Reach for the Star | Do feminists agree about the family?

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Connect & Check → Share → Present → Apply → Recall & Review

Explain the key concepts, apply them accurately to the supplied case and answer the enquiry with a qualified, evidence-led judgement. Use fictional examples. You do not need to disclose personal experiences.

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Recall and connect

Retrieve the previous lesson, then record a view you can revisit.

Missed the preparation? Read the recap

Define patriarchy as a structural concept. A pattern of social organisation in which men hold disproportionate power. Why are doing and planning different kinds of work? Completing a task differs from noticing, coordinating and taking responsibility for it. Why does pooled income not establish equal power? Control of spending and influence over decisions may remain unequal.

R1 Define patriarchy as a structural concept.

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A pattern of social organisation in which men hold disproportionate power.

R2 Why are doing and planning different kinds of work?

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Completing a task differs from noticing, coordinating and taking responsibility for it.

R3 Starting judgement: “All feminist explanations identify the same cause of family inequality.” Explain your view.

Liberal feminist emphasis

Liberal feminist approaches focus on removing discrimination and widening equal rights and opportunities. Education, fair workplace practices and shared domestic responsibility may improve family relationships. This does not mean assuming equality already exists. A limitation to investigate is whether formal rights or individual negotiation are enough when access to money, time and care remains unequal.

Open the vocabulary reference

Liberal feminism: An approach emphasising equal rights, opportunities and reform of discriminatory practices.
Marxist feminism: An approach connecting gender inequality with capitalist relations and unpaid labour.
Radical feminism: An approach treating patriarchy and male power as central sources of women’s oppression.
Patriarchy: Social arrangements giving men disproportionate power.
Capitalism: Production for profit under predominantly private ownership.
Reform: Changes to rules or practices within existing institutions.
Structural change: Alteration of the institutions or relations producing a pattern.
Unpaid labour: Work performed without direct wages, including domestic activity.
Social reproduction: Activities and relations that sustain people and social arrangements.
Exploitation: Appropriation of another group’s work or benefits within unequal relations.
Material relation: A relationship organised around work, resources and their distribution.
Equal opportunity: Comparable practical access to valued positions and choices.
Intersectionality: Analysis of how structures of inequality interact in specific experiences.
Ethnicity: Socially meaningful cultural identification and group belonging.
Class: A social position connected with economic resources and relations.
Within-group difference: Variation among people who share one social category.

D1 Link a liberal feminist diagnosis to one proposed change.

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If discriminatory expectations and unequal opportunities constrain women, reform workplace practices, education or shared care arrangements. Explain how the reform addresses the diagnosed barrier.

D2 Why should liberal feminism not be described as believing equality is complete?

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Its reform agenda identifies continuing barriers. Debate concerns what change can achieve and whether reforms are sufficient, not a claim that inequality has ended.

Marxist and radical emphases

Marxist feminists connect unpaid domestic labour with the economic organisation of capitalism. Benston’s work directs attention to domestic production that is not paid through the market. Radical feminists place patriarchy at the centre of analysis, asking how men may benefit from women’s labour or dependence. Delphy and Leonard’s materialist feminist account examines family exploitation; theoretical labels overlap and should not erase their specific argument.

Open the vocabulary reference

Liberal feminism: An approach emphasising equal rights, opportunities and reform of discriminatory practices.
Marxist feminism: An approach connecting gender inequality with capitalist relations and unpaid labour.
Radical feminism: An approach treating patriarchy and male power as central sources of women’s oppression.
Patriarchy: Social arrangements giving men disproportionate power.
Capitalism: Production for profit under predominantly private ownership.
Reform: Changes to rules or practices within existing institutions.
Structural change: Alteration of the institutions or relations producing a pattern.
Unpaid labour: Work performed without direct wages, including domestic activity.
Social reproduction: Activities and relations that sustain people and social arrangements.
Exploitation: Appropriation of another group’s work or benefits within unequal relations.
Material relation: A relationship organised around work, resources and their distribution.
Equal opportunity: Comparable practical access to valued positions and choices.
Intersectionality: Analysis of how structures of inequality interact in specific experiences.
Ethnicity: Socially meaningful cultural identification and group belonging.
Class: A social position connected with economic resources and relations.
Within-group difference: Variation among people who share one social category.

