Gender and Family Roles Midterm

Consensus perspective

society is a collective expression of shared norms and values; instrumental role of husband (breadwinner) and expressive role of wife (homemaker). Helps understand nuclear family as harmony created by complementary roles of husband and wife essential to preservation of the family as an institution. 

• Focus on stability rather than change, in keeping with its harmonious image of society. The division of labor within breadwinner/homemaker families, maintaining balance and roles was essential to the success of family structure. 

• Criticized as something people in positions of power use to justify social structure that exists anywhere in patriarchy.  

Conflict Perspective

conflict/opposition is necessary for social evolution, competing interest of family members.

• Expressing conflict over differences is the best way to arrive at positive change/understand problems in families, organizations, and society at large.

• Criticized as competing interests of family members help understand family problems- men gain power in the family to achieve their own ends using the nuclear family to get rich at expense of the poor. Family inequality of women home without pay while men maintain dominance within the family providing stability.

Feminist Perspective

Understand and reduce inequality between men and women; historical male dominance, as a result of socialization, in families creates issues for women. Views male dominance Within families as part of a system of male power(patriarchy), which is neither natural nor inevitable, occurs at women's cost. 

• Contributions to idea of family:

 1. Gender inequality is central to family life as families are where boys and girls learn to be boys and girls and where those gender roles are created unequal with men in dominant position through socialization. 

2. Family structure is socially constructed-product of human choices rather than natural outcome of biological processes and a wide variety of family structures proved to be successful.

3. Gender perspectives are not uniform as race, ethnicity, and social class all affect family life and gender dynamics; poor minority families express collective strength and resilience when faced with hardship, uniting men and women with collective purpose

Exchange Perspective

People with different resources, strengths, and weaknesses enter into mutual relationships to maximize their own gain (division of housework, earning power, sex, friends, children) assuming patterns of social behavior are mutually agreed upon.

• Criticized as it assumes equality between men and women and harmony between interests. Assumes equality, but perspective prefers to think of it as bargaining process where people strike the best bargain they can, given resources they have and rules they have to play by.

Symbolic interaction Perspective

Social roles are symbolic and have real meaning when they are acted out in relation to other people. People may adopt many social roles but it's the act of performing a given role in relation to others that gives it its meaning. 

• Intimate nature of process makes families set to develop theory as social roles don’t exist in isolation, but in interaction with others so we need to observe behavior within families to see how family roles are defined and understood.

4 historical trends

1. Most people live longer than in the past

2. People have fewer children than before

3. Family members perform less functional tasks in the home

4. Families have become more diverse

Monogamy

each person has only one spouse

Polygamy

More than one spouse

Polygyny

Man with more than one wife

Polyandry

Woman with more than one husband

Patriarchy

system of men’s control over social institutions, maintaining power in society

Matriarchy

a system or society ruled by women

Stem Family

one grown child, usually the oldest son, stays with the parents and takes care of everything, also inherits everything

Separate Spheres

where women “worked” at home and men worked outside the home for pay

Race

a group of people believed to share common descent, based on perceived physical characteristics; assigned at birth but also can include the community you are born into and how you grow up

Social Construct

Something that exists not because of actual reality, but due to human interactions and thoughts that it should exist that way

EX: Race/ethnity identities reflect perceptions about biological traits/ gender identities reflect perception about biological traits

Ethnicity

Focuses on people with common cultural traits or identification having to do with ancestry, religion, language, and traditional practices.

Racial Ethnicity

An ethnic group perceived to share physical characteristics

Endogamy

The practice of marriage and reproduction within a distinct group and the way people maintain boundaries from one generation to the next

Exogamy

The practice of marriage outside of one’s group

Acculturation

When people move from one society to another, they adapt to their new cultural environments.Immigrants and their children learn the way of their new homeland through acculturation, the acquisition of a new culture.language.

Parents/children may be consonant, gradually transition away from home culture/language or dissonant, when children develop English ability more quickly and integrate into new society more easily than parents.

Assimilation

new groups blend into American society through gradual reduction of ethnic distinction between immigrants and mainstream society. Immigrants don't simply join a new society leaving an old one behind. They assimilate where group and mainstream culture adapt to one another. Successful when the host society accepts a new group. 

Can create intergenerational differences and shapes how immigrants are viewed in society

social capital

the resources a person can access through their relationships and connections within social networks.Through these ties, individuals gain access to knowledge, opportunities, and support that help shape their chances in life.

class identity

the awareness of, and sense of belonging to, a particular social class.

• Class identity tells us about families’ sense of belonging, culture, and long-term social position in ways that raw income figures cannot. It reveals the durability of class divisions, the importance of family socialization, and the persistence of inequality across generations.

Increasing Inequality within Social Classes

The rich are getting richer, while middle and lower classes are struggling. Many families live paycheck to paycheck with little chance to move upward.

• Capitalist system: Promotes the idea of the “American Dream” — that hard work leads to success. In reality, social mobility is limited, and opportunity gaps are widening.

• Wealth distribution: The top 1% (around 300 billionaires in the U.S.) control enormous wealth. The bottom 95% share only about half of the nation’s wealth. Highlights how unbalanced and unequal the system has become.

• Consensus (Functionalist) Perspective:

  • Inequality serves a purpose-some jobs are more important or difficult, so higher rewards attract skilled workers.

• Conflict Perspective:

  • Inequality results from economic exploitation under capitalism-the labor of some produces wealth controlled by others.