Ethics, gender and the family

The family continues to be regarded as a private institution that should be immune to public scrutiny, despite the increasing intervention in the family by public institutions - notably, the law, education, medicine and social services. Towards the end of the 20th century, feminist thinkers challenged the view that the family is a private domain and there is now a growing tradition of using alternative perspectives, such as gender studies and childhood studies to examine the family as a site of contestation over members’ rights and responsibilities. An indicative list of topics in this subject is as follows: the public/private divide; feminist perspectives on families; men’s contemporary roles and power in families in diverse cultural contexts; the roles and power in families of the ‘helping professions’; globalization, family diversity and the normalization of family life; the state regulation of families; the compatibility of parents’ and children’s rights.