Understanding the Family Since “Dick and Jane”, Essay Example

The Dick and Jane books introduced to young school children portraits of the American family. However, the structure of the family presented in these works seems to be much more different than the structure of the family as it is understood today. In other words, the social discourse tells us to be more tolerant to other and alternative forms of family. The family represented in Dick and Jane is from this perspective interpreted as merely one type of family structure. However, the probleim with such an interpretation is that it is based on exclusion. Firstly, the clear gender roles in the story seem that males should not participate in activities traditionally reserved for females and vice versa Hence, in regards to the question of whether a reader such as Dick and Jane can be found in today’s America, we have to understand that our conceptions of what a family is should not be exclusionary. For this reason, the relevance of such readers appears lost, to the extent that they are based on precisely such an exclusion.

In the family of the Dick and Jane series, the father had a typical role, which we now associate with a traditional patriarchic model of the family. For example, the father is the sole money-earner of the family and he participates in sports and other outdoor activities. Furthermore, the son or Dick in these stories, is portrayed in a manner which shows him emulating his father. Hence, Dick follows the gender role of the father, also being a male his interests are to be the same as those of the father. In essence, the reader is about a male child learning how he should behave as a male from his father. His role model becomes the father, since they are both biologically male.

In a similar fashion, the female role is exemplified in the mother, who partakes in activities such as cooking and showing. The young female child Jane follows the practices of her mother, thus participating in these same activities. Once again, the way the structure of the family is divided seems to be along biological lines: the female child follows the gender role of the female mother.

However, what is problematic about this account is that it is exclusionary. It is taking some idea of biological sex and then transferring it into a social realm. This means that biology determines social practice. Yet in sociology what is problematic about this is epitomized in the concept of gender: gender breaks up the direct line between biology and social practice, calling this relationship into question. According to this view, there is another form of exclusion being practiced here: male or females are being excluded from participating in certain social practices because they are viewed as “biologically” different. Gender as a social phenomenon shows this exclusion and makes it a fundamental problem of sociology. It does not take these gender roles as a given, but instead asks why they are as they are? Dick and Jane merely accepts these gender roles as they exist in a particular social context and then try to present them as the norm.

However, in our ever-more tolerant society, we have become more aware of such exclusionary practice. We have learned to look behind the ideology of many aspects of our society. This is not to say that ideology, such as defined gender roles, still do not exist. However, we have become more conscious of their presence. The usage of a reader such as Dick and Jane would in this case merely overlook this progress. It not only throws us back to a naïve position as to what the family means, but also discourages the tolerance towards diverse forms of families.

Breaking down presuppositions appears to be one of the key foundations of democracy, as the history of the United States itself has shown. Finding a reader such as Dick and Jane in schools is a step backward from this progress. If a democratic society is defined by openness, promoting exclusionary gender roles is a clear violation of this goal