The Feminist Approach

The feminist approach is dedicated to bringing greater equality for women. Primarily in the choices they make about their bodies and lives.

This has had massive implications on sociology and on the way society is perceived and investigated. The reasons for this are because for many years sociology only studied men and male experience.

Most Feminists believe the Family Exploits and Oppresses Women
1. From a feminist perspective, the family helps to maintain the existing social order.
2. Feminists call the existing social order patriarchy. Patriarchy is the combination of systems, ideologies and cultural practices which make sure that men have power.
3. Feminist theory argues that the family supports and reproduces inequalities between men an women.
4. The idea is that women are oppressed because they're socialised to be dependent on men - and to put themselves in second place to men. The family has a central role in this socialisation - male and female roles and expectations are formed in the family and then carried on into wider society.
5. Feminist sociologists say that there's an ideology about men's roles and women's roles in the family.

ideology - is a set of ideas about the way things are and the way things ought to be.