The people of the US, unlike most other Western industrialized countries, have little sense of the class distinctions that exist in the country and what they mean. I was recently on Mackinac Island for the first time and we went up near the Grand Hotel. Up near, because we couldn't go in without paying a fee because the owner wants to keep out the riffraff. Class distinctions and economic inequality mean different kinds of family life for different people. The Culture of Poverty.
Families are the seat of power for women, is a persistent myth.
Any reading of the sociological evidence shows that women, in the US and worldwide, have a more difficult road to hoe. As I said in the Glossary Review social structure can be seen as roles, rules and institutions that shape our behavior. So in this example, and others such as housing and employment, there are roles and rules that are built into social life and channel our behavior one way or another. In this example women are channeled away from a lucrative medical specialty. A person can be excused for having some confusion about the notion of social class since sociologists themselves are divided over how to think of class and how to segment society into social classes.