Introduction
Abstract
Most of the world’s domestic work is done by women. This is as true now as it was when I undertook the study which provides the main extracts for this part of the book. Housework was also what turned me into a social scientist. A transformative moment, which occurred during the dusting of my husband’s books on the sociology of work some time in the late 1960s (see Oakley, 1984a), opened my eyes to the ways in which bias can masquerade as scientific knowledge. I was truly shocked to discover how not even a discipline as pre-eminently ‘social’ as sociology could be trusted to encapsulate the experiences of the majority. That women’s housework is the typical and most globally important type of labour was certainly a well-kept secret in the 1960s. Thanks to several decades of work by sociologists, economists, anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers and social policy academics, the status of housework has now been elevated to a ‘legitimate’ and ‘well-established’ topic of study (VanEvery, 1997, pp 411, 419).
The first five extracts come from my book The sociology of housework, published in 1974, and containing the work undertaken for a PhD in sociology at the University of London. The core of the project was a small empirical study – interviews with 40 women with young children in a western suburb of London in 1971. Around this, I assembled a repertoire of sub-studies: How did sociology represent housework? What was the anthropological evidence about gender and domestic work? How did the modern position of women as houseworkers evolve historically? Why do women do housework? Each of these inquiries sent me to the library (which afforded some escape from my own housework), and resulted in partial answers, either tacked onto the housework study or published in its companion volume, Housewife (1974a).
Abstract
Most of the world’s domestic work is done by women. This is as true now as it was when I undertook the study which provides the main extracts for this part of the book. Housework was also what turned me into a social scientist. A transformative moment, which occurred during the dusting of my husband’s books on the sociology of work some time in the late 1960s (see Oakley, 1984a), opened my eyes to the ways in which bias can masquerade as scientific knowledge. I was truly shocked to discover how not even a discipline as pre-eminently ‘social’ as sociology could be trusted to encapsulate the experiences of the majority. That women’s housework is the typical and most globally important type of labour was certainly a well-kept secret in the 1960s. Thanks to several decades of work by sociologists, economists, anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers and social policy academics, the status of housework has now been elevated to a ‘legitimate’ and ‘well-established’ topic of study (VanEvery, 1997, pp 411, 419).
The first five extracts come from my book The sociology of housework, published in 1974, and containing the work undertaken for a PhD in sociology at the University of London. The core of the project was a small empirical study – interviews with 40 women with young children in a western suburb of London in 1971. Around this, I assembled a repertoire of sub-studies: How did sociology represent housework? What was the anthropological evidence about gender and domestic work? How did the modern position of women as houseworkers evolve historically? Why do women do housework? Each of these inquiries sent me to the library (which afforded some escape from my own housework), and resulted in partial answers, either tacked onto the housework study or published in its companion volume, Housewife (1974a).
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- 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
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- 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
