Theorists Flashcards

Question

Describe and Evaluate Liberal Feminim

Answer 1

**Liberal Feminism** 1. Challenging the limitations of the female role 2. Opening up equality of opportunity for women **Greer**: women liberation, sex and the pill 1. Highly positive with the changes that have been occurring 2. Optimistic about the future and what lays ahead for women, acknowledging the evident process that women have made 3. Believe that we can change and see more progress by tackling/challenging attitudes and laws e.g Evident with equal pay act of 1970 and sex discrimination act of 1975 e.g GIST and WISE are also important campaigns as they attempt to bring more girls into engineering and science, allowing girls to branch out into subjects that traditionally are male dominated **EV **- radicals believe that *liberals are too passive when it comes to progress*, we still have *sexual harassment within all institutions, including schools and workplaces*, issues such as this have not been addressed enough and need to change **EV **- *laws are just caring faces, they are there to mute the population that it is addressed for* e.g. equal pay act, women are still not paid equal (17.1% less in the UK)

Answer 2

**LIBERAL FEMINISTS **sexist attitudes and stereotypical beliefs about gender are culturally constructed and transmitted through socialisation. * To achieve gender equality, we must change society’s socialisation patterns 🡪 promote appropriate role models in education and the family e.g. fathers doing more domestic tasks. * Also, challenging stereotyping in the media (over time, such actions will produce cultural change and gender equality will become the norm Enlightenment project and its faith in progress: 1. Changes in socialisation and culture are gradually leading to more rational attitudes to gender and overcoming ignorance and prejudice 2. Political action to introduce anti-discriminatory laws and policies is steadily bringing about progress to a fairer society in which a person’s gender is no longer important **EV** = Liberal feminists can be seen as a critique of functionalism 🡪 gender roles (Parsons), who distinguishes between instrumental (public sphere) and expressive roles (private sphere) E.g In modern society, when women began to work and to prove themselves worthy of being able to do a man’s job – it actually made things harder – women were expected to do dual labour (work and household – paid and unpaid labour) 🡪 this is why we need more men branching out and helping with housework and childcare (Can argue that this does happen now, in western societies at least – must expand it across the globe - new man) * Men and women are equally capable of performing roles in both spheres and that traditional gender roles prevent both men and women from living fulfilling lives **Liberal feminism **recognises conflict between men and women, these are not seen as inevitable but merely a product of outdated attitudes * Believe that women’s rights have come a long way and looks at it in an optimistic way – we have gained a lot of rights and we have been successful. * Believes that women’s emancipation is a ‘win-win’ situation that will help men gain too (e.g. hegemonic masculinity vs subordinate masculinity – will allow men to express their feminine nurturing side, which current gender stereotypes force them to suppress

Answer 3

**Radical feminism** 1. Patriarchy: the rule of the father was the fundamental oppression within society and pre-dated capitalism and class oppression **Firestone**: suggested that women would only be free when birth was done by machines she combined this with an idea of separation from women's natural condition of difference and from men * Exposed such oppressions as: rape, domestic violence, child sexual abuse * Women must separate themselves from men, who's desire is always to dominate women - knives, missiles and penises (all swords of the pig) **Greer**: believe that women should drink their own menstrual blood, in order to prove that they are a woman **Firestone and Holt**: believe that men are the enemy and the direct oppressors of women, 99% of men oppress women **Segregation**: to stop men from being in contact with women, proved useful with women's refuges e.g. domestic violence **Political lesbianism**: becoming lesbians in order to avoid sleeping with the enemy **EV** - cannot change someone's sexuality, therefore lesbianism maybe an unrealistic solution * Even though some solutions are unrealistic, they had influenced many women to stand up for themselves and to be more active; evident with various movements across the world such as *Pussy Riot in Russia and the tampax tax protests that occurred in London because sanitary products are not luxuries but are necessities * *Women are not conforming to the gender norms that are put forward like not shaving frequently and not wearing make up * **EV** - functionalists believe in the nuclear family and socialisation, equips the child with the necessities that are needed to socially conform to the societies norms and values **EV** - Marxism believes that there is more of a class issue e.g. class exploitation

Answer 4

* Emerged in the 70s, key concept is patriarchy **‘rule by fathers’ **– a society where men dominate women. They make the following claims: * Patriarchy is universal: male domination of women exists in all known societies. * **Firestone**: the origins of patriarchy lie in women’s biological capacity to bear and care for infants, since performing this role means they become dependent on males * Patriarchy is the primary and most fundamental form of social inequality and conflict. The key division in society is between men and women. Men are women’s main enemy * All men oppress all women. All men benefit from patriarchy – especially from women’s unpaid domestic labour and from their sexual services** (EV = Kingsley Davis)** * Patriarchal oppression is direct and personal – occurs not only in the public sphere but also in the family (private) * **Radical feminists** see the personal as political: all relationships involve power and they are political when one individual try to dominate another. * Personal relationships between the sexes are therefore political because men dominate women through them – radical feminists refer to these power relationships as sexual politics; Has the effect of controlling all women e.g. Brownmiller: fear of rape is a powerful deterrent against women going out alone at night** (EV = Heidensohn, media and patriarchy – Islington crime survey – 54%) ** * Radical feminism also sheds new light on the nature of sexuality – mainstream sociology regards sexuality as a natural biological urge BUT radical feminists argue that patriarchy constructs sexuality so as to satisfy men’s desires e.g. women are portrayed in pornography as passive sex objects and penetration as the main source of sexual pleasure – creates unrealistic fantasies of men, who then coerce their partners to do stuff they are not comfortable with **Adrienne Rich**: men force women into a narrow and unsatisfying ‘compulsory heterosexuality’, which becomes the only socially acceptable form of sexuality

Answer 5

**Marxist feminism** 1. Believe that gender and capitalism are interlinked, women produce the free labour force e.g. reproducing and socialising the next generation of labour force into the capitalist hierarchy **Ansley**: ''women are the takers of shit'' - this is because women absorb their husbands anger and instead of revolting, they release their anger (built up by capitalism) upon their wives, causing a revolution to not occur (arguably working class women are affected more) * **Solution**: to revolt, working class women are affected more by domestic violence, must address this **EV** - revolution is not realistic, only occurred in Russia in 1917

Answer 6

** Dismiss liberal feminist**view that women’s subordination is merely the product of stereotyping or outdated attitudes **Reject radical feminists **view that it is the result of patriarchal oppression by men **Marxist feminists **see women’s subordination as rooted in capitalism. * Individual men may benefit from women’s subordination, the main beneficiary is capitalism * Women’s subordination in capitalist society results from their primary role as unpaid homemaker, which places them in a dependent economic position in the family. * Their subordination performs a number of important functions for capitalism: * Women are a source of cheap, exploitable labour: for employers. * They can be paid less because it is assumed, they will be partially dependent on their husbands’ earnings * Women are a reserve army of labour: that can be moved into the labour force during economic booms and out again at times of recession. They can be treated as marginal workers in this way because it is assumed their primary role is in the home * Women reproduce the labour force: through their unpaid domestic labour, both by nurturing and socialising children to become the next generation of workers and by maintaining and servicing the current generation of workers – their husbands. They do this at no cost to capitalism** (Benson)** * Women absorb anger: that would otherwise be directed at capitalism. **Ansley** describes wives as ‘takes of shit’ who soak up the frustration their husbands feel because of the alienation and exploitation they suffer at work. * For Marxist Feminists, this explains male domestic violence against women. Men go to work and are tired and frustrated with their subordinate masculinity and subordinate roles/positions at work. * They come home and instead of releasing their anger at their colleagues or at capitalism, they express it upon their wives – capitalism causes domestic violence** (EV = domestic violence happens in all classes and backgrounds)**

Answer 7

* Have sought to combine the key features of **Marxist and Radical** feminism in a single theory **An economic system – capitalism A sex-gender system – patriarchy ** * Dual systems theorists such as **Hartmann** see capitalism and patriarchy as two intertwined systems that form a single entity **‘patriarchal capitalism’** * These theorists accept that **patriarchy is universal**, but they argue that patriarchy takes a **specific form in capitalist societies ** * To understand women’s subordination, we must look at the relationship between their **position both in the domestic division of labour and in paid work **e.g. domestic work limits women’s availability for paid work – but the lack of work opportunities drives many woman into marriage and economic dependence on a man (**two systems reinforce each other**) **Walby** 🡪 Capitalism and patriarchy are inter-related. The **interests of the two are not always the same**. They collide over the exploitation of female labour. While capitalism demands** cheap female labour for its workforce**, **patriarchy** resists this, wanting to **keep women subordinated to men within the private, domestic sphere**. * In the long run** capitalism is usually more powerful and so patriarchy adopts a strategy of segregation** instead: women are allowed into the capitalist sphere of paid work, but only in low status ‘women’s’ jobs, subordinated to men **EV** = Walby’s approach is useful because it shows how the two system interact and structure one another, without assuming that their interests always coincide **Pollert**: **patriarchy is not actually a system in the same sense as capitalism**, which is driven by its own internal dynamic for profit making. Patriarchy is merely a descriptive term for a range of practices such as male violence and control of women’s labour

