do so. As hunters, men were frequently away from home and, hence, centered their lives around the responsibility of bringing food to the family. Since a woman’’s mobility is more limited by pregnancy, childbirth and nursing, it was functional for her to spend more time near the home and taking care of household and shield rearing tasks. Once established, this division of labor carried through to developing and already developed societies. Even though women may also haven been involved in agricultural production or were gathers in their own right, they were still largely dependent on men for food and protection. The dominant role assumed by men, in turn , creates a pattern where male activities come to be more highly valued than female ones. Thus, the pattern becomes institutionalized and difficult to change; to rests on a belief that gender stratification is inevitable due to biological sex differences. Parson and Bales (1955) relate two concepts to the functional perspective of gender socialization. These concepts are roles that the man and the woman take in society. When the man takes on the instrumental role, he helps to maintain the basic social and physical integrity of the family, by providing food and shelter and linking the family to the world outside the home. The woman, however, takes on the expressive role. She helps cement relationships, provides the emotional support and nurturing qualities which sustain the family unit, and ensures that the household runs smoothly. When deviation from these roles occurs, it is seen as breaking the norms of society. It should be apparent from this that functionalism tends to be inherently conservative in its orientation and does not account for a variety of existing family systems which can be said to be functional for themselves as well as society. In a perfect world, there would be no gender differentiation, no racial tension and no ““political correctness”&#...
