Social Policies and The Family

Functionalists view

• Social policies help families perform their functions more effectively
• Ronald Fletcher (1966) introduction of health, education and housing policies in the years of the industrial revolution have made a welfare state beneficial to main functions
• Functionalists criticised for assuming all members of the families benefit from the policies - feminists say they benefit men at the expense of women
• Criticised for assuming there is a march of progress where family life is made better - Marxists say the policies can reverse progress e.g. cutting welfare to poor families

Feminists (Conflict)

• See society as partiarchal, benefiting men at women's expense
• Social policies help to maintain women's subordinate position and the unequal gender…