Durkheim's Division of Labor

Emile Durkheim, born in 1858 in Epinal, France, is considered the father of sociology. Along with Karl Marx and Max Weber, Durkheim is also considered one of the major contributors to the formation of social science as we know it today. Durkheims career is characterized as having three main goals. The first was to establish sociology as a new academic field. The second was to examine the effects of disparate religions and cultural backgrounds on the coherence and integrity of societies. His third focus pertained to the practical implications of scientific knowledge. Born into a devout Jewish family in which most of his paternal ancestors had been rabbis, Durkheim decided at an early age not to pursue the traditional family footsteps. His family's devoutness had a deep influence on what was to be a mostly secular life in which Durkheim strove to prove religion was a social, rather than divine, phenomenon. At an early point in his education, Durkheim sought to establish a scientific approach to the study of society, psychology and ethics. He attended college in Germany where he was heavily influenced by the work of Wilhelm Wundt. In 1886, he completed the first draft of his doctoral dissertation, called The Division of Labor in Society" which aimed to create the science of sociology." The Division of Labor in Society" primarily attempts to clarify the main causes of societal coherence and integration. Durkheim posited that the collective consciousness of a society, including its values, norms and beliefs, were of critical importance for holding a society together. He claimed that without these, a society cannot survive. Another component of his theory, as discussed in The Division of Labor in Society," rests on his observation that the division of labor in industrial societies replaces the collective consciousness. Rather than personal ties and connections, in industrial societies, the glue that binds society together is reliance on others to perform tasks and jobs necessary for the modern, highly complex society to function.

Anomie:
Anomie is a social condition in which there is a lack of cohesion and order, especially in relation to norms and values. The concept, thought of as normlessness, was developed by Emile Durkheim as part of his explanation of pattern of suicide in nineteenth-century Europe. He argued that suicide rates were higher among Protestants than Catholics because Protestant culture placed a higher value on individual autonomy and self-efficacy. This made Protestants less likely to develop close communal ties that might sustain them during times of emotional distress, which in turn made them more susceptible to suicide.

The Study of Suicide:

Suicide, written by French sociologist Emile Durkheim in 1897, was a groundbreaking book in the field of sociology. It was a case study of suicide, a publication unique for its time that provided an example of what the sociological monograph should look like.

In it, Durkheim explored the differing suicide rates among Protestants and Catholics, arguing that stronger social control among Catholics results in lower suicide rates. He also found that suicide rates were higher among men than women, higher for those who are single than those who are married, higher for people without children than people with children, higher among soldiers than civilians, and higher at times of peace than in times of war. Durkheim was the first to argue that the causes of suicide were to be found in social factors and not individual personalities. Observing that the rate of suicide varied with time and place, Durkheim looked for causes linked to these factors other than emotional stress. He looked at the degree to which people feel integrated into the structure of society and their social surroundings as social factors producing suicide and argued that suicide rates are affected by the different social contexts in which they emerge. Durkheim also distinguished between four types of suicide:

Anomic Suicide: Anomic suicide happens when the disintegrating forces in the society make individuals feel lost or alone. Teenage suicide is usually cited as an example of this type of suicide, as is suicide committed by those who have been sexually abused as children or whose parents are alcoholics. Altruistic Suicide: Altruistic suicide happens when there is excessive regulation of individuals by social forces. An example is someone who commits suicide for the sake of a religious or political cause, such as the hijackers of the airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania on 9/11/01. People who commit altruistic suicide subordinate themselves to collective expectations, even when death is the result. Egoistic Suicide: Egoistic suicide happens when people feel totally detached from society. Ordinarily, people are integrated into society by work roles, ties to family and community, and other social bonds. When these bonds are weakened through retirement or loss of family and friends, the likelihood of egoistic suicide increases. Elderly people who lose these ties are the most susceptible to egoistic suicide. Fatalistic suicide: This type of suicide is due to overregulation in society. Under the overregulation of a society, when a servant or slave commits suicide, when a barren woman commits suicide, it is the example of fatalistic suicide

Types of Suicide:
Emile Durkheim classified different types of suicides on the basis of different types of relationship between the actor and his society.

(1) Egoistic suicide: According to Durkheim, when a man becomes socially isolated or feels that he has no place in the society he destroys himself. This is the suicide of self-centered person who lacks altruistic feelings and is usually cut off from main stream of the society. (2) Altruistic suicide: This type of suicide occurs when individuals and the group are too close and intimate. This kind of suicide results from the over integration of the individual into social proof, for example - Sati customs, Dannies warriors. (3) Anomic suicide: This type of suicide is due to certain breakdown of social equilibrium, such as, suicide after bankruptcy or after winning a lottery. In other words, anomic suicide takes place in a situation which has cropped up suddenly. (4) Fatalistic suicide: This type of suicide is due to overregulation in society. Under the overregulation of a society, when a servant or slave commits suicide, when a barren woman commits suicide, it is the example of fatalistic suicide Critical evaluation of Durkheim's theory: Although Durkheim's theory of suicide has contributed much about the understanding of the phenomenon because of his stress on social rather than on biological or personal factors, the main drawback of the theory is that he has laid too much stress only on one factor, namely social factor and has forgotten or undermined other factors, thereby making his theory defective and only one sided.

Theoretical perspective:
Feminism:
Feminism is theory that men and women should be equal politically, economically and socially. This is the core of all feminism theories. Sometimes this definition is also referred to as "core feminism" or "core feminist theory." Notice that this theory does not subscribe to differences between men and women or similarities between men and women, nor does it refer to excluding men or only furthering women's causes. Most other branches of feminism do.

Feminist:
One who believes in that men and women should be equal politically, economically and socially as defined above?

Patriarchy:
The hierarchical social structure through which men dominate and manipulate women (Avis 1986) Definition: Patriarchal describes a general structure in which men have power over women. Society is the entirety of relations of a community. A patriarchal society consists of a maledominated power structure throughout organized society and in individual relationships. A patriarchy, from the ancient Greek patriarchs, was a society where power was held by and passed down through the elder males. When modern historians and sociologists describe a "patriarchal society," they mean that men hold the positions of power: head of the family unit, leaders of social groups, boss in the workplace and heads of government. Gender Roles are the behaviors required by persons occupying the Male or Female Status.