SO 3066 Feminist theory and sociology: a critique and overview

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SO 3066Feminist theory and sociology a
critique and overview

• Dr Rhoda Wilkie

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lecture outline

• introductory comments about terminology
• historical overview first and second wave
  feminism
• explore why feminists have been critical of
  mainstream or malestream sociology?
• e.g. sociological research on class to illustrate
  some of their criticisms
• feminist theoretical perspectives and the impact
  of the
• cultural turn
• summary

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introductory points terminology (Freedman
2001 Pilcher Whelehan 2004)

• feminism originates from the French term
  féminisme
• in 1871 some claim the term feminist first used
  in French medical text
• -feminisation of male body
• 1872 Alexandre Dumas (French Writer) pamphlet -
  adultery
• women with masculine traits
• the early usage of the term associated with
  gender confusion and it is also worth noting
  that the term feminist was not initially used
  by women
• meaning changed - political position change and
  improve the position of women in society
• retrospectively applied to recognise earlier
  attempts by women who were attempting to promote
  such changes

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first wave feminism (Pilcher Whelehan 2004
Summerfield in Cosslett et al 1996)

• e.g. Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) 1848 Seneca
  Falls Convention (USA) rise of womens suffrage
  movements (UK and USA)
• first wave feminism 1880s -1920s
• e.g. associated with equal rights struggle
  for vote legislative changes but addressed
  other issues too
• important to note that there were splits within
  the movement in terms of focus and strategy
• pros and cons of wave analogy

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second wave feminism

• second wave feminism 1960s-1970s
• - grass-roots activism
• - womens liberation movement radical?
• consciousness raising groups
• - personal is political
• - sisterhood
• moved into the academy
• womens studies (now gender studies - debate)
• feminism is both theory and activism (praxis)
  importance of experience

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feminists critical of sociology(e.g. Abbot et al
2005 9-10)

• sociology has a history of conducting research on
  men
• e.g. use male only samples findings derived
  from studies are unquestioningly generalised and
  assumed to be equally relevant to women men
  taken as norm?
• issues and experiences of concern to women were
  at best neglected and at worst considered
  sociologically irrelevant
• e.g. domestic violence and labour
• if women incorporated into studies - tended to be
  quite simply misrepresented and/or represented in
  a stereotypical manner
• sex and gender tended to be naively and
  uncritically tagged on and stirred into research
  designs little (if any) appreciation that the
  theoretical frameworks themselves were part of
  the problem

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e.g. sociological research on class(Acker 1973)

• Nuffield Mobility Study (1980)
• Register Generals Scale (1911- 2001)
• based on all male sample
• women classified indirectly male head of
  household women hidden from the figures
• Joan Acker seminal paper feminist critique of
  stratification literature

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feminist critique of sociology?(see e.g. Abbott
et al 2005 Marshall Witz 2004 Stanley 1990
Smith 1987)

• founding fathers were androcentric
  (male-centred) - this informed and fundamentally
  shaped malestream research agendas and
  theoretical perspectives
• i.e. sociology by men, of men and for men
• (focus on public sphere political and economic
  changes)
• natural woman (in contrast to cultured man) -
  women closely aligned with nature and their
  biology (reproduction) which explains and/or
  justifies their relatively devalued nurturing and
  caring roles in society
• (located in private sphere)
• the division of labour between men and women
  regarded as natural and thus pre-social - not
  of concern to sociologists
• malestream sociology built on and perpetuated
  patriarchal ideology?

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Feminists argue that womens position within
society is not a natural phenomenon, but a
social, political and economic product which is
reflected and perpetuated by the bias of
science.(Harding, in May 2001 19)
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feminist theoretical perspectives (1)(according
to Lengermann Niebrugge-Brantley in Ritzer
2000 443)

• are first and foremost woman-centered
• focus situation(s) and experience(s) of women
• accessed - via the standpoint or perspective(s)
  of women
• political goal better world for women
• often draws on and informed by other academic
  disciplines and non-academic groups
  interdisciplinary
• double agenda
• integrate insights and findings into sociology
  address malestream bias reshape disciplinary
  foundations and assumptions?
• critique of society to promote change benefit
  everyone

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feminist theoretical perspectives (2)(e.g.
Abbott et al 2005 Zalewski 2000 Jackson Jones
1998 Tong 1990)

• attempt to explain womens subordination in
  society different perspectives - ask different
  questions and come to different conclusions e.g.
• Liberal feminism
• Radical feminism
• Marxist feminism
• Postmodern feminism
• Black and Post-colonial feminism

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liberal feminism

• equal rights and opportunities challenge long
  held beliefs and ideas about womens
  (in)abilities
• e.g. Wollstonecraft (1792) the feathered
  race
• humanism emancipation meritocracy
• sameness ability to reason
• are human values equated with male values?
• reform - simply add women perpetuate malestream
  bias?
• explain womens inequality?

