Strategies for Changing Male Family Roles: Research and Practice Implications

Abstract

The question of changes in men's family roles is considered from the standpoint of approaches that feminists of both sexes might use to bring about those changes. One approach-called emergent consensus-subsumes strategies labeled as prosocial and self-interest. Conflict is the remaining approach and it subsumes negotiation strategies. Suggestions are offered as to the kinds of research and practical applications that follow from an appreciation of the significance of these approaches and strategies. During the 1950s, family studies fell into the grip of two traditions both of which treated women's and men's roles as rigid, inflexible, and unchanging. These two traditions are the marital adjustment school and the structure-functionalist school. While they di