Skip to main content. Gender Stratification and Inequality. Search for:. The Functionalist Perspective Brief The functionalist perspective of gender roles suggests that gender roles exist to maximize social efficiency. Learning Objectives Describe gender inequality from the view of the functionalist perspective.
Key Takeaways The functionalist perspective sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. This approach looks at society through a macro-level orientation and broadly focuses on the social structures that shape society as a whole. This theory suggests that gender inequalities exist as an efficient way to create a division of labor , or as a social system in which a particular segment of the population is clearly responsible for certain acts of labor and another segment is clearly responsible for other labor acts.
The feminist movement takes the position that functionalism neglects the suppression of women within the family structure. Families: Functionalism Study Notes. Consensus Theories - Functionalism Study Notes. From the Blog. TradWife 4th February Female Suicide Rates 23rd March Crash Course: Religion 25th January Three-Parent Families 22nd January Crash Course: Social Change 23rd November The functionalist perspective, also called functionalism, is one of the major theoretical perspectives in sociology.
It has its origins in the works of Emile Durkheim , who was especially interested in how social order is possible or how society remains relatively stable.
As such, it is a theory that focuses on the macro-level of social structure , rather than the micro-level of everyday life.
It can be termed the collective or creative consciousness. Functionalism posits that society is more than the sum of its parts; rather, each aspect of it works for the stability of the whole. Durkheim envisioned society as an organism since each component plays a necessary role but can't function alone.
When one part experiences a crisis, others must adapt to fill the void in some way. In functionalist theory, the different parts of society are primarily composed of social institutions, each designed to fill different needs. Family, government, economy, media, education, and religion are important to understanding this theory and the core institutions that define sociology. According to functionalism, an institution only exists because it serves a vital role in the functioning of society.
If it no longer serves a role, an institution will die away. When new needs evolve or emerge, new institutions will be created to meet them. In many societies, the government provides education for the children of the family, which in turn pays taxes the state depends on to keep running. The family relies on the school to help children grow up to have good jobs so they can raise and support their own families.
In the process, the children become law-abiding, taxpaying citizens who support the state. From the functionalist perspective, if all goes well, the parts of society produce order, stability, and productivity. If all does not go well, the parts of society must adapt to produce new forms of order, stability, and productivity.
Functionalism emphasizes the consensus and order that exist in society, focusing on social stability and shared public values. From this perspective, disorganization in the system, such as deviant behavior , leads to change because societal components must adjust to achieve stability. When one part of the system is dysfunctional, it affects all other parts and creates social problems, prompting social change.
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