In sociology, the family unit is viewed as one of the most central modes of socialization and, as the key social institution in an individual’s life (Macionis & Plummer 2012 p.629). In Australia, the structure of the family has undergone considerable change, traditional familial structures have been replaced by ones that, although becoming increasingly common now, would have been unusual just a few decades before (Changing Face). These changes are largely a reflection of the movement away from patriarchal and heteronormative ideas surrounding gender roles and sexuality, but can also be attributed to other socio-economic factors and sociopolitical factors such as class and religion. The continual and considerable changes that affect the structuring …show more content…
This is no less true in modern Australian society than it has been for centuries past. What has changed however, is the various ways in which Australian families are coordinated. In sociology widespread attitudes towards gender roles and sexuality are seen as one of the biggest influences on how families are structured. Australia, like many western societies was built upon heteronormative and patriarchal ideologies.
Heteronormativity is the representation and perpetuation of heterosexuality as being the only ‘normal’ and ‘natural’ form of sexual expression (robinson). In Australia this was the dominant mode of thinking up until recent times and, this had a profound affect on how the Australian family was structured. The nuclear family, as an ideal model had the representation of heterosexual marriage as the backbone of the true and affective family (changing face). Over recent years the stigma surrounding homosexuality has been lifted through a process of insight and interaction and, has seen the various forms of sexual expression be, on the whole accepted as just as valid as heterosexuality. This social progression has been reflected in Australian families and their structures. In the 2011 census 33,700 couples were identified Australia wide, of these couples 6,300 claimed to be raising children as
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The distinct transformation in the Australian structure of family life has a far more profound meaning for women than it does for men (AIFS). This is because traditionally women have been the oppressed gender within the social context. In decades past Australian women were subject to extreme patriarchal norms, they were treated as property that was to be handed from father to husband as a commodity (AIFS). This reflected a woman’s role in the family; men were more logical, rational and all around stronger and thus took their place as the head of the family. They were in charge of financially supporting the family and undertaking the ‘hard labour’ (Unger). Women on the other hand, are traditionally seen as the homemakers, their chief responsibility was to nurture and care for the children and home and, they were not included in the workforce (Unger). This of course has changed over time; feminist movements empowered an increasing amount of women to seek the right to enter into paid work and to attain the same social status and rights as their male
Throughout most of recorded history, women generally have endured significantly fewer career opportunities and choices, and even less legal rights, than that of men. The “weaker sex,” women were long considered naturally, both physically and mentally, inferior to men. Delicate and feeble minded, women were unable to perform any task that required muscular or intellectual development. This idea of women being inherently weaker, coupled with their natural biological role of the child bearer, resulted in the stereotype that “a woman’s place is in the home.” Therefore, wife and mother were the major social roles and significant professions assigned to women, and were the ways in which women identified and expressed themselves. However, women’s history has also seen many instances in which these ideas were challenged-where women (and some men) fought for, and to a large degree accomplished, a re-evaluation of traditional views of their role in society.
“Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls”: few of our cultural mythologies seem as natural as this one. But in this exploration of the gender signals that traditionally tell what a “boy” or “girl” is supposed to look and act like, Aaron Devor shows how these signals are not “natural” at all but instead are cultural constructs. While the classic cues of masculinity—aggressive posture, self-confidence, a tough appearance—and the traditional signs of femininity—gentleness, passivity, strong nurturing instincts—are often considered “normal,” Devor explains that they are by no means biological or psychological necessities. Indeed, he suggests, they can be richly mixed and varied, or to paraphrase the old Kinks song “Lola,” “Boys can be girls and girls can be boys.” Devor is dean of social sciences at the University of Victoria and author of Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (1989), from which this selection is excerpted, and FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society (1997).
The father is recognised and acknowledged as the head of the family and household, in charge of the family’s spiritual life and providing the family’s sustenance while wives are subordinate to their husband. Males provide overall leadership within the community. They are responsible for educating young boys in masculine areas such as farming and woodwork. Females are to do the same with young girls, educating them in feminine areas such as running a household and homemaking skills. Unmarried women may work outside the home yet married women are not allowed to work and are expected to hold their families and house as the priority. Gender dictates those within the Amish society, with their roles clearly structured and set out. Unlike the Amish, this strict definition of gender roles doesn’t apply to me. There is a certain degree of restriction within Australian society in me being a young, female student. Mainstream Western society still values the traits of being feminine with the media constantly reinforcing feminie standards. In my macro world, as a female, I am expected to be soft, pretty and ladylike. This value, my culture and heritage come with the expectation for a woman to marry, have children, maintain a household yet also participate within society in working. However, societal expectations for females within mainstream society are slowly being broken. There is the implication that females cannot work once they become mothers, but there is no set of defined rules for females restricting them to traditional roles, despite the societal expectation for women to conform to
Suggested roles of all types set the stage for how human beings perceive their life should be. Gender roles are one of the most dangerous roles that society faces today. With all of the controversy applied to male vs. female dominance in households, and in the workplace, there seems to be an argument either way. In the essay, “Men as Success Objects”, the author Warren Farrell explains this threat of society as a whole. Farrell explains the difference of men and women growing up and how they believe their role in society to be. He justifies that it doesn’t just appear in marriage, but in the earliest stages of life. Similarly, in the essay “Roles of Sexes”, real life applications are explored in two different novels. The synthesis between these two essays proves how prevalent roles are in even the smallest part of a concept and how it is relatively an inevitable subject.
