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The Ideal Nuclear Family : Culture And Patriarchal Heteronormative Society

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Family needs have changed since the 1950s and women's work in the ideal nuclear family has been historically constructed and reproduced by culture and patriarchal heteronormative society. An ideal nuclear family is a group consisting of two parents and their children. This family includes both sexes, who maintain a sexual relationship and one or more children. Within this family, everyone had roles; the father worked whereas the mother maintained the household and cared for the offspring. The children were to model and study their parents to become them, so they could later take their place in society when the parents are too old to perform their duties. The nuclear family is no longer the American dream and soon society began to notice that many Americans were not living the ideal nuclear lifestyle. With the world adjusting and adapting there are new definitions for what consists of a family. We are shifting from a heteronormative society to an inclusive society. Women have been oppressed since the beginning of time, they were only expected to have children and become a caretaker. “Domestic work is almost always the sole responsibility of wives(Citation).” Judith Lorber would deconstruct this idea of “women's work” by arguing that the entire point of a gender system is to sustain gender inequality. Lorber anticipates a society structured for equality, where no gender, social class group, or racial-ethnic are entitled to monopolize positions of power. Men are
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