Summarize Parsons’s points from Sex Roles in the American Kinship System. Explain which points were criticized by later scholars and why.
What will be an ideal response?
In the 1970s Sex Roles in the American Kinship System came to epitomize Parsons’s conservatism, interpreted as it was as an explicit endorsement by Parsons of traditional gender roles and the dire consequences that would ensue should they be breeched. Feminists were particularly incensed by Parsons’s assertion that “many women succumb to . . . dependency cravings through such channels as neurotic illness or compulsive domesticity” which leads them to “abdicate both their responsibilities and their opportunities for genuine independence” (1943:194). In addition, they found Parsons’s assumption that “surely the pattern of romantic love which makes his relation to the ‘woman he loves’ the most important single thing in a man’s life, is incompatible with the view that she is an inferior creature, fit only for dependency on him” especially naïve.
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Which of the following is TRUE with regard to the average husband's time spent on housework?
A) Younger husbands tend to do more housework than older husbands. B) Higher income husbands do less work than lower income husbands. C) The average husband spends 2 hours a week on housework. D) Husbands spend most of their housework time on non-daily, non-repetitive tasks.
Nutrition is a major concern during pregnancy because
(a) nutrients pass from the mother to the fetus through the placenta, and the fetus can be deprived of nutrition. (b) it is important that the woman not gain too much weight. (c) proper nutrition negates the effects of smoking, drinking, and drug abuse in the parents. (d) the fetus must receive nutrition through the areola.
A study finds that the more years someone has spent driving, the number of accidents they are involved in decreases. This is an example of ______.
A. negative causation B. negative correlation C. positive correlation D. a decreasing relationship
Which of the following do life course theorists argue?
A. Socialization continues through all stages of the life cycle. B. Socialization stops after a person experiences a rite of passage. C. Socialization stops after a person leaves the parental home. D. Socialization stops when a person reaches the end of formal education.