Feminist Perspective

FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE 1
FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE
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Class (Course)
Professor (Tutor)
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City and State
The Date

Feminist Perspective 2
Introduction
The feminist perspective theory was developed by sociological scholars’ in order to understand
gender inequality and why it existed in society. The feminist saw the family as having a negative
impact on the lives of women in society, unlike the functionalist perspective that takes the
positive views of the family (Hines, 2015).
In the nineteenth century before the Second World War, women role was in the family. Women
were not given opportunity in the industrial market; neither were they allowed to own any
property. Though after the Second World War there have been tremendous changes in the family
systems. This was due to the feminist perspective argument. Women are now allowed to own
property and even compete with men in the industrial market. There is also a rise in single-parent
families, high divorce rates, and late marriages.
The key feminist perspectives on the family
The feminists argued that roles were leaned and not biologically determined. The most important
institution in which roles and behavior were learnt was the family. The feminist criticized the
traditional family roles which oppressed women. Boys grew knowing they are superior and girls
were socialized to accept roles within the family. Essentially accepting housework roles was
indeed feminine. This, in turn, created a patriarchal society (Littlewood, 2016).
The different feminist approaches
Feminism today is split into different branches which include; liberal feminist, radical feminist,
Marxist feminist, black feminist among others.
Marxist feminism

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They argued that the main cause of gender oppression on women was not men but rather the
capitalist society. Marxists such as Engels and Zeretsky acknowledge that women are exploited
in family life. They focused on capitalism and the family. The Marxist sees women as the key
feature of exploitation in family life (Pollock, 2015). Women perform a huge amount of unpaid
labor within the family, and this is exploitation and has a high profit to those who own means of
production. If women were to be paid it would lead to a great amount of wealth distribution. The
women unpaid labor benefits the capitalist in that, they only pay one member of the family and
the woman roles like childcare, taking care of the husband to keep him going to work daily,
reproduction and even emotional services are done for free.
Husbands are afraid to withdraw from their labor power even though they are exploited; hence
this reduces their bargaining power putting up with low wages, rather than striking for higher
wages and be sacked. So the family not only produces cheap labor for the capitalist but also it
teaches its generation workers to be passive rather than rebellious. Therefore children learn to
submit to the authority.
The Marxist severely critiques the family is the source of women oppression. Women working in
the family provide unpaid labor and depend on their husbands like their children. Women who
are working outside the home are also expected to provide labor for domestic work. This makes
them work twice.
However, this theory is less applicable today as women have made progress in the family today
since they can also work in the capitalist market and also house chores are performed by both
women and men. Also in the job market workers are allowed to strike today if they feel

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exploited. Also in the jobs today, women are given leaves before and after birth as well as fathers
in order to provide equal chances of providing affordable child care.
Radical feminists
The radical feminists also argue that relationships between men and women are patriarchal. Men
are the cause of women’s exploitation. The family is the core root of women oppression, and
therefore it needs to be changed (King, 2015). They argue against the liberal feminist that paid
liberated work women, but it’s false, and instead, it is more burdensome as women have to work
in the household as well as in the industrial market, Paid work and unpaid household work, and
men benefit on both. Women suffer on taking triple shifts, household work paid work and taking
care of the children. They also argue that many women are on the dark side of family life. There
is domestic violence in which women are the one who experiences it more than men. The
radicalisms advocate for the abolition of patriarchy and instead establishment of an alternative
family structure. The family institution is the core of the patriarchy system. It acts as a unit of
governance in the society which rules through the family heads (Griffin, 2015). In the traditional
families, the father was granted ownership over wife or wives even to punish her, even
ownership of property was only through the male line.
In society today, there have been modifications as women can own property and rights have been
granted like divorce protection and citizenship.
The relevance of feminist perspective approaches
These approaches have made a significant improvement on women status in the society even
though each of them has got its limitations. Ideas were set to discuss on why women and men