Examine the New Right SOT of the family free essay sample

Examine the New Right SOT of the family The New Right are a group of people that believe in tradition; they are strongly against change and support the conservative party. The New Right see the ideal family as heterosexual couples with two or three children as an outcome and symbolic meaning of the love between the man and women, otherwise known as a ‘Nuclear family. ’ The commitment between the man and women should demonstrate through a marriage and the responsibilities within the marriage will have a clear sexual division of labour. New Right thinkers rule out any other family structure and the new right views on the family reflect a familial ideology. The ideology is transmitted through different sections such as religious leaders, media, advertising, politicians and pressure groups. The New Right believe that originally husbands and wives were once strongly committed to one and other for life and they raised their children to give them the most up right respect and also respect social institutions, for example the law. We will write a custom essay sample on Examine the New Right SOT of the family or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page New Right thinkers called this the golden age, where everything followed a certain order. In the Early 1960’S and 1970’S, the New Right saw that the views of a traditional family value began to be questioned and destroyed especially by the state; they marked this as the beginning of family decline. New right looked at new acts and law legislations that have come into place for example, ‘Equal pay act’ which they saw as misleading the women from their natural careers as being mothers and housewives and instead this act encouraged them to work and peruse their dreams which may mean that they will be earning as much money or maybe even more money than their husband. Another act that the New Right looks at as an attack by the state is the ‘Divorce Reform act’ which was introduced in 1969 which they saw undermined the commitment of marriage between and man and women. New Right do have evidence to back up their beliefs for example nowadays in the 21st century there are more family structures that exist such as a single parent family or a gay marriage household due to the increase of divorce rates, compare to back in the 1800’s and 1900’s, it was almost seen as a sin to have a divorce and there was no such thing as gay marriages. On the other hand Feminists criticise the New Right view of the familial ideology. Feminists claim that the familial ideology is a group of ideas which will encourage the men to keep the male dominance within the work place at home. Feminist Oakley argues that the familial ideology is in favour to the men because the women are encouraged to stay at home and follow their natural career as mothers and wives, which means that they are taking themselves out of the labour market and are allowing the men to carry on being the breadwinner of the family by bringing in the income to the family. Oakley states the gender role is clearly shown in this part of the familial ideology. Sociologists Barrett and Mclntosh, 1982, argue against the new right idea of familial ideology and say that the familial ideology fails to look at other family structures other than the nuclear family, such as single parent families, and gay marriage families, and believe that the new structures are the cause of social problems, for example increase in crime and the increase of disrespect for authority such as the law. As the New Right stated the start of family decline when new laws and legislations where put into place there were critics against this idea too. However other sociologist says that there may not be such an idea family decline instead, it may be the new postmodern era finding new needs and wants and realising that the nuclear family was only exploiting women and children from earning and being like the male of the traditional family. Other aspects such as an increase in divorce rates are seen as more healthy for the society and families as it will prevent symptoms of moral decay. Sociologist Reynolds et al, 2003, conducted a research to back up the critics against new rights views and idea of familial ideology. This research included a study of 37 mothers and 30 fathers that where in a relationship, that had one pre-school child. The mothers had a strong, instrumental role such as a job in the hospital or working in an accountancy firm but also had traditional views on being a good mother and partner. In conclusion to this research, Reynolds et al concluded that the mothers did not prioritise their work life over their family life, but instead they realised that the mothers that worked full time with the instrumental jobs had the same concerns about meeting their child’s emotional needs and their partner’s needs just as a part time mother did. The research proved that the full time worker mothers believed that their jobs helped meet the child’s needs and wants and also having a positive outtake on relationships within the family. This view was also mostly agreed by the men to as the men saw that the mothers work life was having a good impact on the child as they had a strong headed and hardworking woman to look up too as well. However there was also some negative result from this research, as some men and women did not learn how to alienate their problems from work and brought the problems from work back into the suppose to be ‘haven’ and took out their problems on the children. This could have been due to the stress and strong demands given to the women by their job role. In conclusion the New Right view of the family and idea of familial ideology has good points and are backed up with evidence such as increase in divorce rates and the way families are breaking down in traditional values and becoming more dependent on the state, but however I believe that the New Right familial ideology is failing to look at other family structures and the idea that there is not just one way to life. I agree with the feminist view of how familial ideology is failing to realise other ways to a family structure which could benefit society more as this allows people to be more individual and happy with their selves which will reflect within the family structure. I strongly agree with Reynolds et al research as this does reflect upon family life in today’s society.