Marxist feminist perspective adapts the principles of Marxism to emphasise how capitalism uses the family oppresses women, and the harmful consequences of the family to women’s lives.
Marxist feminists look on class and gender inequalities as dual systems of oppression, with both being very powerful and independent systems. Marxist feminists often argue that class and gender inequalities reinforce each other and create groups that are doubly oppressed.
Margaret Benston’s (1972) Marxist feminist study: ‘The political economy of women’s liberation’ emphasises the value of the unpaid labour women perform within the family. This labour, which sustains the current labour force and nurtures the next generation, comes at no cost to the owners of the means of production. Additionally, the responsibility of the male breadwinner to support his wife and children fetters his ability to withdraw his labour power in defence of his class interests. In so doing it helps reinforce the inequitable capitalist economic system.
As Rosemarie Tong (1989) notes in her book Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction, Marxist feminists identify how work shapes consciousness, and women’s work shapes her status and self-image. Therefore Marxist feminists are primarily concerned with the division of labour that keeps women in the domestic sphere of the family and men in the workplace.
Woman’s position within the family may help explain the problem of developing working class consciousness. As with exchange relationships in general in capitalism, underlying these seemingly equal exchange relationships are power relationships. Various relationships, such as those between males and females, relationships in the family, prostitution, surrogate mother hood, etc. may appear to express equality, but because of the underlying unequal power relations conceal great inequalities.
Research Methods – revision images
Quick view to understanding positivism – quantitative research methods
Quick view to understand interpretivism – qualitative research methods
Each of the headings below have a podcast explaining the content. All credit for these clips must go to Sam Cook who went to all the time and trouble to make them in year 13 a few years back.
An example of social research – the survival time of chocolates on a hospital ward
- Qualitative sources
- Quantitative sources
- Sampling methods
- Key Issues (understanding: reliability; Hawthorne Effect; ethics; validity; operationalization etc)
- Factors that affect the choice of research methods
- Primary or secondary sources
SECONDARY RESEARCH METHODS
- Secondary research methods
- Official statistics
- Content analysis
- Personal documents
- Public and historical documents
PRIMARY RESEARCH METHODS
- Experimental method & their problems for sociologists
- Field experiments
- Social survey – (representativeness; survey population; sample frame)
- Questionnaires
- Postal questionnaires
- Evaluation of structured interviews
- Evaluation of unstructured interviews
- Participant Observation
- Non-Participant Observation
METHODOLOGICAL PLURALISM
Researching Media Effects
The following links take you to pages which explain the various social theories used in sociology. The first link takes you to a basic overview of each theory, while subsequent links take you deeper into each theory. Once you feel comfortable with these ideas the following revision images are there to help consolidate your understanding.
Before you follow the links below it’s worth explaining what a theory is. A theory is a set of ideas which provides an explanation for something. For example standing at a bus-stop you might be developing a theory as to why your bus is late. A sociological theory is set of ideas which explains human society, for example why some people remain poor.
The trouble for some students is they come to sociology thinking there’s one single theory which explains everything- there isn’t. No one theory ever explains everything, therefore you have to learn to understand each theory and assess them as your understanding grows.
One useful place to start is to recognise the distinction between structural theories and social action theories. Once you’ve grasped that idea you then have to grapple with the difference between modern and postmodern theories – who said sociology was easy!
So far we’ve been looking at families in the traditional sense as being either nuclear or extended. These more traditional structures construct a family image of the mother, father and their children forming the nucleus (nuclear family) with grandparents possibly extending such a nucleus.
This model of the family is discussed as if it is ‘the‘ rather than ‘a‘ ideal family form. These discussions have the effect of creating a discourse about the perceived ideal family structure
at the expense of ignoring any Diversity Beyond the Nuclear Family. The extent of family diversity in the UK is discussed towards the bottom of this page.
Data from the Office for National Statistics (in the adjacent image) highlights the social trend towards heterogeneous family structures rather than homogeneous structures. This social trend towards diversity contradicts the established discourse often articulated in the media promoting moral panics about the family.
French philosopher Michael Foucault wrote about the power of discourses. Discourses construct the way we discuss the social world, consequently discourses construct the way we understand the social world around us. This discursive process continues to construct our image of what constitutes the ‘normal’ family in our everyday speech.