Answer 8

**Heidensohn** * Found that women commit less crime due to the controls in society * **Home**: dual labour; free childcare + cooking at home, while expecting to go to paid job and pay the bills. Domestic violence is also an issue. * **Public**: media overexaggerates sexual crimes. e.g Islington Crime Survey found that *54% of women are scared to go out alone after dark in the fear of sexual and violent crimes* * **Work**: maternity and paternity leave not equal, no equal pay. Glass ceiling; less women in the managerial world, the higher you go up in the work hierarchy, the less women you will see. * **Sexual harassment**; male gaze is extended by the CCTV system and male teachers running into female headed classrooms if a fight breaks out * Women are evidently blamed for being rape victims - comments on how much she had to drink, amount of make-up and dress code. * Depending on their background, many men get away with rape e.g. *Stanford rapist - upper class, white, prestigious university and good athlete* *2014 Canadian Judge - in court asks rape victim ''why couldn’t you have kept your legs closed?''*

Answer 9

**Carlen** * When it comes to courts, female offenders are judged not on their crime but on their role as a mother, wife etc. *Found in her study on criminal women that CJS forces femininity upon females* * Working class women may commit more crime due to the frustration that they experience by being rejected by a movement that is supposed to represent them **Chesney-Lind**: found that *more women are branching out into crime but these are usually drug related crimes which link to prostitution, which is a key and very unliberated crime* **Gender and class deals** - shows that if society doesn’t provide than women will turn to crime, the society in a way pushes certain women to crime

Answer 10

**Difference feminism** * They want a universal feminism that represents all women from across the world. * To them, radical and liberal feminism are only for middle class, white, western women but we need one that applies to all and deals with a more broad array of issues *such as FGM and poverty etc.* **Adichie**: wrote a famous speech on feminism, being brought up in Nigeria and intellectual women like this are inspiring **Bell Hooks**: argues that we need feminism for men also. Ever since colonialism, when the white man took charge of less developed countries, they viewed the black man to being inferior to the white man e.*g we are all women, we do not experience feminism in the same way e.g. others will experience gender barriers while others will experience racism, class barrier and gender* * For this reason we need a feminism that incorporates everything and everyone * Inequalities within religion e.g. taboos with childbirth and menstruation, deemed as unclean and polluting, cannot touch holy script e.g *Victorian England - sex was only for the pleasure of the man and the wives had to obey* * Many feminists view the sex industry as degrading to women, strongly linked to sexual abuse and drug addiction **EV **- many sex workers see themselves as independent women * All the gender norms are ingrained and start from birth especially when it comes to primary socialisation, taught from a young age how to do gender *e.g. boys encouraged to play rough and play outside, respect women and protect them while girls are taught how to be caring, cook and clean like their mother and to obtain the bedroom culture* **Feminist researchers**: have demonstrated how cultural and media products marketed to young audiences embody traditional attitudes towards gender and towards the sorts of aims and ambitions girls and boys are expected to have **Freud**: saw women as men who lacked a penis and argued that they envied males for possessing one (**penis envy theory**)

Answer 11

**Judith Butler**: * Concerned with discourses and power/knowledge * **Discourses are ways of seeing, thinking, or speaking about something**. The world is made up of many, often competing, discourses e.g. religious, scientific, medical, and artistic * By enabling its users to define others in certain ways, a discourse gives power over those it defines e.g. by **defining childbirth as a medical condition **and healthy women as patients, **medical discourse empowers doctors and disempowers women** Knowledge is power – the power to define or constitute the identities of others E.G. Enlightenment project is a form of discourse * Butler argues that the **Enlightenment ideals were simply a form of power/knowledge that legitimated the domination of western, white, middle-class males over other groups **– these supposedly universal ideals that claimed to apply to all humanity in reality excluded women, black people and other oppressed groups 1. ALSO, the white, western, middle-class women who dominate the feminist movement have falsely claimed to represent **‘universal womanhood’ – feminists are wrong to believe they can adapt the Enlightenment project **so that it somehow includes all women – because women are not a single entity who all share the same ‘essence’ (EV = problems with essentialism – intersectionality – not all the same) 2. For poststructuralism, there is no fixed essence of what it is to be a woman because our identities are constituted through discourses, and because there are many different discourses in different times and cultures, there can be no fixed entity called ‘womanhood’ that is the same everywhere 3. E.G. womanhood in Saudi Arabia is constituted partly by Islamic discourse, whereas in the Western world its mainly discourses of advertising and the media 3. Butler argues that poststructuralism offers advantages for feminism – its enables feminists to ‘de-construct’ different discourses to reveal how they subordinate women – as in the medicalisation of childbirth * Need to reject essentialism and by stressing the diversity of discourses, poststructuralism recognises and legitimates the diversity of women’s lives and struggles, rather than prioritising some and excluding others **EV** = they offer a theoretical basis for recognising the diversity of women’s experiences and struggles against oppression **EV = Walby 🡪** agrees that there are differences among women, but she argues that there are also important similarities – they are all faced with patriarchy e.g. compared with men, women face a greater risk of low pay, domestic violence, and sexual assault **EV** = celebrating difference may have the effect of dividing women into an infinite number of sub-groups, thereby weakening feminism as a movement for change **EV = Segal **🡪 criticises poststructuralist feminism for abandoning any notion of real, objective socials structures. Oppression is not just the result of discourses – how we think and speak about women, it is about real inequality. Feminists should therefore continue to focus on the struggle for equality of wealth and income

Answer 12

**Walby's Theory of patriarchy:** * Understanding capitalism and patriarchy * Together: housework limits women's public life (including work), whilst limits on women's public equality (*such as unequal pay and promotion*) *reinforces their primacy in housework, and leads women to value a husbands higher earnings* * Historically we’ve moved from a system of private to public patriarchy and contemporary public patriarchy consists of 6 structures: 1. Paid employment 2. Household production 3. Culture 4. Sexuality 5. Violence 6. The state * Private patriarchy is based upon household production as the main site of women's oppression * Private patriarchy uses a strategy of excluding women from public life, public patriarchy by contrast, works by segregating and subordinating them within the public sphere * Public patriarchy is based principally in public sites such as employment and the state'' (Walby) * Even if you set out to have an equal relationship, different opportunities for men and women often lead to choices being made that reproduce gendered divisions of labour - especially when choosing partners and bringing up children (and now with elder care) **Criticism** **Anna Pollert**: abstract structuralism, a static form of system theory * Walby analysis is too structural - it is not embedded in an empirical, micro-sociological study of lived experience *i.e. women's experiences of home, work, sex etc. **Heidi Gottfried**: gender must be analysed in lived experience in order to dissolve the static opposition of capitalism and patriarchy. Mutually constituting terms mean that there are no ungendered class relations and no gender without class dimensions

Answer 13

**Kingsley Davis**: prostitution is okay because it acts as a safety valve, for the family **Murray**: believes that single mother households breed deviance **Marxism**: picks up on how capitalism is a ''dog eat dog'' system that thrives competition among men **Foucault**: when talking about power and the body, addresses a man (**androcentrism**) **Oakley**: distinguished between sex and gender and asserted that gender is a social construct **Butler**: stated that gender is what we do, not what we are. We all put on a gender performance Gender is a social construct - within the *Victorian era, pink was the colour symbolising a new born boy, exacerbating that we as a society created a stereotypical boy and girl, attaching colours and toys etc. to the gender* **Bowlby** - **maternal deprivation **- not adequate socialisation (women should go back home after the second world war) *1,500 nurseries opened during world war 2 - allowing women to work*

Answer 14

**Connell**: * Men's interest in patriarchy is condensed in hegemonic masculinity * Assumed that masculinity is a natural, biological state that cannot be altered (it is actually an** acquired identity**) * **Hegemonic vs subordinate masculinity **(class, ethnicity distinction?) * Men reap significant benefits from maintaining dominance over women, their general interest and investment in patriarchy is formidable **Globalisation** - *media glamorises the hegemonic ideal through its adulation of ruthless billionaire entrepreneurs and fighting fit, contact-sports stars

Answer 15

**Bell Hooks** * White women do not experience the *same intersectionality of oppressive forces as black women*, so may not recognise them * White women do not wish to be seen as unfeminine (a fear of breaking away from patriarchy's gender roles) * White women have a vested interest in exploiting class and race privileges, so they can be freed from dirty work * Capitalism values money more than people, so the wealthy are seen as more important than the poor (**imperialism and colonialism **also remain relevant because historically, **non-white peoples and their countries resources have been plundered and exploited by white supremacist capitalists** in their pursuit of wealth ) * Cannot dismantle patriarchy as long as we are in collective denial about its impact on our lives * Women in lower class and poor groups, particularly black women, would not define women's liberation as equality with men, because men in their groups are also exploited and oppressed - they too lack social, political and economic power * Women with multiple social privileges may see a situation as demonstrating just one form of oppression, rather than the intersectionality of many different types of oppression - may be due to ignorance * Feminism is a political movement, not a romantic notion of personal freedom

