GENDER AND FAMILY

Objectives
At the end of this lesson, you are expected to:

❖ identify prevailing gender based inequality in the family and be able to respond proactively;

❖ help the promotion of mutual respect and cooperation in the family; and

❖ appreciate of one’s role in forging gender equal family and that of the community.
What one life lesson have you
gained from your parents?
“The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is
entitled to protection by society and the state”
– Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 16
 The family is the main unit in which children are socialized.
Without sufficient socialization of their youth, no community is
possible. The family is the major unit in which socialization occurs
in most societies.

Parents, siblings, and if the family is extended rather than

nuclear, other relatives all help to socialize children from the
moment they are born.

Source:
www.socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Sociology/Book%3A_Sociology_(Barkan)/11%3A_The_Family
 Gender in the Family
➢ Early research highlighted gender as independent variable, which is, as a way
to explain differences between women and men in marital satisfaction, power
in decision making, and so forth.
➢ Gender was viewed as an unchangeable and inflexible given.
➢ It was assumed that family life was inherently different for men and women.
➢ Women and men were seen as engage in certain behaviors and occupying,
specific roles because they were female and male.

Source: Osmond & Thorne (1993) ; Thompson (1993)

Nature and Notion of Family
❖ Family is the most important universal institution.
❖ It is the core of the social structure and fundamental unit of the society
because it is from which all other pertinent institutions to make society works.
❖ It consists of father, mother, and children.
❖ The various needs can only be fulfilled in a family.
There are some needs to form a family, they are:
1. Reproductive urge
2. Biological needs
3. Economic Provision
Characteristics of Family
1. Sex relationship should be healthy- present between husband and wife.
2. It provides care to children like economic needs.
3. A system of Nomenclature.
4. A single household for a well organized family.
5. More or less durable association of husband and wife with or without child or of a man or
woman alone with children.
Nature of Family
1. Universality
--- family is found in each stage of society and everywhere.
2. Emotional basis
--- There should be an emotional relationship.
3. Formative influence
--- If you are member of one family you inherit your parent’s characteristics.
4. Limited in size
--- family is limited in size in comparison to other groups.
Nature of Family
5. Nuclear position in the society
--- the primary “cell” in the society
6. Sense of responsibility
--- it is the fundamental responsibility of the parents to look after the children and the
family
7. Social control
--- it is the mechanism of control
8. Permanent and temporary in nature
--- As an institution, it is permanent because it is found everywhere and at every stage of
history. As association, it is temporary because children makes there own family and
separates from the original. It disintegrates in case of divorce (annulment) or death of a
parent.
Theoretical Perspective in Gendered
Family
❖ Functionalist
❖ believes that the traditional family as a natural unit exists to maintain social order and is mutually
beneficial to all.

❖ Marxist Feminist
❖ the nuclear family is believed to benefit the powerful (ruling class) at the expense of the working class
while women’s domestic labor enables the future workforce to be reared at little cost to the patriarchal
capitalist state.

❖ Feminist
❖ believe that men and women are socialized into gender specific roles that exist to confirm and uphold
male power and superiority in the family.
Gender Roles in the Family
❖ It is a set of norms that compel family members the type of
behaviors which are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or
desirable for people based on their actual or perceived sex or
sexuality.

❖ It usually centered on conceptions of femininity or masculinity.

Gender stereotypes in the Family

Gender Stereotype
◦ refers to the practice of ascribing to an individual woman or
man specific attributes, characteristics, or roles by reason only
of her or his membership in the social group of women or
men.
Gender stereotypes in the Family
◦ Parents and their children are immersed in social and cultural
environment that produces and perpetuates gender stereotypes which
may eventually introduce in the family such as the choice of clothing,
toys to play with, and television shows while friends and extended
family members as well will all communicate messages, explicitly and
implicitly, about what is considered “appropriate” for mother, father,
dauther/s, son/s in their family.
Gender Inequality in the Family
◦ Gender inequality in the family appears as a particularly stubborn problem and must be addressed
responsively on all levels.

◦ Families are not DEMOCRACIES. Each family has its own ways of deciding who has the power and
authority within the family unit, and which rights, privileges, obligations, and roles are assigned to each
family member.

◦ Descriptive role- parents are expected to the leaders or executives.

◦ Prescriptive role – children in the middle years grow older are consulted when decisions are made.

◦ In PATRIARCHAL societies, men have traditionally had power over women., including the family.
GAD Mainstreaming in Filipino Family
➢ The Sustainable Development Goals of United Nation includes the observance
if International Day of Families (2015). Philippines is one of the signatories.

➢ The International Day is observed on the 15th of May every year.

➢ The passage of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of

2012.

➢ The mandatory provision of a budget to be allotted to the Gender and

Development Initiatives.
GAD Mainstreaming in Filipino Family
➢ This is in compliance to Article II, Section 12 in our constitution which states
that :

The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen
the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall equally protect the life
of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception. The natural and
primary right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency
and the development of moral character shall receive the support of the
Government.