The purpose of this essay is to describe four studies relating to gender each from a different perspective; functionalist, radical feminist, liberal feminist and Marxist feminist

The first 200 words of this essay...

The purpose of this essay is to describe four studies relating to gender each from a different perspective; functionalist, radical feminist, liberal feminist and Marxist feminist. Anna Pollert's study on working class women's factory experiences from a Marxist feminist perspective and Dobash and Dobash's study of the phenomenon of marital violence against women from the radical feminist perspective will be evaluated. The constraints of all four studies also will be detailed with the intent to discover the strengths and weaknesses of each perspective. Gender is contentious area of study and as such there are various competing theories, which attempt to extract the true essence of its meaning. When evaluating these theories, it is important to recognise that a collection of all four theories can be used together to gain an insight and understanding into gender.

Gender can be described as the designated role allocated to males or females at birth in which, dependent on the sex of an individual and their culture, the individuals are expected to conform to. The expected roles of males and females differ from culture to culture. Gender is culturally learned behaviour and therefore culturally relative.

A common sense assumption is that