Family is a social institution that genders and organizes its members according to gendered lines established by social forces. Gender roles and socialization largely take place within families through parental modeling and parent-child interaction, where children learn that women and men have different roles. While the nuclear family ideal portrays distinct gender roles, many modern families diverge from this structure. The institution of family intersects with and is influenced by external institutions like the workplace, religion, government policies and social norms around gender.

1. FAMILY
CHAPTER 7
ASHLEY DELONG

2. • Most people experience family
at a deeply personal level
• Many people’s most intense
interpersonal exchanges occur
within a family setting
• Family is a social institution that
genders its members
• Organized by gendered lines by
other social forces
• Gender study in communication
can not be done without
studying the communication
within a family

3. GENDER ROLES
REFERS TO FEMININE AND MASCULINE SOCIAL EXPECTATIONS
IN A FAMILY BASED ON A PERSONS SEX

4. GENDER ROLE SOCIALIZATION LARGELY TAKES PLACE
WITHIN FAMILIES, MAINLY VIA PARENTAL MODELING AND
PARENT-CHILD INTERACTION

5. “FAMILY IS USUALLY THE FIRST SOURCE OF INFORMATION
ABOUT GENDER AND ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL. IT IS THE
PRIMARY PLACE WHERE MANY PEOPLE ARE TAUGHT THAT
WOMEN AND MEN ARE ESSENTIALLY DIFFERENT AND HENCE
SHOULD HAVE DIFFERENT AND/OR UNEQUAL ROLES.”

6. “Men tend to gather in front of “Women tend to work in the
TV at family gatherings” kitchen”
WHEN MOTHERS & FATHERS HAVE GENDER/SEX DIVISIONS
OF LABOR AT HOME, THEY TEND TO PASS ON THOSE SAME
DIVISIONS TO THEIR CHILDREN

7. WHAT IS AN
INSTITUTION? • Established patterns of behavior
with a particular and recognized
purpose, institutions include
specific participants who share
expectations and act in specific
roles, with rights and duties
attached to them.

8. EXTERNAL CHARACTERISTICS OF AN INSTITUTION
1. Institutions are complex and intersecting: No institution
operates in isolation from others.
2. All institutions influence and are influenced by the institution
of gender. “Gender is present in the processes, practices,
images, & ideologies, & distribution of power in various
sectors of social life.”
3. Institutions are often intertwined with the state/government.
Government can order particular practices in law and
enforce those practices.

9. FAMILY AS SOCIAL INSTITUTION
• In Western societies, we tend to
think of a family as consisting of
a one mother(f), one father(m),
and biological children living
under one roof:
Nuclear Family

10. FAMILY AS SOCIAL INSTITUTION
• The Textbook family(nuclear) reveals how family as an
institution is influenced by social interactions and the idea of
what is considered appropriate behavior within society.
• Being part of a family is central part of a persons identity.
• The nuclear family ideal, organizes people within a family and
systemizes families In relation to one another: Better or Worse.
• Although it is assumed that the nuclear family is ideal it is in
fact not the most common family dynamic.

11. “THE NUCLEAR FAMILY, THE ELUSIVE
TRADITIONAL FAMILY”
• 38% of marriages end in divorce
• 75% of divorced persons remarry with a 60% chance of
divorce
• 30% of homes are headed by a single adult
• 30% of children will at some point live in a blended
family.
• Historians can not point to a specific time when the
“nuclear family” was ever predominant.

13. FAMILY IDEALS OF THE 17 & 1800’S
• Stereotypical notions of • Although many families could
masculinity and femininity as well not live on one mans salary alone
as the concept of nuclear family , domesticity became a norm for
came about in the 1800’s during judging a women's worth.
the Industrial Revolution. • Middle and upper class white
• Prior to the 1700’s families work women depicted “true
was shared across the sexes. womanhood”, pure, pious,
• Through the progression of the domestic, and submissive.
industrial revolution brought • Poor white & black women could
about the concept of manliness, not attain the ideal “true
based on a mans ability to womanhood” because of class
support his family on his income and race.
alone. • Regardless of this, the ideal still
held power over them and
society deemed them bad
women.

