On the family for the performance of a small number of crucial functions, specifically those relating to the generation and maintenance of human personalities. Hence, for Parsons, unlike other functionalists and New Right theorists, does not see the loss of functions as a family breakdown.
Marxism is a family of critiques, theories, and political goals loosely organized around the theories and criticisms formulated by Karl Marx in the middle of the nineteenth century. Central to this body of theory are several key ideas: the view that capitalism embodies a system of class exploitation; that socialism is a social order in which private property and exploitation are abolished; and that socialism can be achieved through revolution. It is often referred to as a conflict theory argues that as the mode of production changed so did the family. In comparison to this Functionalism emphasizes shared values and harmony, the conflict view of society sees it as divided into groups or classes whose interest’s conflict with each other.
The other main functionalist contribution from Parsons is that of his idea of ‘Expressive’ and ‘Instrumental’ functions, which relates to our gender roles in the family. Using biological difference, he argues that women perform an ‘expressive’ function, which means that they provide warmth, security and emotional support. This is essential for effective socialization for their children. Males perform an ‘instrumental’ role in that they play the breadwinner role (earn the most money for the family). This role leads to stress and anxiety. The female role is to relieve the tension by providing the husband with love, consideration and understanding…and shag! Parsons argues that for the family to operate efficiently as a social system there must be a clear-cut division of labor.
The Criticisms and evaluation of the functionalist view of the family is that functionalists overplay the harmonious nature of the family.
Feminist Ann Oakley criticized Parson’s notion of expressive and instrumental functions as being andocentric as it promotes an ideology that confines women to traditional roles in the home. Empirically, it ignores the increase of women in the workforce. It also ignores cross-cultural material (which Oakley provides) which shows that there is no reason why these roles have to be differentiated along gender lines. Oakley’s ‘Housewife’ showed that married women are more depressed than single women.
But it is argued that male dominated households, in which the fact of being born male, he has right to be the superior of all and every one of an entire half of the human race .How will boys grow up into men who treat women as equals? Feminist scholarship has continued, extended the attack on the conception of the family as a private personal realm. Indeed, the idea that “the personal is political” is the main idea of most contemporary feminism.
Historically, it is argued that men have exercised enormous power over women's bodies through controlling their sexuality and reproduction.
Feminists argue that the so-called private realms of family, sex and reproduction must be part of the political realm and thus subject to principles of justice for three distinct reasons:
- Families are not “natural” orderings, but social institutions backed up by laws. Therefore, the state cannot choose not to intervene in families: the only question is how it should intervene and on what basis.
- The state has a critical interest in the development of future citizens.
- The division of labor in traditional families constrains women's opportunities and freedoms in the wider society.
For many traditional theorists of the family, nature it necessitates the division of tasks within the family. Women naturally want to have and raise children; men by nature do not. There is then a physiologically grounded basis of gender difference: women's predominant role in childrearing and domestic labor is their biological destiny. These assumptions have been subject to feminist criticism.
Feminists have given three answers to this argument.
Social constructivists deny that there are any essential differences between male and female bodies or psychologies that explain women's position in the family. Social constructivists have explored the ways in which culture and society have shaped even the most ostensibly natural differences between men and women. They argue that many of the differences between men and women alleged to be the source of gender inequality should instead be viewed as the outcome of that inequality. For example, they claim that we cannot understand sex-based differentials of height and physical strength without considering the influence of diet, division of labor, and physical training. Feminist historians and anthropologists have sought to demonstrate the significant roles that culture, religion and social class have played in shaping women's lives (Joan Scott: 1988).
Difference feminists accept that there are essential biological or psychological differences between men and women. But they seek to challenge the normative and social implications of these differences. Even if women are by nature more nurturing than men or more concerned with their relationships with others, the effects of these differences depend on how we value them (Gilligan: 1982; Nodding: 1986). On their view, there is no necessary problem with a sex-based division of labor, provided it is voluntary and that male and female roles are appropriately valued. In comparison to this, the Marxist view was that there was a division of labor within these communes, but importantly all work was regarded as of equal value. Although women tended to work closer to home, for example gathering (this made child rearing easier), this was not seen as oppressive or less valued. Men, in general worked outside the immediate household, for example hunting. Even in communes who were structured along a matrilineal line, work divided along this basis was treated on an equal basis.
An anti-subordination perspective aims to dislodge questions about biological and psychological difference from the center of debates about the family and reproduction. A narrow focus on men and women's “difference” versus their “equality” obscures what is at stake in treating people as equals. Even if there are some natural differences between men and women, these differences do not justify social structures that leave women vulnerable to poverty, unequal pay for equal work, and domestic violence. Whatever the facts about women's biology or psychology, such differences do not entail women's social subordination (MacKinnon: 1989; Rhode: 1989).
It is suggested by feminists that the government relies partly on the labor of caretaking and childrearing, work that is today overwhelmingly done by women. Feminists have made a strong case for taking such care-giving within the family seriously and for the government to attend to the justice issues involved in care provision (Kittay: 1999). Feminists have also argued that just states must provide care in a way that ensures that all children, boys and girls, rich and poor, have equal opportunities to grow up able to take part in their society. But in comparison to this a strong strength of Marxism’s theory is that it has been used by Revolutionary leaders and theorists, and several generations of social scientists and historians, as we can see in today’s politics “Family life is the foundation of society” said Gordon Brown in his recent budget speech. To prove Labor is serious about addressing the breakdown in the family, the government is making various changes in social policy aimed at reasserting the “normal” family.
The other important dimension of Marxism in the contemporary world is in the area of knowledge and theory. Marx’s theory of historical materialism maintains that large historical change proceeds as a result of dynamic interaction between the forces and relations of production (roughly, Marx also offers a theory of ideology and mystification: the view that the ideas and beliefs that people have in a class society are themselves a material product of specific social institutions, and are distorted in ways that serve the interests of the dominant classes.technology and property relations) (Cohen 1978). Marxism view is that different times this century, family life has appeared to be breaking down and capitalism has been on the offensive to preach good family values. This is because family unit of today exists to serve the needs of capitalism. But also Contrary to what the bourgeois press would have us believe, the “normal” family has not always existed. The social organization of human society has changed throughout history. Friedrich Engel’s, in The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State, argued that the family, as a social unit, developed as a result of economic and social changes within human society: The end result was the creation of the ideal family, not only did this provide a means of ensuring the more efficient reproduction of labor power – it also had enormous potential as an ideological weapon backing up the oppression of women. The bourgeoisie imposed their own idea of a family upon the masses: a mother and father and their children – the nuclear family.
Bibliography
Avineri, Shlomo (1968). The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx. Cambridge University Press.
Hollis, M. (1994) The Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Merton, R. (1957) Manifest and Latent Functions, in his Social Theory and Social Structure, Glencoe,
: Moore, W. (1979) Functionalism, in Bottomore, T. and Nisbet, R. (1979) A History of Sociological Analysis, London, Heinemann,
Haralambos, (2000) Sociology themes and perspectives, fifth edition London. Collins
Wincup, E. (2002) School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent at Canterbury
Internet Resources
.
1670 words
