The Ann Oakley reader , livre ebook
317
pages
English
Ebooks
2005
Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus
Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement
Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement
317
pages
English
Ebooks
2005
Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus
Publié par
Date de parution
29 juin 2005
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781447342434
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
18 Mo
This book brings together edited extracts from classic texts by the internationally renowned feminist sociologist, Ann Oakley. Many of Oakley's early works are out of print and this collection makes them available again. There are extracts from pioneering studies such as Sex, Gender and Society, The Sociology of Housework, Becoming a Mother and Women Confined, presented alongside some of Ann Oakley's more recent reflections on methodology, scientific method and research practice. The book illustrates how Oakley's thinking has evolved over a period in which much in the field of gender and women's studies has changed. Each section of the book is prefaced by Oakley's reflections on how her original studies relate to more recent research and theoretical perspectives. There are many points of intersection with modern debates about how (and whether) to 'do' gender and what terms such as 'women' and 'men' really mean. The result is a valuable commentary on thirty years' work on women, gender and social science methodology which will be of interest to many, especially undergraduate and A-level students, as well as all those grappling with current issues about the past and future of work in the contested areas of gender, women's studies and feminist social science.
Voir
Publié par
Date de parution
29 juin 2005
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781447342434
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
18 Mo
THE ANN OAKLEY READER
Gender, women and social science
Written and edited by Ann Oakley Foreword by Germaine Greer
The Ann Oakley reader
Gender, women and social science
Written and edited by Ann Oakley
Foreword by Germaine Greer
First published in Great Britain in June 2005 by
PolicyPress UniversityofBristol 1-9OldParkHill BristolBS28BB UK t:+44(0)1179545940 e:pp-info@bristol.ac.uk www.policypress.co.uk
North American office: Policy Press c/o The University of Chicago Press 1427 East 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637, USA t: +1 773 702 7700 f: +1 7737029756 e:sales@press.uchicago.edu www.press.uchicago.edu
© Ann Oakley 2005 Illustrations contained herein © as specified, where known
Transferred to Digital Print 2011
The author would like to thank the following for kind permission to publish their cartoons: Jackie Fleming (“Strange black ring”) and Leeds Postcards (“Oh, that explains the difference in our pay”).
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 978 1744443423FPDE
A hardback version of this book is also available.
The right of Ann Oakley to be identified as author and editor of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.
All rights reserved: no par t of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of The Policy Press.
The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the author and editor and not of The University of Bristol or The Policy Press.The University of Bristol and The Policy Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication.
The Policy Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality.
Cover design by Qube Design Associates, Bristol. Cover photograph taken on Eel Pie Island, 2001, kindly supplied by Philip Marlow/Magnum Photos.
Sources of extracts Foreword by Germaine Greer Preface
CôNENŝ
Part 1: Sex and gender Introduction oneThe difference between sex and gender twoGenes and gender threeA kind of person fourChildhood lessons fiveScience, gender and women’s liberation
Part 2: Housework and family life Introduction oneOn studying housework twoImages of housework threeWork conditions fourStandards and routines fiveMarriage and the division of labour sixHelping with baby seveny and cultureHousework in histor
Part 3: Childbirth, motherhood and medicine Introduction oneThe agony and the ecstasy twoLessons mothers learn threeMedical maternity cases fourMistakes and mystiques of motherhood
Part 4: Doing social science Introduction oneThe invisible woman: sexism in sociology twoReflections thir ty years on threeviewedOn being inter fourInterviewing women: a contradiction in terms? fiveWho’s afraid of the randomised controlled trial? Some dilemmas of the scientific method and ‘good’ research practice sixParadigm wars: some thoughts on a personal and public trajectory
General bibliography Bibliography of work by Ann Oakley Ann Oakley: fur ther reading Index
iv vi ix
1 2 7 13 21 31 41
53 54 59 63 75 87 93 103 109
117 118 123 139 151 179
183 184 189 207 211 217 233
245
251 281 285 295
III
The Ann Oakley reader
SôuçEŝ ô Exàçŝ
Part I: Sex and gender oneThe difference between sex and gender From the Introduction and Chapters 1 and 8 ofSex, gender and society[first published 1972] twoGenes and gender From Chapter 3 ofSubject women[first published 1981] threeA kind of person From Chapter 4 ofSubject women fourChildhood lessons From Chapter 5 ofSubject women fiveScience, gender and women’s liberation Edited version of paper first published inWomen’s Studies International Forum [1998, vol 21, no 2, pp 13346]
Part 2: Housework and family life oneOn studying housework From the New preface to the revised edition ofThe sociology of housework [published 1985] twoImages of housework From Chapter 3 ofThe sociology of housework[first published 1974] threeWork conditions From Chapter 5 ofThe sociology of housework fourStandards and routines From Chapter 6 ofThe sociology of housework fiveMarriage and the division of labour From Chapter 8 ofThe sociology of housework sixHelping with baby From Chapter 9 ofBecoming a mother[first published 1979] sevenHousework in histor y and culture From Chapter 8 ofSubject women
