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What is functionalism? Functionalism is a theoretical point of view on social institution working together as a group like a living cell or clock and not changing the whole but only makes changes partially when an intruder threaten the society. There are two functions in functionalism; manifest function which intentionally makes the society evolves and the situations that occur unintentionally from the previous function is called latent function (Emile Durkheim, 1893).

First of all, employers want to decrease the amount of money used in giving salaries to their employees as much as possible to lower the expenditures as the expenses used in other categories getting higher. No one wants to affect their incomes and they all want to save them as much as they can. And therefore, it is hard for the employers to reduce the salaries since they will put much complaints about it. The best and easiest situation they can think of from their greedy mindset is hiring underaged employees because they can pay them at a very low rate and the victims cannot make complaints about it since it is illegal. Children from poor family are mostly sent to greedy boss since their parents can't afford them to go to school and want every single family members to work very hard to get out of poverty together. Unfortunately, young people starts to lose their dreams and work hard giving blood, sweat and tears instead of studying when most people at their age are having fun at schools. This situation also puts them into a great danger when teenagers have to work in an dangerous workshops. They can't make complaints about dangerous work places and can't talk back to uppers if they blame them what they didn't do in afraid of losing their jobs. This humiliates human rights and violates social cohesion which is crucial to functionalism.

In conclusion, it is injustice and definitely needs to change this whole institution. If you want to argue that functionalism doesn't normally change the whole institution but a part of it, we all must change even if doesn't fit the definition of functionalism and this kind of injustice should not happen in the very first place. If we don't the whole society will become anomie since it will weak the norms by decreasing educated person rates.

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Was American slavery fair?

For the slaves who were ruled and controlled, they were not free and their daily lives were controlled. In 1619, the first 20 black slaves were transported by a Dutch ship to Jamestown in the North American colony of Virginia. Black slaves were then available in the colonies, but not in large numbers until the mid-17th century, when British merchants took over the monopoly of the slave trade from the Dutch in the 1760s, and black slaves increased rapidly and replaced indentured servants as the main labor force on the plantations by the end of the 17th century. According to the first census of the United States in 1790, there were 698,000 black slaves, accounting for 2/5 of the total population of the South. black slaves, like land, tools, and other means of production, were the private property of the plantation owners, and their children were also the property of the slave owners. Slaves worked for the slave owner for life. Slave owners had the right to do with their slaves as they pleased, including buying, selling, beating, and executing them. By 1860, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and other states had become major plantation cotton growing areas. Slave labor brought huge profits to plantation owners, and the number of slaves continued to grow. According to statistics, the number of slaves grew to nearly 4 million in 1860, with 3/4 of them working on the plantations. Slaves made up about 1/3 of the total population of the South. This was extremely unfair to the people under control. But the resurrection of the long-outdated slave system in North America by the British colonialists and the American bourgeoisie speaks volumes about the brutal, barbaric exploitative nature of colonialism and capitalism. The darkest page in the history of the United States was plantation slavery, which was abolished on September 22, 1862, when President A. Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation to the world, proclaiming the emancipation of black slaves as of January 1, 1863.

But on the other hand, slavery in the United States could promote capitalism, which was beneficial to them. For example, in 1793, the American E. Whitney (1765-1825) invented the cotton gin, which increased the efficiency of removing cotton seeds by 100 times and greatly promoted the development of cotton planting.

In general, American slavery was unfair, because the slaves were ruled by illegal means, deprived of their freedom and beaten, which ultimately benefited from capitalism and favored the development of capitalism.

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American slavery was not fair
Slavery originated in the early days of the British colonization of North America and was recognized by the thirteen colonies in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. When the United States was founded, although free people of color already existed, most slaves were of African descent and race played a determining factor in the institutions and heritage of American slavery it was to some extent it exploited the life freedom of slaves and used violence, that is, slaves were the property of plantation owners and had no personal freedom; slaves were driven directly and violently to forced labor. In order to protect slavery, the delegates adopted Article IV, Section 2, which states, "Any person liable to military or labor service in a state under the laws of that state, who shall flee to another state, shall not be discharged from such military or labor service under any law or regulation of the state to which he fled, but shall be surrendered at the request of the party entitled to the service or labor." The protection of slavery in the Constitution enhanced the political power of Southern representatives, and the Southern economy had ties across the United States. As historian James Oliver Horton has noted, Southern slaveholders and cash crops had a tremendous impact on politics and economics throughout the United States; for example, the New York economy was closely linked to the South through transportation and manufacturing. By 1822, cotton accounted for half of exports. In 1793, when Eli Whitney invented the cotton tying machine, most slaves in the United States were directly involved in cotton production. Statistics show that less than 10% of the Northern population was enslaved, but by 1790, the total slave population in Virginia had soared to 44%. Pre-war American slavery used status to profit from slavery. It was widespread in the South because the local climate made agriculture more prevalent. Slavery was considered a profitable system by economists and historians. The move from indentured labor to slavery proves that slaves were more beneficial to ranchers. The comparative prices of slaves and indentured laborers, however, declined before the war. Indentured labor became more expensive when skilled labor was needed in large numbers in England. Else at the same time, slaves could be supplied by the United States itself at relatively low prices: no language barriers, cheap transportation across state lines. In the decades leading up to the Civil War, the natural population of black Americans increased substantially. When the Anglo-American slave trade was banned in 1808, the slave population approximately tripled between 1810 and 1860. And this was not fair to the people who were ruled at the time.