14. FAMILY IDEALS OF
THE 1950’S
The nuclear
family and its
strict gender
roles became
institutionalized
in the 1950’s

15. ECONOMIC GROWTH AND POPULAR MEDIA
REPRESENTATIONS ENABLED AND
NORMALIZED THE MALE WAGE EARNER.

16. IN EACH SHOW, THE FAMILY WAS A WHITE, MIDDLE CLASS, HETEROSEXUAL,
MARRIED, MIDDLE-AGED COUPLE WITH CHILDREN, LIVING IN A SUBURBAN
ENVIRONMENT. THE FATHER WAS THE SOLE WAGE EARNER AND THE MOTHER DID
NOT WORK OUTSIDE OF THE HOME, SHE WAS THE NURTURER WITH MILK AND
COOKIES FOR THE CHILDREN AND DINNER AND DRINKS READY FOR WHEN THE
HUSBAND RETURNED HOME. FROM WORK.

17. Advertisements in form of commercials and print promoted
domestic technology to make women’s house work easier.
In actuality, the marketing messages increased women’s workload
because they raised standards of cleanliness.

18. INTERLOCKING INSTITUTIONS
Families can only be understood in
What Walker means by this is that the
relation to the broader social context or
what is considered to be in the public way a family works or functions is
domain because the “broader social directly related to the social systems of
systems and structures impinge on the outside world.
everyday family life, reproducing inside
families in the divisions that exist outside
of them.” -Alexis Walker

19. “IF GENDER/SEX DIVISIONS APPEAR IN THE
WORKPLACE, THEY LIKELY WILL APPEAR IN FAMILIES
AND VICE VERSA.”
• Myth: The nuclear family is self sufficient
• Reality: Extended family, work, religion, schools,
social services, media, and law influence it.

20. • Politics and law Establish and • The institution of work and
authenticate the ideal family family intersect through the
through repeated use of the reoccurring issue of domestic
slogan family values. labor. Discussion of gender/sex
in family communication
• In the 1990’s this slogan produces household services
referred to the heterosexual as well as gender.
married couple with children
living in one home guided by • Imbalanced housework
Christian values. distribution between men and
women is one of the clearest
• The US congress people use the indicators of inequitable
idea of the “nuclear family” in gender roles.
debates over welfare. Putting
negative value towards families
who do not fit the model.

21. Psychologist Francine Deutsch’s
study shows 5 communication
strategies men use to resists
sharing household duties.
Surveys shows
that in
heterosexual 1. Passive resistance
relationships
wives still spend 2. Pretending to be incompetent
between 5 and
13.5 hours more
3. Praising spouse for her skills
a week doing
housework than
husbands 4. Applying lower standards when
doing work, whereby person who
cares more about standards takes
over the task at hand.
5. Denial by exaggerating their own
contributions.

22. COMPULSORY HETEROSEXUALITY
THE ASSUMPTION THAT ONLY ONE LEGITIMATE WAY OF LOVING
AND ONE LEGITIMATE FORM OF FAMILY IS POSSIBLE.

23. FAMILY CONSTRUCTS/CONSTRAINS GENDER
Research focus on nuclear family Social Learning & Modeling
• Researchers are not exempt • Children’s gender identities
from the influences of the ideal come from their parental
nuclear family. model
• The functionalist view of family • Social learning is often
argued social order was unconscious, yet children
dependent upon a “natural observe and internalize certain
sexual division of labor” in the behaviors.
family. • Children will most likely model
• Research predominantly behaviors of those they admire,
focused on White, U.S., middle they are observe and are often
class, heterosexual couples. rewarded for the following
behavior.

24. SOCIAL LEARNING & MODELING
• Research shows that heterosexual couples’ perception of what is fair
tend to be sex biased.
• Even if parents tell their children that work should be shared equally,
when women do more domestic labor than men, children tend to learn
what the observe rather than what they are told.
• Research has examined whether having a gay or lesbian parent
negatively affects children's gender identity development and there is no
evidence that gay/lesbian parents differ systematically from children of
heterosexual parents.
• There is no evidence that children of gay or lesbian parents are confused
or uncertain about their gender identity.
• Less research exists, however it shows that the majority of children from
gay/lesbian parents grow up to identify as heterosexuals.

25. GENDER/SEX INTERACTION: PARENTS INFLUENCE
• Gender/sex identities are
learned by watching and
interacting with parents.
• Most white, middle class
parents habitually interact with
children based on their sex.
• These parents tend to reward
behaviors that are gender/ sex
appropriate and discourage
those that are not

26. MOTHERS AND
FATHERS HAVE
ROUTINELY REWARD
DAUGHTERS FOR
INTERPERSONAL
SKILLS AND
POLITENESS, AND TO
REWARD SONS FOR
PHYSICAL OR VERBAL
AGGRESSION

27. GENDER/SEX INTERACTION:
CHILDREN’S INFLUENCE
• Children do play an active role in constructing their gender.
• One study showed adolescent and teen children may actively select
gendered interactions with their parents. The study found that the
sons studied were more likely to be withdrawn in conversations with
their mothers than daughters with their mothers.
• The gender schema theory says that children acquire a gender
identity between 2 and 3. From this point on they use that gender
identity to choose stimuli that seems consistent with the chosen
identity.
• Very little research has been done on how siblings influence one
another's gender identity.

