The Gendered Family Flashcards
Based on Indigenous practices the family consisted of the nuclear family but also…
…extended family and clan structures
what family structure is dominant in society presently?
nuclear families
clan family structure (3)
-Indigenous People tracing families on unilineal descent.
-sharing a household as well as social and material bonds and solidarity.
-women were regarded as equal to (and more privileged than – in some cases) men.
The post-industrial nuclear family was a part of the “specialization” of…
…roles and relationships that occurred after industrialization.
The post-industrial nuclear family became isolated from…
…extended family along with the breakdown of kinship as part of modernity
Parsons says that the post-industrial nuclear family becoming specialized in roles is a process of structural differentiation. What is that?
where social institutions become more specialized to perform their functions in society
William Goode argued that industrialization helped make extended family irrelevant. How? (4)
- movements of individuals between different regions
- higher levels of social mobility
- the erosion of the functions of the family taken by external organizations
- highlight of achieved status undermining the value of status within the kinship groups.
Peter Berger suggests that modernity could not have happened without what?
the nuclear family & gender division of labour
The post-industrialized family
-high separation of spheres for men and women.
- women: childrearing, men: work outside home
- children seen as blank slates/ends to themeslves: empahsis on mother as soley responsible
de Tocqueville identified the confinement of women to the “circle of domestic life” as…
…the source of their position in society. The separation of roles led to the segregation of roles
Barbara Welter (1966): The cult of True Womanhood: identified the four characteristics of a ‘good’ woman
- piety
- purity
- submissiveness
- domesticity
1970’s gave rise to more positive ideas around the separation of women into the home with arguments such as (3):
- Home life made women more social and emotionally attuned
- Championing the benefit of women’s work at home
- Introduced the term: material feminism
WWI and WWII had significant impacts on the family structure in North America. How?
War times saw women’s participation in the public realm increase
Gary Becker’s gender marriage economy
people make decisions about gender roles in marriage and having children from a rational point of view - what makes economically sense
the perspective that suggests that households reflect power dynamics between men and women and that higher levels of education and income relative to one’s partner determine the power structure in the home, giving an advantage
relative resources perspective
