A Missing Feminist Revolution in Sociology: 25 Years Later

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As a second year sociology student at Mac I had often congratulated myself on the enlightened nature of my chosen discipline.  Brushing off criticisms that I was engaging in a field dominated by the narrow perspectives of a priveleged few middle-class, white, heterosexual males, I confidently pointed to the prevalence of gender as a variable in nearly all sociological research.  Writing this article made me rethink some of my basic assumptions...

Barrie Thorne and Judith Stacey's article 'The Missing Feminist Revolution in Sociology', is a jab at a discipline which has long claimed to seek value-neutral knowledge on social facts. The present paper will summarize arguments about the lack of maturity in sociological feminist ideologies, and the subsequent lack of paradigmatic changes. It will explain how the fields of history, literature, and especially anthropology have embraced their own feminist revolutions, bringing them to the core of their disciplines and canons in a way that is not reflected in sociology. It will then outline the ways in which feminism has been both co-opted and ghettoized by mainstream sociology, and ideas for change. Finally, the article will be analyzed in light of the changes that have taken place, since its 1985 date of publication, as evidenced by the content of McMaster University's sociology program.
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IMF Part 1: Research Proposal

You can read part 2 here
You can read part 3 here

The purpose of this paper is to outline the initial details of a research project, focused on the neo-liberal policies outlined in Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine (2008) as Chicago School disaster capitalism, specifically as exemplified by occurrences in Latin America during the 1970s. Briefly, Klein posits that disaster capitalism, then during its infancy, saw a small group of powerful elites imposing unpopular economic reforms (namely deregulation, privatization, and government cutbacks) during times of crisis (such as armed conflict, political coups, or during violent oppression by military juntas) for the benefit of transnational corporations (TNCs). This issue has been chosen because of its close ties with globalization, outlined below, and the often devastating impact these policies have had on both national economies and cultures, as well as the heightening effect on the global North/South divide. This is important to explore both for the sake of those victimized by the policies of a few, but also to underline the need for global governance, finance, and other institutions to include rigorous democratic checks and balances on abuses of power, conditions which are at present glaringly absent.
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Punishment Vs Rehabilitation: Disintegrative and Reintegrative Shaming Rituals

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the concept of stigma and stigmatizing rituals, with specific reference to the applications of deviant labels and strategies to resist the negative consequences associated with adopting said labels. It will then examine disintegrative models of shaming, such as scarlet letter methods, and outline the ways these are beneficial or harmful. Finally, this will be compared with the reintegrative approach to shaming, in order to determine which model has the most to offer in the judiciary system.

It is important to begin this discussion with an operational definition of stigma. According to Goffman, as quoted by Heckert and Best (2008), stigma is a feature of an individual which is associated with stereotypes based on said attributes, which are in turn thoroughly degrading or dishonourable. In continuing his definition, Goffman identifies three major groupings of stigma, namely bodily disfigurements (such as a cleft palate), character deficiencies (such as drug addiction), and group membership (stigma based on status such as race and religion) (Heckert and Best 2008). Further, as noted by Twining, Arluke, and Patronek (2000), Goffman says that the negative consequences of stigma can include exclusion, anxiety and discrimination, but that stigmatized individuals develop interpersonal strategies to cope by lessening (or even neutralizing) it, or by evading it altogether. Finally, Herman and Miall (1990) note that labelling theory shows how, by labelling someone as a deviant, it can cause them to adopt the label and become the very thing they are labelled.

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IMF Part 2: Institution Report

You can read part 1 here
You can read part 2 here

This institution report will provide an in-depth investigation into the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It seeks to clearly outline the institutional history, purpose, membership, and projects of the IMF, as well as its governance structure and protocols. In the course of this examination, care will be paid to the IMF's complex relationship with the processes of globalization, and how it in turn impacts the institution of the state. In so doing, this will lay the foundation for a successful research design.

The history of the IMF begins with its conception in July 1944 (IMF, 2006). It was during the Bretton Woods meetings that 45 nations agreed to the kind of economic cooperation that would prevent a return to the dangerous protectionist policies of the Great Depression, such as “limiting imports, devaluing ... currencies ... and curtailing their citizens' freedom to buy goods abroad and to hold foreign exchange” (ibid.). Born in December of 1945, the IMF was tasked with ensuring exchange rate stability. The intervening decades have seen it transform itself in response to its growing membership (from an initial 29 member nations to 186 as of the 2009 inclusion of Kosovo) (Kosovo Times, 2009), as well as in response to changing world events, featuring an increased focus on crisis prevention. Initially the IMF made significant loans to industrialized economies, but in recent decades the majority have gone to developing and Newly Industrialized Countries (IMF, 2006).
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