Male Gender Dominance in Families - Essay Example

Tension comes when the families take a collective effort to protect their integrity through empowerment, survival, and identity. Collins classifies such stresses as mother work and identity, where mothers try to foster meaningful racial identity within the society. As white children are more privileged and fit into the system with ease as their identity is indicated by the school, media, and social institutions while those from other races are taught to survive in a system of racial oppression. The next tension is mother work and power; these include male dominance and the struggle for mothers to have control over their bodies. Next is maternal empowerment in to keep the children that are wanted whether planned or not and the efforts of the dominant groups to control the mind of their children. The white middle-class mothers face similar conflicts of male dominance. Besides, the issue of not being able to get additional kids when they want and child separation by the government to children reservation boarding school, so they dont have a chance to raise their kids (Collins & Hill, 46).

Coltrane, & Scott, (4) suggests a decrease in male gender dominance as a result of economic parity and equal gender relations would create a shift in gender roles and mother work. He attributes male dominance to the economic ability of male and cultural values which may decline when women gain equal employment opportunities as men and gender empowerment. The American families just like that of Blacks will experience an increase in divorce filings. The role of the father is to protect and act as the figurehead of the family. However, economic and gender parity will reduce the authority of father in the house thus losing control of the family. The government should encourage observance of family values while empowering the economic level of all its citizens.

Study identifies the barriers live-away fathers encountered to be financial ability, not a good father perception, lack of community support and government policies. Fathers are heartbroken thus require counseling. Besides, children grow up lacking a father as their role model. Family values facilitate the socialization and gender roles. I, for instance, I live in a neighborhood where all parents work and equally do house chores. Thus supports cognitive theories of gender socialization due to environmental influence of learning gender and gender roles (Hamer 11).

Reference

Collins, Patricia Hill. "Shifting the center: Race, class, and feminist theorizing about motherhood." Mothering: Ideology, experience, and agency (1994): 45-65.

Coltrane, Scott. "Fathering: Paradoxes, Contradictions, and Dilemmas/Handbook of Contemporary Families: Considering the Past, Contemplating the Future." (2004).

Hamer, Jennifer. What it means to be daddy: Fatherhood for Black men living away from their children. Columbia University Press, 2012.

Kramer, Karen Z., and Amit Kramer. "AtHome Father Families in the United States: Gender Ideology, Human Capital, and Unemployment." Journal of Marriage and Family 78.5 (2016): 1315-1331.