Answer 16

* All feminist perspectives we have examined so far assume that all women share a similar situation and similar experience of oppression 🡪 ethnocentricity of other feminisms, blamed with essentialism * **Different feminists** do not see women as a single homogeneous group – argue that middle class and working-class women, white and black women, lesbian and heterosexual women have very different experiences of patriarchy, capitalism, racism, homophobia and so on * Feminist theory has claimed a** ‘false universality’ **for itself – claimed to be about women, but in reality it was about the experiences of white, western, heterosexual, middle-class women e.g. by seeing the family only as a source of oppression, white feminists have neglected black women’s experience of racial oppression – many black feminists view the black family positively as a source of resistance against racism * Western beauty regimes have now damaged many women across the world. They are coercing and encouraging women who do not fit the** ‘Western beauty ideal’ **to change their traditions to be deemed beautiful – e.g. black women straightening their hard and Asian women getting surgery to widen their eyes * They want a** universal feminism **that represents all women from across the world. To them, radical and liberal feminism are only for middle class, white, western women but we need one that applies to all and deals with a broader array of issues such as** FGM and poverty** etc. **Bell Hooks**: argues that we need feminism for men also. Ever since colonialism, when the white man took charge of less developed countries, they viewed the black man to being inferior to the white man * Evidently, even though we are all women, we do not experience feminism in the same way e.g. others will experience gender barriers while others will experience racism, class barrier and gender. For this reason we need a feminism that incorporates everything and everyone **Calhoun and Nicholson**: described as difference feminists recognise that women’s experiences of family life varies depending on their type of household. They are critical of feminist perspectives that overlook the simple point

Answer 17

**Oakley ** * Housework is directly opposed to **self-actualisation** * Housework in **capitalist and patriarchal societies is exploitative** because it is low status work that is assumed to come naturally to women – *because it offers little opportunity for creativity or self-fulfilment* * Oakley in 1974 undertook one of the first feminist sociological studies into domestic labour when she *interviewed 40 London housewives between the ages of 20-30*, all of whom had at least one child under five. Findings: * Housework should be understood as a job and not a natural extension of a woman’s role as a wife or mother * Women are compelled to engage in domestic duties for no wages (**exploitation**) * Domestic duties have often been regarded as **natural for women due to their ability to give birth** * It does not occur to most women to demand wages for the work they give for free - ideology serves to disguise this fact by presenting housework as natural for women and not worthy of a wage * Oakley insists that the majority of housewives are dissatisfied with their lot, finding nothing inherently satisfying about their work, which is lonely, monotonous, and boring * Women report feelings of **alienation from their work more frequently than factory workers**; this is due in part to their sense of social isolation as housewives – many of them had careers before marriage which they subsequently gave up; have no autonomy or control; responsibility for the work is theirs alone and if it is not done they risk an angry husband or sick children

Answer 18

**Family**: key site of welfare; has explored the extent to which families remain the main source of care of children and older people and in particular, highlighted how much of this care is provided by women. * Feminism has exposed the ways in which the traditional family of a married heterosexual couple and children has been privileged over and devalued other ways of living such as lone parent and gay and lesbian families * The implications for social policy of the questioning of the public-private divide: it has translated a number of issues deemed 'private' into legitimate concerns of public policy, domestic violence is a prime example. * It has turned the spotlight on the impact of public policies and practices on relations within the family e.g. a range of public policies, including childcare and social security, affect mothers' access to an independent income

Answer 19

**State**: women's lives are more dependent on and determined by state policies than men's - no single feminist theory of the state Feminist conceptualisations of the state: **Liberal feminism**: the neutral state, which acts as a benign and neutral arbiter between different interest groups and to which feminists can appeal to improve women's position **Radical feminism**: the patriarchal state, which serves men's interests and reinforces gender inequalities. **Marxist feminism**: the capitalist state, which sustains capitalism **Socialist feminism**: combines Marxist feminists' analysis of the capitalist state with radical feminism's identification of the state's patriarchal nature **Black and anti-racist feminism**: the racist state, which reinforces racial as well as gender inequalities **Postmodernist feminism**: the post-structuralist or postmodernist state, which does not represent a single set of interests or operate as an undifferentiated unity but which nevertheless has gendered effects 1. Feminists show that the state impacts on women in gender-specific ways and helps to construct gender relations, but at the same time, the activities of different women and women's movements impact on the state (2006) 2. Feminists have exposed the discriminatory character of welfare programs and their function to reinforce sexist arrangements in domestic and public life' in the face of a dominant literature, which simply did not use gender as a category of analysis (Gordon, 1990) E.g the state can support and oppress women e.g. social security system - this can provide women with the independent income necessary to leave a relationship, yet in many countries it also serves to perpetuate their economic dependence within that relationship by basing entitlement on the couple rather than the individual

Answer 20

**Theory: Women-friendly state (coined by Norwegian feminist, Helga Hernes) **- * she defines it as a state which would not force harder choices on women than on men * women as well as men can be both autonomous individuals and parents * injustice on the basis of gender is largely eliminated without an increase in other forms of inequality, such as among groups of women * women are still less likely than men to have formal power as welfare state shapers - whether the state is regarded as patriarchal or women-friendly * the state would interacts with families and helps to regulate the relationship between them and the labour market in ways that help to shape gender relations

Answer 21

**Labour market**: the paid work that women do in the labour market often mirrors the unpaid work they do in the home, which helps to explain why it tends to be low paid, at the same time, * If men are able to earn higher wages than women, it makes economic sense for a couple to pursue a traditional gendered division of labour, thereby setting up a vicious circle. * The continued gender pay gap (17% in the UK) which operates to a greater or lesser extent world-wide is one example of how the labour market operates as a gendered institution - reflects continued occupational segregation, which means that women and men are often doing different kinds of work. * Men still find it easier than women to climb occupational hierarchies; women both hit glass ceilings and get held back on sticky floors. * Despite their increased participation in the labour market world-wide, women find themselves part of workplaces that are imbued with a masculinist, exclusionary ethos - more extreme forms, this ethos involves sexual harassment **Work**: instead of equating work with paid work, as often still happens, feminist analysis has broadened our understanding of work to include caring, housework and also voluntary **(Irving,2008)**

Answer 22

* **Care**: it was something of a breakthrough to reveal that care is work and often very demanding work. Feminist research has demonstrated the importance of this work in both its paid and unpaid forms * It has explored the gendered processes of care and the relations involved in caring and being cared for, together with the values associated with caring** (Leira and Saraceno, 2000)** **Dependence**: in contrast to the dominant preoccupation with dependence on welfare in the public sphere, feminist analysis has explored the implications of women's economic dependence on men in the private sphere and how that has been underpinned by welfare policies * It has also revealed the unequal relationship of interdependence of which it is a part, in which men are often dependent on women for care and servicing **(Lister, 2003)** **Citizenship**: feminist scholarship has exposed women's traditional exclusion from full citizenship to be not accidental but a product of the gendered assumptions upon which mainstream notions of citizenship have been constructed **(Hobson and Lister, 2002)** **Nation and community**: have highlighted how women's relationship and men's relationship to nation and community are constructed differently * Women are often treated as cultural symbols of the nation and as responsible for maintaining community cohesion. * What they wear and how they behave in both public and private spheres, are judged through the prism of nation and community **Time**: feminist analysis treats time as a gendered scarce resource alongside and interacting with status, money and power * It is a resource alongside and essential for undertaking different forms of work and for active citizenship

Answer 23

**Essentialist feminism** - celebrate the difference between men and women - physically and place in society and philosophies, alongside approaches to life. Men and women should be treated differently in society **Constructivist feminism **- we should all be equal, it's not about the role. Choose own gender, everyone should be treated equally because in the present there is nothing that women cannot do that men can

Answer 24

* Essentialism is the idea that all women share the same fundamental essence – all women are essentially the same and all share the same experiences of oppression * Difference feminists argue that **liberal, Marxist, and radical feminists are essentialist **– they see all women as the same 🡪 as a result, they fail to reflect the diversity of women’s experiences and they exclude other women and their problems e.g. some argue that the preoccupation of western feminism with sexuality is irrelevant to women in poorer countries, where access to clean water and primary healthcare are far more pressing problems

Answer 25

**To sociology:** * Sex previously not considered, focused on public rather than private (romantic and intimate lives were not considered, feminist sociology began to talk about sex and consent, about domestic labour, * SOCIETY HAS A HIERARCHY THAT GIVES MEN MORE POWER THAN WOMEN), favouring of methodologies (quantitative methodologies to qualitative and quantitative methods, e.g Oakley’s study, class is one of the key ways in which society is organised, until the 80’s only the man would be asked what he earned, not the woman because economic success was seen to be the men’s success, feminist sociology has changed this) **To society:** * Women’s rights (is pornography violence against women? Recent issue), attitudes toward women, work, sexuality. * White people get to determine what is racist, men determine what is sexist (the** power evidence is interesting, the majority telling the minority how to behave**) * James **Messerschmitt**: Subordinate and hegemonic masculinity. Intersectional issue. Working class men may feel threatened by women taking their jobs. In movies, men are seen to be dominant, muscles, young and handsome. * Femininity is associated with homosexuality; men always try to portray themselves as being ‘masculine’, aggressive and macho

