Uncertainty in Modernism: Family, Identity and Work

Uncertainty in Modernism Family, Identity and actionLife is more uncertain now than it was in the early mid-fifties. Discuss this claim.IntroductionThis assignment leave al unity investigate the claim that life is more uncertain now than it was in the early 1950s. Beginning with a brief description of the climate of the 1950s the assignment exit wherefore look at ternary aras, work and welf be, the family, and identity. In doing this the assignment result seize on only on material supplied for the module.Post-war Britain was quite diametric to what we see today. In the early 1950s there was still considerable war damage and so the governing body had introduced massive building programmes to make sure that passel had adequate housing. The welfare state had been introduced in the years immediately following the war. Based on the nonions that the (predominantly male) workforce would enjoy beat vocation, and that traditionl family life would continue, the Government claimed that it would be able to look after its citizens from the cradle to the grave. They were overly idealistic in their views and in the at long last fifty years Britain has witnessed massive changes in the areas of work and welfare. in that respect have also been changes in family structures and this has had equal implications for peoples identities.Work and WelfareDuring the Second World War, and in the years after, people felt that they were secure in their employment. In industry particularly working class men had been conditioned to the view that if they worked hard then they would have a job for life.1 This was not to say that ordinary people earned a troop of money, they didnt. Normally sons and daughters would follow in fathers and mothers footsteps once they left school, In the early 1950s Britain was a stratified society and people did not often move from one class to another. The class into which a person was born therefore was very often the one in which they stayed and this had implications for their life chances in other areas. People did not have the choices that they have nowadays few women went step forward to work and it was the fathers responsibility to go out and earn money to support his family.2 There were some uncertainties of course for families who were reliant on one wage. Traditional areas of employment are being wear away as the number of industries has declined and more people are taking jobs in areas that were previously seen as womens work. Nowadays both the man and his wife may be working. They might work full time, part-time, or rely on state benefits. In some households it is a mixture of things.3 Hutton (1999)4 maintains that the diverse sources of employment cornerstone in themselves be sources of uncertainty be provoke in some areas (agency temping for example) people may not know whether they will have work from one weeks end to the next. This creates divisions between those families who have alternative sources of emp loyment the work rich5, and those whose suitability for different types of employment is limited. much(prenominal) changes in employment patterns affect not only the traditional working classes but also the middle classes. In the early 1950s boyish middle class men could expect a secure career with a steady prove up the ladder, that is not the case today. Many people face redundancies, followed by the hard searching for a new job, in some cases they may find themselves dependent on state benefits for considerable periods.6 Such changes may also have an effect on a couples marriage and if this ends in divorce then both people could be worse off. The wife may find herself looking for for work after having been out of the labour market for some years because she was caring for children. This gets worse the gain ground down the income scale a family is. In the past labourers and industrial workers may not have had as much job security as their middle class counterparts because some of them became unfit for work onward retirement age. People did have some security however. Nowadays people can end up reliant on state benefits over a very long period and this can event in accessible exclusion where they are unable to fully participate in society (Mackintosh and Mooney, 2004)7. ever-ever-changing employment patterns have, in many cases, led to changing roles in society and this has had implications for peoples disposition of identity.IdentityMercer (1990) argues that modern society is characterised by diversity and uncertainty and that this has corresponding implications for peoples identities.8 changing gender roles and more women in the workplace have resulted in changes in peoples whiz of self. In addition to this as Mercer has highlighted Post-War immigration along with rapid social and technological change has brought with it n increasing focus on modern eacialised and ehtnicised identities.9 This mixing of peoples new identities along with older one s contributes to the sense of uncertainty that many people feel is a feature of modern life.10 Identities are relational, hence blackness is seen in its relationship to whiteness and vice versa. This has led to what have been termed hybrid identities where people draw on different cultural heritages. Social trends such s the greater exclusion of ethnic minorities from rectify paid jobs and decent standards of living point to the fact that the social structure in the UK is permeated with racialisation and ethnicisation where people are seen only in terms of their skin colour and ethnicity.11 These structures in turn, affect peoples identities because they bar them from becoming something other than that which society has defined. On the other hand changes in society affect social structures which in turn affect peoples identities in myriad ways. Because identities are no longstanding fixed they are a source of continuing uncertainty. This uncertainty leads to further changes in t he social structure. present-day(a) peoples identities are unsettled because the changes mentioned above tend to cross ethnic boundaries. For example the changing role of women and their greater inclusion in the labour market has affected not only womens and mens identities, it has also led to changes in family structures.The FamilyNowadays there seems to be considerable use up over what is termed the traditional family. In the papers and on television journalists are increasingly expressing concern for the ending of what they call traditional family values. Critics raise the subject of cohabitation, divorce, same sex marriage, and the increasing number of lone call down households, and regularly pose the question of what is happening to British society. Mooney et al (2004) have said of this that it results in contemporary family life being viewed with a mixture of fear and fascination.12 There is widespread concern that the changes we are witnessing in family structure will lea d to wider social problems and may have troubling implications for the individuals involved.13 This raises the question of whether such changes should be viewed with pessimism or whether they are simply a result of the different ways that people order their lives in response to changes in society. Will these changes result in changes in patriarchal society or will they serve to further strengthen masculine power and supremacy? Although family roles and responsibilities are changing, for example women are no longer viewed primarily in terms of their housewife role, nor men as the family breadwinner, the family is still a wide accepted concept.14 It is becoming increasingly difficult to refer to the traditional family without making reference to the past, what some people term, the golden age of the family.15Numbers of people have questioned whether there was such a thing or whether it is an ideologic form that served a certain period of society.ConclusionIt has been claimed that life is more uncertain now than it was in the early 1950s. Certainly Britain has seen considerable changes in the last fifty years. The welfare state was presaged on notions of full employment which did not foresee the changes that would take place as the result of new technologies. Change does cause uncertainty but that does not mean that it is necessarily a bad thing. Harking back to the early 1950s as a sort of golden age is wrong. History shows that societies that do not change and are not prepared to go forward eventually die out, change may not ever be easy and this can result in uncertainty, but worrying about it will not stop progress.Bibliography satiate 1 (6) (3) forfend 3 (3) (2) exclude 1 (8) (4)Block 3(1) (2)Hutton 1999 cited in Block 3 (3) (2)Mercer 1990 cited in Block 1 (8) (4)Mackintosh and Mooney 2004 cited in Block 3 (1) (2)1Footnotes1 Block 1 (6) (3) see page 1532 Block 3 (3) (2) see page 783 Page 78 ibid4 Cited on page 78 ibid5 Block 3 (3) 2 page 786ibid7 ibid8 Cite d in Block 1 (8) (4) page 1309 ibid10 Ibid page 13111 ibid12 Block 3(1) (2) page 4613 ibid14 ibid15 Ibid page 47