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Functionalism could distribute fairly the function to each social institutions and make them work together like a sense of being a society.However, we may break the function balance and make society fall into anomie if we only focus on each institutions’ function.

For example, child labour will boost the industries’ profits but also reduce the level of being educated in society and make the education or specifier schools lose their function.Because we only focus on the companis’profits and economical growth but ignore the education playing a important role in society to keep the norms working and the equal right for children accepting education. We need education to teach our children how to behave and interact correctly with other and make them have knowledge to practice in society to avoid the irreparable error happening like destruction of countries if a constant occurrence of anomie .

The society will be wild and rude if we only worry about a function.

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The women’s suffrage movement always had a deep sense of its own history. In the later years of the 19th century, women in regional areas became increasingly involved in the struggle for suffrage. When thinking about the larger implications of the suffrage victory, we also need to remember that many women, especially those in United Kingdom, were already voting in the years before the passage of the 19th Amendment. In addition, many women across the country enjoyed the right to vote on the local level in municipal elections and for school committees. Apparently, many working-class women simply saw no benefit in bothering to fight for the vote, especially for a parliament that had delivered nothing but pain and misery for the masses. They could see that just widening the franchise to only women with property would have little-to-no impact on their material conditions. Even after the right to vote was finally given to all women aged 21 and over, it was clear that the real fight had only just begun. The vote was not an end in itself but a means to an end. Some women’s suffrage advocates believed that this was their chance to push lawmakers for truly universal suffrage. As a result, they refused to support the 15th Amendment and even allied with racist Southerners who argued that white women’s votes could be used to neutralize those cast by African Americans .This meant a fight - as it does today - against the whole system and the class who defend it.

1. Emmeline Pankhurst My Own Story Eveleigh Nash London 1914 38  [Google Scholar]

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Before 1918, women were not allowed to vote in parliamentary elections. In the early 20th century, activist groups united and fought for women’s right to vote. It is known as “Suffragette struggle”. Suffragettes rejected political powerlessness and engaged in a campaign of public protest.

The functionalist perspective of gender roles suggests that gender roles exist to maximize social efficiency. According to theory, society is a struggle for dominance among social groups (like women versus men) that compete for scarce resources. According to conflict theory, social problems are created when one of the group exploit or oppress another. Therefore, “Suffragette struggle” can be an example of functional theory injustice, because women it was based on social inequality, women did not have the same right as men.

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Functionalism sees society as a structure with interconnected parts designed to meet the social needs of the individuals in that society.
As we all know, functionalism is rooted in positive perspective. However,it has limitations. For example, slavery in the United States shows the shortcomings of functionalism. This is clearly an oppression of the slave class. The functionalism puts emphasis on the stratification and leads to the dysfunction and anomie. According to the lack of moral values, the ruling class excessively oppressed the slave class，which leads to the loss of human rights. Functionalism focuses on structure instead of individuals. The rules in the structure should be normal, guiding people to follow them. However, the rules in the structure of slavery are inhuman. Therefore, slavery in United States should be limited.
Above all, functionalism should keep a balance between the key concepts and key criticisms, make it running smoothly in the society.

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Functionalism looks the society like a working machine, and social institutions perform different functions to keep society stable.Both strengths and weaknesses can be found in this theoretical perspective.Functionalism gives a large view of society but it can often ignore the individuals.

Looking at the slavery in history in functionalism perspective, it had the declared function that can enhance social productivity , stabilize the social class and it is a feature of civilization. However, its hidden consequences are extremely serious. It brought those who were slaves great pain and exploitation, making their life like hell.According to this example, we can see that functionalism focuses too much on the positive functions that social institutions perform to society, usually overlooking the dark side of these which do harm to specific individuals.As a result, although functionalism can offer a good way to study, it can be restrictive to block more thinking and progress.

