Introduction
Abstract
Anyone trying to understand the social positions of men and women must sooner or later confront the question of causality. The impressive repertoire of differences seemingly inscribed on the ‘fault’ line of femininity/masculinity suggests an underlying conspiracy on the part of Mother Nature to make women unequal, but the stuff of social science is complex social systems, and there is nothing simple about gender.
The main extracts in this section come from my first book, Sex, gender and society (1972), and from an update of this material published as a women’s studies textbook, Subject women (1981).These arose from my own naive inquiries during the course of a PhD on housework (see Part 2) as to why women appeared to do the bulk of the world’s work, unpaid, unrewarded and largely unrecognised. The need for some conceptual distinction between bodily constraints and social oppression was also directly prompted by second wave feminism in Europe and North America; the politics of a new awareness relating to sex inequality demanded a new academic consciousness and analytic technology. The paired terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ seemed to offer just that: while one signalled bodily prescription and proscription, the other counterposed the heavy weight of culture, economics and tradition in allowing only certain kinds of possibilities.
Sex, gender and society is credited in The Oxford English Dictionary with initiating into the language a new use of the term ‘gender’, and specifically with introducing this use into lexicons of social science (see, for example, Segal, 1987; Delphy, 1993; Oudshoorn, 1994; Hood-Williams, 1996; David, 2003).
Abstract
Anyone trying to understand the social positions of men and women must sooner or later confront the question of causality. The impressive repertoire of differences seemingly inscribed on the ‘fault’ line of femininity/masculinity suggests an underlying conspiracy on the part of Mother Nature to make women unequal, but the stuff of social science is complex social systems, and there is nothing simple about gender.
The main extracts in this section come from my first book, Sex, gender and society (1972), and from an update of this material published as a women’s studies textbook, Subject women (1981).These arose from my own naive inquiries during the course of a PhD on housework (see Part 2) as to why women appeared to do the bulk of the world’s work, unpaid, unrewarded and largely unrecognised. The need for some conceptual distinction between bodily constraints and social oppression was also directly prompted by second wave feminism in Europe and North America; the politics of a new awareness relating to sex inequality demanded a new academic consciousness and analytic technology. The paired terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ seemed to offer just that: while one signalled bodily prescription and proscription, the other counterposed the heavy weight of culture, economics and tradition in allowing only certain kinds of possibilities.
Sex, gender and society is credited in The Oxford English Dictionary with initiating into the language a new use of the term ‘gender’, and specifically with introducing this use into lexicons of social science (see, for example, Segal, 1987; Delphy, 1993; Oudshoorn, 1994; Hood-Williams, 1996; David, 2003).
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Sources of extracts iv
- Foreword by Germaine Greer vi
- Preface ix
-
Sex and gender
- Introduction 2
- The difference between sex and gender 7
- Genes and gender 13
- A kind of person 21
- Childhood lessons 31
- Science, gender and women’s liberation 41
-
Housework and family life
- Introduction 54
- On studying housework 59
- Images of housework 63
- Work conditions 75
- Standards and routines 87
- Marriage and the division of labour 93
- Helping with baby 103
- Housework in history and culture 109
-
Childbirth, motherhood and medicine
- Introduction 118
- The agony and the ecstasy 123
- Lessons mothers learn 139
- Medical maternity cases 151
- Mistakes and mystiques of motherhood 179
-
Doing social science
- Introduction 184
- The invisible woman: sexism in sociology 189
- Reflections thirty years on 207
- On being interviewed 211
- Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms? 217
- Who’s afraid of the randomized controlled trial? Some dilemmas of the scientific method and ‘good’ research practice 233
- Paradigm wars: some thoughts on a personal and public trajectory 245
- General bibliography 251
- Bibliography of work by Ann Oakley 281
- Ann Oakley: further reading 285
- Index 295
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Sources of extracts iv
- Foreword by Germaine Greer vi
- Preface ix
-
Sex and gender
- Introduction 2
- The difference between sex and gender 7
- Genes and gender 13
- A kind of person 21
- Childhood lessons 31
- Science, gender and women’s liberation 41
-
Housework and family life
- Introduction 54
- On studying housework 59
- Images of housework 63
- Work conditions 75
- Standards and routines 87
- Marriage and the division of labour 93
- Helping with baby 103
- Housework in history and culture 109
-
Childbirth, motherhood and medicine
- Introduction 118
- The agony and the ecstasy 123
- Lessons mothers learn 139
- Medical maternity cases 151
- Mistakes and mystiques of motherhood 179
-
Doing social science
- Introduction 184
- The invisible woman: sexism in sociology 189
- Reflections thirty years on 207
- On being interviewed 211
- Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms? 217
- Who’s afraid of the randomized controlled trial? Some dilemmas of the scientific method and ‘good’ research practice 233
- Paradigm wars: some thoughts on a personal and public trajectory 245
- General bibliography 251
- Bibliography of work by Ann Oakley 281
- Ann Oakley: further reading 285
- Index 295