For example the family doctor, the family theme park ticket, the family car and the family holiday are just some of the ways in which we discursively reinforce our ‘traditional’ image of the family.
This occurs because when we imagine a family car most of us immediately think of a car which holds four people, very few of us think of a car which holds a single-parent and a child. Another example is the family ticket to a theme park. Most family tickets are for two adults with two children – the nuclear family.
In 1967 Edmund Leach called the type of family described above as the ‘cereal packet image of the family’. Such an image creates a normalised construction of what a family should look like. Feminist Barrie Thorne (1992) attacked this image for being ‘monolithic’ as it ignores variations in family structures. We can now open-up the cereal packet family to see what’s inside.
Some sociologists prefer to use another mechanism (other than discourse) to explain how the traditional image of the cereal packet family remains so powerful. This other social mechanism is ideology. Ideology is seen by feminists as hiding the diversity of family life.
For feminists the dominant ideology of the cereal packet family is a tool of patriarchal power. This power (Lukes’ radical view of power) gives men the capacity to emasculate women by tying them to the home as carers and domestic servants via the triple-shift.
Patriarchal power has the effect of ‘hiding’ the family diversity evident in the clip below from the wider public gaze by not allowing such images to be placed on cereal packets. Therefore with ideological power it’s easier for sociologists to identify which social group has the power and which social group doesn’t.
Family diversity is the term used to describe the numerous family structures which exist outside the traditional family structure. Rapoport and Rapoport (1982) identify five types of family diversity:
- Organisational diversity – which is due to different patterns of work outside and inside the home, and to changing marital trends.This category includes ‘reconstituted families’ as a result of divorce and remarriage, and dualcareer families, some of which have resulted in a greater democratisation of domestic labour.
- Cultural diversity– which accounts for much family diversity from the indigenous population to migrant households from diverse regions such as Western Europe, Southern Europe, Middle Eastern and many groups from East and Southeast Asia bring with them aspects of family and household composition.
- Social class diversity – which is demonstrated in the material resources of families, the relationships between couples and between parents and their children, and the socialisation and education of children.
- Life cycle diversity – which exists between families whose members are from different historical periods.The impact of the Depression and the experience of war were defining influences for many Australian parents of the baby boomer generation. Baby boomers, in their turn, have tended to rear their children differently because of the greater economic prosperity and rapidly changing social morés of the 1960s and 1970s.
- Family life course diversity – which refers to the difference that occurs when a family has a baby, when the children reach their teens, and finally when (or, increasingly, if) they leave home. At each of these stages, families have different priorities, and may organise themselves in terms of work and domestic labour, rather differently than at other times. (Bernardes 1997: 11–12)
The following links explore the depth and intricacies of this diversity of family forms while this Powerpoint: Family Diversity covers all the areas listed below.
Remarriage – blending families
Social class
To summarise:
- we have Parsons’ isolated nuclear family
- and Young and Willmott’s Stage 3 symmetrical family or privatised nuclear family
- both of these sociologists take a functional view of the family
- functional views see the family as harmonious
- they see the family’s development from pre-industrial structures to modern nuclear structures as evidence of the family’s functionality
However
- both Parsons, Young and Willmott ignore negative aspects of the family
- both Parsons, Young and Willmott have an image of the nuclear family at its core which ignores family diversity.
Around the time Young and Willmott published their work on the Symmetrical Family the BBC pioneered a ‘fly on the wall’ family documentary about. Simply titled The Family the 1974 BBC television series produced by Paul Watson examined life in a typical working-class UK family.
The documentary’s ground-breaking format paved the way familiar programmes like Big Brother, particularly its making of ‘celebrities’ out of ordinary people. More importantly it provides a valuable anthropological record of UK family life, especially family diversity which challenged many of Young and Willmott’s findings about kinship networks and the extended family.
Young and Willmott give four reasons for this shift from the Stage 2 to Stage 3 family structure:
- financial
- the expansion of welfare state support through family allowances; unemployment benefit; old-age pensions reduced the need for kinship networks
- increase in real-terms of male breadwinner’s wages
- reduced unemployment rates
2. mobility
- increased geographical mobility, as younger couples with children moved further afield to new council housing estates
3. smaller families
- 1970s saw a reduction in number of children in families from an average of 6 per family to just 2.