Answer 26

**EV** – the **strength of feminism is that it redresses the way in which women have been systematically ignored from malestream sociology**. As a perspective it focuses on the issues and meanings of being female, and the oppression of women by patriarchal forces **EV** – there are many branches and types of feminism which means that they all develop of each other strengths and weaknesses – making a feminism that is inclusive of everyone and constantly develops over time, to be better each time and focus on working on the weaknesses of other branches **EV**: **ethnocentric**, largely ignoring black women. It ignores the fact that for black women racial oppression may be of equal or greater significance **EV** – it **ignores the positive way **in which many women view the family and relationships with women

Answer 27

Action Theories * They are ‘micro’ level, bottom-up approaches that focus on the actions and interactions of individuals * Action theories are more voluntaristic – they see individuals as having free will and choice * Humans possess agency – the ability to act as free agents, creating and shaping society through our choices, meanings, and actions. * All 4 action theories emphasise action or interaction, they differ in how far they see a role for structural explanations of behaviour. **Weber and symbolic interactionism** assume that the social structure can influence how we act. **Phenomenology and ethnomethodology** reject the very idea that there is a social structure ‘out there’ influencing our behaviour. For them, what we call ‘society’ is a construct, not a real thing.

Answer 28

Max Weber: Social Action Theory * Weber saw **both structural and action approaches** as necessary for a full understanding of human behaviour * The level of **cause**: explaining the **objective structural factors **that **shape people’s behaviour** * The level of **meaning**: understanding the **subjective meanings** that **individuals attach to their actions** * Unless we account for both of these levels, our explanation will be incomplete or false

Answer 29

Types of action - There are an infinite number of **subjective meanings that actors**may give to their actions - Weber attempts to classify actions into four types, based on their meaning for the actor: 1. **Instrumentally rational action**: is where the actor calculates the **most efficient **means of** achieving a given goal** E.g. a capitalist may calculate that the most efficient way of maximising profit is to pay low wages. This** action is not about whether the goal itself is desirable** – e.g. it could be distributing charity or committing genocide. It is simply about the most efficient way of reaching that goal, whatever it may be 2. **Value-rational action**: involves action towards a goal that the actor regards as **desirable for its own sake** e.g. a believer worshipping their god in order to get to heaven. Unlike instrumental rationality, there is **no way of calculating whether the means of achieving the goal are effective** – e.g. the believer has no way of knowing whether performing a particular ritual will gain him salvation

Answer 30

Types of action * There are an infinite number of **subjective meanings that actors **may give to their actions 1. **Traditional action**: involves **customary, routine, or habitual actions**. Weber does not see this type of action as rational, because **no conscious thought or choice has gone into it**. Rather, the actor does it because** ‘we have always done it’** 2. **Affectual action**: is **action that expresses emotion** – e.g. weeping out of grief, or violence sparked by anger. Weber sees affectual action as important in religious and political movements with charismatic leaders who attract a following based on their emotional appeal

Answer 31

Evaluation - His ideas are a** valuable corrective** to the **over-emphasis on structural factors **that we see in functionalism etc. and an affirmation that we must also understand actors’ subjective meanings, if we want to explain their actions adequately - Schutz: Weber’s view of action is **too individualistic and cannot explain** the **shared nature of meanings**. E.g. when a person at an auction raises their arm, they mean that they are making a bid, but Weber does not explain how everyone else present also comes to give this gesture the same meaning - EV - Weber advocated the use of **verstehen or empathetic understanding** of the actor’s subjective meaning – where we put ourselves in the actor’s place to understand their motives and meanings. However, as we cannot actually be that other person, we **can never be sure we have truly understood their motives**

Answer 32

Symbols vs Instincts - Observed that, unlike animals, our behaviour is not shaped by fixed, pre-programmed instincts - We respond to the world by giving meanings to the things that are significant to us - We create and inhabit a world of meanings. We do this by attaching symbols to the world. - A symbol is something that stands for or represents something else

Answer 33

Taking the role of the other - We interpret other's meanings by taking the role of the other – putting ourselves in the place of the other person and seeing ourselves as they see us - Our ability to take the role of the other develops through social interaction e.g we first do this as young children through imitative play when we take on the role of significant others, such as parents and learn to see ourselves as they see us - We come to see ourselves from their point of view and from the point of view of the wider community – the generalised other (LINK TO SOCIALISATION) - To function as members of society, we need the ability to see ourselves as others see us. Through shared symbols, especially language, we become conscious of the ways of acting that others require of us (LINK TO FUNCTIONALISM – allows for collective consciousness, value consensus and solidarity

Answer 34

Blumer identified 3 key principles: * Our actions are based on the meanings we give to situations, events, people etc. Unlike animals, our actions are not based on automatic responses to stimuli * The meanings we give are not fixed at the outset of the interaction, but are negotiable and changeable to some extent * The meanings we give to situations are the result of the interpretive procedures we use –especially taking the role of the other - Blumer argues that although our action is partly predictable because we internalise the expectations of others, it is not completely fixed. There is always some room for negotiation and choice in how we perform our roles – even where very strict rules prevail, as in total institutions such as prisons (link to Goffman)

Answer 35

**Goffman**: describes how we actively construct our ‘self’ by manipulating other people’s impressions of us. - We are all ‘actors’ acting out ‘scripts’ using ‘props’ resting ‘backstage’ between ‘performances’ we present to our ‘audiences’ and so on - Our aim is to carry off a convincing performance of the role we have adopted – just as the actor aims to persuade the audience that he is really Hamlet

Answer 36

Impression management - We must control the impression our performance gives. This involves constantly studying our audience to see how they are responding, and monitoring and adjusting our performance to present a convincing image - We have many techniques for impression management; language, tone of voice, gestures, and facial expressions, as well as props and settings such as dress, make-up As in the theatre, there is a ‘front’ or stage where we act out our roles, while backstage, we can step out of our role and be ourselves

Answer 37

Roles - Goffman argues there is a gap or role distance between our real selves and our roles. Roles are only loosely scripted by society and we have a good deal of freedom in how we play them – e.g. some teachers are strict, and some are easy going. * Link to crime and w/c – some turn to crime due to frustration but others continue to obey – FREEDOM AND FREE WILL - Role distance also suggests that we do not always believe in the role we play and that our role performance may be cynical or calculating – the actor sometimes resembles a **confidence trickster**, manipulating his audience in accepting an impression that conceals his true self and real motives

Answer 38

* EV** (P)**: Interactionism largely avoids the determinism of structural theories it recognises that people create society through their choices and meanings – we create our own worldview (postmodernism) - EV **(N)**: It is more a loose collection of descriptive concepts than an explanatory theory - EV** (N)**: Focuses on face-to-face interactions and ignores wider social structures such as class inequality - EV **(N)**: Fails to explain the origin of labels. It cannot explain the consistent patterns we observe in people’s behaviour - EV **(N)**: Reynolds (interactionism lacks structure) sent a questionnaire to 124 interactionists, 84 responded, concepts they felt were essential, the most popular were – role, self, and interaction. Only two chose power or class – concept that structural sociologists see as crucial - EV** (N)**: Not all action is meaningful – like Weber’s category of traditional action, much is performed unconsciously or routinely and may have little meaning for actors – interactionism lacks the means to explain it - EV **(N)**: Goffman’s dramaturgical mode; interactions are often improvised and unrehearsed – it is about reactions and understanding the meanings of what is being said and gestures - EV **(N)**: Ethnomethodology argue that interactionism is correct in focusing on actors’ meanings but that it fails to explain how actors create meaning

Answer 39

* The term ‘phenomenon’ is used to **describe things as they appear to our sense**. * Some philosophers argue that we can** never have definite knowledge **of what the** world outside our minds is really like ‘in itself**’ – all we can know is what **our senses tell us about it** - **Husserl** – argues that the world only makes sense because we impose meaning and order on it by constructing mental categories that we use to classify and ‘file’ information coming from our senses E.g. a category such as four-legged furniture for eating off’ enables us to identify a particular set of sensory data as ‘table’ - We can only obtain knowledge about the world through our mental acts of categorising and giving meaning to our experiences - The world as we know it is, and can only be, a product of our society

