The article written by Alice Charach, Debra
The article written by Alice Charach, Debra
Today we have a number of sociological views and approaches, which have agreed changes have taken place in gender roles and relationships within families to make them more equal. However many others sociologist criticise the nature of those changes. Some argue there has been a greater equality within modern family life and others say it is simply exaggerated. In my essay I going to assess these views through domestic labour, paid work, decision making and domestic violence in couples and try to conclude to what extent gender roles and relationships have in reality, become more equal in modern family life.…
External factors such as the impact of feminism and girls' changing ambitions could have a large influence on gender differences in educational achievement. Since the 1960's, feminism has challenged the traditional stereotypes of a woman's role as mother and housewife within a patriarchal family. Feminism has also raises girls' expectations and ambitions with regard to careers and family. These changes are partly reflected in media images and messages. A good illustration of this is McRobbie's comparison of girls magazine in the 1970's, where they stressed the importance of marriage to the 1990's, where it was more focused on career and independence. Changes in the family and employment are also producing changes in girls' ambitions. This is supported by Sue Sharpe's research where she compared the results of interviews she carried out with girls in the 1970's and girls in the 1990's. In the 1970's the girls had low aspirations and gave their priorities as love, marriage, husbands and children before careers. However, in the 1990's girls were more likely to see their future as independent women with a career, rather than being dependent on a husband and his income.…
In this essay I will be assessing the contribution of feminist sociologists to an understanding of family roles and relationships. There are different roles in families such as: Conjugal; where both the partners share task such as housework and childcare, the opposite of this would be segregated roles; where the couples have separate roles, the male is breadwinner and has the instrumental role and the female is the housewife and has the expressive role. A dual earner is a couple…. A single parent is a person who has been divorced or been widowed and has to take care of the children they had with the previous partner. Furthermore there are different types of relationships between families such as equal; where the husband and wife both have an equal say and are treated equally, however it can be one-sided; where the husband or wife are more dominant which can lead to domestic violence, it could also be democratic; where the family all vote for something instead of one person taking the decisions, but it can also be patriarchal; where the male take the main decisions and Is the breadwinner. A feminist is a person that argues that sociology has traditionally taken a ‘male stream’ perspective and ignores female viewpoint; they examine women’s experiences and study society from a female’s perspective. There are different types of feminism: Liberal, Marxists, Radical and Difference Feminism. They all tend to be critical of the nature of a women’s role and relationship inside families because they see them as grossly patriarchal, oppressive and unfair, as mentioned in Item B. On the other hand, the different types of feminist don’t agree with each other’s perspective on ideas of families and households, and they tend to clash.…
In this essay I will explore the different schools of feminism such as Marxist, liberal and radical feminism, who share the view that women are oppressed in a patriarchal society but differ in opinion on who benefits from the inequalities. Each school of feminism has their own understanding of family roles and relationships which I will assess through this essay.…
Assess the contribution of feminist theorists and researchers to an understanding of society today. 33 Marks…
This problem can be related to the reading on la feministas and…
In many cultures, women are expected to be nurturers who care for their husbands and children. It is considered the role that most significantly defines women and the one, above all, that they should aspire to. Sandra Cisneros wants girls to know that they do not have to define themselves based on other’s definitions of them, because they have powerful voices by which to define themselves.…
In this short piece, “Our Daughters, Ourselves” by Stevie Cameron the many feats that woman have overcome in recent years are highlighted, as are the many setbacks. This piece is basically a summation of a daughters life from an over-cautious parents point of view. Although this is a short piece of writing, it does indeed touch on some of the sexual differences that still exist in our society today such as male-dominated post-secondary fields like engineering and how equally qualified woman don’t usually receive the same level of jobs as men with similar academic credentials. The piece is told from the perspective of what I can assume is a mother that went through the same sexual differences in her era and is only hoping that her daughter does not have to go through the same hardships, only to find that society still isn’t equal no matter how much progress we have made. Cameron supports her whole piece of work at the end by mentioning the tragic events of the Montreal Massacre and how all of their lives parents have been telling their daughters that they can do whatever they want and have equal opportunity only to have their dreams burned down by a sexist male who could blamed woman for his failures. I found this article interesting as I found a correlation between the reading and many topics that I learn about in my Human Resources courses such as creating equality in the workplace and equal opportunity for both sexes.…
During the late 17th century and early 18th century, children were outfitted like their adult counterparts. Mothers viewed daughters as smaller version of themselves; therefore they were formed into their mother’s image (p.425). Only during the second half of the 18th century did we see a changed where girls were dressed differently. Children were viewed as different creatures that needed more freedom and liberty. Along came the Victorian era, where girls were view as innocent, with their hair curl and outfitted with long dresses, giving the image of fragility. Now, there’s a new generation, the feminist movement. Girls were being encouraged to “be the agent of her own objectification and still be empowered” (p.427). What should have been a movement towards revolutionary changes, instead bought on a boom in porn-like culture. Girls were learning that their value was based on their worth as sex objects, partially by marketing and partially by the adults around…
Truly there are still people in this world who don’t take the gender equality and feminists acts seriously. Girls in this day and age are still being told they are not allowed, or do not have the capability of doing something because “you’re a girl” as if that should explain to a ten year old girl why she can’t play tackle football with her brothers. This destroys the psychological thinking of a young girl and makes her think that she has these limitations because “she’s a girl”. Limitations such as these can cause long psychological damage and lower a girl’s self esteem.…
This essay will look at the question of whether we learn our gender. It will begin by looking at the sociological meaning and interpretations of gender and how this is important. Following the discussion of how socialization plays a vital role in the argument of if we do learn our gender or not. Further to this it shall look at how gender roles have changed, comparing in particular pre-1960 to the modern day and also what key factors played crucial roles in this change. Throughout this essay the work and views of different sociologists will be relied upon in order to provide a detailed discussion in the analysis of the question.…
Feminists sociologist believe that children are trained to follow their gender expectations. They believe that this training goes on in the…
Society and stereotypes affect the way children develop their ideas and, consequently it has a major effect in their futures. Opposed to that, Christina Hoff Sommers present her article “The War Against Boys” arguing that boys are facing a crisis that is directly affecting their scores in school, their propensity to violence and crime and their lack of motivation to go to college. According to her, the ones to blame are the feminist efforts to promote girls and create programs to boost their academic careers. These efforts are doing more than just improve girls’ performance in school; they are harming boys by diverting the attention from them. As a direct response to Sommers’ article, Michael Kimmel expresses his opposition with his article “A War Against Boys?” which refutes Sommers’ ideas of misguided feminism, and offers a different insight to the crisis that boys are facing. Kimmel effectively refutes Sommers’ article by offering different points of view and distinctive propositions to why boys are facing a crisis.…
Doing gender article talks about the actions that we all display on a daily bases or things we see in others actions every day. Since society has given us the free will to be whomever we want in expressing ourselves, many do just that freely. The authors were curious to dig a little deeper in finding how these individuals choose to identify themselves with their actions. So their main purpose of this article is to “propose an ethnomethodologically informed, and therefore distinctively sociological, understanding of gender as a routine, methodical, and recurring accomplishment”. The article was very informative and comprehensive by breaking it down into the categorization on sex, sex category, and gender.…
I intend to write a piece of creative writing, demonstrating the theme of fear, inspired by the film ‘Good Will Hunting’ directed by Gus Van Sant. Written in the perspective of a young teenage girl being hunted by a predator. I hope to allude to the fear she feels as dusk arrives. With all her senses more alert she aims to survive the night, with her hunter nowhere to be seen. I plan to focus on her feelings as she attempts to run and remain hidden until dawn.…