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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To begin, Stacey and Thorne offer a brief outline of the accomplishments of feminism in sociology. These include the prolific publication of 'gender-sensitive research' (Stacey & Thorne, 1985), the effect of feminist ideologies on correcting 'androcentric biases' in a wide range of issue-areas, the revitalization of a range of areas of study central to the lives of women (and men) from a less distorted standpoint, and the establishment of new areas of study ranging from 'wife battering [to] compulsory heterosexuality' (ibid.).
Despite these achievements, Stacey and Thorne go on to explain how the impact of feminism on sociology has disappointed past expectations. To make this case, they rely on Peggy McIntosh's description of the 'stages in feminist transformations of knowledge' (ibid.). McIntosh posits that the first period is one where feminism essentially fills in the gaps of a knowledge field. This process reveals the fact that prevailing paradigms 'ignore or erase' (ibid.) the experiences of women, which in turn 'leads feminists to rethink the basic ... frameworks' (ibid.) of their field.
Stacey and Thorne claim that sociology, like other positivist fields including such as economics, has resisted moving from the initial stage to a paradigm shift, which they characterize as involving both the creation of new frameworks by feminists, and 'the acceptance of those transformations' (ibid.) throughout the field. To clarify, they show that feminist sociology has been included in small ways, such as the inclusion of courses offered on '”sex roles”, gender, and women' (ibid.), yet remains absent from most theory or methodology courses. Further, they note that sociological courses dealing with feminism and gender often must cite sources from outside of the discipline, due to a lack of published works to draw upon, as evidence by the underrepresentation of sociologists in feminist theory journals.
In order to help support their claims that there exists a missing revolution in sociology, Stacey and Thorne outline the achievements of feminists in three other fields, namely history, literature, and most importantly anthropology. In the field of history, they point to sweeping, discipline-wide changes, furthered by the egalitarian agenda of social history, which led to both a challenge of the centrality of 'politics, public policy, and famous individuals' (ibid.), and a reconceptualizing of historical periods as different for men and women. Finally, they point to the ascendence of social history within the discipline as a reflection of the increased emphasis feminism has placed on the '”private” sphere' (ibid.), showing that there have been both wide and deep changes to the field resulting from feminism.
Turning next to the discipline of literature, Stacey and Thorne point first to the near universal acceptance of privileged white males as the focus of interest that dominated the field for so long. This has been changed by feminist who have 'recovered and re-evaluated' (ibid.) female writers and alternative writing formats, begging the question of how the predominantly male bias ever came to exist. Feminists answered this by pointing to the social nature of canon formation, exemplified by the 20th century process whereby literature's canon was 'whitewashed' and purified from women's contributions. This has led to an understanding of the unique pressures facing past female writers, and to a re-evaluation of 'aesthetic standards' (ibid.) which had caused male bias. This has allowed for a radical reinterpretation, although there has still been resistance to the new frameworks provided by a female-centric understanding (ibid.). This section shows the gains to be made from applying a feminist paradigm, as well as the continued difficulties in ensuring said gains are widespread within the field.
Within the discipline of anthropology, the authors note that there is a historical precedence for the involvement of women, and suggest that this may be the reason for the impressive gains made for feminist understandings (ibid.). They note that not only were women more represented among the ranks of early anthropologists, but also that the very subject matter itself demanded a close attention paid to issues of gender, such as the division of labour (ibid.). An example of the way in which feminist, female-centric theorizing has matured within the discipline is in the way “Woman the Gatherer” theories asserted a dominant role for women in 'the development of human intelligence and culture' (IBID REF 305), changing to a more nuanced focus on modern foraging-hunting societies' acceptance of the male-centric model put forth by “Man the Hunter” theories (ibid.). This shift is away from simply female-centric models to more fully gendered paradigms which trace the development and spread of gender ideologies within the field's focus of study (ibid.), and it shows the gains possible from a mature and widespread feminist revolution within a discipline.
Returning to sociology, the authors posit that despite some gains, feminism's contributions have been contained. Partly this stems from the fact that sociology is theoretically not as 'dramatically male-centered as ... history or literature' (ibid.), despite the strong influence of those of privilege. Further, subfields such as family and community studies did include gender, 'albeit ... in distorted, androcentric ways' (ibid.). It was this combination of a less male-centric field and the presence of gender only within contained subfields which led to a co-opting of feminist paradigms (ibid.).
