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Factors influencing family structure
Factors influencing family structure
Factors influencing family structure
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Mill is concerned with the political repercussions of the unequal status of women within families. In a patriarchal family structure, wives are kept ignorant about politics and issues that occur outside of their homes and do not directly involve their families. Mill laments that a wife “neither knows nor cares which is the right side in politics, but she knows what will being in money or invitations, give her husband a title, her son a place, or her daughter a good marriage” (Mill 174). Although their ignorance is not their fault, this narrow viewpoint leads women to focus solely on themselves and their loved ones, and strive to protect or increase the happiness only within the family unit. Their husbands and children will observe and internalize this self-centeredness, and when members of these families leave their homes to interact with the rest of society, no one will concentrate as much on the common good and become quite selfish. The patriarchal family structure also inhibits the progress of the society, which is a value that Mill holds in high esteem; half of the population would be unable to contribute ideas that could lead to improvements in politics and government as well as in other areas. Mill, a supporter of utilitarianism, argues that greater equality for women would bring the greater good to both individuals and to the entire society. Political education for women would redirect the focus onto the common good of the society and avoid the potential issues stated previously. In the same manner that family-centered viewpoints affect how the entire society operates, Mill explains that the family structure must change in some ways in order to mirror the values that society should have, such as equality and individuality... ... middle of paper ... ... true equality for women; within each class, women would be inferior to the men, although they would be superior the men of any classes below them. This reveals a difference between the ideas of Mill and Socrates; while both Mill and Socrates consider the equal education of women to be crucial, Socrates does not believe in greater equality to men and Mill does. Both Mill and Socrates think that the focus on family should be removed, and that people should be more concerned with the welfare of the society as a whole. However, Socrates’ ideas are much more radical and extreme than Mill’s; while Mill proposed changes to the family in order to improve the society, Socrates feels that the best solution would be to abolish the family unit entirely with the lottery system; in this way, the family would consist of the entire state and there would be unified loyalty to all.
The first half of her book is concerned with the role of women in society. She compares a healthy family structure to a democratic society. In both cases, men and women have distinct roles they must fulfill in order to create a balanced, healthy environment. Since political participation for women was limited at the time of Cooper’s writing, she argued that not only were women suffering, but so was all of society. She argued that women’s sensitivity to emotion and intuition and their nurturing nature would balance out society that was controlled by aggressive and reason-oriented men. She argues that men and women are equals but their responsibilities to society are distinctive.
John Stuart Mill was one of the most influential Western philosopher. At the time, most Western philosophers had the tendency to look down on women. They believed that women are too emotional and are incapable of being rational. However, Mill was an exception to this as he was an advocate for gender equality (Utilitarian Ethics). He is also known for his work in Utilitarianism, which focuses on the consequence of an action and whether that action benefit a greater number of people (Utilitarian Ethics).
Women have an important responsibility precisely in societies that are democratic because of their ability to influence and shape their lives. As the remark of Tocqueville goes, “there has never existed any free society without the mores, and.it is women who always shape the mores. Hence, everything having a bearing on the women’s status, their thoughts and habits are, in my view, of great importance politically” (Tocqueville and Mayer, 1969p.97). Nimtz (2003p.46) pointed out that the principle way by which the women shape the mores is through their roles as mothers and as wives. Tocqueville argues that the accorded respect to the marriage institution in the society has an impact on the wellbeing and the order of that society as a whole.
Throughout history, the role of women in society has caused arguments which resulted in the discretization of women’s intelligence, imagination, reason, and judgment (Murray 740). Women were forced to feel inferior because of men’s “natural rights,” resulting in the mental superiority of men. With the confinements of society ever on a woman’s threshold, came the inability to express thoughts and emotions without suffering ridicule from their male counterparts. Some critics suggest that the “inalienable rights… [such as] life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” were not simply taken away from women without consent, but they were rights never achievable for women at all (Deceleration of Independence). One critic, Judith Sargent Murray, a feminist of her day, advocates the rights of women on the grounds of social, political, and economic equality to men in her essay “On the Equality of Sexes.”
She argues that men have professions and other duties that focus their minds and help to develop reason “whilst women, on the contrary, have no other scheme to sharpen their faculties” (Wollstonecraft 2004, 77). Women spend most of their time tending to the house and their beauty because that is what they are taught to focus on, in order to get the most out of their life. During their upbringing children are taught to follow the actions of those that share the same gender as them. This causes drastic differences between the sexes because there is no opportunity to overlap the characteristics of the two genders to create a more coherent and equal society. In relation to that, Marx states that all citizens, no matter their status, should have the right to private property and freedom to do as they wish with the labor they produce. Marx (1988, 81) believes “private property is thus the product, the result, the necessary consequence, of alienated labor, the necessary consequence, of alienated labor, of the external relation of the worker to nature and to himself.” The deprivation of the laborers from control of their own products causes their alienation not only from the products but also the rest of society, which ultimately creates an unstable form of community. This instability will eventually
Astell says that the women need to wake up and realize the inequality before they can take action. In order for this plan to work, women need to be firm and they cannot give into the men. The women need to realize that they are playing their parts like puppets, "and for this reason `tis less to be wondered at that women marry often haste, for perhaps if they took time to consider and reflect upon it, they seldom would" (2284).
