Functionalism addresses the society as a whole in terms of function of its constituent elements such as norms, customs, traditions, institutions etc. Social structures are stressed and placed at the center of analysis and social functions are deduced from these structures. Gender inequality offers a good illustration. According to Structural Functionalist perspective, women being subordinate to men allows the wage-earners to function smoothly as everyone in the society knows his or her respective position in the hierarchy. Whereas many variations of feminist theory exist, they all emphasize that society is filled with gender inequality such that women are the subordinate sex in many dimensions of social, political, and economic life

Structural functional theory view society as a complex, but interconnected system, where each part works together as a functional whole, in summary this theory focuses on the society as a whole, it studies how each part of the larger social world works together, whereas feminism is a perspective that views society as traditionally unequal between men and women and strive for equality between the sexes. So meaning that the structural functionalist. The two theories contradicts because the other one focuses on the society as a whole whereas the other one focuses on voiceless women who's voices has been denied in science research.

The similarities are that they both protect people living in the society, they both ensure social stability by protecting the rights of the people despite  social problems or negativity encountered.

S.D LUKHELE            32006527       ACTIVITY 1.

DEPRESSION

Depression can be concluded and said that it is a social problem, reason being that most individuals are harmed and are affected in a way that they end up taking medication for survival due to stress. Stress can be a major impact especially if you are facing financial problems. This social problem is too complex and multicausal to be solved, hence why we sometimes experience deaths of loved one.

SMASH-AND-GRAB

Smash-and-grab is a social problem and a criminal offence because peoples belongings are taken without their consent. Some situations of smash and grab is that victims of it can need to go for counselling because of trauma. This can be resolved by creating job opportunities, since robbers seek belongings of people to sell them so that they ca bring food on the table.

RAPE

Rape is social problem because it is something that happens unplanned. It is a harmful doing which does not affect the victim but also affects the family and close friends of the victims. As much as rape is very harmful, it is done by evil people, where women, children and men are all victims when it comes to rape. We can overcome this by speaking about such events, rapists to be punished and giving those people a full support.

FAST FOOD

Fast food is not merely a social problem because in most cases it does not have any effects on people as much as there are people by nature which are obese. By choosing which food to eat can overcome this issue, since people have a right of choosing what they want to eat.

HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS is a social problem as much as there are people born with it, reason being that people do not practice safe sex. We can solve this issue by practicing safer sex all the times, letting people know about this issue, issue out pamphlets and always attend programmes where this is being taught.