Stacey and Thorne (1985) note that there are three reasons which allowed the co-opting of feminism within sociology to occur. The first is the effect that the once-dominant functionalist theories had on the field as a whole. Shaped primarily by Talcott Parsons, who has been heavily criticized for his breakdown of family life into male- and female-appropriate roles, sociology of the family began as a conservative subfield which still retains a focus on the reproduction of gender roles (ibid.). Feminists have cast off some of the more androcentric notions of Parson, such as by emphasizing gender in politics and gender hierarchies, yet functionalism still has a freezing affect on feminist efforts within sociology, most notably by depoliticizing gender through the use of terms such as 'sex role' (ibid.).
Another way in which the feminist revolution has been co-opted within sociology relates to the use of gender as a variable. While increasingly gender has been included in quantitative studies, it has been done so as an inherent characteristic of individuals rather than 'as a principle of social organization' (ibid.). Some progress has been made in that theories related to prestige and status attainment have been found lacking in relation to women, prompting research on gender discrepancies, yet this has served merely to entrench the notion of gender as a variable rather than a 'basic theoretical category' (ibid.), simply furthering the co-opting of feminism within the discipline.
Finally, Stacey and Thorne (1985) point to the ghettoization of feminism within Marxism as evidence of its co-optation within the wider field. While Marxist-Feminist theories flourish, they remain marginal to core Marxist discussion, which remains focused on androcentric notions of man's relationship to production (ibid.) While Marxism, itself a critical theory, has prompted feminist theorists to engage in heated debate as they attempt to build a cohesive Marxist-Feminist paradigm, there has been a marked isolation from the wider body of literature (ibid.). This can be seen in the fact that important contemporary Marxist theorists Immanuel Wallerstein and Erik Olin Wright have ignored basic implications of feminist literature in their studies of class (ibid.). These and the above examples all point to the ghettoized, co-opted nature of feminist understandings within sociology.
A further understanding of the comparative absence of a feminist revolution within sociology requires investigation into epistemological considerations. Sociology has a tradition of positivist, universalistic understandings of knowledge, in contrast to the more reflexive, interpretive methods of literature, history, and anthropology (ibid.). Within these disciplines where feminism has made headway there is a general understanding that knowledge is shaped by the historical context in which it is generated, an understanding that is less widespread in sociology (ibid.). Feminists have criticized the positivist viewpoint as “rigidly autonomous” (ibid.) and more commonly found among men. Further, they have seen it as denying agency and involvement to subjects of study, and seek to radically supplant this with a more interpretive approach (ibid.).
Stacey and Thorne (1985) end by noting that not all barriers to a feminist revolution within sociology are external. They also point to the relative lack of maturity within feminist sociology as an impediment, to be rectified via the development of more fully gendered theories outside of domestic and female-centric topics (ibid.). This maturity is especially important considering the often atheoritcal nature of sociological research, which does little to advance or change paradigms, and because of the benefits a holistic approach can offer to a discipline tasked with studying complex societies (ibid.).
The article by Stacey and Thorne was written 25 years ago, and yet much of its findings still hold true, as reflected in the sociology department at McMaster University. Functionalism has not returned to dominance, yet notions of instrumental and expressive roles are still to be found in the canon, and therefore introductory theory courses (albeit with reservations expressed). Further, gender is still predominantly a variable rather than a core category within most subfields (discounting family and gender), and some contemporary theories based in the functionalist tradition (such as within deviance) neglect gender even as a variable. Feminist theories remain ghettoized, as evidenced by the continued distinction given to 'hyphen literature' (ibid), especially within the Marxist tradition. This also occurs within courses as a whole, which tend to offer a small lecture on feminist paradigms as distinct from other theoretical considerations, as if “separate or different but equal” (ibid.). Finally, there continues to be an absence of widespread gendered understanding within the field, and an unfortunate lack of the interpretive epistemological understanding called for by Stacey and Thorne. The sad reality is that, 25 years later, there is still a missing feminist revolution in sociology.

References
Stacey, J. & Thorne, B. Social Problems, The Missing Feminist Revolution in Sociology
Vol. 32, No. 4 (Apr., 1985), pp. 301-316

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