Post-Modernity

• Post Modernism

  Society we live in, unstructured and more choice due to globalization, contemporary living is flexible
• Characteristics of Post Modernism

  • diverse and fragmentation = broad identity of subcultures
  • rapid social change = work and leisure make life less predictable, technology dissolves barriers of time
  • contemporary society always changing so people reject trad. family to maintain social order
  • individualism = diversity and consumer choice
• Evaluations of characteristics

  • Giddens =structure to make decisions despite freedom
  • Contemporary feminists = trad. gender roles still disadvantage women, remain norm
• Judith Stacy

  • Studied divorced Cali. women > some developed extended support networks, some maintained relationships = shared parenting
  • never going to be one dominant type of family in Western culture > more varied and flexible
• Overall criticisms

  • Doesn't recognise how people are shaped by social pressures
  • Marxists = ignores inequality
  • Functionalists = ignores importance of institutions