For many years, sociologists had used
scientific methods to study institutions and the structure of society as a
whole. However, the middle of the 20th century saw a shift in emphasis toward
understanding the social actions of individuals—a study of reasons and meanings
rather than quantities and correlations. This came to be known to sociologists as
the interpretative approach.
From
the 1950s, the scope of this interpretive method widened slightly to include
the study of
families,
which could perhaps be seen as a social unit somewhere between the individual
and institutions. As such, it was possible to identify not only the relationships
between individuals and their families, but also the connections between
families and wider society. This area of study progressed to examine interpersonal
relationships and how they are shaped by society.
Family roles
Among the first sociologists to examine the family in this way was US scholar Talcott Parsons, who combined the interpretive approach of German social theorist Max Weber with the concept of functionalism. For Parsons, the family is one of the “building blocks” of society, and has a specific function in the working of society as a whole. Its primary function, he argued, was to provide an environment in which children can be prepared for roles they will later play in society, by instilling in them its rules and social norms. Adults too benefit from another function of the family unit—to offer a framework in which they can develop stable relationships.
Others were more critical of the conventional notions of family. Traditionally, families reflected the norms of wider society—patriarchal in their structure, with a male breadwinner and a female childcarer and houseworker. But attitudes changed rapidly after World War II. The idea of the stayat- home mother was increasingly regarded as a form of oppression, and feminist sociologists such as Ann Oakley and Christine Delphy described the alienation that these women experienced.
Gender
roles within the family and, by extension, within society as a whole, began to
be challenged, as did the idea that there is such a thing as a “typical” or
“norma family. As
a result of the decline of the traditional patriarchal family model, the conflicting
pressures of home and work now affect both partners in many couples, putting a
strain on their relationship. The nature of families, according to Judith
Stacey, is continually changing to meet the demands of the modern world and
also responding to and shaping social norms, so that, for example, singleparent
families and same-sex couples are no longer considered unusual in Western
societies.
Interpersonal relationships
The more liberal attitude toward sexual relationships and sexuality in the West was, however, slow in coming. In the 1930s and 1940s, the anthropologist Margaret Mead helped to pave the way with her study of gender roles and sexuality in various cultures around the world, showing that ideas of sexual behavior are more a social construction than a biological fact. In the West, despite increasing secularization, religious morality continued to influence the social norms of heterosexual relationships within marriage.
Attitudes toward relationships changed greatly during the 1960s. An anti-establishment youth culture helped break taboos surrounding sex, advocating hedonistic free love and a relaxed view of homosexuality. This change in culture was echoed by the academic work of French scholar Michel Foucault and others.
Foucault
believed that the new openness toward intimate relationships of all kinds was a
way of challenging the sexual norms imposed by society, and his ideas paved the
way for the sociological study of sexuality itself.
In
the 1980s, Jeffrey Weeks applied the idea of sexual norms as a social construct
to his study
of sexuality, and specifically homosexuality, while Christine Delphy described the experiences of lesbians in a predominantly heterosexual society. Perhaps the most influential sociologist in this field of study, however, is Judith Butler, who advocated challenging not only notions of sexuality, but the entire concept of gender and gender identity too, opening up a new, and radical, field of study now known as queer theory, which calls into question conventional ideas of what constitutes normal sexual behavior.
Diferences
Between The Sexes Are Cultural Creations
Margaret Mead (1901-1978)
In early 20th-century US society, a man’s role was to provide for his family, while women were relegated to the private sphere and considered responsible for childcare and housework because they were thought to be naturally more inclined to such roles. Margaret Mead, however, believed that gender is not based on biological differences between the sexes, but rather reflects the cultural conditioning of different societies.
Mead’s investigations of the intimate lives of non-Western peoples in the 1930s and 1940s crystallized her criticisms of her own society: she claimed that the ways in which US society expressed gender and sexuality restricted possibilities for both men and women. Mead claims that men and women are punished and rewarded to encourage gender conformity, and what is viewed as masculine is also seen as superior.
Mead takes a comparative approach to gender in her studies of three tribes in New Guinea. Her findings challenge conventional Western ideas about how human behavior is determined. Arapesh men and women were “gentle, responsive, and cooperative” and both undertook childcare—traits the West would see as “feminine.”
Similarly, it was the norm for Mundugumor women to behave in a “masculine” way by being as violent and aggressive as the men. And in a further reversal of traditional Western roles, women in Tchambuli society were dominant, while men were seen as dependent.
The fact that behaviors coded as masculine in one society may be regarded as feminine in another, leads Mead to argue that temperamental attitudes can no longer be regarded as sex-linked.
Her
theory that gender roles are not natural but are created by society established
gender as a critical concept; it allows us to see the historical and
cross-cultural ways in which masculinity, femininity, and sexuality are ideologically
constructed.
Change can happen
Mead’s work laid the foundations for the women’s liberation movement and informed the so-called “sexual revolution” of the 1960s onward. Her ideas posed a fundamental challenge to society’s rigid understandings of gender roles and sexuality.
Following on from Mead, feminists such as US cultural anthropologist Gayle Rubin argued that if gender, unlike sex, is a social construction, there is no reason why women should continue to be treated unequally. Viewing gender as culturally determined allows us to see, and therefore challenge, the ways in which social structures such as the law, marriage, and the media encourage stereotyped ways of conducting our intimate lives.
In
comparison to the early 20th century, gender roles for both men and women in
the 21st century have become far less restrictive, with women participating
more in the public sphere.
