feminism

• domestic labour

  • instrumental role - Parsons - said it's husband's role to achieve success at work so he can financially provide as the breadwinner
  • expressive role - parsons - Wife’s role - being primary socialisation of childien and meeting family's emotional needs: homemaker, full time housewife
  • joint conjugal roles - Bott - couples share tasks e.g. house work and childcare, spending leisure time together
• domestic labour

  • segregated conjugal roles - Bott- couples having separate roles - breadwinner (males) + housewife (female) Their leisure activities tend to be separate
  • symmetrical families - Young + Willmot (not feminist) say 'march of progress' that the roles of husband and wife are similar, though not identical
• domestic violence - Any incident of threatening behaviour, violence or abuse (psychological, physical, sexual, financial, emotional). between adults who are or have been intimate partners or family members, regardless of gender or sexuality
• • patriarchy - male dominant society
  • triple shift - women’s role of paid work, domestic labour, emotional support
  • dual burden - women’s role of domestic labour and emotional support
• liberal

  • changing legislations improved the rights of women in the nuclear family
  • Somerville - divorce reform act 1969 - women no longer are trapped in marriages and can escape toxic households (eg abusive) through divorce 
  • this means that nuclear families became less patriarchal and oppressive of women. they can end marriages when needs aren’t being met
  • criticised by radical feminists because they believe that they exaggerate the amount of progress achieved through legislations eg women still deal with triple shifts
• marxist

  • family is used as a capitalist tool of oppression for women
  • Ansley - women are ‘takers of shit’ due to the cushioning effect (women absorb men’s anger to prevent them from realising their false class consciousness, which would lead to a revolution). as a result, creating gender inequality in order to reproduce working class exploitation
  • this causes women to be oppressed by nuclear families
  • functionalist Parsons also recognises the role of women in the nuclear family as being nurturing and distressing men (warm bath theory). However, he would criticise marxist feminists for their negative view on this function.
• radical

  • nuclear family is patriarchal and oppressive due to their threat of domestic violence
  • Greer - promotes ideas of separatism (living independently from men) as a method of reducing oppression. women would live together in communities raising children, away from the oppressors within nuclear families . additionally, she believes in political lesbianism as to not sleep with the enemy. through this, the nuclear family would be abolished, which decreases the power men have over women
  • Somerville criticises ideas of separatism due to the belief that it would be unlikely to work due to its radicality
• difference

  • the nuclear family oppresses women of different and diverse backgrounds. this oppression = caused by media and society
  • Daly - believes this would be solved by celebrating diverse characteristics
  • this is because gender inequality intersects with other forms of oppression, eg ethnicity and class.
  • ethnic women are more vulnerable to experiencing oppression since they are more diverse and exposed to threats of being from a lower class back ground = husband may be more stressed at work (due to lower pay) causing women to have to be a cushion for their anger
  • criticised because they fail to acknowledge how many women face the same oppression regardless of their diverse characteristics.