Oakley on the Family

Ann Oakley:

• Oakley examined the role of the family in the late 1970s and early 1980s, focusing on what she called the ‘conventional family’- a family unit compromising a married couple and their children

• Her analysis examined how this was perceived to be the norm in society- and how this became a form of social control for individuals in society

How the conventional family acts as a form of control:

• Societal expectations of getting married and having children

• The male was the primary wage earner and the female was the primary caregiver

• Social pressures to conform to repressed women’s career ambitions and alternative forms of relationships and personal lifestyles

Changes to the conventional family:

• The rise of cohabitation and other alternatives to the conventional family began in the 1980s

• Women’s involvement in paid employment saw delays in marriage and childbirth, however, this also resulted in women having a dual burden of paid employment and domestic labour

• This meant that the conventional family was seen by some to have become an archaic stereotype

Feminist methodology:

• Oakley pioneered the use of feminist interviewing in her research- adopting a more empathetic approach to interviewing

• Unstructured interviews where she developed a rapport with subjects and helped them to address problems and issues by offering guidance

• Reaction to the cold and clinical research methods employed by more traditional malestream sociology

Importance of Oakley’s research:

• Highlighted changing patterns in family life and noted the movement away from traditional ideas of gender roles in the family

• Gave a voice to women and examined how social control impacts their experiences

• Examined the reason for changing social attitudes and challenged long-held assumptions about family life

Evaluations of Oakley’s research:

• The methodology makes Oakley’s research highly subjective and based upon the interpretations of her sample- was this part of a broader social trend?

• Chester argued that the functions of the conventional family had changed, but the structure remained intact- there may be more dual-earner families, but the neo-conventional family, was still the most typical form of family