Part 3: Childbirth, motherhood and medicine oneThe agony and the ecstasy From Chapter 5 ofBecoming a mother twoLessons mothers learn From Chapter 11 ofBecoming a mother threeMedical maternity cases From Chapter 1 ofWomen confined: Towards a sociology of childbirth[published 1980] fourMistakes and mystiques of motherhood From Chapter 11 ofWomen confined:Towards a sociology of childbirth
IV
Sources of extracts
Part 4: Doing social science oneThe invisible woman: sexism in sociology From Chapter 1 ofThe sociology of housework twoReflections thir ty years on From Chapter 11 in A.H. Halsey (ed) (2004)A histor y of sociology in Britain threeviewedOn being inter From ‘Endnote – being researched’ ofBecoming a mother fourInterviewing women: a contradiction in terms? Edited version of chapter originally published in H. Rober ts (ed) (1981)Doing feminist research fiveWho’s afraid of the randomised controlled trial? Some dilemmas of the scientific method and ‘good’ research practice Edited version of paper first published inWomen and Health[1989, vol 15, no 2, pp 2559] sixParadigm wars: some thoughts on a personal and public trajectory Edited version of paper first published inInternational Journal of Social Research Methodology[1999, vol 2, no 3, pp 24754]
V
The Ann Oakley reader
fôEôD Y gEàîNE gEE
Twentyfirstcentury feminisms come in many versions, most of them, according to the common perception, remote from the reality of women’s lives.The shelves of university libraries are freighted with books dealing with all aspects of the ramifying cultural manifestations of gender, none of which could ever resolve the conundrums that Ann Oakley has been wrestling with all her life.Women are still at work for most or even all of their waking hours, and most of that work is still done without hope of reward. The relatively small proportion of women’s work that is paid is undervalued by comparison with the work done by men.Yet even ancient ladies whose time is their own will say proudly, ‘I keep busy’, polishing their dwellings until they shine and knitting garments that nobody wants to wear.The feminist most likely to explain to us women’s irrational attachment to unappreciated work is Ann Oakley. Though the media tell us every day that feminism is over, and even that feminism has gone too far, for the vast majority of the world’s women liberation is not even a gleam on the horizon. Globalisation has transported the feminine stereotype into every hovel on the planet. Along the noisome alleys of the slum towns that have grown up wherever big business has driven peasants off the land, amid rivulets of raw sewage, women whose mothers were farmers teeter on spike heels as they wait for clients. Prostitution expands globally; pornography balloons into cyberspace.The consumer in both cases is male. The evidence is that in the cut throat competition for the client dollar, commercial pornography becomes ever more sadistic and more misogynistic. When Ann Oakley was writingSex gender and society‘doublevideos of depilated teenage women enduring in 1972, , published anal’ penetration were not on sale in every shopping mall; they are now. Sex workers were not at risk from HIV; they are now, and there is little or nothing they can do to protect themselves if the client refuses to use a condom. Ann Oakley’s writing was the ‘coming to consciousness’ for many women in the seventies the first analysis of the circumstances in which they found themselves. Her cool, clear and amazingly concise descriptions were immediately recognisable as the complex of contradictory expectations which so tormented them. Understanding then as now was the key to developing strategies for survival. Oakley has edited her earlier accounts, including more and more precise references; what is surprising and depressing is how relevant her analysis of the basic mechanisms of women’s oppression still is. In the updated version, even more information and debate has been compressed and organised into cool and cogent discussion. Women are sometimes accused of being practical rather than creative, useful rather than brilliant. One of the great pleasures of rereading Oakley on any subject is her stubborn resistance to the lure of footling brilliance.Though she is aware that she is likely to be reviled as a logical positivist, she remains stolidly committed to reality as the ultimate test of theory. She can see and applaud the
VI
Foreword by Germaine Greer
elegance of many of the postmodernists’ arguments, but she herself returns again and again to the mundane. Sure, gender is a cultural construct, and yes, she can see that even sex could be construed as a social construct and must therefore be mutable rather than necessary, but, men don’t menstruate and that, ladies and gentlemen, remains a fact. While the suffering of women remains real and apparently intractable, it has to be practically dealt with, not argued out of existence. Oakley’s training as a social scientist (about which she feels more than slightly ambivalent) is what distinguishes her from the more spectacular feminist polemicists, most of whom were trained in literature and were never required to acquire or exert methodological rigour. Oakley is as radical as any feminist alive today but what she displays for us is not her personal convictions but her evidence. Her conclusion about housework may seem verbally mild: “Housework remains an incredibly important limit on what women are able to do and become” (p 116). The word ‘incredibly’ could offer nothing but emphasis, but press it just a little and it refers to the puzzlingness of women’s continuing involvement in pointless, repetitive labour which they resent. Go to any student digs and you will see women who are not governed by the needs and desires of husband or children doing