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radical feminism

• feminism in its purest form (Abbott et al
  2005 33)
• woman-centred and celebrates the differences
  between women and men
• patriarchy is central - structural domination
  universal sisterhood
• the personal is political e.g. family
  domestic violence body politics
• separatist women only organisations and
  critique of heterosexuality
• rediscover and promote knowledge from the
  experience and standpoint of women
• oversimplified understanding of patriarchy?
• claims to a universal and homogenous sisterhood
  problematic?

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Marxist/materialist feminisms

• particularly influential during 1960s-70s
• explain womens subordinated status in
  (capitalist) society
• feminists revised Marxist theory blind to
  gender - tried to fit women in to Marxism
  relations of production and relations of
  reproduction
• - e.g. institution of the nuclear family
  property and inheritance (Engels) flawed
  thesis?
• womens work in public sphere devalued and
  poorly paid reserve army of labour why
  women?
• domestic work not regarded as real work -
  domestic labour debates

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Marxist/socialist feminisms (see e.g. Jackson in
Jackson Jones 1998)

• serve interests of capitalism and men?
• what about non-capitalist societies?
• capitalism and/or patriarchy debates disputes
  over the location and explanation of womens
  subordination?
• e.g. dual systems theory e.g. Walby shift
  from private to public patriarchy?
• exclusion/segregation
• convergence/polarisation
• but what about other factors and inequalities
• e.g. globalisation and ethnicity?

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reminder of postmodern thinking
anti-everything?

• post-modernism is not a clearly defined theory,
  but a loose body of thought which draws on
  interconnected ideas around language, knowledge,
  reason, power, identity and resistance (Bryson
  1999 36)
• critical of Enlightenment project
• authoritative and objective status of scientific
  knowledge reject view from nowhere
• grand or meta-narratives e.g. Marxism
• include (modernist) feminism too?
• claims to the truth
• reject idea of the subject
• anti-foundational
• contest and deconstruct stability favour
  shifting, fractured, arbitrary nature of meaning
  and identities

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cultural turn and feminist theory

• social science perspectives informed and shaped
  feminist theory but some argue that literary and
  cultural theoretical perspectives are now more
  influential
• since the 1980s witnessed a cultural or
  linguistic turn
• a shift from things to words (Barrett in Kemp
  Squires 1997)
• for example the focus moved away from materialist
  issues related to domestic labour, gender
  inequities in the workplace and domestic violence
  to issues related to language, representation and
  subjectivity
• gender is understood to be shaped not just by
  social structures but by dominant discourses
  forms of language that construct what it means to
  be a man or a woman (Abbott et al 2005 358 my
  emphasis)
• misrecognise and take as real what is actually
  linguistically constructed?
• how has this shift impacted on feminist theory?

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e.g. Butler gender as performative

• language creates reality
• woman is not a biological category
• sex is socially constructed
• sex is a linguistic category no such thing as
  biological sex
• sexuality cultural resource to resist
  patriarchal oppression and heterosexual hegemony?

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postmodern feminism

• contest and resist categorisation what woman
  ought to be - the point is to deconstruct all
  attempts to fix identity this in itself is a
  political act
• focus on differences between women not
  commonalities
• but what are the political implications for
  feminism if no basis for a collective identity?
• inaccessible and elitist?
• what about materialist issues and structural
  factors?

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Black and post-colonialist feminismsmargin to
centre

• critical of white elitism prioritises and
  represents the experiences of white, middle
  class, heterosexual, affluent Western women
• diversity of womens experiences e.g. family
• how does gender intersect with other factors
  (e.g. class, ethnicity, disability) should
  gender be given primacy over other aspects
  hierarchy of oppression?
• can women oppress other groups of women and/or
  men?
• all women have racialised identities?
• notion of solidarity as opposed to sisterhood?
  (hooks 1984)

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summary

• historical overview first and second wave
  feminism
• explored why feminists have been critical of
  mainstream or malestream sociology
• explored different feminist theoretical
  perspectives and considered the impact of the
  cultural turn on feminist theory
• in the next lecture we will consider why
  feminists have been so critical of sociological
  research methods and well consider their
  attempts to develop feminist informed
  epistemologies