D3 Explain a Marxist feminist connection between unpaid work and capitalism.

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Domestic work helps sustain people who participate in paid production, while its provider may lack independent earnings. The explanation connects household labour to wider economic relations.

D4 How does a radical feminist focus differ from a class-only explanation?

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It foregrounds patriarchal power and potential male benefits within the family, including among people in the same class. It does not reduce every gender inequality to class ownership.

Difference within feminism

The approaches can agree that unequal domestic labour matters while disagreeing about its main cause and the change required. Intersectionality, associated with Crenshaw, challenges analysis that treats gender independently of race and other structures. Class resources, racism, disability and migration conditions can alter constraints and options. Categories do not mechanically determine an individual’s experiences; investigate their interaction.

Open the vocabulary reference

Liberal feminism: An approach emphasising equal rights, opportunities and reform of discriminatory practices.
Marxist feminism: An approach connecting gender inequality with capitalist relations and unpaid labour.
Radical feminism: An approach treating patriarchy and male power as central sources of women’s oppression.
Patriarchy: Social arrangements giving men disproportionate power.
Capitalism: Production for profit under predominantly private ownership.
Reform: Changes to rules or practices within existing institutions.
Structural change: Alteration of the institutions or relations producing a pattern.
Unpaid labour: Work performed without direct wages, including domestic activity.
Social reproduction: Activities and relations that sustain people and social arrangements.
Exploitation: Appropriation of another group’s work or benefits within unequal relations.
Material relation: A relationship organised around work, resources and their distribution.
Equal opportunity: Comparable practical access to valued positions and choices.
Intersectionality: Analysis of how structures of inequality interact in specific experiences.
Ethnicity: Socially meaningful cultural identification and group belonging.
Class: A social position connected with economic resources and relations.
Within-group difference: Variation among people who share one social category.

D5 How could two feminists support care reform for different reasons?

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One might stress equal opportunities in employment; another might stress changing the private organisation of unpaid labour or dependence. Similar proposals need not imply identical explanations.

D6 Explain why an intersectional analysis is more than adding a list of disadvantages.

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It examines how structures interact to shape a particular experience, such as how racialised employment barriers alter the options available to a woman with care responsibilities.

Apply the evidence

Fictional policy discussion: A college employer proposes predictable hours and equal access to promotion. A campaign seeks publicly organised affordable care and a fairer distribution of unpaid work. A women’s organisation asks who controls money and whose decisions dominate at home. A fourth speaker asks whether reforms reach women facing racialised job barriers or inaccessible services. These are proposals for analysis, not descriptions of existing legal rights.

Adults examining materials together; their relationships and reasons are not established. — Identify what is visible and what needs further evidence.

A1 Describe what is visible in the photograph. What further evidence would be needed to apply this lesson’s concepts?

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Adults are examining materials together. The image does not establish family ties, beliefs, gender identity or the reasons for their actions. Use participant accounts or relevant contextual evidence before applying the theory.

A2 Connect the first three proposals to feminist emphases, explaining the connection.

Optional scaffold

Name the concept → select a precise case detail → explain the connection → state what the detail cannot establish. Rehearse aloud, then write independently.

Check an explanation after your attempt

Equal access fits liberal reform; reorganising care connects to Marxist feminist questions about unpaid labour; scrutiny of male control connects to radical feminist concerns. Proposals can overlap, so reward justified links rather than rigid labels.

A3 Explain how the fourth speaker changes the evaluation of reform.

Optional scaffold

Name the concept → select a precise case detail → explain the connection → state what the detail cannot establish. Rehearse aloud, then write independently.

Check an explanation after your attempt

A general policy may have different effects where racism or inaccessible services shape access. Examine who can actually use it and how barriers interact, rather than assuming one experience for all women.