Society places ideas concerning proper behaviors regarding gender roles. Over the years, I noticed that society's rules and expectations for men and women are very different. Men have standards and specific career goals that we must live up to according to how others judge.
McDonald, P 1984, Can The Family Survive? - Change in Australia, Discussion Paper no. 11, Australian Institute of Family Studies, accessed 10 April 2012 http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/dp11.html
Although women may deserve and share equal roles with men in society, their accomplishments remain insubstantial because they have a right to the opportunities they take advantage of and the roles they occupy. Granted, as human beings women should possess the same rights that men do as a matter of fairness and justice. As a result, in society women deserve sexual equality. Nevertheless, justice or fairness of opportunity cannot govern the balance of power in relationships between men and women because these relationships are private and out of the reach of government, law, and probing society (except for celebrity unions decimated by The Inquirer). Therefore, progressive sexual equality has left these relationships untouched and undisturbed from their natural origins like technology has left the New Zealand aborigines unchanged. Thus, the presence of sexual equality represents a figurehead or inevitable truth given by men to women as part of a larger compromise that allows men to retain their superiority in relationships. Although society has reached an equilibrium concerning sexual differences, the scales of relationships between men and women tip themselves increasingly in the favor of men as they age.
‘Murdock, (1949) said that families were a social group that was characterised by common residence, reproduction and economic co-operation, that includes adults of both sexes, that maintain a socially approved sexual relationship with one or more children, their own or adopted’. Over the years they have been different views on the family, many theorists have had their own perspectives on the function and the purpose of the family. This essay will be comparing and contrasting the functionalist, Marxist and feminism theories of the family, as well as taking into consideration how social factors and institutions are constructed and represented, how social inequalities are generated, experienced and maintained and their impact on health status
2.6 The Feminist perspective Since the earliest settlement, Australian society has traditionally supported primary, secondary, vocational and tertiary education through public funding, with minimal financial support for early childhood education and care provision, resulting in the responsibility for the education and care or children, prior to entering school falling to the private sector and the family (Stooke, 2012). As a consequence, childcare in Australian has evolved over the past hundred years from an area of “interest mainly to charitable groups” made up of “upper-class women” (Brennan, 1998, p.1) to a widely contested politically manipulated area of concern (Brennan, 1998). Child care was originally viewed as a women’s issue
Throughout history, the roles of men and women in the home suggested that the husband would provide for his family, usually in a professional field, and be the head of his household, while the submissive wife remained at home. This wife’s only jobs included childcare, housekeeping, and placing dinner on the table in front of her family. The roles women and men played in earlier generations exemplify the way society limited men and women by placing them into gender specific molds; biology has never claimed that men were the sole survivors of American families, and that women were the only ones capable of making a pot roast. This depiction of the typical family has evolved. For example, in her observation of American families, author Judy Root Aulette noted that more families practice Egalitarian ideologies and are in favor of gender equality. “Women are more likely to participate in the workforce, while men are more likely to share in housework and childcare (apa…).” Today’s American families have broken the Ward and June Cleaver mold, and continue to become stronger and more sufficient. Single parent families currently become increasingly popular in America, with single men and women taking on the roles of both mother and father. This bend in the gender rules would have, previously, been unheard of, but in the evolution of gender in the family, it’s now socially acceptable, and very common.
This is especially so when non-working mothers are underpaid or are even unrewarded for their labour at home (Gieve, 1987) be it cooking and caring for the children and the husband or maintaining cleanliness of the home and other household chores, leading to exploitation of their labour (Abbott, Wallace & Tyler, 2005). The unpaid physical and emotional labour done by these women are also deemed less significant than work done in the public sphere. Furthermore, because of their large exclusion from the working world, with the little that they earn, a huge financial dependancy on the men (their husbands) is also developed, perpetuating the domination of the patriarchy. This oppression brings about unhappiness and emotional as well as physical pain for the women which may then lead them to desire change. Henceforth, feminists believe that women have to step out and express this unfairness against them thereby disintegrating the domination that they are subjected to.
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.
It is, therefore, natural for most companies to think that women cannot be as capable as men in terms of assuming strenuous or challenging positions because women, by default, become less participatory and more vulnerable when they start to have family and children. Apparently, this situation has led to various gender discriminations in the labor market. In conclusion, although the roles of men and women have radically changed over the turn of the century, it is still inevitable to have various gender-related occupational differences because the social and biological roles of women and men do not really change. Society still perceives women as the home makers and men as the earners, and this perception alone defines the differing roles of men and women in the labor market.
However, women have made optimistical progress towards equality and their role in the society has been changed dramatically since the last century. Many women stepped out of their home and start to work at factories and offices. The number of working women with children has more than doubled in the past 50 years. While working conditions for women may have improved, there is a lack of appreciation for the notion that work for most women doesn't end at the door of a factory or office. Despite an increase of women's participation in the labour force, women's share of housework has hardly changed in 50 years.
To thoroughly elaborate on the institution of family we most look at the family as it was before and how much it has changed over time. Throughout the years we are recognizing that the family is slowly being replaced by other agents of socialization. Families in the past consisted of a mother and a father and most times children. We are, as many societies a patriarchal society; men are usually the head of the households. This has always been considered the norm.