The aim of this essay is to evaluate the importance of the socialisation process to gender inequalities in contemporary Western society. The Functionalist and Marxist perspectives will be used throughout to argue their views and approaches to socialisation. The consequences and inequalities of gender specific roles and cross cultural society and differences will also be explained, mostly using functionalists Talcott Parsons and Robert Bales, Karl Marx and the Marxist theory and feminist Ann Oakley. The family is often regarded as the cornerstone of society therefore the majority of this essay will be based on socialisation within the family unit.
From a functionalist perspective, society is regarded as a system that works together to promote solidarity and stability, often using an analogy of the human body to describe it, where each part will somehow effect every other part of the system. Therefore if one part of the system malfunctions, the human body would experience pain and this would be an indicator of disorder or rule breaking within society. An example of this would be someone spending their childhood years within a violent family then in adulthood going on to commit violent crimes as their environment hasn’t shaped them to carryout acceptable behaviour within society. There are various agents involved in the socialisation process such as education, employment, media, religion and family. Functionalists regard the family as the cornerstone of society, they believe this is the most influential of all the agents as people begin to learn the basics of society within the family home as soon as they are born. This is primary socialisation, where people begin to learn to communicate, share and learn manners and respect, these traits usually being a reflection of the parent’s social status as children copy their parent’s behaviours. During this time gender is developed as the parents socialise their babies to become masculine or feminine. Marxists criticise this approach as they believe the transfer of privilege, power and property is done through the family and people are socially engineered to conform to the needs of the bourgeoisie, the ruling class, and therefore deceived into accepting the views and ideologies of the capitalist society from birth. (Haralambos & Holborn.2013)
The functionalists have a very traditional approach and view institutions such as schools, the government, the workplace, and religion as positive elements of a meritocratic society. Socialisation is not confined to childhood, throughout the remainder of life the process continues as people are exposed to new social agencies such as education, religion and the workplace. This stage is known as secondary socialisation, socially accepted norms and values are learned through interaction with colleagues, peer groups, religious group’s as people continue to learn from others. (Haralambos & Holborn.2013) Education is regarded the main agent in secondary socialisation, functionalist views tend to focus on the positive contributions that education has on the maintenance of a stable social system whereas the Marxists would argue that educational institutions tend to transmit a dominant culture which serves the interests of the ruling class rather than society as a whole. (Marked by Teachers)
Family is seen as one of the most influential agents in socialisation. Anthropologist, George Murdock (1949) carried out a study involving 250 families. From his analysis, he alleges that the family performs four basic functions for its individual members and society at large. He referred to these as the ‘sexual', ‘reproductive', ‘economic' and ‘educational' functions. Talcott Parsons (1959) also wrote about the functions of the family. He identified two functions that he perceived as being ‘basic and irreducible'. These functions are, the primary socialisation of children and the stabilisation of adult personalities of the population of the society. (Haralambos & Holborn.2000.p509). The traditional functionalist’s idealistic family would have been made up of a husband and his wife and their biological children – the nuclear family, although in recent years the contemporary functionalists have begun to acknowledge the changes in the family structure such as the single parent family, the extended family, the childless family, the step-family and the grandparent family. These are now accepted providing their contribution to the capitalist society is the positive. According to (Daily Mail) Children in Britain are less likely to grow up living with both parents than in almost any other country in the Western world. Just two thirds are still living in the same household as their biological parents by the age of fourteen according to research by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development. National Vital Statistics highlights the gradual increase in the divorce rate since 1920 in the USA, while the marriage rate has decreased. This evidence indicates that divorce and co-habiting has become increasingly more accepted in society compared to only a hundred years ago when some cultures treated it as a sin, the introduction of women’s rights and equal pay, although still debatable, in 1970 allows women to go out to work, therefore can support their families alone rather than being dependant on their husbands and the availability of legal aid could also be a contributor to the increased divorce rates as people can now afford the costly divorce proceedings and to live independently.
