family

• delphy and leonard write from a (radical) femenist perpspective . in their view it is men rather than capitalists who are the prime beneficiaries of the exploitation of womens labour
• delphy and leonard believe women are opressed because their work is appropriated within the family and tasks are not equally distributed with their male partners

  criticisms:

  -parsons argues that men and women are suited to different roles

  -young and willmott argue how roles in the family are becoming more equal with the rise of symmetrical familes
• oakley wrote from a ( liberal ) femenist perspective on 'conventional families' . she addresses that the idea of the conventional family which she defines as a ' nuclear family composed of legally married couples voluntarily choosing the parenthood of one or more children '
• oakley reviews secondary research and examines the strains of being conventional and social control. she explores the power of this idea on gender inequalities. this research was before civil partnerships and same sex marriage.
• parsons writes from a functionalist perspective he held the view that american families retain two basic and irreducible functions which are common to all families in all societies these are:

  -primrary sociolisation of children

  -stabilisation of adult personalities (warm bath analogy )

  criticisms:

  • created an idealised picture of family life centred on the middle-class family expirience
• young and willmott write from a functionalist perspective based on a large scale social survey. young and willmott used the symmetrical family to describe the stage 3 nuclear family
• young and willmott identified four stages of family life:

  • stage 1- the preindustrial family
  • stage 2- early industrial family
  • stage 3- the symmetrical / privatised nuclear family
  • stage 4- the asymmetrical family- families are more work centred rather than home centred with the wife responsible for domestic work

  reasons for the rise in symmetry:

  • money, increase male wages and women employment leads to
  • better living standards
  • decrease in male mortality and unemployment rate
  • increased geographic mobility
  • less children enables wife to work, economic equality
• zaretsky writes from a marxist perpective

  • capitalism has created an illusion that the economy is seperate from the ' private life ' of the family
  • the family is unable to provide phycolgical and social needs of the individual
  • the family supports the capitalist economy
  • - it acts as a vital unit of consumption
  • - relies on the wives role of unpaid labour and reprodcing the next generation of workers
  • - also reproduces clas inequalites proletariates are sociolised to be labourers and the bourgeouisie inherit wealth
• parsons argues the father and mothers roles are complimetary

  -instrumental role of the father , men are suited to be the breadwinner

  -expressive role of the mother, women are suited to this role as carers and nurturer providing emotional needs
• symmetrical or the privatised nuclear family, refers to the contributions made by each spouse to the running of the household . conjugal roles are not interchangeable but hold equal importance. they found this more common in working class families. the ' principle of stratified diffusion ' is the theory that what happens at the top of the stratification system will diffuse downwards.

  criticism:

  -femenist see little evidence of symmetry and move from working class to stage 4
• oakley notes that conventional families are increasingly seen as dated. supports the idea of symmetrical family where roles are said to be more equal with the ' new man ' and joint income households.

  criticism:

  radical feminists point out that women will always be expected to fulfill stereotypical roles due to the patriarchal nature of families.
• rapoport and rapoport explored family diversity they found:

  1. organisational diversity
  2. cultural diversity
  3. class diversity
  4. life course
  5. cohort

  their work was before gay/lesbian households were more open and accepted