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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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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