theory of gender feminism
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8/9/2019 Theory of Gender Feminism
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Theory on Gender/Feminism on Theory by Paula EnglandReview by: Lise VogelGender and Society, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Dec., 1994), pp. 627-629Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/189822 .
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BOOK REVIEWS
627
Theory
on Gender/Feminism
on
Theory.
Edited
by
Paula
England.
New
York:
Aldine, 1993, 380 pp., $51.95 (cloth), $23.95 (paper).
Imagine you
could
shop
for
sociological theory
at a local
bazaar.
You would
stop
at each
colorfully
decorated
booth
that
caught
your
eye.
And
you
would listen as
the
enthusiastic
entrepreneurs
auntedtheir wares.
That is what
reading
this
interesting
book is like.
More
precisely,
Paula
Englanddesigns
Theory
on
Gender/Feminism
n
Theory
as both a
bazaarand
a
conversation.
Ten commissioned
essays
make
up
two-thirdsof
the
book,
each
considering
a
specific
tradition
on
sociological
theory.
The
authors,
partisansall, overviewthe theories
from which
they
work and discuss the extent to
which
gender
is
incorporated.
An
eleventh
essay
addresses
he
question
of feminist
methodology.
Then
comes
the
dialogue, staged
by
England:
our scholarsfrom three
different
disciplines
comment
on the
essays
and the
authors
reply.
England's
purpose
is to contribute
o ...
our
understanding
f the forces that
produce,
reproduce,
and
challenge gender
nequality,
and
of the
strengths
and limita-
tions,
including gender
biases,
of
sociological
theories (p.
22).
While
most
of her
authors
remain well
within
the borders
of
mainstream
ociology,
several
proceed
along
more venturesome
paths.
In
many essays,
the mission
is to
salvage sociological theory.
Miriam Johnson
disentangles
unctionalism rom its badreputation s conservative n its implications
for women.
Debra
Friedman
and
Carol
Diem
argue
hatrational-choice
heory
can be
made to
incorporate
altruism, connectedness,
and collective action-and hence
gender.
Lynn
Smith-Lovin
andJ.
MillerMcPherson
uggest
thatnetwork
analysis
has
the
potential
to shed
light
on
gender nequality.
Cecilia
Ridgeway
does the same for
expectation
states
theory.
Norman
Denzin triesto
merge
symbolic
nteractionism
with
poststructuralism
n a
too-compressed
analysis
of
gender
and
sexuality.
Other
contributors
put
more
emphasis
on
developing
a feminist
sociological
perspective
than
on
making
mainstream
ociological theory
accommodate
gender.
ChristineWilliams reviews feministsociologists'adaptation f psychoanalytic he-
ory, especially
object
relations.
Dana
Dunn,
Elizabeth
Almquist,
and
Janet
Saltzman
Chafetz
compare
andcontrast
our feministmacrostructural
heories,
dentifying
ive
clusters
of
independent
variables
as fundamental.Candace
West and SarahFenster-
maker
lucidly
discuss
the
already
nfluential
notion of
gender
as
an
interactional
accomplishment.
oey Sprague
and
Mary
Zimmerman
ritique sociological
meth-
odology, arguing
that feminist
sociologists
should work
across
the
subject/object,
abstract/concrete,
ational/emotional,
nd
quantitative/qualitative
ualisms.
Kathryn
Ward's
ssay,
strongest
n the
collection,
likewise
reflects a commitment
to
thoroughgoing
eminist
transformation
f
sociological investigation.
Ward akes
the reader
hrough
her own
intellectual
evolution
as
she
struggled
o include
women
in world
system theory.
Moving
quickly
beyond
the addwomen and
stir
approach,
she
critiques
efforts
to
incorporate
women via the
study
of
household
reproduction
and concludes
that world
system theory
needs
to be recast
totally
to
incorporate
gender
and
race at
its
center
p.
49).
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628 GENDER& SOCIETY
December 994
I wish I could
say
thatMarxist
heory
s
well
represented
ere,
for it
is the
tradition
in
which
I
have done much of
my
own
work.
Unfortunately,
he
essayby Beth Anne
Shelton and
Ben
Agger
offers a
gloomy
and
unattractive
icture.
Devoting
most
of
their
space
to a
rejection
of
socialist-feminist
cholarship, hey
set
as their standard
Marxism hathas somehow been made
feministand to which
they
alone have
access.
The
reader,
eager
to learn
more,
is
grantedonly
a
short
critique
of
the
hierarchy
of
value and valuelessness as exhibited
in
household labor.Shelton and
Agger ignore
social
scientists
who have
sought,
as
they
do,
to
constructa
unitary
eministMarxism
(e.g.,
Gimenez
1982;
Sacks
1989;
Vogel
1983),
and
they
do not
mention
the
current
resurgence
of interest in
the
relationship
between
Marxism and feminism
(e.g.,
Chinchilla and Gimenez
1991;
Collins and Gimenez
1990;
Hansen and
Philipson
1990).Theirdourpresentation oes a disservice o the Marxist heoretical
perspective.