all the housework, while the boys do none. The girls buy the coffee and the toilet paper, and wash the coffee pot and cups and clean the toilet.The boys don’t care if these jobs are not done; the girls do. We still don’t know why. Oakley is one of the many feminists who have drawn attention to the negative experiences of birthing mothers. With characteristic modesty she allows the mothers to speak for themselves, but once again her conclusion is potentially chilling:“… the capacity for loving children is what ensures women’s continuing oppression, because the cycle of mothering is constantly reproduced, and with it the genderdivisive consequences of maternal love” (p 181) – women are oppressed because they love children; or (alternatively put), if they didn’t have children, women no longer would be oppressed. The point is the same as that made long ago by radical feminist Shulamith Firestone inThe dialectic of sex(1970): as long as women undergo pregnancy and birth, they will not be free. Faced with the steadily declining birth rate, and everincreasing recourse to techniques of assisted reproduction, we should perhaps be asking if freedom from childbearing might not be the answer to the men’s perennial question, ‘What do women want?’. Is some such loss of embodiment essential to our liberation, or will women, like Vietnamese villages, be liberated only by being destroyed? The fourth and last part ofThe Ann Oakley readerdealssocial science’, , ‘Doing with her struggles within the sociological intellectual establishment to arrive at a methodology that would be of material use in designing strategies for emancipating the mass of the population and, in particular, women. It is the more difficult for Oakley because of her deep distrust of social scientists’ obsession with methodologies of analysis and their concomitant reluctance to address existing, pervasive and obvious social problems. In defending herself from allegations of abandonment of qualitative analysis for the more orthodox quantitative approach, she demonstrates once more her way of anchoring her interpretation by a million
VII
The Ann Oakley reader
Lilliputian threads to what she can see and hear happening all around her all the time. Throughout her career Oakley has found her work sidelined and discounted because she is a declared feminist, as if a social scientist is one who is prevented by intellectual protocol from having any moral or political views whatever. To qualify as a sociologist, one is required to see the world through male spectacles; Oakley’s great achievement is to succeed in laying by the distorting glasses and fighting her way through to a vantage point from which her woman’s eyes can see what is really there.
VIII
Preface
Republishing some of one’s own work may seem (and it certainly feels) like a form of selfindulgence, butThe Ann Oakley readeris a response to many complaints I have had about work being out of print. Most of my early books can only be found in libraries, and it seems (from the many enquiries that reach my email inbox) that what students, in particular, want is some easily accessible compendium of my writings, beginning several decades ago, about gender, women, motherhood, social science and other such tricky subjects. The Ann Oakley readercontains extracts fromSex, gender and society(1972),The sociology of housework(1974; revised, 1985),Becoming a motherreprinted(1979, later asFrom here to maternity, 1981),Towards a sociology of childbirthWomen confined: (1980) andSubject women(1981). It thus encompasses the three early projects on which I worked: the social representation of sex differences, housework and the transition to motherhood. This is the ‘historical’ Ann Oakley – the work most often quoted and used on social science, women’s studies and other school and higher education courses. However, the anonymous reviewers who read the book proposal for The Policy Press (to whom many thanks for their valuable comments) suggested it would be helpful to include some of my more recent work, especially parts of it that relate to the interminable debate about the appropriateness of ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’ methods.There are thus several papers on that theme, including a fairly recent statement about my own personal position on paradigm warfare. The first section of the book also concludes with an edited version of a paper I published in 1998, arguing that the project of an emancipatory social science requires both continued use of the term ‘gender’ and rehabilitation of the ‘science’ element; such a response is urgent in view of threats such as postmodernism. Large chunks of my work are not represented in this volume; these include a historical study of the evolution of medical care for pregnant women (The captured womb,1974b); the substantial findings from a large intervention project concerned with providing support for mothers of young children (Social support and motherhood, 1992), and my more recent, collaborative work exploring experimental methods and applying the technique of systematic reviewing to the evidence base for social policy.This more recent work – much of it undertaken with my colleagues at the Social Science Research Unit, the Institute of Education, University of London – expands on my earlier reputation as a feminist social scientist, but exemplifies exactly the same concern with developing an informed understanding of how best to promote human welfare and wellbeing. References to these other works can be found in the ‘Ann Oakley: further reading’ section of this book. The central themes ofThe Ann Oakley readerare developed much more fully in my two most recent books:Gender and method in socialExperiments in knowing: science(2000), andGender on planet earththese arethe time of writing, (2002). At both in print (see my website www.annoakley.co.uk for uptodate information and a full list of publications).
IX