Answer 40

**Schutz’s** phenomenological theory; argues that the categories and concepts we use are not unique to ourselves – rather, we share them with other members of the society Typifications - Schutz calls these shared categories typifications; enable us to organise our experiences into a shared world of meaning - The meaning of any given experience varies according to its social context - Meanings are potentially unclear and unstable – especially, if others classify the action in a different way from oneself - Typifications stabilise and clarify meanings by ensuring that we are all **‘speaking the same language’** – all agreeing on the meaning of things. - This makes it possible for us to communicate and cooperate with one another and thus to achieve our goals. Without shared typifications, social order would become impossible - Members of society to a large extent to have a shared ‘life world’ – a stock of shared typifications that we use to make sense of our experience - Schutz calls this ^^** ‘recipe knowledge’**: like a recipe, we can follow it without thinking too much and still get the desired results in everyday life - **Husserl**: the world for him is as we know it can **only be a product of our mind** - **Schutz**: the **social world is shared, inter-subjective world that can only exist when we share the same meanings**

Answer 41

The Natural Attitude - Society appears to us as real, objective existing outside of us - **Schutz**: uses example of posting a letter to a bookshop to order a book. We assume that some unknown and unseen individuals (postal workers, bookshop owner) will perform a whole series of operations and that all this will result in our receiving the book. - The fact that we do get the book encourages us to adopt what he calls **‘the natural attitude’** – it leads us to assume that the s**ocial world is a solid, natural thing out there**. - HOWEVER, for Schutz it simply shows that all those involved share the same meanings, and this allows us to cooperate and achieve goals **Berger and Luckmann**: while Schutz is right to focus on shared common-sense knowledge, they** reject the view that society is merely an inter-subjective reality**. Reality is socially constructed, once it has been constructed, it takes on a life of its own and becomes an **external reality that reacts back on us** E.g. religious ideas may start off in our consciousness, but they become embodied in powerful structures such as churches, which then constrain us – by influencing laws about our sexual relationships

Answer 42

Emerged from Garfinkel. His ideas stem from phenomenology, but he **rejects the idea of society as a real objective structure ‘out there**’ - Garfinkel is interested in how social order is achieved. Social order is created from the **bottom- up**. Order and meaning are not achieved because people are ‘puppets’ whose strings are pulled by the social system - Social order is an accomplishment – something that** members of society actively construct in everyday life **using their common-sense knowledge - Ethnomethodology is interested in the **methods or rules that we use to produce the meanings** in the first place

Answer 43

Indexicality and reflexivity - Sees **meanings as always potentially unclear ** - Nothing has a fixed meaning; everything depends on the context - Indexicality; is clearly a **threat to social order** because if meanings are** inherently unclear or unstable**, communication and cooperation become difficult and social relationships may begin to break down (anomie; normlessness) - Indexicality suggests that we cannot take any **meaning for granted as fixed or clear** – yet in everyday life, this is exactly what we do most of the time - What enables us to behave as if meanings are clear and obvious are reflexivity; refers to the fact that we use** common-sense knowledge in everyday interactions** to construct a sense of meaning and order and stop indexicality from occurring – similar to Schutz’s idea of typifications

Answer 44

Experiments in Disrupting Social Order - Garfinkel; conducted **‘breaching experiments’** e.g. they acted as lodgers in their own families – being polite, avoiding getting personal etc. - ^^Aim was to **disrupt people’s sense of order and challenge their reflexivity **by undermining their assumptions about the situation - Garfinkel: concludes that by challenging people’s taken for granted assumptions, the experiments show how t**he orderliness of everyday situations is not inevitable** but is actually an **accomplishment** of those who take part in them - ^^Social order is **participant produced by members themselves**

Answer 45

Suicide and reflexivity - Garfinkel is interested in the methods we use to achieve reflexivity; to make sense of the world - **Suicide**: coroners make sense of deaths by selecting particular features from the infinite number of possible **‘facts’ about the deceased** e.g. mental health. They then treat these features as a real pattern e.g. they may use this information to conclude that **‘typical suicides’ are mentally ill** - Garfinkel: humans constantly strive to **impose order** by seeking **patterns** (**cause and effect of positivity** – functionalism) e.g. patterns that suicides are mentally ill becomes part of the coroner’s taken for granted knowledge about what suicides are like - When faced with future cases with similar features, the coroner interprets them as an example of the** assumed pattern **(the assumed patterns become **self-reinforcing,** but it tells us **nothing about any external reality**) - Garfinkel is **critical of conventional sociology** – accuses it of merely using the same methods as ordinary members of society to create order and meaning - E.G. positivists such as **Durkheim** take it for granted tha**t official suicide statistics are social facts** that tell us the real rate of suicide. They are merely the decisions made by coroners, using their common-sense understanding of what types of people kill themselves; no more than an elaborate version of the coroners’ common-sense understandings

Answer 46

- EV **(P)**: Draws attention to how we actively construct order and meaning, rather than seeing us as simply puppets of the social system, as functionalism does - EV **(N)**: **Craib**: argues that its findings are trivial; Ethnomethodology seem to spend a lot of time** ‘uncovering’ taken-for-granted rules **that turn out to be no surprise to anyone e.g. one study found that in phone conversations, generally only one person speaks at a time - EV** (N)**: EM argues that everyone creates order and meaning by identifying patterns and producing explanations that are **essentially fictions**. If so, this must also apply to EM itself, and so we have** no particular reason to accept its view** - EV** (N)**: EM **denies the existence of wider society**, seeing it as merely a **shared fiction**. Yet, by analysing how members apply general rules or norms to specific contexts, it assumes that a structure of norms really exists beyond these contexts. From a **functionalist perspective, such norms are social facts**, not fiction - EV**(N)**: EM ignores how wider structures of power and inequality affect the meanings that individuals construct e.g. Marxists argue that common-sense knowledge is really just ruling class ideology, and the order it creates serves to maintain capitalism – false consciousness and distorts reality

Answer 47

* **Giddens**: there is a** duality of structure**. Structure and action are two sides of the same coin; neither can exist without the other * Through our actions we **produce and reproduce structures over time and space**, while these structures are what makes our actions possible in the first place – structuration - Giddens illustrates this with language – language is a structure; it is made up of a set of rules of grammar that govern how we can use it to express meanings. This structure seems to** exist independently of any individual, and it constrains out behaviour** E.G. if we wish to use a language to communicate, we must obey its rules, otherwise, we will not be understood - **BUT structure also depends on actions **e.g. a language would not exist if no one used it. It is produced and reproduced over time through the actions of individuals speaking and writing it – these **actions can also change the structure**. People give words new meanings and create new rules

Answer 48

Reproduction of structures through agency Giddens: structure has two elements: * **Rules** – the **norms, customs and laws that govern or affect action** * **Resources – both economic and power over others** * Rules and resources can be either **reproduced or changed** through **human action e.g. obeying the law reproduced the existing structure**, while **inventing new technology may change** it Reproducing them: 1. Society’s rules contain a** stock knowledge about how to live our lives**. **Earning a living, shopping**apply to this **knowledge to everyday situations** 2. We reproduce **existing structures through our action **because we have a** deep-seated need for ontological security**; a need that it is orderly, stable and predictable (tend to encourage action and that maintains existing structures, rather than changing them)

Answer 49

Change of structures through agency 1. We** ‘reflexively monitor’ our own action**. We constantly reflect on **our actions and their results**, and we can d**eliberately choose a new course of action**.** Tradition no longer dictates action** and where individuals become **more reflexive**; e.g **increasing inclusivity and reducing discrimination** CIVIL RIGHTS 2. Our actions may change the world, but not always as we intended. They may have **unintended consequences**, producing **changes that were not part of our goal** (E.g. technological innovations and scientific discoveries – science useful when it comes to **IVF** also led to **nuclear weapons **

Answer 50

Evaluation - EV: Giddens makes an **important attempt to overcome the division between structure and action in sociological theory** - EV: **Archer** argues that he underestimates the **capacity of actors to change structures to resist change** e.g. **slaves may wish to abolish slavery but lack the power to do so** – **power and inequality **is important tobacknowledge - EV: **Craib**: **structuration** theory is not really a theory at all, because it** does not explain what actually happens in society**. Just describes the kinds of things we will find when we study society, such as actions, rules, resources etc. - EV: **Craib**: **Giddens fails to explain** how his theory applies to** large-scale structures such as the economy + the state**

Answer 51

* Postmodernists suggest society has become much **more fragmented and individuals aren’t so connected to societal norms** due to an increase in choice: * Individuals are** no longer seen as producers of goods but as consumers** * Increase in **secularization and distrust of social institutions **has given people more choice * **Lyotard** believes that there’s been a rejection of metanarratives; people now draw their own conclusions from multiple sources * **Growth of ‘fake news’** means that what people perceive as** real may be wrong** * The** secularization of society and the increase in science** as the main belief system have led to a** lack of faith in institutions**; **Science** has led to further environmental issues and aided capitalists in creating inequality, Lyotard argues this is why nuclear weapons have been developed but **cancer hasn’t been cured yet ** * **Increased diversity due to globalization **has led to a** rejection of mass culture ** * Growth in individualism has meant that** culture is no longer a homogeneous entity **but instead a **‘pick and mix’** * **Relativist position**; **No one has special access to the truth** – including sociologists. All accounts of **reality are equally valid**

