Family : Liberal Feminists - Views

• Views

  Feminists have a negative view of family as they believe that the family reinforces the inequality between men and women and legitimises patriarchy. Feminist sociologists have a variety of views from liberal to more extreme.
• Liberal Feminists

  Liberal feminists believe that women can acheive gender equality through reformism, the idea that progress towards equal rights can be acheived by gradual reforms and small changes in society, without the need for revolution.

  They believe that the problem lies with wider society (rather than with men) - women are equally responsible for maintaining gender inequality because of the way children are socialised into traditional gender roles in the family from a young age.
• Liberal Feminists

  As well as campaigning for changes in the law, liberal feminists also call for cultural change. In their view, traditional prejudices and stereotypes about gender differences are a barrier to equality. Liberal feminists reject the idea that biological differences make women less competent or rational than men, or that men are biologically less emotional or nurturing than women. Liberal feminism challenges this gender division.
• Liberal Feminists

  They argue that men and women are equally capable of performing roles in both spheres, and that traditional gender roles prevent both men and women from leading fulfilling lives.

  However, despite this critique, liberal feminism is the feminist theory closest to a consensus view of society. Though it recognises conflict between men and women, these are not seen as inevitable but merely a product of outdated attitudes.
• Liberal feminists

  They believe that the inequality is reproduced through socialisation of the children, which creates male dominance and female submission. Children imitate the traditional gender roles they see in their parents. Liberal feminists do not see this inequality as deliberate or permanent: Jenny Sommerville says that women's oppression is being gradually overcome and we are moving towards greater equality.Full equality depends on further reforms. Men are now doing more domestic labour than fifty years ago, and parents are socialising their sons and daughters into more equal roles.
• Liberal Feminists

  Sexist attitudes and stereotypical beliefs about sex and gender is socially constructed and transmitted through socialisation. Oakley believes that families socialise children into traditional gender roles through canalisation, verbal appellations, manipulation and gender specific activities. To achieve gender equality, we must change society's socialisation patterns. Over time, they believe that such actions will produce cultural change and gender inequality will become the norm.