To conclude
Theory
on Gender/Feminism on
Theory,
England
orchestrates
a
discussion between
authorsand critics.
Sociologists
Linda Molm and
John
Wilson,
philosopher
Nancy
Tuana,
and economist
Nancy
Folbreoffer valuable
comments
and
the authors
respond.
The commitment
o
dialogue
is
important,
lthough
found
the
back-and-forth ometimes scattered.
Paula
England
has done
a
fine
job
of
assembling
his
collection.Its storiesof heroic
feminist efforts to reclaim
mainstream
ociological theory
will
be
especially
appre-
ciated
by many,
but
this
strength
s also a
weakness. Mainstream
ociology
tends to
overlookrace and misreadclass, and these criticaldimensionsof social experience
are
also
largely
absent
here.
Some
authors
give
a
nod
in
the directionof
race and class
but
only
Ward,
West
and
Fenstermaker,
prague
and
Zimmerman,
nd Folbre
make
serious
efforts to
incorporatediversity
into their
analysis.
Sexuality
is
virtually
invisible;
also,
the rich resource that
interdisciplinarity
rovides
modem feminist
thought goes
untapped.
Taken
together,
the
essays
in this
collection
suggest
that
feminist
sociological
theory
needs to move more
forcefully
across the boundariesof
mainstream
ociology.
LISE VOGEL
Rider
University
REFERENCES
Chinchilla,
orma
toltz,
ndMartha
.
Gimenez,
ds.1991.
Special
ssueon Marxist-feminist
theory.
Gender
&
Society
5:286-407.
Collins,
Jane
L.,
and Martha
Gimenez,
eds. 1990.
Workwithout
wages: Comparative
tudies
of
domestic abor and
self-employment.Albany:
State
University
of New YorkPress.
Gimenez,MarthaE. 1982. The oppressionof women. In Structural ociology, editedby Ino
Rossi.
New
York:Columbia
University
Press.
Hansen,
Karen
V.,
andIlene J.
Philipson,
eds.
1990.
Women,
lass,
and
thefeminist
magination:
A
Socialist-feminist
eader.
Philadelphia:
Temple
University
Press.
Sacks,
Karen Brodkin.
1989. Toward
a unified
theory
of
class, race,
and
gender.
American
Ethnologist
16:534-50.
This content downloaded from 109.166.137.44 on Sat, 29 Nov 2014 03:04:33 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/9/2019 Theory of Gender Feminism
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BOOK
REVIEWS 629
OOK
REVIEWS 629
Vogel,
Lise.
1983.
Marxism and the
oppression
of
women:
Towarda
unitary theory.
New
Brunswick,
J:
RutgersUniversity
ress.
Lives
on
the
Edge: Single
Mothersand
Their
Children
n
the OtherAmerica.
By
Valerie Polakow.
Chicago: University
of
Chicago
Press, 1993,
222
pp.,
$22.50
(cloth).
ValeriePolakow
portrays
he
Americansocial welfare
system
gone
astray
and its
effects
on
single
mothersand
their
children. She
provides
dramaticaccounts of the
fears,
struggles,
and ambitionsof
poor
single
mothers,both
young
andold,Black and
white
in
America.
As she
attempts
o recreate heirvoices
in
the
larger
andscape
of
history
p.
186),
Polakow
s successful
n
telling
of the
everydaystruggles
of
working
mothersabandoned
by
social welfare
programs,
of
families
devastated
by
the
many
government
cuts to
programs
uch as Aid to Families with
Dependent
Children,
and
of
poor
mothers' difficulties
finding
child care.
In
addition,
this
study
reveals
the
everyday
experience
of
poverty
for childrenwithin
preschoolprograms
and
elemen-
tary
schools.
This inside view of
poor
children
and
public
child care confirms
many
previous findings
in the social science
literature,
cknowledging
structural
lass and
race bias in the educationof Americanyouth.Polakowcomparesseveral Head Start
programs
n
Michigan,
noting
the
many
difficulties hatbeset the
programs:
onsistent
underfunding,
high
rates of
staff
turnover,
and uneven
quality
of
staff.
Using
an
interpretive
thnographicapproach nvolving time-consuming
and la-
bor-intensive
nterviews and field
observations,
Polakow
shatters he
image
of the
welfare
mother s
hopeless.
