Topic 5 Flashcards
Functionalism Murdock -
sees the family as performing 4 essential functions to meet the needs of society and its
members:
Stable satisfaction of the sex drive - with the same partner preventing social disruption cause by a sexual free-for-all.
Reproduction of the next generation- without which society could not continue.
Socialisation of the young- into societies shared norms and values.
Meeting its members economic needs- such as food and shelter.
Parsons ‘functional fit’
is a key functionalist theorist who argues that the functions a family performs will depend on the society in which it is found. With this in mind the shape or structure of the family will also depend on the functions it has to perform. In other words the family performs a ‘functional fit’ to the needs of society. He distinguishes between two family types:
Nuclear family - parents and dependent children
Extended family – three generations living under one roof
Parsons geographically and socially mobile workforce
Geographically - Pre-industrial society people spent their whole lives in the same village. In contrast modern industrial societies constantly spring up and decline in different parts of the country and world. This means people need to move to where the jobs are.
Socially mobile - says that a nuclear family is better because in an extended family the son lives at home and the father has a higher ascribed status. However in work the son tension and conflict.
may have a higher achieved status than his father. This would inevitably create
The solution – adult son to leave home, marry and form a nuclear family. This nuclear family is structurally isolated from its kin though they may keep in touch.
Laslett - functionalist
Argues that in pre-industrial society late childbearing age and short life expectancy means that grandparents were unlikely to be alive after their birth of their grandchildren meaning the family were more likely nuclear.
Marxism - inheritance of property
Marxists argue the key to determining the shape of society is the mode of production – those who own and control society’s productive forces – in a modern industrial society this is the capitalist class. As the mode of production evolves so does the family.
Marxism - ideological function
Marxists say the family also preforms key ideological functions for capitalism, ideology meaning a set of ideas or beliefs that justify inequality and maintain the capitalist system by persuading people that inequality is justified and unchangeable.
Two ideological functions
Socialising children into the idea that hierarchy and inequality are inevitable e.g. parents have the power over children which gets them used to the idea that someone will always be in charge of them in their working life.
Zaretsky (1976) also argues that the family also performs an ideological function by offering an apparent ‘haven’ from the harsh exploitative world of capitalism, however this is largely an illusion as the family does not benefit all members e.g. it is based on the domestic servitude of women.
A unit of consumption
Capitalism exploits the labour of the workers by gaining profit by paying their workers less than the value of the commodities they produce. The family are therefore integral the capitalists:
to generating profits by consuming these commodities and creating further profit for
A) advertisers urgently families to ‘keep up with the joneses’ by consuming the latest products.
B) the media target children who use ‘pester power’ to persuade parents to spend.
C) Children who lack the latest clothes or ‘must have’ gadgets are mocked and stigmatised by their peers
Marxist feminists-
Women reproduce the labour force - through their unpaid domestic labour by socialising the next generation of workers and maintain the current one.
Women absorb anger - would otherwise be directed at capitalism.
Women are a reserve army of cheap labour - that are taken on when extra workers are needed. When no longer needed, employers can let them go to return to their primary role of unpaid domestic labour.
Ansley - Marxist feminists
Describes wives ‘as takers of shit’ who soak up the frustration that their husbands feel because they are alienated and exploited at work.
Radical feminists-
They strongly believe that all societies have been founded on patriarchy. They believe:
• Men are the enemy – they are the source of women’s oppression and exploitation
• The family and marriage are the key institutions in patriarchal society. Men benefit from women’s unpaid domestic labour and from their sexual services. They dominate women through domestic and sexual violence or the threat of it.
Somerville - liberal feminist criticising radical feminist
Argue radical feminist fail to recognise that women’s position has changed and improved.
Difference feminist
Up to now the feminist approaches we have looked at all assume that women share a similar experience in the family.
Difference feminists argue that we cannot generalise about women’s experiences
They argue that lesbian and heterosexual women, white and black women, middle class and working class women all have very different experiences of the family and society.
Personal life perspective- how they view other perspectives
They tend to assume that the traditional nuclear family is the dominant family type - this ignores the increased diversity of families
They are all structural theories - they assume we are all passive puppets manipulated by the structures of society.
Donor conceived children - nordqvist and smart
found that the issue of blood and genes raised a range of feelings – where social bonds are more important than blood bonds.
E.g. a mum of a donor-conceived child defined being a mum as the time and effort put into raising her child not the cell that it starts off from.