- smaller number of dependent children gave wives a greater opportunity to work
- this increased the symmetry within the family as two wage earners could contribute to family finances
4. improved living standards
- as homes improved, husbands were felt ‘happier’ to stay at home
- improved home based leisure activities
- improved home comforts which husband could improve on – DIY
Young and Willmott found their home-centred symmetrical family was far more evident in working-class than the middle-class. This is because working-class work tends to be tedious therefore more time and attention is given to the family.
Michael Young and Peter Willmott had a different although still functional account to explain changes in family structures. In their book The Symmetrical Family (1973) the two sociologists examined the development of the family from pre-industrial period to 1970s as occurring through four distinct stages:
Stage 1 – the pre-industrial family -the family is a unit of production with all family members working as a team in order for the family unit to survive. They agree with the idea this type of family was superseded by the industrial revolution. (this type of family hasn’t disappeared as some farming families still work this way.
Stage 2 – the early industrial family – was an outcome of the industrial revolution, developing from the early 19th century running through to its peak the early 20th century. As family members increasingly became employed in factories the site of the family as a unit of production faded.
The difficulty for families was factory wages were very low which was made worse by significant periods of prolonged unemployment. According to Young and Willmott this encouraged families to create ‘insurance’ by inviting relatives beyond the nuclear family into its network.
This proliferation of network ties was a distinct feature of the Stage 2 family. It weakened the conjugal bond in favour of greater ties between mother and married daughter to create an organised and informal network between women which excluded men. Young and Willmott study found men had been eased out of the female circle to find ‘comfort’ in the pub.
This gulf between male and female family roles was evident in the distinct division of labour between husbands and wives in the household. Segregated conjugal roles meant men had very little involvement in domestic chores, raising the children and leisure activities.
These family networks started to decline in the early 20th century but were still found in many low-income, established working class areas. Young and Willmott’s evidence comes from their Bethnal Green study (mid- 1950s) which uncovered how children usually remain within 2-3 miles of their family home.
Stage 3 – the symmetrical family (sometimes known as privatised nuclear family) – Young and Willmott’s book The Symmetrical Family was based on 1970s large-scale social research they’d conducted in Greater London which uncovered the demise of the Stage 2 family in favour of the Stage 3 family. This shift was particularly profound within the working-classes.
The term symmetry refers to how the family is an arrangement of opposite parts in sense of how each adult’s contributions are similar in the running of the household through joint conjugal roles. The symmetry comes from there being ‘men’s’ and ‘women’s’ work – sharing decisions, chores etc; but most importantly their roles are not interchangeable.
The Stage 3 family differs in two clear ways from Stage 2. Firstly the nuclear family makes a distinct separation between itself and the extended family. Secondly, the extent to which so much Stage 3 nuclear family is based around the home, particularly when children are young with:
- free time being devoted to chores and odd-jobs
- leisure is mainly home-based with increased TV usage
- strong conjugal bonds
- husband and wife relationships more about companionship by sharing experiences in and outside the home
Young and Willmott identified four reasons for why this shift from the Stage 2 to Stage 3 family structure occurred.
Stage 4 family – (the future?) – Young and Willmott predicted the rise of the Stage 4 family whereby using their ‘Principle of Stratified Diffusion’ theory (lifestyles of those who are at the top of the social ladder are gradually adopted by those at the bottom).
Studying the family life of 190 managing directors they concluded that in the future, families in other social classes will adopt their family lifestyle. This implies that the fourth stage will be characterised by ‘work-centred’ individuals, leisure time spent outside the home and wives looking after the home and the children.
The certainty functionalists have over the future of the family are evident in this summary. However not all sociologists are as confident over the future for the traditional family, instead they prefer talking about family diversity.
As we have read, the classic extended family consisted of male head of the family, his
wife and children, his ageing parents (who will have passed on the farm).
Together they worked as a productive unit producing the things needed to sustain the family’s survival. The key point is the kin relationship during this period is one of binding obligations. The obligation of carrying on working on the farm for the family’s survival.
Some other academics have challenged Parsons view that industrialisation led to the development of the nuclear family.
