Blog Post Assignment 2

Ghadir Abdulaiz

 Professor Gager

 FCST 200

 Assignment 2

1. According to the functionalist theory, the definition of the "instrumental leader" is one person who led the group discussion about how to accomplish the task they had been assigned.  The definition for "expressive leader" is a person who kept up the group's spirit with warm, supportive remarks and jokes. The family roles that were connected to each of these leader definitions were since family was a small group, it was functional for one adult member to specialize in instrumental leadership and for the other to specialize in expressive leadership. The husband was the instrumental leader because his labor provided the financial support for the family. The stay-at-home wife was the expressive leader because she provided emotional support to the husband and children.

2.  The main demographic that changed during the 1960s and 1970s was that married women poured into the work-force in the 1960s and 1970s, the breadwinner-homemaker family lost its dominant position. most of the writing about the family in those years was devoted to refusing Parsons implicit conclusion that this change in the family was for the worse.

3. In contrast to functionalist theorists, what I think the main theme of conflict theory is when studying the family, they see men stronger than women. They think men should be the man of the household. "Conflicts theorists have a much less favorable view of the 1950s family than did Parsons because of what they see as women's domination by men, due, in large part, to women's lack of economic resources."

 4. Social exchange theory is based on ideas from dependency. What exchange theorists say about husbands bargaining power versus that of wives is husbands are in a stronger bargaining position when they are the sole earners in their families because their wives have fewer alternative sources if income. So if the wife earns more money on her own, her dependence decreases and so the husbands power over them decreases also.

5. Gender/ Feminist theory has an important insight. It awares us that the experience of living in a family is different for women than it is for men. Women's interests in the family are not necessarily the same as men's interests. You have to view families through a prism that separates the experience of men and women rather than just considering what’s best for the family as a whole.

6. I think the power of wives versus husbands in families is changing especially in this era. It’s the years 2012 and I do not think nothing has stayed the same since the 1960s. In today’s society, the wife with kids is hardly ever a stay at home mom. Both wife and husband usually work. The kids are either in school during the day or being babysat. The husbands are always working.