Answer 52

Baudrillard: * People respond to** media images**, not people or places, eg when important/figures die, there is an **outpouring of grief, but people aren’t mourning a real person** just the **idea** of them * It is **no longer possible to separate out reality from representation**, thus leading to the creation of **‘hyperreality’**, the combination of the two * **Symbols** are perceived as **more important than real things**, brands and designer labels portray an **image that isn’t real**; **proliferation of signs and symbols** as so extensive that reality becomes confused with fiction. The** images are everything, the reality nothing**: a condition called the **simulacrum** * **Hyper-reality = distortion of what’s real in mass culture**, in social media, adverts etc

Answer 53

Strinati: * **Increase in new media** has created an** overload of information** that people are **unable to process; media saturation ** *** Impact on cultural norms***, individual's sense of identity and perceptions of society; far-ranging impacts on politics, religion, education, healthcare etc Foucault: * Concept of the **panopticon, a prison design where inmates are constantly surveilled** from a central point * He applied this to **broader social contexts**, where people behave as if they're being **watched, leading to self-regulation and conformity within society **

Answer 54

Evaluations: ** Ignores power and inequality** and the bourgeoisie's control over institutions such as the** media and healthcare** **Hypodermic-Syringe Model**; states that the **mass media has a direct, immediate, and powerful effect on their audiences** The media** "injects" ideas**, attitudes, and behaviours into the minds of individuals, who **passively accept and absorb** them without question * EV: **Philo and Miller (Marxist perspective)** – it **ignores power and inequality **e.g. the idea that **media images are unconnected with reality ignores the ruling class**’ use of the media as a tool of domination (**ALTHUSSER – MEDIA IS AN ISA**) EV: postmodernists are **wrong to claim that people cannot distinguish between reality and media image** (LINK Gramsci – **class consciousness**, aware of exploitation) EV: **Lyotard’s theory is self-defeating**: why should we believe a theory that claims that no theory has the truth? – **meta-narrative itself**

Answer 55

Late modernism: * Late modernity refers to an** era of change between the modern and postmodern era, created by Giddens** * introduction of** risk within society as the death of old certainties such as job security leave ** * Liquid modernity refers to an era of fluidity, flexibility and change - Bauman * **Individualisation**; people have become** less community-minded and more focused on their individual goals**, needs and aspirations at the expense of family and others * **Increased insecurity within relationships **(**increased divorce**), employment, science, etc) * **Reflexivity**, people are much **more likely to question their place within society **as a result of increasing changes due to globalization e.g **use of AI ** * **Disembedding**; the **lifting out of social relation from local contexts of interaction**. Today we no longer need face-to-face contact in order to interact – disembedding breaks down geographical barriers and makes **interaction more impersonal ** *** Increased interconnectedness through social media and technology**, though their often impersonal and the increased surveillance of people

Answer 56

Giddens: * **Romantic love is the idealization of people** being fulfilled and eternally happy through** falling in love**; caused the idea of** ‘till death do us part’** * **Increase in reflexivity**, the ability of an individual to **reflect on their actions and have a desire for self-improvement** **Compartmentalize elements of their lives**; people have begun to see that there is **more to life than family** etc Led to the idea of **plastic sexuality**; the **removal of the function of child-bearing from sex**, leading to increased choice and **diversity in sexual partners ** * Romantic love has now been replaced by **confluent love**, as love has become much **more transactional** and only exists when it benefits the individual; prompting an **increase in serial monogamy to satisfy individual desires ** * Social pressure to have a** ‘perfect’ relationship** has meant that people choose their own identity and what they desire from a relationship thus impacting the** longevity of relationships ** * There is a **‘duality of structure’**- people are not just** ‘free’ to do whatever they want **– their **freedom comes from existing structures**

Answer 57

Beck: * Beck's central concept is the **"risk society," **where modernity is characterized by the** prevalence of manufactured risks and uncertainties** * **Industrialization and technological advancements** have led to **new and unforeseen risks**, such as environmental pollution and nuclear disasters Cosmopolitanism and Globalisation: * Beck highlights the emergence of a cosmopolitan outlook, where individuals are **increasingly connected beyond national boundaries** * Global challenges like climate change and economic interdependence require **collective action on a global scale** Detraditionalization and Institutional Change: * Beck discusses how** traditional institutions lose their influence**, and individuals become **responsible for constructing their own life paths**. Detraditionalization leads to the **renegotiation of social roles and relationships** * This means we must **constantly take account of the risks attached to the different courses of action open to us** – **reflexive modernisation **

Answer 58

Bauman: * **Inequality**: Bauman highlights the **persistence of inequality in late modern society**, with some individuals benefiting from **flexibility and choice **while others are **left vulnerable and marginalized** **Individualization of Risk**: Late modernism also emphasizes the individualization of risk, where individuals are **responsible for managing risks such as job insecurity, health, and financial stability** * **Liquid Modern Ethics**: Bauman raises questions about the ethical implications of living in a liquid modern society, where** moral values and norms are constantly shifting and evolving**

Answer 59

Evaluations: **Hypodermic syringe model**: the audience is viewed as** passive recipients of media messages**, and the media is believed to have the power to shape individuals' thoughts, beliefs, and behaviours** without any resistance or critical thinking** on the part of the audience * Definitions of class may have slightly changed, but there's still a **polarization of views that exemplify structural forces of society** * Modernity is just a **Western ideal as opposed to a global one**, as other societies have rejected it * **Elliot is critical of media usage outside of the West**; where there may be a lack of digital technologies * The **risk and insecurity is due to capitalism and perhaps not social change**; EV: **Rustin**: it is capitalism, with its pursuit of profit at all costs, that is the source of risk, not technology as such. (LINK to state crimes like **greed, selfishness, and competitiom**

Answer 60

**Positivists** believe that it is possible and desirable to apply the logic and methods of the natural science to the study of society – doing so will bring us true,** objective knowledge** * Believe that **reality exists outside and independently of the human mind** * Society is an **objective factual reality** – it is a **real ‘thing’ made up of social facts **that exists **‘out there’, independently** of individuals, just like the physical world

Answer 61

Patterns, laws, and inductive reasoning - **Reality is not random or chaotic but patterned**, and we can observe these empirical patterns or regularities. It is the job of science to **observe, identify, measure, and record these patterns** systematically (**laboratory experiments**) - Positivists believe that ‘real laws are discoverable’ that will explain these patterns through** inductive reasoning** - Induction involves** accumulating data** about the world through careful observation and measurement Verificationism - Can develop a theory that explains all our observations so far, after many **more observations have confirmed or verified the theory**, we can claim to have **discovered the truth in the form of a general laws** - The patterns we observe, whether in nature or in society, can all be explained in the same way – by finding the** facts that cause them **

Answer 62

Objective quantitative research - Positivists believe that as far as possible sociology should take the **experimental method** used in the natural sciences, since this allows the** investigator to test a hypothesis in the most systematic and controlled way** - Experiments involve examining each possible **causal factor to observe its effect**, while simultaneously** excluding all other factors** - Positivists use quantitative data to uncover and measure patterns of behaviour – allows them to produce mathematically precise statements about the **relationship between the facts** they are investigating - Positivists believe that researchers should be **detached and objective**; through methods like quantitative methods such as experiments, questionnaires, structured interviews structured non-participant observation and official statistics - These methods** produce reliable data **that can be checked by other researchers repeating the research **EV: These methods decrease validity!!**

Answer 63

Positivism and suicide - Believed that if he could show that even such a **highly individual act had social causes**, this would establish **sociology’s status as a distinct and genuinely scientific discipline** - Durkheim observed that there were **patterns in the suicide rate** e.g. rates for Protestants were higher than Catholics - Concluded that these patterns could **not be the product of the motives of individuals**, but were **social facts **– they must be caused by other social facts - Durkheim claimed to have discovered a** ‘real law’ that different levels of integration and regulation** produce different rates of suicide EV: Durkheim boxed his reasons up, **not allowing free will but also allowed his bias to overtake his judgement** and thereby, making his research **subjective**

Answer 64

Interpretivist sociologists do not believe that sociology should model itself on the natural sciences - Interpretivists** criticise positivism’s scientific approach as inadequate or even as completely unsuited** to the study of human beings - **WEBER**: we should try to **understand (verstehen) human behaviour** by putting ourselves in the shoes of those we are studying and focusing on interpreting the meanings behind people’s action - HOWEVER, this approach still stresses the importance of adopting a rigorous and systematic approach, stressing that making sense of** human behaviour derives from a careful interpretation** of it – hence this alternative approach is known an interpretivism

Answer 65

Verstehen and qualitative research - **Interpretivists reject the logic and methods **of the natural sciences - To discover meanings people, give to their actions, we need to see the world from their viewpoint; involves **abandoning the detachment and objectivity favoured by positivists**, should use **verstehen** to grasp their meanings - These methods produce **richer, more personal data high in validity **and give the sociologist a **subjective understanding of the actor’s meanings **

