Sociological Perspectives View Society

Compare and contrast how the different sociological perspectives see society.

The three main sociological perspectives are Functionalist, Marxist and Feminist. Despite all seeing society from different angles, they do share some common features.
Functionalism is a theory which sees society as being structured like a human body. The body is made up of separate parts (e.g. brain, heart, lungs, kidney, liver and blood supply) which each have a function to do in order to keep it alive and healthy. In the same way, society is made up of separate parts (e.g. family, education, work, mass media and the class system) which each have a function to do in order to keep society working properly.
On the contrary, Marxism is a theory which sees society based on conflict between those who own the economic institutions and those who are employed by them. Therefore, Marxists see society as negative because they believe that the bourgeoisie exploits the proletariat (working class). Due to the way that society is structured, the ruling ideas are just those of the ruling class. They believe that this is an unfair aspect of society.
Feminism is a view which challenges the power of men over women. Feminism can be seen to be related to the sociological perspective, Functionalism. This is because Feminists agree that that there is a high portion of inequality in society. Despite this, Feminists would argue that Functionalism ignores the inequality faced by women because it purely focuses on the inequality faced by the proletariat. The feminist theory is most concerned with giving a voice to women and highlighting the various ways in which women have contributed to society.
Despite the differences between the ideas of Marxists and Feminists, they both share the idea that society is unequal. Marxists think that the inequality is caused by there
Both Functionalism and Marxism are structuralist theories, because they believe that the way in which society is organised has an effect...