Grade 'A+' 20 mark essay on structural approaches to families and households. Includes evidence and evaluation of functionalists, feminists and Marxists views, whilst following a clear structure with introduction and conclusion.
Applying material from Item A and your own knowledge, evaluate the usefulness of structural
approaches to our understanding of families and households. (20 marks)
In sociology, there are a number of different approaches that have different views on the family and
who it benefits. There are three structural approaches - Marxists, Feminists and Functionalists. Although
these all agree that the family means the conventional nuclear family they argue over the functions that
the nuclear family perform.
As stated in item A, Functionalists are a structural approach which sees the family as performing specific
functions which benefits the economy and the individual members of the family. One function which the
functionalists see as proving this, is that the family acts as a relaxing place for adults to release stress.
This is done by the family being a completely separate place from the workplace so can act as a place for
workers to relieve the tensions which have been built up across the day at work. This benefits the
individual members of the family as it gives them the chance to rewind and refresh each day. It also
benefits the economy as by the workers being refreshed they are more efficient at work and therefore
produce more work and at a higher quality. For example, if a worker is stressed they will produce less
products and the economy will have less products to sell and therefore make less money. This is an
example of how the family is not just beneficial to the economy but how it also benefits each member.
However, Feminists would disagree with functionalists that the family benefits each individual member
of the family. They would argue that the functionalists ignore the realities of family life such as domestic
violence against women by viewing the family as a place which is always peaceful and happy. Feminists
argue that men relieve the stress from their work by taking their anger out on their wives by abusing
them. Almost 25% of women have experienced domestic violence at some point which shows that the
family isn't the safe space for all its individual members that functionalists paint it as. This is the reason
that Ansley describes women as 'takers of shit' as they act as a sponge for all the anger that their
husbands feel from work so whilst this might benefit men as it allows them to destress, this clearly is not
a function which benefits women in the family but instead causes further inequalities. The functionalists
view that family benefits the individual members of the family is not very useful in our understanding of
families, as there is substantial evidence from other approaches which contradicts this idea and suggests
the family isn't a good thing for everyone like this theory suggests.
As also stated in item A, another structural approach which helps our understanding of families and
households is the Marxists approach. Marxists believe that the family is a subsystem which serves
capitalism and the economy. One way in which the family does this is by acting as an ideological state
apparatus. This is because the family passes the beliefs onto their children that the qualities that are
required from a submissive worker are ideal and rewarded. For example, parents reward children for
being obedient and following instructions and rules without question. These are the qualities which
capitalist employees need in their workers so that they can continue to exploit them. The family
socislises the next generation into these behaviours and the belief that these are the correct behaviours
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