Laslett (1977) historical research found only 10% of households met the criteria of the classic extended family. This being due to people in the pre-industrial period marrying late and dying relatively young therefore there was only a few years between people marrying and their parents dying.
Therefore Laslett’s (1984) position is the nuclear family was far more commonplace that Parsons realised meaning the nuclear family (along with other social and political changes) assisted the arrival of the industrial era.
However Laslett’s position was challenged by Michael Anderson’s (1977) research into the family structures. His study of the 1851 census of Preston found 23% of poorer households contained kin other than the nuclear family – contradicting Laslett.
Preston’s substantial cotton industry meant many families lives were fraught with hardships such as periods of high unemployment, low wages and overcrowded housing. With no welfare state large kinships built around grandparents provided networks of mutual support.
As industrialisation grew kinship-based society broke-up which had a direct impact on family structures. Out went the classic extended family and in came the ‘isolated nuclear family’ as a ‘productive unit’.
The termed ‘isolated’ comes from functionalist Talcott Parsons who identified the families in modern industrial society as being isolated because it’s not connected to wider kinship relations.
Obviously there are kinship relationships between members of a family but the difference for Parsons is these relationships are built on choice rather than obligation (members of pre-industrial had to cooperate in order for the family unit to survive – a relationship built on obligation rather than choice. These pre-industrial family obligations consisted of health-care; education; policing; moral teaching; employment etc.)
In contrast Parsons identified how in modern industrial times, the family was no longer obliged to carry out these family functions. Instead state institutions such as firms; schools; hospitals; GPs; police and churches took over these obligations.
Parsons said this shift from family to state responsibility was a natural outcome of social evolution rather than demise. The isolated nuclear family had evolved from the classic extended family due to a reduction of the functions of the family – particularly with the family ceasing to be an economic unit of production.
Functionalists’ argue this change in function of the family comes from the needs of the economic system. Industrialisation introduced specialised division of labour. These specialisms means certain skills are called for in different geographical regions at different times. These social changes meant the isolated nuclear families being freed from the obligations of wider kin and were therefore better able to adapt to the requirements of modern industrial society.
This changing function of the family was evident in the expansion of the railways in the 19th century. The 1851 Census was the first to include detailed classifications of the population by age which provides a benchmark to track the impact of the railways on families, people and places throughout England and Wales. This interactive graph lets you see the impact of the Railway Industry on people and therefore families.
As you’ll have noticed the 1851 Census data shows the family had to consist of a unit which is small enough to travel freely to meet the specialised skill being called on– something a large family couldn’t do. Therefore Parsons had identified a functional relationship between the family and the economy – in this example the Railway Industry.
However other academics have challenged Parsons view that industrialisation led to the development of the nuclear family by offering alternative explanations.
From Parsons’ perspective, the family evolved from fulfilling the purpose of economic production and consumption, to performing the less distinct, but equally important role of socialising children and stabilising adults within its boundaries. Therefore a second function of the family identified by Parsons was to stabilise the family by offsetting conflict within the family. Parsons’ identified how modern industrial societies could destabilise family members because it paves the way for individuals to acquire achieved as opposed to ascribed status.
(It’s worth pointing out here that ascribed status is based on particularistic values with the family while achieved status comes from society being bound together by universalistic values of achievement (goal attainment) – there’s more you can read about this and other functional perquisites.
Ascribed status is one you are given by your family. For example your parents think you’re a great singer, therefore your parents have ascribed (given you) your status. In pre-industrial times a person’s social/occupational status was given to an individual by their family/kinship group.
In contrast Parsons argued that as industrialisation meant social/occupational status could be achieved outside the family, this could lead to conflict within larger families/kinship groups. For example within the family the offspring could achieve a higher status than the father because they achieve a higher occupation. Parsons felt such conflict would be less likely to occur within nuclear families than classic extended families.
So far the suggestion by Parsons is the arrival of industrialisation led to a shift from mainly extended to nuclear families. However as mentioned in the above link Laslett and Anderson challenge Parsons notion of the ‘nuclear’ family as a modern concept. In addition Cheal (1991) argues Parsons completely ignores family diversity as well as the cosy assumption about the demise of the extended family – a family model which could be increasing due to economic downturn.
Micheal Young and Peter Willmott take a slightly different view on the development of the family.
sociologytwynham.com 