MT6 - Social Policies Flashcards
Fletcher - Functionalist
Fletcher argues social policies take the pressure off the nuclear family so it can perform its functions better (primary socialisation + stabilising of adult personalities) e.g. NHS enables the family to focus on emotional care whilst doctors take care of their medical needs.
positive view as they make family life better for everyone
Criticisms of Functionalist theory
Functionists argue social policies are making family life better, while Marxists say that they can make life worse, e.g. cutting benefits makes poor people poorer
Functionalists assume that social policies benefit everyone in the family equally, while Feminists say social policies benefit men more than women.
Murray
social policies are a form of government interference and they undermine the traditional nuclear family. Benefits provide perverse incentives – they reward anti-social behaviour and create a dependency culture.
Almond
critical of divorce, same sex partnerships – divorce undermines the idea that marriage is a lifelong commitment,
Civil partnership Act enables social changes which threaten the traditional nuclear family.
Criticisms of new right
Abbott and Wallace argue that cutting benefits would make poor families even poorer - Murray
Feminists argue the patriarchal nuclear family is not ‘natural’ rather socially constructed.
Ignore the dark side of nuclear families.
New right
Social policies should protect the nuclear family - divorce made more difficult to obtain, cohabitation discouraged + there should be tax advantages for married couples in order to encourage people to have nuclear families.
Donzelot
Social policies are a form of state power and control over families.
Government agencies (e,g, social services/schools/police) carry out survelliance and use their ‘expert knowledge’ to promote the nuclear family
Families that do not fit this ‘norm’ are seen as families and policed through policies such as sure start
Criticism of Donzelot
Marxists and Feminists criticise Donzelot for failing to identify clearly who benefits from such policies of surveillance.
Marxists argue that social policies generally operate in the interests of the capitalist class, while Feminists argue men are the beneficiaries.
Land
Social policies help maintain women’s subordinate position and encourage a nuclear family as they assume it is the ideal family so support it over other family types.
For example, social policies on taxation favour married couples which encourages couples to get married and discourages cohabitation.
Leonard
Even when social policies appear to support women, they still reinforce the traditional patriarchal family.
For example, maternity leave enables women to recover from childbirth, but are based on the assumption that childcare is the mother’s responsibility (as maternity leave is longer than paternity leave). Also, maternity leave payments are very low which makes women financially dependent on their partners.
Liberal Feminists
Liberal Feminists: social policies such as paternity leave are a march of progress as it acknowledges the man’s responsibility for childcare - Land
Not all laws are patriarchal, e.g. Equal Pay Act and Sex Discrimination Act protect women’s rights in the workplace. - Leonard
Marxists
Free education, health care and benefits are the result of class struggle as they are the concessions the state has had to make to the working class, fearing the consequence if they did nothing to improve the working class living standards.
In reality, these social policies are just a smoke-screen making life appear better, e.g. free NHS and state education are paid for by the workers’ taxes so are not actually free
New Labour
Policies create f/d, reduced poverty and created gender and LGBT equality. E.g. Maternity and paternity leave = creates gender equality.
CPA 2005 – created same sex families
Child Tax Credit, increased benefits, created minimum wage,
Somerville - Lib Fem
Argues women’s role within the family has improved significantly, they now have better access to divorce (Divorce Law Reform Act) and benefit from employment policies such as the Equal Pay Act
March of progress to gender roles
