Marxists have contributed to the study of family life by showing us how women are being exploited in the world of work.
Radical Feminists.
"The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race." - Susan B. Anthony
Radical feminists believe that women are oppressed by patriarchy – this is where men are the head of the household. They believe that with male dominance comes a false sense of power and this leads to rape and sexual assault mainly within the nuclear family.
Delphy and Leonard believe that the nuclear or cereal-packet family has a central role in maintaining patriarchy. They say that the family is an “economic system”, which involves a particular set of labour relations that men benefit from by exploiting the work that women and sometimes their own children do. They believe that women work for the head of the household, which is generally a male.
Radical feminists have contributed to the study of family life by suggesting patriarchy does still exist in the form of rape within marriage, child abuse and domestic violence.
Liberal Feminists.
“Learning, while at school, that the charge for the education of girls was the same as that for boys, and that, when they became teachers, women received only half as much as men for their services, the injustice of this distinction was so apparent, that I resolved to claim for my sex all that an impartial Creator had bestowed, which, by custom and a perverted application of the Scriptures, had been wrested from women.” - Lucretia Mott
Liberal feminists blame neither society nor men for women and children being oppressed. All they argue for is equal opportunities for women. Liberal feminists fought for the equal pay and sex discrimination acts, and also managed to outlaw rape within marriage. They also gained a great amount of publicity and bought the darker side of the nuclear family to light – mostly domestic violence. They contributed this to the study of family life and made more people aware of what actually happens behind closed doors.
Gender Socialization.
“In school books, the Dick and Jane syndrome reinforced our emerging attitudes. The arithmetic books posed appropriate conundrums: "Ann has three pies . . . Dan has three rockets. . . ." We read the nuances between the lines: Ann keeps her eye on the oven; Dan sets his sights on the moon.” - "Down with Sexist Upbringing" - Letty Cottin Pogrebin.
Gender socialisation is one of the factors of daily life that has not yet fully been exposed. Many people try to bring up their child without influencing them, but doing this is extremely hard. Children are bought up surrounded by toys and people who influence them to act “normal” for their gender i.e. a young girl playing with a doll and a young boy playing with action men figures. Already in the early stages of life it is assumed that because of their sex they will act a certain way. If they don’t act “normally”, they are called awful names.
Feminists have a problem with gender socialisation because from the day they are born young females are given toys such as ovens, ironing boards and real life dolls. This is teaching them about what males/society think they should be doing in later life already and it is seen as wrong for males to play with girls toys. This has contributed to the study of family life because in the changing world of today, young females are still being given toys based on their sex to play with.
Child Abuse.
Child abuse in the nuclear/extended family is actually more common than abuse from complete strangers. Much research has been done on who rings Childline and the NSPCC have released a report on child abuse and who is most likely to be targeted and who by. The NSPCC report says that many children are likely to be abused by someone of their own age and it is more likely to be a brother rather than a father or mother. However, Childline have released figures about the phone lines which contradicts the report of the NSPCC as it is more likely to be females ages 12-15 that are abused by their fathers or a male acquaintance. This contributes to the study of family life because it shows us about the dark side of the nuclear family.
Domestic Violence.
Domestic violence is one of the hardest things to research as fear overcomes many women and they don’t report any incidents. Just 10% of incidents are reported to the police, and this is because in Britain it is the woman and the woman alone who can prosecute her husband.
Dobash and Dobash are two feminists who researched domestic violence within the nuclear family and they found the reason for most incidents was that the husband was not satisfied with the state of the housework. Although quite a lot of women leave home after a domestic violence incident, many return home because they are economically dependent on their husbands. This contributes to the study of family life because it shows us about the dark side of the nuclear family.
Criticisms Of The Feminist Approach.
One of the criticisms of the feminist approach has come from the functionalists. Parsons and Murdock believe that without the nuclear family, society and life as we know it would not exist. Parsons argues that the nuclear family offers stability of the adult personality and primary socialisation. The stability of the adult personalities are important in life because if you have a partner this gives us emotional security as the couple provide for one another and it acts as a counterweight to everyday stresses and strains. Parental roles in socialisation allows adults to act childish – an act which is usually suppressed because it is unacceptable and looked down on in adulthood.
Murdock believes that the family provide three functions to keep life balanced – education, economical and reproductive acts.
Without education, the next generations would not be able to learn about the norms and values of our culture and without this, life wouldn’t exist.
Without economical functions, food preparation and provision would cease and so would we.
The most important is reproductive functions, without this, no children would be born and life would die out.
Functionalists believe the nuclear family is seen as the most sensible and stable way for people to be bought up and live.
Feminists also fail to talk about domestic violence against men, and the fact that mothers also abuse their children. This is another big criticism of the nuclear family, although domestic violence against men is hardly ever talked about. This is because men fear they will be laughed at as it is seen in society that they are strong enough to fight back and control a woman.
The fact that mothers also abuse their children is not talked about much either. This is because the mother is always seen as a caring and loving stable figure that you can go to and talk about anything.
On the whole, feminists have contributed quite a lot to the study of family life as they have bought to light the domestic violence and child abuse issues, as well as the fact that even though women do the same amount of work as men, they get paid less than men do.