Answer 66

**Douglas** – individuals have **free will and they choose how to act on the basis of meanings**. To understand suicide, we must uncover its meanings for those involved, instead of **imposing our own** meanings – like Durkheim’s 4 types of suicide - Douglas also rejects Durkheim’s quantitative data from official statistics – there are **no objective facts** but simply** social constructions** resulting from the way coroners** label certain deaths as suicide**. - Douglas proposes we use qualitative data from case studies of suicides - **Atkinson** –** rejects the idea that external social facts determine behaviour **and agrees that statistics are socially constructed. He argues that we can never know the ‘**real state’ of suicide**, even using qualitative methods, since we can never know for sure what **meanings the deceased held**

Answer 67

Argue** against the idea of a scientific sociology**. They regard natural science as simply a **meta-narrative** - Despite its claim to have special access to the truth, science is just one **more ‘big story’**; its account of the world is** no more valid than any other ** - Given the postmodernist view that there are so many different truths as there are points of view, a **scientific approach is dangerous because it claims a monopoly of the truth** and so** excludes other points of view** - Some feminists, notably **poststructuralist feminists, share this view of scientific sociology** – the quest for a single, scientific feminist theory is a form of domination, since it covertly **excludes many groups of women**.Other feminists argue that the **quantitative scientific methods favoured by positivists **are also** oppressive and cannot capture the reality of women’s experiences** - Science is an undesirable model for sociology to follow because, in practice, **science has not always led to the progress **that positivists believed it would E.G. the emergence of ‘**risk society’,**

Answer 68

* Popper: the main reason why we should **reject Verificationism** is what he calls** ‘the fallacy of induction’ **– induction is the process of **moving from the observation of particular instances** of something to **arrive at a general statement or law** - A generalised statement can be disproved by one obervation of it being false - WE CAN** NEVER prove a theory is true simply by producing more observations that support or verify it**

Answer 69

* Popper believed that sociology could be viewed as a **science provided it subjected itself to continual testing or falsification**. Sociology can proceed just like a natural science, by using the **hypothetico-deductive method** Social Phenoma - Systematic Observation - Confirm Hypothesis \/ \/ Hypothesis - Data Collection + Anaylsis \/ | Refute Hypothesis Establish Theory | Revise Hypothesis

Answer 70

* A **scientific statement **is one that in principle is capable of being **falsified** – proved **wrong by the evidence** - We must be able to say what **evidence would count as falsifying the statement when we come to put it to the test ** Popper argues that agood theory has two features: * It is in **principle falsifiable but when tested, stands up to all attempts to disprove it** * It is **bold** – it claims to explain a great deal. It makes **big generalisations that precisely** predict a large number of cases or events, and so is at **greater risk of being falsified **than a **timid theory that only tries to explain a small number of events** * For a theory to be** falsifiable, it must be open to criticism from other scientists** * Popper: science is essentially a public activity. Everything is open to criticism, so that the flaws in a theory can be readily exposed and better theories developed

Answer 71

Implications of Sociology * Popper: believes that much **sociology is unscientific because it consists of theories that cannot be put to the test with the possibility that they might be falsified** - E.G. **Marxism** predicts that there will be a** revolution leading to a classless society**, but that it has not yet happened because of the **false consciousness of the proletariat**. The **prediction cannot be falsified**. If there is a revolution, Marxism is correct and if there is not a revolution Marxism is still correct * Popper: believes that sociology can be scientific, because it is capable of **producing hypotheses that can in principle be falsified** E.G. **Ford** – hypothesised that **comprehensive schooling would produce social mixing of pupils** from different social classes – she was able to **test and falsify this hypothesis through her empirical research**

Answer 72

* **Scientists work within paradigms**; frameworks of scientific laws, concepts, theories, methods and assumptions * Scientists** rarely question the paradigm + are blinded to any contradictions in investigations by the paradigm** – any anomalies cause work to be scrutinised for errors * When many **anomalies exist in the paradigm** a scientific revolution happens and the **original paradigm is replaced with a new one** * Sociology **cannot be a science as it is preparadignamic – there is no one set paradigm**, rather a set of competing theories

Answer 73

* **Realists** = **both natural and social science attempt to explain the causes of events in terms of underlying structures and processes**. Although these structures are often unobservable, we can work out that they exist by observing their effects E.G. we cannot directly see a thing called **‘social class’, but we can observe its effects on people’s life chances** * **Closed systems**: those where the **researcher can control and measure all the relevant variables**, and therefore can make** precise predictions** * **Open systems**: those where the **researcher cannot control and measure all the relevant variables and cannot make precise predictions** * Realists argue that **sociologist’s study open systems where the processes are too complex to make exact predictions ** * Realists believe that a **structured reality exists** but, unlike positivists,** disagree that this reality is necessarily observable directly** * Realists believe that interpretivists are also wrong in assuming that sociology cannot be scientific. Interpretivists believe that minds are not directly observable so they cannot be studied scientifically. Realists argue that s**cience can study unobservable phenomena**, then this is **no barrier to studying meanings scientifically*

Answer 74

Positivism and Functionalism * **Durkheim** took the view that **sociology was a science **and would discover both the **cause of social problems and scientifically** based solution to them * e.g Durkheim’s analysis led him to propose a **meritocratic education system** + the **abolition of inherited wealth** to foster a sense that society was fair, which would promote **social cohesion ** * These policies help **society run smoothly and efficiently** * e.g educational policies are seen as promoting **equal opportunity + social integration**, while **health and housing policies assist the family** in performing its functions more efficiently * Sociologists role is to provide the state with **objective, scientific information** * Functionalists favour social policies that are sometimes referred to as **‘piecemeal social engineering’** – they favour a **cautious approach, tackling one specific issue at a time ** EV: the **piecemeal approach has been criticised** – Marxists argue that **educational policies aimed at equal opportunity** for children of different classes are often defeated by **influence of poverty in wider society** – social problems such as under-achievement are simply aspects of a **wider structure of class inequality**

Answer 75

Social Democratic Perspective * Favours a **major redistribution of wealth and income from the rich to the poor** * Townsend, argue that they should be involved in researching social problems and making policy recommendations to eradicate them E.G. Townsend conducted extensive research on** poverty**. He made recommendations for policies such as **fairer, higher benefit levels, and more public spending on health, education, and welfare services ** * **Black Report** on **class inequalities in health **made 37 recommendation; **free school meals for all children**, improved working conditions, **better benefits for the disabled** and **more spending to improve housing**. The **Labour government** had originally commissioned the report in **1977 but it was only completed in 1980**, the year after Thatcher’s conservative government came to power. The new government **refused to implement the report’s recommendations** on **grounds of cost**, and even tried to **restrict its publication ** EV: **Marxists** * Reject the idea that even policies as far-reaching as those proposed by the Black Report are **enough to solve the problem**. It is **capitalism** that is ultimately responsible for these **inequalities and so the problem cannot be solved without abolishing capitalism** * The capitalist state is unlikely to introduce **costly public spending policies to benefit the working class** EV: **Postmodernists** * Criticise attempts by sociologists to influence policy. It is impossible to** discover objective truth** * All knowledge produced by research is uncertain, and so sociological findings cannot provide a **satisfactory basis for policymaking** * Sociologists can only take the **role of ‘interpreters’**, offering one view of reality among many, and not the** role of ‘legislators’, as modernist sociologists** such as functionalists and social democrats may have tried – **meta-narratives**

Answer 76

* Society as divided by a fundamental **conflict of interest in which the ruling capitalist class exploit the labour of the working class **– proletariat vs bourgeoisie * **Don't see social policies **as benefiting all members of society, the state represents the ruling class, and its social policies **serve the interests of capitalism** * Provide **ideological legitimation**: to **mask capitalist exploitation**. e.g gives capitalism a **'caring face' (Pearce)** * Maintain the **labour force for further exploitation**: e.g. the **NHS** serves capitalism by keeping** working fit enough to work** - **preventing revolution** * Marxists recognise that social policies do sometimes provide real, if limited, benefits to the working-class – such gains ae constantly **threatened with reversal by capitalism’s tendency to go into periodic crises of profitability** - leading to** cuts in state spending on welfare** Role of Sociologists * Sociologist’s main role should be to **criticise capitalist social policy, not to serve the capitalist state ** EV: Critics argue that Marxist views on social policy and the role of sociologists are** impractical and unrealistic** EV: **Social Democrats** criticise them for **rejecting** the idea that sociological research can help bring about **progressive policies within the existing capitalist system** e.g. poverty researchers have at times had some positive impact on policy

