5 Gender
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Mark Doidge
Abstract
One of the major critiques of sociology is that there is too great a focus on the ‘founding fathers’ of sociology, namely Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx and Max Weber. Although there are some prominent early female writers, like Harriet Martineau from Britain and Jane Adams from the US, early writings are predominately written by men, about men and for men. They wrote about the male experience and did not really take into account differences based on gender. If you go back and look at the earlier quotes by these theorists, they all use ‘he’, ‘him’, or ‘man’ as a shorthand for ‘he or she’, ‘him or her’, or ‘human’. They didn’t consider that the non-male experience could be different. Thus, the ‘dead white men’ approach to social theory has been heavily critiqued in recent years. The success of feminism is therefore that it has not just brought about legislative and cultural changes in wider society, but it has centralised gender as an analytical tool so we can understand society through different perspectives. As with race and class, it is important to listen to the lived experience of people, not to assume that their experience is the same as ours.
This chapter addresses the dominant position men and masculinity have taken in society. It then outlines how there have been broadly three ‘waves’ of feminism in the West. The first wave centred on the right to vote and basic property rights at the start of the 20th century. Equal access to the workplace and education, and control of reproductive rights became the focus of the second wave in the 1960s.
Abstract
One of the major critiques of sociology is that there is too great a focus on the ‘founding fathers’ of sociology, namely Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx and Max Weber. Although there are some prominent early female writers, like Harriet Martineau from Britain and Jane Adams from the US, early writings are predominately written by men, about men and for men. They wrote about the male experience and did not really take into account differences based on gender. If you go back and look at the earlier quotes by these theorists, they all use ‘he’, ‘him’, or ‘man’ as a shorthand for ‘he or she’, ‘him or her’, or ‘human’. They didn’t consider that the non-male experience could be different. Thus, the ‘dead white men’ approach to social theory has been heavily critiqued in recent years. The success of feminism is therefore that it has not just brought about legislative and cultural changes in wider society, but it has centralised gender as an analytical tool so we can understand society through different perspectives. As with race and class, it is important to listen to the lived experience of people, not to assume that their experience is the same as ours.
This chapter addresses the dominant position men and masculinity have taken in society. It then outlines how there have been broadly three ‘waves’ of feminism in the West. The first wave centred on the right to vote and basic property rights at the start of the 20th century. Equal access to the workplace and education, and control of reproductive rights became the focus of the second wave in the 1960s.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of boxes and figures v
- About the authors vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction: the sociology of everyday life 1
- Lifestyle and consumption 19
- Race, ethnicity and migration 39
- Class 65
- Gender 85
- Relationships and intimacy 105
- Globalisation and post-industrialisation 125
- The UK in the future 153
- References 159
- Index 169
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of boxes and figures v
- About the authors vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction: the sociology of everyday life 1
- Lifestyle and consumption 19
- Race, ethnicity and migration 39
- Class 65
- Gender 85
- Relationships and intimacy 105
- Globalisation and post-industrialisation 125
- The UK in the future 153
- References 159
- Index 169
