SOCIOL 100: Family, Gender, and Social Reproduction Practice Flashcards

These flashcards cover key vocabulary, theorists, and sociological concepts regarding Social Reproduction Theory, Intimate Partner Violence, and Family Diversity as presented in the lecture notes.

Social Reproduction Theory

A sociological argument that the family is a site where labour-power is reproduced daily, serving to maintain capitalism through a gendered division of labour.

Lise Vogel

A theorist who argues that capitalism creates a gendered division of labour where women perform unpaid reproductive labour and become economically dependent on men.

Labour-power

The capacity to work, which according to Social Reproduction Theory, is reproduced within the family to keep the capitalist system functioning.

Ruby Alexander

A scholar whose argument states that capitalism turns surviving violence into part of the work women perform to keep families functioning.

SNAF

Standing for Standard North American Family, this term by Dorothy Smith describes the ideology that men should provide, women should care, and family problems are private matters.

Dorothy Smith

The sociologist who identified SNAF (Standard North American Family) as an ideology that can hide IPV and normalise unequal power.

Coercive control

A theory by Evan Stark explaining that IPV is gendered and involves building on existing sexist norms through monitoring, isolation, and controlling money.

Evan Stark

The theorist responsible for the concept of coercive control in the context of intimate partner violence.

Transfeminism

A perspective arguing that gender is socially constructed and that patriarchal roles are maintained through ideology rather than being natural.

Liberal feminist answer (to IPV)

A strategy for ending violence through better laws, policing, education, and stronger legal protections.

Radical feminist answer (to IPV)

A strategy for ending violence focused on dismantling patriarchy and challenging male dominance.

Social Reproduction Theory answer (to IPV)

A strategy for ending violence by reducing economic dependence, socialising care work, and expanding welfare support like housing and childcare.

Base and Superstructure

A sociological concept where material conditions create ideology, and that ideology in turn reinforces the material conditions.

Family Diversity

The study of changing family structures, including the decline of marriage, rise of cohabitation, and single-parent households.

Duluth wheel

A key concept mentioned in relation to understanding and responding to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV).

Material conditions

The economic and physical realities, such as women's economic dependence, that Social Reproduction Theory argues must be transformed to reduce violence.

Emotional labour

Unpaid work often performed by women within the patriarchal family structure alongside domestic labour.