Compared to a historical summary girls recent performance in school could give way to greater opportunity and diversity while the same social structures giving way to this liberation could be constraining opportunities and causing uncertainty for boys.
The National Health Service was established in 1948 amid, and since proved, optimism that the health of the nation would be improved. Yet of late there has been uncertainty of conventional health services to continue making the best of public health. Two analysing reports, “The Black Report” in 1980 and “The health divide” in 1992 suggested that all was not as was hoped. Statistical information showed a cleft between social class and health. Standard mortality ratios are used to analyse life expectancy across the classes. Results of analyses (Figure 2.6,p.55. Book 2) show that life expectancy decreases the further down the social class ladder that you are. Policy makers began to look for new ways of maximising health. In 1974 the Canadian Minister of Health proposed four causes of ill health “inadequacies in health care provision; lifestyle or behavioural factors; environmental pollution; and biophysical characteristics”. The World Health Organisation and governments alike took on board these ideas and the result was the birth of the idea of the ‘New Public Health’. Rather than focusing on illness this new approach promoted health while recognising the many influences upon it. This new approach laid the responsibility of health with the individual as well as the government. While it was the responsibility of government to provide a healthy environment and the means to facilitate a healthy lifestyle, including information for individuals to make informed choices about health, it was the responsibility of individuals to make choices on ones own health. The ‘New Public Health’ recognised lifestyle as a major determinant of health; lifestyle has also been seen, as pointed out by Anthony Giddens in 1991 (Book 2, p.65), as a source of identity. We can change our lifestyles along with our identities by participating in different forms of consumption in the way we choose to eat, dress or what we read etc. The media plays a huge role in determining the patterns of consumption we take up which in turn underpins identity. The way and what we eat today is likely to have changed from what we ate as children. We are now faced with greater information about what we eat along with increased availability of choice and diversity of foodstuffs.
In the aftermath of the 2nd World War the nuclear family, in which the man was seen as the breadwinner and the woman being responsible for the care of the children and household, was viewed as a pillar of society. Although both man and woman contributed to the upkeep of the family, the male role was generally considered to be more important than the woman’s who relied on her husband financially. The man thus held a considerable amount of power over his wife and family. Weber’s theory of power sees this as a ‘top down’ affair with the man as the visible ‘head of the household’ taking all major, including financial, decisions. Michel Foucault’s theory of power takes the stance that women ‘assume’ that they are better at housework and ‘should’ look after children, thus maintaining the male position of power.
The past two decades have seen a diversification of the family with a reduction in nuclear families and a growth in single and one parent families (according to tables 2.1 and 2.2, pages 52 and 53, Book 3). There has also been an increase in women taking up paid work (fig.2.5, p.54, Book 3). This changing of patterns within the family while giving greater individual choice also places uncertainty on the family as an institutional pillar of society.
A conservative perspective seeing the nuclear family as a backbone of society providing a point of stability and continuity would consider a breakdown of the nuclear family as a cause of increased crime, male unemployment, a source of problems with male identity and general moral decline.
A feministic approach to change would be quite different. Taking the starting point that the traditional family is patriarchal with deep inequalities and the subjugation of women and children, new forms of diversity within the family are likely to help liberate women.
Post war Britain has witnessed social change of a structural nature, what was perceived by many as a ‘golden era’ of stability and certainty has changed to what some now see as a time of anxiety and uncertainty. But was there ever really a ‘golden era’? Feminists would argue that it was a period marked by the suppression of women. As many key institutions and beliefs associated with the foundations of society are fragmented and challenged it would appear to many that we now live in a world that is no longer easy to understand. On the other hand, taking a more positive look at the contemporary United Kingdom, it could be argued that we now live in a less homogenous more pluralistic society giving way to greater diversity and different ways of living. The roles of men and male identity would appear to have become more uncertain in light of the more diverse roles now being played by women; yet this could also be seen as new opportunity for men to take up what was previously seen as women’s work in the home. Recently we have seen a notable change in attitude toward the roles played by both men and women at work and in the family as their roles become more diverse and fluid. The family has also been subject to much diversification in recent years. Key institutions within the welfare state have in turn become more diverse in response to changing family forms and lifestyles.
Along with increased information and knowledge within today’s society comes the notion of ‘risk’ and ‘risk management’. As we become more able to plan for the future and influence it by the choices we take, the future also appears to become a more perilous place. Although life expectancy may have increased and the risk of serious harm reduced in recent years the introduction of ‘risk’ into everyday life and the word being used more commonly may well give us the feeling that the world is less safe and secure than it was earlier. Earlier generations taking decisions on everyday activities may well have considered the risks involved in a less informed but similar way. Therefore could it be that we only perceive the present day to be more uncertain due to the greater diversity of information and choice?
References:
Woodward, K. (2000) Questioning Identity: Gender, Class, Nation, The Open University.
Mac an Ghaill, M. (1994) The Making of Men: Masculinities, Sexualities and Schooling, Buckingham, Open University Press.
The Observer, 4 January 1998
Hinchliffe, S. & Woodward K. (2000) The Natural and the Social: Uncertainty, Risk, Change, The Open University.
Hughes, G. & Fergusson, R. (2000) Ordering Lives: Family, Work and Welfare, The Open University.
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