Instead,
he
presents
a diverse
picture
of
single
mothers
who
want more for themselves and theirchildren.Some seek
low-wage
employment
and
in
the
process
risk
eligibility
for
public
assistance.
To
survive,
women create
fragilesupport ystems
for
themselves.Polakowdiscusses the
feminization
of
poverty
that affects
not
only
the
employment
and
child care
struggles
of
single
mothers
but
also
the
education
poor
children
receive in the
publicsystem
or in
special
education
settings.
The mothers' stories are based
on
eleven oral interviews in
Michigan
between
1989 and 1991. Polakow
purposely
chose to
tell
the
stories of resilient
women,
because n the
struggle
are
many
lessons to be
learned
and
many myths
unveiled
(p.
185).
As an educational
psychologist
and
early
childhood
specialist,
Polakow's
astute
analysis
of
poor
children's
experiences
is one of the
highlights
of
the
study.
She
points
out that
it is
critical to
recognize
and
supportdiversity
to
restructure n
education inimical to students
from differentcultural
groups
who
experience
'self-
alienation' (p. 162). She emphasizesthat Americaneducatorsareresponsiblefor
making
schools
a
place away
from
the
edges
(p.
162).
In
Michigan,
Polakow visited over
twenty
classrooms.
In
the book she
portrays
five
classrooms
from
selected
public
school
and
preschool programs
observed over
two and a half
years.
What she finds
in
preschool
and
kindergarten
lassrooms,
with
Vogel,
Lise.
1983.
Marxism and the
oppression
of
women:
Towarda
unitary theory.
New
Brunswick,
J:
RutgersUniversity
ress.
Lives
on
the
Edge: Single
Mothersand
Their
Children
n
the OtherAmerica.
By
Valerie Polakow.
Chicago: University
of
Chicago
Press, 1993,
222
pp.,
$22.50
(cloth).
ValeriePolakow
portrays
he
Americansocial welfare
system
gone
astray
and its
effects
on
single
mothersand
their
children. She
provides
dramaticaccounts of the
fears,
struggles,
and ambitionsof
poor
single
mothers,both
young
andold,Black and
white
in
America.
As she
attempts
o recreate heirvoices
in
the
larger
andscape
of
history
p.
186),
Polakow
s successful
n
telling
of the
everydaystruggles
of
working
mothersabandoned
by
social welfare
programs,
of
families
devastated
by
the
many
government
cuts to
programs
uch as Aid to Families with
Dependent
Children,
and
of
poor
mothers' difficulties
finding
child care.
In
addition,
this
study
reveals
the
everyday
experience
of
poverty
for childrenwithin
preschoolprograms
and
elemen-
tary
schools.
This inside view of
poor
children
and
public
child care confirms
many
previous findings
in the social science
literature,
cknowledging
structural
lass and
race bias in the educationof Americanyouth.Polakowcomparesseveral Head Start
programs
n
Michigan,
noting
the
many
difficulties hatbeset the
programs:
onsistent
underfunding,
high
rates of
staff
turnover,
and uneven
quality
of
staff.
Using
an
interpretive
thnographicapproach nvolving time-consuming
and la-
bor-intensive
nterviews and field
observations,
Polakow
shatters he
image
of the
welfare
mother s
hopeless.
Instead,
he
presents
a diverse
picture
of
single
mothers
who
want more for themselves and theirchildren.Some seek
low-wage
employment
and
in
the
process
risk
eligibility
for
public
assistance.
To
survive,
women create
fragilesupport ystems
for
themselves.Polakowdiscusses the
feminization
of
poverty
that affects
not
only
the
employment
and
child care
struggles
of
single
mothers
but
also
the
education
poor
children
receive in the
publicsystem
or in
special
education
settings.
The mothers' stories are based
on
eleven oral interviews in
Michigan
between
1989 and 1991. Polakow
purposely
chose to
tell
the
stories of resilient
women,
because n the
struggle
are
many
lessons to be
learned
and
many myths
unveiled
(p.
185).
As an educational
psychologist
and
early
childhood
specialist,
Polakow's
astute
analysis
of
poor
children's
experiences
is one of the
highlights
of
the
study.
She
points
out that
it is
critical to
recognize
and
supportdiversity
to
restructure n
education inimical to students
from differentcultural
groups
who
experience
'self-
alienation' (p. 162). She emphasizesthat Americaneducatorsareresponsiblefor
making
schools
a
place away
from
the
edges
(p.
162).
In
Michigan,
Polakow visited over
twenty
classrooms.
In
the book she
portrays
five
classrooms
from
selected
public
school
and
preschool programs
observed over
two and a half
years.
What she finds
in
preschool
and
kindergarten
lassrooms,
with
This content downloaded from 109.166.137.44 on Sat, 29 Nov 2014 03:04:33 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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