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The suffragette struggle was a movement in the "Votes for Women" campaign, which campaigned long and hard for women's voting rights in the UK. They fought for women's right to vote through art, discourse, propaganda, and acts of vandalism like window-shattering and arson.

Functionalists' perspective on the suffrage movement was mostly based on gender inequality; Talcott Parsons' "nuclear family" concept played a major role in its development and was most forcefully expressed in the 1940s and 1950s (Boundless et al., 2020). The “nuclear family” is known as a pair of adults and their socially accepted children who are bound together by the bonds of relationship and parenthood (2022, September 16).

According to this theory, gender disparities exist as a social system in which some groups are obviously in charge of carrying out particular, assigned tasks of work. The division of labour aims to increase productivity and resource efficiency (Boundless et al., 2020). As a result, women banded together to protest equal voting rights for men in public elections.

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The suffragettes were a group of women that fought to acquire their rights to vote. It was a long and tedious fight and many lives were lost to the cause; More tortured. The functionalist theory views society as a machine where every individual is playing their role so that society can continue to function. When members of society are derailed from their individual roles and fail to fulfill them, society will lose its stability and disintegrate (Little et al. , 2016)

So according to the Functionalist theory and through its lens, women during the early 1900s were fulfilling a role by being oppressed and silenced. Their speaking up would be seen as catastrophic for social stability. Therefore, while the functionalist theory might seem like a logical and well thought out framework to view society through, it fails to consider that some of the conditions keeping society ‘stable’ and the roles that certain demographics seemingly play, are unjust and cruel.

It should not be expected of people to live uncomfortably and be derived of basic human rights in the name of maintaining social stability and cohesion.

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1. slave plantations were run by plantation owners and produced for the capitalist world market for profit, which was its capitalist character
Function: It played an important role in the growth of world capitalism
2. it was that the slaves were the property of the plantation owners and had no personal freedom; the slaves were driven by direct violence to perform forced labor; and the slave owners deprived the slaves of not only surplus labor but also a significant portion of necessary labor from their labor.
3. mainly the enslavement of Africans and African-Americans
4.It is unfair. Yes, it needs to change, and actually we need to destroy slavery.Slavery is overwhelming disgusting, immoral and inhuman.

Similar condition:Capitalist exploitation of the working class.

5.1)We will focus on “stability” of society too much, so we may often overlooked class,  ethnicity, gender and so on.We just care about the whole society instead of individuals.We can be conservative and restrictive which will block the progress of society.

6.It just looks at society in a macro scale and doesn’t look at people individually.It focuses  too much on the positive functions that institutions perform, ignoring the negative ways in which institutions and socialization can have on certain people.

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1. Manifest:a. Reduce employer’s money on spending in salary in order to boost company’s profits, b. Poor  family will send their Childs to industries in order to get out of poverty; Latent: a.Put Childs to dangerous situations because some of the industries’ workshops are not safe b. Taking away child’s opportunity to become an educated citizen in school

2. It doesn’t have social cohesion or integration because those of Childs be send to industries by their parents not be gave the chances to speak out their feelings and they will lose the skill of communication which is crucial to social cohesion.

3. Education or more specific school not be included

4. Unfair; yes ,it has to change; Office work is similar to this conditions in society because of the uppers giving extra works to the employees and they mostly can’t talk back to their employers in afraid of losing their jobs.

5. The society will fall into anomie because the rate of educated person decline and put the society into losing norms.

6. Functionalism make people understand how a society works together but a society’s function does not always work so we have to change the whole thing if we need to.

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1-The women’s Suffragette movement was a decades long fight to win the right to vote for women in the United Kingdom. It took activists and reformers nearly 100 years to win that fight. The women’s suffragette movement fought for the right of women by law to vote in national or local elections.

2- The suffragette struggle contributed to social cohesion as women came together in solidarity within their organisation and fought for the right to vote in pubic elections.

3- Since the suffragette movement was about giving women the right to vote, only/mostly women were the demographic of society that were included in this organisation/institution.

4- Women had no right to vote, which is unfair. Everyone should have equal rights regardless of sex. An example of a similar thing happening in society now is how registration centers for voting in Zimbabwe are set up in unsafe areas on purpose, to control votes and exclude certain demographics from voting

5-Women would have fewer rights, less access to resources, less political power, lower economic potential, worse and higher mortality rates and overall lower life chances if we thought about society as just a working machine

6- According to the functionalist theory and through it’s lens, women not being able to vote and practice their rights back then was just how society is meant to function and women needed to fulfill their role of not voting to maintain social stability and cohesion