Posted: August 1st, 2023

Family Ideals

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Family Ideals
One of the family ideals in focus is blood ties. In a country like the United States, the notions of family and kinship draw strength from the flow of blood as a substance that controls the spread of rights (Collins 163). As such, bonds between children and mothers, sisters and brothers, and grandmothers and grandchildren are important blood ties. In this regard, family violence occurs when such ties are absent. This is demonstrated in the case of adoptees who feel they do not belong and are forced to look for their “real” families. Also, the failure to keep family bloodlines pure supports family violence. For instance, historically, white women were expected to keep their family bloodlines pure by marrying white men and engaging in sexual relations with their husbands only. Therefore, when such women married people from other races, they were treated harshly, and in some cases, ostracized. The affected women and the resulting families end up suffering emotional and psychological turmoil attributable to discrimination.
The other family ideal in focus is family planning. A variety of family planning options exist; some are permanent while others are reversible; some are taken by choice while others are through coercion. Even though family planning is aimed at controlling the number of children in a family, it has been shown to support family violence. This particularly occurs when males want to control women’s sexual and reproductive capacities (Collins 169). This is perfectly demonstrated by eugenics, where certain population groups that are considered to have desirable genes are encouraged to reproduce while those perceived to have undesirable genes are discouraged from reproducing. This leads to violence especially in families where women want to have children but are not allowed to. In particular, the affected women suffer emotional and psychological torture. The society further serves to worsen this situation by regulating the childbearing patterns of various ethnic and racial groups considered to have undesirable genes, by for instance, sterilizing the women.

Work Cited
Collins, Patricia Hill. “It’s all in the family: Intersections of gender, race, and
nation.” Hypatia 13.3 (1998): 62-82.

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