A nuclear family consists of a farther, mother and two children, the farther usually plays the instrumental role whilst the mother plays the expressive role, this is said to be the typical gender stereotypes within the nuclear family however feminists point out that this is a patriarchal society and women seem to have less economic power than men.

Radical feminists strongly state that the main role of the nuclear family is to maintain a patriarchal society, they back this up with the fact they believe that it's only for the benefit of men and creates male superiority, radical feminist say that men oppress women and exploit them and say they use their superior strength, capacity for violence and the biological fact that females depend on males for reproduction as means for controlling and dominating women. One radical feminist called Purdy said the only solution to overcome this would be to have a baby strike she said that this would make men take women's claims To equality more seriously.

Marxist feminist argue that the main role of the family is to promote capitalist and is classed based they also agree that the nuclear family promotes a patriarchal society and say is also promotes patriarchy as women face oppression in the family, they also argue that the state put pressure on women as mothers and say this is reinforced by social policies of the state for example women are entitled to receive maternity pay whilst men's paternity pay is less, thus reinforcement the idea that the male is the breadwinner and worker whilst the female acts as the caring housewife and mother.

However liberal feminists on the other hand believe things are gradually becoming better for women compared to many years ago in both the family and society and this is shown by recent statistics showing that up to 70% of divorces are initiated by women and they also look at things like