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New Right - Family Key Words Dependency Culture/ Benefits/ Single Parent Families/ Underclass/ Welfare State/ Nuclear Family/ Morality/ Names Key Charles Murray/ Melanie Phillips The New Right is a political movement established in the 1980’s. It is a theory which seeks to directly influence government policies (laws). The New Right focused its policies around MORALITY and a return to more traditional norms and values. They believed that the decline in moral values was leading to a breakdown in social cohesion (society was falling apart!) The New Right clashes most with Feminism: They have very different ideas about the rise of the single parent family in society. Feminists view the single parent family as a symbol of female empowerment but the New Right view single parents as everything that is wrong with society………. Think about: Why are the women single mothers? Who supports the single mother financially? 1 New Right - Family The New Right attack on lone mothers The New Right argues that (never married) lone mothers who are reliant upon the government for financial aid bear a strong responsibility for helping to undermine the values of society. In particular, they argue that children are harmed because there is no father to provide financial support and to help socialise the child into the normal values of society. Furthermore, the reliance upon state aid means that the traditional responsibilities of the male have been taken away. This had led to a generation of young men in inner cities and large-scale social housing developments who have no responsibilities and who are therefore more likely to turn to anti-social behaviour. With no family to support and the availability of social security payments, they see no need to work. Similarly, the mothers have no incentive to work as they too receive government support and very often receive priority for housing. Some writers have suggested that this has helped form an underclass of people who simply do not want to work, and who bring up their children to think in the same way. TASK Make use of page 71 of Napier Press. Read through the NEW RIGHT Make notes on why the NEW RIGHT oppose lone parent families… 2 New Right - Family Lone parents: a moral debate Since the 1990s there has been very considerable debate over the effects of lone-parent families on society. There are two quite distinct approaches to the lone-parent family One approach is associated with the academic and political movement of the New Right. These writers are very critical of the growth of one type of lone-parent family – where the mother has never married – and argue that it has been directly responsible for a range of social problems. Never married mothers are seen as a good example of people who have chosen to make themselves unemployable by their own actions. On the other hand, feminist writers have leapt to the defence of lone mothers. Feminists defend the lone-parent family by pointing out that: The huge majority of lone mothers (92 per cent) claim not to have become pregnant deliberately and it is an unforgiving society which punishes them and their children by refusing to give them state benefits. Also, for many young women, the lone-parent family was more likely to provide safety and security than the two-parent household, given rates of violence and abuse by partners Definition: New Right – A political and academic approach to understanding society which stresses that the government (which is paid for by hard-working tax payers) should not have to support people who have through their own decisions either chosen not to work or made themselves unemployable Definition: Feminist approach to sociology – a perspective which argues that much traditional sociology is the study of society from a man’s point of view and by looking at it from a woman’s viewpoint a whole range of findings of traditional sociology are brought into question, and a set of new questions also emerge Question; The New Right perspective emphasises the idea that lone-parent families are a burden upon society. Should the government look after them by taxing other people? 3 New Right - Family TASK Read the statements in the table below carefully and then write down whether you think it is from the New Right perspective or the Feminist perspective. Statements New Right or Feminist perspective? Lone parent families scrounge off the government/state Women who head lone-parent families are punished in society Women and children are safer in lone-parent family situations Women can raise children well without a father figure Lone-parent families are an ‘evil product of our time’ Boys can only be socialised by firm and caring fathers 4