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Sexual divisions and society : process and change

Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublication details: London; Tavistock Publications; 1976Description: 286 pISBN:
  • 42274307
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 306.8 SEX
Summary: The papers in this volume thus deal with aspects of social relationships consistently neglected by sociologists, and ridiculed or denigrated by some. But in so far as sexism constitutes unproblematic, commonsense behaviour in contemporary British culture, it should not surprise us that it appears thus in sociology. In organizing the conference, one of our main objectives was to examine the nature of mainstream sociological assumptions in terms of the emphasis given, or in most cases not given, to the salience of gender. We also aimed to bring to the attention of sociologists work that has recently been undertaken outside institutionalized sociology and for the most part by those who would not regard themselves as professional sociologists, since it is relevant to some of the central questions of sociological explanation. It is, of course, not as yet respectable for most sociologists to concern themselves with the far-reaching questions that have been raised in what might be broadly termed as women's liberation or gay liberation literature; but this means that the sociology taught on many courses lags behind the level of consciousness of these issues already reached by the students themselves. Those who write here owe a heavy debt to sources outside accepted sociological circles. Many of the papers start by pointing out the problematic nature of "taken for granted' assumptions about the relations of men and women, and to do this they often use the perspectives of interactionism or Marxism. They also show the blindness to behaviour patterns and informal social structures that follow from taking the viewpoint of middle-aged or elderly males of high status. 'Only after a substantial, polemical, and varied experience of the society in question is it possible to discover that statements gravely and precisely articulated are statements of ideology, reflecting either the behaviour of the dominant social group, which may be the minority, or the ideological tendency to confuse the substance of an act with its legal enactment, thus attributing the agency of all significant social processes to men.' (Maher, page 72) For example, in the first paper, Ronald Frankenberg looks critically at the work of those who have described the organization and dynamics of communities in Britain and at those who have made secondary analyses of the studies, and he points to the invisibility of women in the reports or to their treatment in terms of descriptive 'trivia'.
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The papers in this volume thus deal with aspects of social relationships consistently neglected by sociologists, and ridiculed or denigrated by some. But in so far as sexism constitutes unproblematic, commonsense behaviour in contemporary British culture, it should not surprise us that it appears thus in sociology. In organizing the conference, one of our main objectives was to examine the nature of mainstream sociological assumptions in terms of the emphasis given, or in most cases not given, to the salience of gender. We also aimed to bring to the attention of sociologists work that has recently been undertaken outside institutionalized sociology and for the most part by those who would not regard themselves as professional sociologists, since it is relevant to some of the central questions of sociological explanation. It is, of course, not as yet respectable for most sociologists to concern themselves with the far-reaching questions that have been raised in what might be broadly termed as women's liberation or gay liberation literature; but this means that the sociology taught on many courses lags behind the level of consciousness of these issues already reached by the students themselves. Those who write here owe a heavy debt to sources outside accepted sociological circles.

Many of the papers start by pointing out the problematic nature of "taken for granted' assumptions about the relations of men and women, and to do this they often use the perspectives of interactionism or Marxism. They also show the blindness to behaviour patterns and informal social structures that follow from taking the viewpoint of middle-aged or elderly males of high status.

'Only after a substantial, polemical, and varied experience of the society in question is it possible to discover that statements gravely and precisely articulated are statements of ideology, reflecting either the behaviour of the dominant social group, which may be the minority, or the ideological tendency to confuse the substance of an act with its legal enactment, thus attributing the agency of all significant social processes to men.' (Maher, page 72)

For example, in the first paper, Ronald Frankenberg looks critically at the work of those who have described the organization and dynamics of communities in Britain and at those who have made secondary analyses of the studies, and he points to the invisibility of women in the reports or to their treatment in terms of descriptive 'trivia'.

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