Challenge and judge

Make a precise claim, connect it to evidence and state its limits.

C1 Choose two approaches and compare their explanation of unpaid care directly.

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For example, a Marxist feminist stresses unpaid labour’s relation to capitalist production; a radical feminist foregrounds patriarchal benefits and control. Both recognise inequality but locate its causes differently.

C2 Improve: “Feminists think all women have exactly the same family experience.”

Optional scaffold

Name the concept → select a precise case detail → explain the connection → state what the detail cannot establish. Rehearse aloud, then write independently.

Check an explanation after your attempt

Feminist approaches are diverse, and intersectional analysis explicitly examines variation and interacting structures. Specify the argument being evaluated rather than treating feminism as one claim.

Prove: retrieval check

Answer without notes, then check explanations. Retry after correcting insecure ideas. This is separate from the 15-mark mini-test.

Q1. Which meaning best fits liberal feminism? Changes to rules or practices within existing institutions. An approach emphasising equal rights, opportunities and reform of discriminatory practices. Appropriation of another group’s work or benefits within unequal relations.

Q2. Which meaning best fits reform? A relationship organised around work, resources and their distribution. A social position connected with economic resources and relations. Changes to rules or practices within existing institutions.

Q3. Which meaning best fits social reproduction? Activities and relations that sustain people and social arrangements. Socially meaningful cultural identification and group belonging. An approach connecting gender inequality with capitalist relations and unpaid labour.

Q4. Which meaning best fits intersectionality? An approach connecting gender inequality with capitalist relations and unpaid labour. Analysis of how structures of inequality interact in specific experiences. Changes to rules or practices within existing institutions.

Q5. Three approaches support changing unpaid care. Must their explanations be identical? Yes: agreement on an issue means one theory. No: diagnoses and proposed routes to change may differ. The question can be answered from a person’s appearance alone.

Q6. What can the supplied fictional case establish? It proves what all UK families do. It establishes a causal law without further evidence. It illustrates a mechanism to examine with further evidence.

Not marked.

Prove and improve

Complete retrieval, then write independently for eight minutes.

P1 Explain two differences between feminist approaches to the family. [6 marks]

Success criteria

Develop two distinct points. For each, identify the concept, explain how it works and use an accurate example or comparison relevant to the question. Extended writing needs teacher review. No automatic mark is given.

P2 Identify the two points in your response. Improve one missing explanation or example.

P3 Return to R3. Give a qualified judgement and identify one piece of evidence still needed.

Prepare for Lesson 14

Read the three short passages and answer the preparation questions.

Giddens: negotiated intimacy

Giddens’s pure relationship is sustained through what the relationship provides to the people involved, rather than only through external tradition. Pure does not mean morally superior or conflict-free. Confluent love is contingent: continuation depends on an ongoing relationship rather than an unconditional promise of permanence. Negotiation may create opportunities for equality, but the model does not establish that every relationship already operates this way.

Two connected concepts

Individualisation: A process in which people must increasingly construct and manage their own biographies. Detraditionalisation: Weakening of the taken-for-granted authority of inherited traditions.

A question to bring

Define the pure relationship and correct one possible misunderstanding. It is sustained through the rewards of the relationship itself. Pure does not mean perfect, morally better, necessarily unmarried or free from inequality.

F1 Summarise the main idea in the first passage in one or two sentences.

Check an explanation after your attempt

It is sustained through the rewards of the relationship itself. Pure does not mean perfect, morally better, necessarily unmarried or free from inequality.

F2 Define individualisation and give an original fictional example.

F3 What evidence would you need to test the opening claim? Retrieve two current-lesson concepts tomorrow and next week.

Your progress summary

Completion records attempts, not correctness. Review your extended response with a teacher and use the feedback to choose your next practice.

Restore a backup

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Resource: RFTS-AQA-AL-SOC-7192-FAM-L013 · v1.0. Original Reach for the Star learning resource. The six-mark task is a classroom bridge assessment, not an official AQA Paper 2 format. Teacher mark guidance is supplied separately.