Feminism is motivated by the need to establish equality between the genders since most feminists attribute women’s problems to inequality between the two genders. Therefore, by way of a collection of political movements and social theories, feminists seek to curb this inequality between men and women. It is important to note that the equality sought after by feminists is not just economic and political, but also social equality. According to Heather Gilmour, The institution of marriage during the pre-modern era or the Victorian era was based on inequality as the roles to be fulfilled by both genders for the success of the marriage were essentially different (Heather 26). As the roles kept changing over time due to different circumstances, so did the expectations of marriage and along with that, the rise of feminist movement. Screwball comedies such as It...
Society has long since considered women the lessor gender and one of the most highly debated topics in society through the years has been that of women’s equality. The debates began over the meaning between a man and woman’s morality and a woman’s rights and obligations in society. After the 19th Amendment was sanctioned around 1920, the ball started rolling on women’s suffrage. Modern times have brought about the union of these causes, but due to the differences between the genetic makeup and socio demographics, the battle over women’s equality issue still continues to exist. While men have always held the covenant role of the dominant sex, it was only since the end of the 19th century that the movement for women’s equality and the entitlement of women have become more prevalent. “The general consensus at the time was that men were more capable of dealing with the competitive work world they now found themselves thrust into. Women, it was assumed, were unable to handle the pressures outside of the home. They couldn’t vote, were discourages from working, and were excluded from politics. Their duty to society was raising moral children, passing on the values that were unjustly thrust upon them as society began to modernize” (America’s Job Exchange, 2013). Although there have been many improvements in the changes of women’s equality towards the lives of women’s freedom and rights in society, some liberals believe that women have a journey to go before they receive total equality. After WWII, women continued to progress in there crusade towards receiving equality in many areas such as pay and education, discrimination in employment, reproductive rights and later was followed by not only white women but women from other nationalities ...
Statements like these are what radically changed the typical way of thinking during the industrial revolution and paved the way for the individuality that we enjoy today. As a result of Utilitarianism, women are allowed to vote and we do not have to be worried about an oppressive and controlling government. John Stuart Mill is not just leaving the legacy of being a philosopher, but as a true visionary for the rights and liberty of all humans.
As centuries pass by, generations also pass their traditional values to the next generation. some people still think the way their ancestors thought and believe in what they believed in. During the beginning of 1890 people couldn’t have premarital sex, women had to be the caretaker while men were the breadwinner. During this century, those perspectives have changed, argued Stephanie Coontz, the author of “The American Family”. Coontz believes women should have more freedom and there should be gender equality.
Many Americans, men and women, have become feminists to promote equal rights for women. Now when couples get divorced. the men don’t get everything; both the man and the woman have an equal chance to prove they are worthy enough to obtain assets and children. Usually, the female acquires the children and the male acquires the assets. “The Story of an Hour” might inspire some modern-day wives to oppose their husbands if their marriages are not going so well.
The only way Mill said that women living in the mid-nineteenth century in Europe could get their opinions known was through written works. The main argument women were trying to make was to be as educated and given the same opportunities that men received. Women wanted to obtain jobs in high positions; jobs that required men to listen to women and follow the orders that women gave to men. According to Mill, men wanted women to tend to their needs without forcing them. A wife who seemed to be forced to serve their husband was an undesirable one.
In the past, many people believed that women’s exclusive responsibilities were to serve their husband, to be great mothers and to be the perfect wives. Those people considered women to be more appropriate for homemaking rather than to be involved in business or politics. This meant that women were not allowed to have a job, to own property or to enjoy the same major rights as men. The world is changing and so is the role of women in society. In today’s society, women have rights that they never had before and higher opportunities to succeed.
Then there was the woman’s movement and women felt they deserved equal rights and should be considered man’s equal and not inferior. The man going out to work, and the wife staying home to care for the home and the children would soon become less the norm. This movement would go on to shape the changes within the nuclear family. Women deci...
Gerda Lerner defines patriarchy as a situation where men possess dominance over not only women, but also the family. The idea of male domination and the process of valuing ideas of masculinity is not natural or biological, instead it has developed over time. The social structures of the family change over time, but not to a great extent. There are some ways that women can gain and access power, but the idea of woman gaining not only power, but also the freedom that we associate with economic and social mobility is limited. Women will continue to be limited and the small steps that women gain towards empowerment will remain minor until we transform the whole system of male domination as it exists through the family and through the state. In her argument, Lerner lends a growing support to the claim that the activities which are mainly assigned to children and women differ from the one which is assigned to men. Lerner writes, “In the patriarchal family, responsibilities and obligations are not equally distributed among those to be protected: the male children’s subordination to the father’s dominance is temporary; it lasts until they themselves