socializing girls to accept subservient roles within the family, whilst socializing boys to believe they were superior this happens through children witnessing then recreating the parental relationship.

Unit Six Introduction This week we will explore both Feminist theory and Bio-Social theory. Feminist Theory (FT) A common assumption behind many theories is that power is unevenly distributed in society and that some peopleoften women, minorities, the very young or the very old, families with limited resourcesare oppressed or silenced. A second common assumption is that social structures support and maintain those inequalities, need to live within the existing structures while trying to change them. These theories suggest that helping people to become aware of inequalities and identifying ways in which they can exercise power will reduce the oppression. Feminist theory (FT) is one of these particular theories. It is closely related to conflict theory. FT has examined how emphasis on the nuclear family affects societys expectations of women. Feminist writers have studied the nuclear familys effect on women in groundbreaking books such as The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir and The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Almost all feminists agree that gender is socially constructed. This means that gender roles are learned rather than determined by biology, and the most significant institution where we are socialized into our appropriate roles and norms of behavior is the family. Feminists have been central in criticizing gender roles associated with the traditional nuclear family, especially since the 1950s. They have argued the nuclear family has traditionally performed two key functions which oppressed women: 1. socializing girls to accept subservient roles within the family, whilst socializing boys to believe they were superior this happens through children witnessing then recreating the parental relationship. 2. socializing women into accepting the housewife role as the only possible/acceptable role for a women. Indeed it was the only way to be feminine/to be a woman. Essentially, feminists viewed the function of the family as a breeding ground where patriarchal values were learned by an individual, which in turn created a patriarchal society. Feminism today tends to be split into three distinct branches: Liberal Feminists, Marxist Feminists and Radical Feminists. They differ significantly over the extent to which they believe that the family is still patriarchal and in what the underlying causes of the existence of patriarchy might be. Bio-Social Theory (BST) At its most basic level, Bio-Social Theory (BST) refers to an approach which looks into the possibility that a mental illness or personality disorder might significantly be socially- and biologically-determined. In theory, there are biological predispositions in the person which are also determined by social factors in the environment. Recently, there has been a growing acceptance of the importance of biological factors in the study of family and social influences, as many researchers are now studying how biological and social factors act and interact. This greater acceptance of a biosocial perspective on family functioning is illustrated by the enormous number of biologically informed studies of social factors in the past decade. According to BST, any trait, characteristic, or behavior of any living thing is always the result of biological factors interacting with environmental factors. This theory offers an interesting way in which to view family dynamics and family behavior. Divorce, family conflict, child-rearing practices, love, sexuality and other family factors may all be the result of a complex interaction of genetics and environmental influences.