Theories on the Role of the Family Flashcards
Functionalist theory
society is made up of different institutions e.g, family, education, religion etc - to maintain value consensus + social solidarity.
Murdock
Supports the idea of segregation
- sees men + women as biologically different
women’s role = expressive role [caring, loving]
mans role = instrumental role [phyiscally and mentally stronger]
Both roles are crucial for the family to function
- best suited for these roles due to their biological differences
Murdock sees family as a building block of society
Argues the family performs 4 essential functions:
- stable satisfaction of sex drive
- reproduction of the next generation
- socialisation of the young (norms & values)
- meeting its member’s economic needs (food, shelter)
Only the NF can perform these 4 functions.
Parsons
The family has gone through a process of structural differentiation - has lost some of its functions.
It now has 2:
- primary socialisation (norms + values)
- stabilising adult personalities ( family is a ‘warm bath’ where all stresses of the day are taken away)
The NF is best equipped to meet the needs of the economy as it is more stable.
New right theory - Murray
Agrees with functionalist - only NF can perform the functions of a family
The family is failing to perform these functions. Something is happening to society creating a threat to the NF
- working women
- divorce
- cohabitation
- social attitudes
LPF are creating social problems e.g crime, educational failure, behavioural problems
Absence of father - no discipline, fail in education & become criminals
Burden on welfare state - new right see welfare state as too generous.
Benefits are a ‘ perverse incentive’ and encourages women to become pregnant outside marriage and men to act irresponsibly
- creates a dependency culture
Criticisms of the New Right theory
- They exaggerate the decline of the Nuclear family. Most adults still marry and have children.
Most children are reared by their two natural parents.
Divorce has increased, but most divorcees remarry. - Feminism – gender roles are socially determined rather than being fixed by biology. Traditional gender roles are oppressive to women.
- Feminism – divorce being easier is good because without it many women end up being trapped in unhappy or abusive relationships.
- Chester argues that the New Right exaggerate the extent of cohabiting and lone parent families – most children still spend most of their lives in a nuclear family arrangement
Marxist theory
Negative view on the family as the functions only benefit the r/c
Ideological State Apparatus
Althusser
[family is an Ideological State Apparatus]
machine for the government to control what we think (ideas, beliefs & values)
The family is a place where we are indoctrinated into the r/c ideology - creates false class consciousness)
The fact that we are obedient to our parents prepares us for the r/c once we work for them - we get socialised into obedience
Criticism:
- not all families indoctrinate us
- some children rebel against families so cannot be brainwashed
- deterministic (ignores the existence of free will)
- social mobility
Unit of consumption
Marcuse
[argues that the family acts as a unit of consumption]
Capitalism exploits the labour of the workers, making a profit by selling the product of their labours at higher prices.
Media targets children who use ‘pester power’ to persuade parents to spend more.
We also have a culture of ‘keeping up with the Jones’s where we consume the latest consumer products, again benefiting capitalism
+C: low wages (so they can’t afford to buy products) = no profit for ruling class
Safe haven
Zaretsky
The family is a haven.
He says this haven is an illusion because the r/c benefit from our family
If family loved us they would stop us from going to work AKA being exploited by the r/c
Criticism:
- Parsons: family performs 2 functions
1. stabilisation of adult personalities [recieveing emotional support]
2. Primary socialisation [teaching us societies norms + values]
He argues these functions are irreducible.
Reproduction
Family series capitalism
for the ruling class -> more heirs
reproduction helps capitalism by ensuring a generation of workers
more people to buy their goods
Criticism:
- not all families have children
- people are no longer producing workers for the r/c
Liberal feminists
claim that gender inequality will end with the introduction of legal changes e.g. the Sex Discrimination Act, Equal Pay Act, etc.
These legal changes will lead to a change in social attitudes and socialisation of boys and girls will become less gender specific.
Therefore, they hold a march of progress view – that the progress towards gender equality is gradual, but is happening, e.g. within the family, men have already started to do more household chores and are spending more time with the children.
Marxist Feminists
the main cause of women’s oppression is not men, but capitalism.
The NF serves the capitalist system for the benefit of the r/c and at the expense of the w/c.
It does so by exploiting and oppressing women because they perform unpaid domestic work such as:
Reproducing the future workforce – women bear children and socialise them to accept an unfair.
Ansley argues that women are ‘takers of shit’; they absorb men’s anger (at their exploitation at work) by performing sexual and emotional services which maintain emotionally healthy men. Men therefore take out the frustrations of work on women through abuse which prevents them from taking out their anger out on capitalism. This prevents a revolution.
Women are a ‘reserve army of labour’ - they can be employed when needed by the capitalists (e.g. WWI and WWII when women worked in factories) and let go to return to their primary role in the home when no longer required.
SOLUTION = overthrow capitalism through a revolution.
Radical Feminists
Society is patriarchal – ruled by men. Therefore, men are the enemy – the source of women’s oppression and exploitation.
It is within the family that men dominate women the most as they benefit from women’s free domestic labour and sexual services. Men dominate women through domestic abuse or the threat of it.
The solution to exploitation and oppression of women according to Greer is separatism or political lesbianism – women and men living separately, women forming all-female ‘matrilocal’ households.
Difference feminists
Difference Feminists argue that we can’t generalise about women’s experiences, e.g. not all women live in nuclear families.
They argue that different women experience patriarchy in different ways and to a different extent, e.g. heterosexual and lesbian women, black and white women, wealthy and poor women will all experience patriarchy within the family in different ways.
Criticisms of feminists
Liberal Feminists are too optimistic in thinking that legal changes are enough to lead to a change in social attitudes, e.g. the Equal Pay Act was introduced in 1970, but women still earn 18% less than men.
Radical Feminists ignore the positive aspects of family life and that the position of women in society has improved considerably.
Marxist and Radical Feminists ignore the trend to gender equality.
Difference Feminism has been criticised for causing divisions between women which makes our movement for equality weaker.