Answer 77

* Society is patriarchal, **benefiting men at women’s expense**, and the state perpetuates women’s subordination through its social policies E.G. Family policies may assume that the** ‘normal’ family is a conventional nuclear family.** State assumes this and offers benefits to **married couples but not to cohabitating ones** Feminist research has had an impact in a number of policy areas e.g. in education, it has influences policies such as: 1. **Learning materials**: that **promote more positive images of females **– **GIST, WISE,** remaking the curriculum and textbooks focused on strong, independent, business led women who are successful 2. **Teacher training**: to sensitise teachers to the need to **avoid gender bias and promote inclusiveness for both sexes** 3. **Women’s refuges for women escaping domestic violence** (**CHISWICK 1971**) e.g. the Women’s Aid Federation supports a national network of over **500 such services, often with funding from local and central government ** EV: Many feminists **reject the view that reformist social policies can liberate women** e.g both Marxist and radical feminists call for more **far-reaching changes** that the existing state cannot deliver

Answer 78

* Believe that the **state should have only minimal involvement** in society - **opposed to using state provision of welfare** to deal with social problems * **State interventions** **rob people of their freedom to make their own choices** and **undermines their sense of responsibility** – leads to **greater social problems**, such as **crime** and delinquency **MURRAY**: **generous welfare benefits and council housing** for **lone parents** act as **‘perverse incentives’ that weaken the family’s self-reliance**. Encourages the **growth of the dependency culture ** * Role of sociologists as being to propose **alternative policies to the present ones.** These policies should aim to **restore individuals’ responsibility for their own and their families’ welfare**, rather than leaving this to the state – **lassaire faire** E.G. **Breakdown Britain**, a report by Conservative think tank, the Social Justice Policy Group, proposes include **marriage preparation and parenting classes** + support from the **tax and benefit system for mothers who stay at home.** Report argues the** governments have stripped citizens of responsibility** for their own **welfare and neglected.** New Right Influence on Social Policy * New Right support a strong **‘law and order’ policy** and research by right realist criminologists, such as **Wilson and Kelling ‘Broken Windows Theory’ **– influential in the widespread introduction of **zero-tolerance policies ** EV: **SOCIAL CONTROL EVIDENT** (**FOUCAULT**) – **SUPER-PANOPTICON** EV: **Quality and the objectivity of the social research**, used by the New Right have been questioned E.G. the validity of the data on which Murray based his claims about a **link between absent fathers and delinquency has been widely challenged** EV: **Feminism + Foucault + Postmodernism reject** social policies that go aganist the strict control that NR attempts to **take over citizens** - **freewill is need and minorities should not be demonised, criminalised**, and labelled – but **helped and supported**

Answer 79

* Social policy refers to the activities and **legislative outcomes of central and local government and their agencies**. They generally have some bearing on **human welfare** Social problems = Worsely - social behaviour that causes public friction or private misery + needs collective action to solve it * **Consensus theorists**: argue that sociology should underpin **social policy and contribute to the reform of society** * **Critical theorists**: critical of the relationship between sociology and social policy and argue that the role of sociology should be to bring about **radical change rather than piecemeal reforms** * Sociology is an **academic subjects, its relationship to social policy should be independent** - e.g Postmodernists argue that sociology has **no contribution to make to social policy** * **Giddens**: Sociology is to inform **policy makers and assess the results of policy in order to promote an understanding of society** * **Worsley** - sociology **isn't always connected to social issues **+ can **exist without informing social policy ** * **Brewer** -** sociology should address social problems + policies** * **Townsend**: work on poverty was responsible for social policies like the **minimum wage and family and working tax credits** **Roberts**: talks of a golden age in the 40s and 50s when sociologists actively supported **reforms of the newly established welfare state** * Sociology can claim some** credit for raising awareness about social problems **and instigating a social policy response from the government. e.g some **feminists claim that raising awareness about gender inequality led to the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act** * Others see social policy influenced primarily by other factors such as **ideology, self-interest, and electoral popularity** - it can be influenced by **sociological research, but only when it suits and benefits central or local government**

Answer 80

* **Clash of ideologies** **- critical ideologies** (like Marxism) **clash with more moderate** + conservative ideologies * **Costs** - sociologists look at **ideal solutions that may not be practical** - **Black Report's recommendations weren't implemented on the basis of being too expensive** * **Methoodolgoies** - **interprevist methods** are often** too small-scale** to be implemented by governments who look at **big impact policies** * **Think Tanks** - **government policy is often influenced by experts** that propose ideas for social policy + they often have **connections ot these ministers** * **Electoral popularity** - research findings might point to a **policy that would be unpleasant with voters** * **Impact of globalisation** - role of **international governmental organisations **such as the** World Bank + World Trade Organisaton** influence social policy - especially on **social spending + the economy **

Answer 81

* **Comte + Durkheim**, the creation of a better society was **not a matter of subjective values **or personal opinions about what was ‘best’ * Sociology's role as a science it should **discover the truth about how society works**, **uncovering the laws that govern its proper functioning** * Equipped with this knowledge, **social problems could be solved and human life + improved** * **Scientific sociology would reveal the one correct society** * Sociologists would be able to say **objectively and with scientific** certainty what was **really best for society** EV – Science caused **biological differences** and** Femininsts don't believe that sociology can be a science** (**KUHN – PARADIGM** – **SOCIOLOGY WILL NEVER AGREE WITH EACH OTHER **– RAINBOW ALLIANCE)

Answer 82

Karl Marx * Debate whether or not Marx was a positivist * Saw himself as a **scientist** + believed his method of **historical analysis, historical materialism** - could reveal the **line of development of human society** (**primitive communist**) * Development involved an evolution through a series of different types of **class-based society**, leading ultimately to a **future classless communist society** * Role of Marx’s sociology was to reveal the **truth of this development** to the proletariat, since they would be the **class to overthrown capitalism

Answer 83

Weber * Makes a **sharp distinction between value judgements and facts **that he argues that we **cannot derive the one from the other** * There is **nothing about the fact that logically compels** us to accept the value * Weber’s view a **value can be neither proved nor disproved by the facts**: they belong to **different realms** * Weber still saw an essential role for values in sociological research + divided his role into four research stages

Answer 84

1. Values as a guide to research * **Social reality is made up of a ‘meaningless infinity’ of facts **that make it **impossible to study it in its totality** * Researchers can select certain facts + study these in regard as **important based on our own values ** E.G. **feminists value gender equality** and this leads them to **study women’s oppression** and to develop concepts such as **patriarchy ** 2. Data collection and hypothesis training * Must be **objective and unbiased** as possible when we are **actually collecting the facts**, and this means **keeping our values and prejudices out of the process** E.G. we should **not ask leading questions ** 3. Values in the interpretation of data * **Facts need to be set in a theoretical framework** so that we can understand their significance and draw conclusions * Our choice of **theoretical framework** or perspective is **influenced by our values **- must be **explicit about them**, spelling out our **values so that others can see if unconscious bias is present ** 4. **Values and the sociologist as a citizen** * Weber argues that scientists and sociologists are also human beings and citizens + must **not dodge the moral and political issues their work** raises by hiding behind words such as **‘objectivity’ or ‘value freedom’ **

Answer 85

* **Myrdal** argues that sociologists should **not only spell out their values**, but they should also openly** ‘take sides’ by espousing the values and interests of particular individuals or groups** * It is **neither** possible nor **desirable to keep values out of research** * Gouldner: value-free sociology is impossible: because either the **sociologist’s own values, or those of their funders**, are bound to be reflected in their work * **Undesirable**: since without **values to guide research**, sociologists are merely putting their services at the **disposal of the highest bidder**

Answer 86

1. The desire to appear scientific * Sociologists should **remain morally neutral – their job is simply to establish the truth about people’s behaviour** 2. The social position of sociology * **Gouldner**: argues that by the 50s, American sociologists in particular had become **more ‘spiritless technicians’** * Sociologists were** no longer ‘problem makers’ who defined their own research problems** - became **‘problem takers’ who hired themselves** out to other organisations to take on and **solve their problems for them – DO THEIR DIRTY WORK** * By leaving their own values behind them, sociologists were making a **‘gentleman’s promise’** that they **would not rock the boat by criticising or questioning their paymasters**

Answer 87

* **Feminism**: sees society as based on** gender inequality and promotes the rights of women** * **Functionalism**: sees society as **harmonious and espouses conservative values** that favour the **status quo** * **Marxism**: sees society as **conflict-ridden and strives for a classless society**

Answer 88

Objectivity and relativism * If **all sociological perspectives involve values**, are their findings just a** reflection of their values**, rather than a true picture of society Idea of Relativism: which argues that there is** no absolute or objective truth, just truths plural** 1. **Different groups, cultures, and individuals** – including sociologists – have **different views as to what is true**. Each one sees the world in their own distinctive way, through their** own perspectives, concepts, values, and interests** 2. There is **no independent way of judging whether any view is truer than any other**

Answer 89

Postmodernists take a **relativist view of knowledge** * **Reject** the idea that any one account of the** social world is superior to any other- there is no privileged account** that have special access to the truth - Any **perspective that claims to have the truth** is just a **meta-narrative or ‘big story’** - All knowledge, from whatever perspective is based on** values and assumptions ** EV: If this is correct, then it must apply to postmodernism too – which leads to the **paradoxical conclusion that we should not believe what postmodernism says** either

Theorists Flashcards

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