'The Book' - Blog 20

Chapter five continued...

The last section of this chapter is titled family structure and job structure. The authors note that family prepares the youth for the integration into the work force, into the economic and social roles they will eventually have to face. The authors feel that the family impacts the the sexual division of labour. It is ones parents and their experiences that has an impact. Students can be influenced by school, media and shifts in job structure.

It is interesting to note that the authors feel family is a refuge from the capitalist functions. Thus the family sphere has a hand in reproducing this capitalist social consciousness, yet it will always have its other hand outside of the capitalist system. The close and emotional relationships of family life are remote from the impersonal bureaucracy of the wage-labour system.

A key question noted was how does the family help reproduce the sexual division of labour. A few key aspects where family life helps reproduce the social consciousness is through the sexual division of labour which occurs through child-rearing.

The sexual division of labour has been perpetuated through:

1. Sex role typing which stemmed from wives / mothers creating their self concept as household workers.

2. Children tend to develop self concepts based on the sexual division which they observe around them, which is transferred to the next generation.

I think that #2 still does apply to today, in the fact that when children are younger they typically see their mothers in a role that is more domesticated than their fathers because it is the mothers that carry the children, breast feed ect. Yet I think the authors are missing the fact that as children get older, most mothers today tend to re enter the work force and this sexual division of labour is not as prevalent as it used to be.

I think that a typical family does not exist as much any more as per our discussion in class. The rate of two working parents has increased and this leads me to think that children look to teachers, the education system, friends and other mentors more than ever. This would not lead to such a concrete sexual division of labour. Any reproduction of social consciousness that is occurring would be taking place in other arenas. I feel that the media, due to the forms we now have, I would imagine that if the authors were writing this book today, that they would have to account for this influence in the reproduction of social consciousness. I also think that the ever changing economy and the relatively new force called globalization lends more of an influence of what the authors referred to as shifts in job structure as being an influence.