28. “The socially approved
economic and sexual
ADULT FRIENDS
AND LOVERS union represented by
romance and marriage
between heterosexual
couples are the
cornerstones of the
traditional nuclear
family”

29. ADULT FRIENDS AND LOVERS
• Regardless of race, class, or • The ideological power of
sexual orientation, people are heterosexual romance can
socialized to want marriage. devalue other relationships such
as friendship.
• Children grow up playing bride
and groom. • Friendships, unlike marriages,
receive no legal, political,
• The media and wedding industry religious, or other institutional
encourages people to spend support.
more than $40 billion a year on
weddings. • Cross-sex friendships are often
seen as a threat to dating and
• Marriage remains a primary way marriage relationships.
in which women can raise their
socioeconomic status. • Same sex platonic friendship is
seen as more socially
acceptable

30. DATING RELATIONSHIPS
• Heterosexual dating • Women are expected to
relationships are the spend a great deal of
most studied non-marital time and energy to
relationship, indicating make themselves
the privilege attached to sexually attractive to
it. men.
• Expectations are what • One study conducted
primarily affect the by Holland and
ideology of intimacy. Eisenhart, showed that
women felt they could
not gain prestige from
• The most desired life success alone,
romance, as depicted in instead they developed
the movies, is between a self esteem through
masculine man and romantic relations with
feminine women usually men.
of the same race and
ethnic group

31. DATING RELATIONSHIPS
“Perhaps no other aspect of dating escalation reflects
gender scripts as fully as first sexual involvement,
particularly sexual intercourse.” S. Metts (2006)
• Heterosexual Dating Norms:
Primarily men initiate dates and physical intimacy.
Women take primary responsibility for maintaining the relationship.
• Heterosexual men who show sensitivity, which is considered feminine
are thought of unusual.

32. MARITAL COMMUNICATION
• Marital communication is the most studied interpersonal
relationship.
• Distinctive sex differences endorse the presumption that
domestic labor and relationship work is women’s work, and
claims that men are not good listeners and cannot do or
value talk as much as women.
• Demand/withdrawl pattern: partner who wants the most
change demands and the one who resists change
withdraws.
The suggestion that men and women are not even from the
same planet offers unhealthy communication advice and
reinforces gender stereotypes.

33. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
“Family and other institutions sustain
systematic forms of gender and sex inequality
and violence, making the family one of the
United States’ most violent social institutions
and women and children the most common
victims.”

34. • Every day 4 children in the US dies as a result of
abuse and neglect in a family.
• 4 women are murdered every day in the US by their
husbands/boyfriends.
• Women are 10 times more likely to be victims of
domestic violence then men.
• 4 million children a year in the US are abused or
neglected by parents.
• 1 in 4 women reports having been raped or
physically assaulted by an intimate partner this is
true of the US and globally.

35. “A VARIETY OF FAMILY FORMS CAN PROVIDE A SAFE HAVEN
WHERE THE MEMBERS FEEL LOVED, A CCEPTED, A ND A RE
ABLE TO GROW TO THEIR FULLEST POTENTIAL .”
Emancipatory Families

36. EMANCIPATORY FAMILIES
• Kyle Kostelecky believes we • Engaged fatherhood not only
spend more time as parents benefits children and mothers,
trying to create clear gender but studies have found a
roles which are actually positive relationship between
destructive, than trying to involved parenting and a
create more flexible gender father’s psychological well-
roles that are liberatory and being, confidence, and self-
responsive to each persons esteem.
individuality. • Parenting and family are
• Gender tolerance needs to be defined by more than the
taught particular people involved in a
• An example of a flexible specific family. Social and
gender role in a family is cultural expectations inform
engaged fatherhood. the way each does family and
parenthood.

37. CONCLUSION
The common theme of this chapter seems to be expectations. A lot of how
we parent and interact comes from various interlocking institutions. These
institutions are formed by social systems and what we consider to be the
norms. A lot of peoples interactions and parenting skills comes from what is
expected of them, what is the norm for doing so. As humans we learn
through social learning a modeling. We model after one another learning
what is normal and expected within our social system.