The authors note marriage is a "greedy institution" demanding "undivided commitment"; marriage is an exclusive relationship that can harm other relationships.
While modern marriage might provide companionship in the form of a spouse, it deters companionship with relatives.
Additionally, marriages take time and energy; he married need less help from family and friends; marriage can demand an intense emotional involvement that by itself detracts from collective life; the married are less likely to call a sibling, parent, or friend; and marriage today carries cultural expectations of self-sufficiency: couples should be able to make it on their own.
- Social Science
- Sociology
- Sociology of the Family
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Terms in this set (101)
My definition of a family is a group of people, two or more, that are related in some way; meaning related either by blood and/or an emotional tie. I do not believe that a family has to be blood related to be a family. I have lots of friends that are like brothers and sisters to me, and my parents consider them part of our family. I agree with the statement in the video, "2010's American Family Defined," shown on ABC News where the news cast explains that if you consider yourself and your group a family, then you are a family. Out of the choices you have given us to use to describe my family I would have to choose two option. Those are traditional breadwinner/homemaker and co-habitating with children; because when I was younger my mom quit her job to take care of my brother and I, which made my dad the traditional breadwinner and my mom the traditional homemaker. Then as my brother and I started going to school, my mom went back to work and now she makes just as much as my dad, if not more at times. With both of my parents working now, they both change parenting roles to help each other help with their busy schedules. I think that is how a lot of families are now, parents that are ever changing roles, because we live in an ever changing society and culture. Which is one of the reasons of why it is so challenging to find a clear and concise definition for family. There is an infinite amount of families, just like how there is not a precise number of genders; because it is all based on your perception and emotions that you create your own definition of a family. From the video I stated earlier and the article "The Remaking of The American Family" by NPR they both talk about how most people believe you need to have kids to be considered a family. For example, a married couple living together without kids do not consider themselves as a family but add kids to the picture and they do and that is the same with same sex couples; they do not consider themselves a family till they have kids.
Received 18/20
The difference between sex and gender is that your sex is something you are born with, male or female. Gender is something you identify with, there are an infinite number of genders and you can be any of them. In the film "Two-Spirits" they talked about how gender roles were changing, and the lady said it has nothing to do with biology, it is how you
function in society and that is a great way to describe the differences between sex and gender. Your sex has to do with your biology and your gender has to do with how you function in society, how you want to live your life. The concepts of homosexual and heterosexual in the Western sense not very useful in understanding Two-Spirits, because people's sexual orientation was a huge deal or there was only a few people that were gay.
The concepts of doing gender and undoing gender are kind of
like terms used to explain how one acts or does not act a certain way. For example, when I was little, I did not want to be girly, I hated the color pink. I did anything I could to be not considered weak, or emotional, like how most girls are perceived. Therefore, I wore a lot of blues, I played with my brother's GIOs and did a lot of stupid stuff like girls were not supposed to. But as I got older, I started to conform to gender roles and now I wear a full face of make-up to work and wear
dresses almost every day. In the video "Your Behavior Creates your Gender" by Judith Butler she discussed that we are not born with a gender, gender is something that makes you, you. It is something you identify with, but with identifying with a gender comes rules and regulations. Which was discussed in the trailer for "The Mask We Live in" where the saying "be a man" is constricting for boys and puts them in a role where they have to act a certain way or they will have to pay the consequences
for not conforming.
Well if you want to look at family TV shows, there is very few shows that have gay parents or single parents and the ones that are out there are very recent. In most movies and TV shows they are pretty much all the same in a sense that the father is the breadwinner and the mother takes care of the house and kids. For example, Cheaper by the Dozen and Gossip Girl; where they fathers are out working all day and the mothers might work but come home everyday and take care of
their family. This is problematic because a family does not always have to have set roles and jobs, it could be anything; like you could have two dads or the mother is the breadwinner and the father is a stay at home dad.
Received 16/20
In the 1900s did not have a sexuality or sexual identity, they were just used for sex by men. Women did not really have a say in their sex life, nor their husbands sex life; their husbands could sleep with anyone they wanted (History of Sex: Ancient Civilizations). When the sexual revolution came around it changed everything, but mainly changed women's sex life. This was the time that women could be more open about their sex life and waiting till marriage became boring. This sexual revolution did not just change sex, it started a new trend in masturbation and the use of vibrators. Vibrators have been around for a while and they were originally created because men did not have the skills, nor took the time to try to learn the skills to pleasure a woman, so they created vibrators to help shorten the process (Vibrator Revolution). But now vibrators are used more by women for themselves instead of men using them on women.
The differences between sexual acts and sexual identity is that people can engage in sexual acts with someone of the same sex but has nothing to do with their sexual identity. I do not completely understand that and how that does not affect your sexual indemnity, and this is what is problematic about construct of sexual identity. Your sexual identity can be anything you want, just like gender; which is why it makes it so hard to understand it and then the ones that are not open about talking about sex and sexual identity are the ones that are judging other based on their sexual identity.
Cherlin bases his assertion on the fact that men that have reported having 0 sex partners is just slightly lower than what women have reported, and this shows that men are not sex craved animals like they say they are. From other courses where I have learned about the hookup culture among college students is that most men do lie about how many girls they have been with just to make themselves "cooler" to their friends, because men were taught that sexualizing women makes them men. Another thing that Cherlin does not take into consideration is that women could have lied about how many people they have slept with (Cherlin 168-169).
Received /20