument for the production of children”.
Ideological functions of family marxism
Families socialise children to accept hierarchy and inequality from a young age. Parental control accustoms children to the idea they will always be following orders. They also provide a haven for the workers of society from the exploitation of their working lives
Unit of consumption
Families generate profits for capitalists because advertisers can target them on multiple fronts. They can persuade parents that they need to compete and “keep up with” other families, and target children who will pester their parents for products.
Murdocks family functions
Stable satisfaction of sex drive
Reproduction of the next generation
Socialisation of the young
Meeting of its members economic needs
Liberal feminists
Want to change laws to improve women’s status and
rights within the family. They believe that the
family is becoming a more democratic place, but
that full gender equality has not yet been achieved
Marxist feminists + 3 things
Want to overthrow capitalism to free women from oppression. Currently, women are required to reproduce the labour force, absorb the shit of their exploited husbands, and provide reserve labour when needed.
Radical feminists + view on family and men
Want to overthrow patriarchy – rule by men – through political lesbianism if necessary. They see men as the enemy and the source of exploitation, and family and marriage as institutions designed to trap and exploit women
Difference feminists
Want to stop generalising about women’s experiences. They see the status of women as varying depending on class, ethnicity, and age and argue that feminist arguments have been dominated by middle class white women. For example, many black women have found the family to be a positive haven from racism in their community