As television plays a big part of family life and contributes to social values, Marxist would point out that this is an example of the capitalist society constructing the ideology of gender roles in preparation for their adult life. Ideological gender roles are imposed on children from birth or even before. Marxist Feminists believe parents decorate the nursery and buy clothing based on the stereotype of blue for a boy and pink for a girl. As the children grow older and being to play with toys, they are being shaped to fit their socially accepted gender roles. Toys targeted at boys are associated with having an instrumental role and being strong, tough and powerful such as cars, a work-bench and tools, sports equipment and fireman/policeman role play costumes. Girls on the other hand are being influenced to adopt the more expressive roles. Play kitchens, ironing boards, dolls and fictional dress up outfits such as mermaids or princesses would be bought for girls. MP Jo Swanson identifies the gender inequalities on children’s television
“It’s a pretty unequal state of affairs, a lot of children spend many hours
watching children’s TV and take many messages from it subconsciously
about the way the world works.” (Daily Mail.2011)
This quote suggests that television is sexist and lacking in strong female role models therefore children are influenced by what they see on television and aspire to mimic the roles of their favourite characters. Parsons and Bales (1995) see gender roles as a positive, they believed that for society to function most effectively the family required adults who specialised in particular gender roles. They viewed traditional gender roles as arising out of the need to establish a division of labour between marital partners. Marxists would criticise Parsons and Bales as traditional Marxist, Karl Marx (1818-1838) believed society was based on two parts- the base and the superstructure, therefore people fall into one of two categories- the bourgeoisie or the proletariat, This suggests that he would believe that within the household the man was the bourgeoisie and the woman the proletariat. The powerful, strong man dictating to his wife as an employer would within the workplace by instructing his employees and in turn expecting them both to respect and obey orders without question as people do in capitalist society. According to feminist Helen Hacker (1974), Parsons and Bales never explicitly presented the expressive and instrumental roles as being unequal value to society, yet their inequality is quite evident as expressive roles are more highly rewarded, whether in terms of money or prestige, consequently any division of labour by gender into instrumental and expressive tasks is far from neutral on its impact on society. (Sociology.2012.pg271). In contemporary society it would not be preposterous for the father to stay at home to take care of the children as it would have been a century ago. That said for every stay at home dad there are thirty-eight stay at home mums (Sociology.2012).
Talcott Parsons metaphorically relates the family to a warm bath, “the warm bath theory”, in that the family can be used as a relief from all the tension and stress the father may have encountered whilst at work. Marxists challenge this theory as it isn’t taking into the account the domestic abuse the family can endure as the stress ‘relief’ of the father. On average two women a week are killed by a violent partner or ex-partner in the United Kingdom (Department of Health.2005). These statistics provide evidence for the Marxist argument as it seems to suggest the functionalists are only basing their theories on the idealistic ‘nuclear family’. Only recently in 1991, was marital rape an illegal act. Until this time the woman had no legal rights if he was raped by her husband. This demonstrates the hegemonic hierarchy of the family, with the husband at the head of the household, the powerful, dominating figure showing his authority to the subordinate woman. (Haralambos&Holborn.2013)
Customs and gender inequalities vary among countries, regions and even families. In a blog written for Pakistan’s Tribune newspaper, Ahmad Malik said that the ‘stigma’ attached to the birth of a female child is undeniable within the Hindu faith.
“No matter which class you belong to, every family (both father and mother)
Wants their child to be a son. Men go as far as marrying multiple wives just
Because they believe a particular woman is ‘meant’ only to bear girls.” (womensnews.2015)
Feminists would be appalled at this as the Hindu environment shapes people to oppress women. A report in WomensNews (2015) estimated that in neighbouring India, up to five million sex-selective abortions are performed annually. In Indian families where the first child has been a girl, more and more parents with access to prenatal ultrasound testing are aborting a second female in hope that the subsequent pregnancy will yield a boy according to a study published in The Lancet. (Telegraph.2011) This article provides a shocking revelation into gender inequalities within a different culture. Hinduism is clearly a predominantly male dominated religion with women playing the secondary role. Hindu men had the freedom to marry more than one wife or even keep mistresses, in Christian society this would not be socially accepted at all and would result in divorce on the grounds of adultery. Ann Oakley (1944), a feminist, would make the point of the Hindu family being patriarchal as it is clearly dominated by men and it exploits and oppresses women. She would insist they are oppressed because they are socialised from birth to become dependent on men and remain in second place throughout their life. That said, within the Hindu religion they worship a number of goddesses which implies that there is an element of respect and honour to some degree for the female gender. (Sociology.2012) Marxist feminist would approve of the Christian woman having her own career, paying towards the household bills, living in a dual income family which would never be considered within the Hindu faith.
In conclusion the environment people are exposed to in life, from birth, is imperative to the shaping of personalities. Although the functionalist theory has evolved to be a little more flexible in its expectations of the family there are still a number of families that would feel isolated or unaccepted within society such as same sex and multi-racial families. Parsons theory was based mostly on middles class families and doesn’t explore the structure of the working class whereas Marx focusses only on class so are not comparative. Marxist feminists have evidence that points towards people being exposed to the ideology of the gender roles within capitalist society from birth through television to religion, Marxists would say that earlier evidence indicates society will never change as the functionalists believe gender roles within the family are essential so gender influences will continue to be forced upon society so people conform to this ideology. The high divorce rates and considerable levels of domestic violence suggests that family relationships are often far less harmonious than is implied by the functionalist theory. The study on childcare implies that the gender gap is closing but at such a slow rate it is clear that gender inequalities in society are still apparent. All this evidence shows that society has moved forward over the years but still has a substantial way to go for the number of different families to be accepted within contemporary society and that some cultural societies are still socialising their families in a way people in Britain did over a century ago.