Unit-10 Feminist Approach.pdf

8/14/2019 Unit-10 Feminist Approach.pdf

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Unit 10

Feminist pproachContents10.1 lntroduction10.2 Relationship with Common Sense; Interrogating Ideological Location10.3 The Historical Context10.4 Features of the Feminist Method10.5 Feminist Methods adopt the Reflexive Stance10.6 Feminist Discourse in lndia10.7 Conclusion

Learning Objectivesi t i s expected that after reading Unit 10 you will be able to

Critically present a conceptual frame for analyses of the waysin which social institutions, practices and discourses definewomen and men and their statuses in society in general andin lndia in particular

9 unpack the taken-for-granted assumptions about genderthat are common to sociological inquiry

9 Show how central assumptions about gender relationscontinue to shape the organisation of the social worldregardless of their empirical reality

.-= Discuss some of the contributions the feminist approach hasmade to the sociology of gender in particular and to sociologyin ~eneral.

10 1 IntroductionAfter discussing in Unit 9 the significance of the comparative method insocial research, we now turn i n Unit 10 to the equally significant application .of the feminist method in contemporary social research. You can saythat feminist method helps us to look at the social world through theprism of gender. t intersects with other hierarchies and social forms. ti s true that the classical sociologists generally excluded consideration ofactions of women. Consequently, discipline of sociology had little to sayabout women. Marx, Durkheim and Weber made stray comments onwomen and family. This i s the reason why the emergence of feministsociology has brought much excitement and optimism among the newgeneration of sociologists.

After mapping t s ideological ocation, Unit 10 covers the historical contextof the feminist method. Next, the author identifies three stages in thegrowth of the feminist approach since the 1970s and then delineates keyfeatures that mark the feminist method. reference has been made toMaria Mies methodological guidelines for feminist research.


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10.2 Relationship with Common Sense;Interrogating Ideological Locationt s critical to make explicit the domain assumptions that underlie all

theories and methods. The sociology of knowledge presumes thatknowledge, much lik e social institu tions and beliefs, is socially constructedand therefore has a necessary symbiotic relationship with social classes,castes, groups and comm unities. However wh ile it is easy t o discern thedomain assumptions that characterise those systems of knowledge, whichare marginal and seen as overtly political, the same is not true ofestablished dominant approaches. Hence i t s only with the surge ofpost-colonial writings tha t it now may appear that Orientalism or a westcentricity marked the classical comparative approaches. Unlike thisapparent neutrality th at shrouded the com parative m ethod, the feministme thod is seen as overtly p olitica l. Indeed a false b ut pe rsistent dichotomyis create d be twe en th e academic and pol.itica1 approaches. The samewould be true of a Marxist or Dalit or Black perspective. In the case ofthe feminist method, however the hostility often s intense and responsesrange from a tendency to trivialise to a tendency to demonise. Suchresponses can be understood in the context of the far-reaching andfundamental challenges that the feminist method poses to conventionalknowledge systems.

These challenges are contrary t o th e e xtan t comm on sense o f any existingsociety. And here I would like to stress that this s contrary not only totraditional and modern patriarchal common sense but also to modernbut dominant theoretical approaches (see Box 10.1 ).

o x o Examples of Traditional and Modern Patriarchal ommon ense 1Illustrative of the traditional patriarchal common sense would be the belief thatwomen are m ean minded and petty. A fit tin g reply that Tagore (in Ghare Baire )had for that was 'indeed they are, much as the Chinese women's bound feet

were ... bent and deformed'.Illustrative ofa modern patriarchal common sense would be that women oughtto be educated but for the sake of being better home makers. You would knowthat matrimonial columns in India are replete with demands for modern buttraditional brides. In other words selective virtues of modern and traditionalwomen would be combined for customised services to run a system that isessentially patriarchal.

The question that you may legitimately ask at this point is how do theexamples in Box 10.1 help us understand the feminist me thod. wou ldtr y to answer this at this le ve l by asking a question oft en ask in class.The discussion runs like this.

'The ra te of divorces is rising because of the increase in the number ofeducated women .The responses to the above stateme nt vary. Some students in the class

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Researchethodologies

agree i n an unqualified manner believing indeed tha t educated womenare responsible for breaking homes. Others are uncomfortable with thecovert suggestion that therefore women ought not to be educated. Andsome others make a methodological point suggesting a reformulation of

the variables in the stated hypothesis. In other words could we notalternatively formulate the statement as follows?

The rate of divorces s rising because of the unwillingness of educatedmen to treat their wives as equals.

Or you could say that

The rate of divorces s rising because more women are willing to breakout o f bad m arriages rather than suffer a lif e i n silence.

The purpose of providing these illustrations was to make explicit the

connec tion between everyday common sense and the ease w ith wh ich i tconverges wit h sociological formulations. t is not surprising that TalcottParsons model of the family assumed women to perform expressiveroles and men instrumental ones. The po int i n contention is not th at i tdoes not conform to the empirical reality but that i t takes the extant asgiven, and no t problema tic. The traditio na l and modern patriarch al normsare thus embedded in th e dominan t theore tical formulations (see Johnson1991 . The dominance of the established methods was such that i tappeared to be naturalised (see Harding 1987: 2-14 . For what can be

more obvious and natural than the fact that men and women aredifferent? t made sense to claim that anatomy s destiny and to arguetha t th e division of labour was and is biological i n origin (see Box10.2 .

Box 10.2 Examples of Anatomy is Destinys recently as the early 1980s the British Secretary for State for Social Service,

Patrick Jenkin in a television interview on working mothers stated: Quite franklydon t think mothers have the same right to work as fathers. If the Lord had

intended us to have equal rights, he wouldn t have created men and women.

These are biological facts; young children do depend on their mothers (cited inRose 1994: 19).In classical as wel l as neoclassical economic thought, we f ind that there is quiteearly i n histo ry th e discussion of women s wages and conditions of the iremployment. For example, Smith (1776) noted that women work for wages but a tthe same time he thought that a man should have enough wages to bring up hisfamily. He considered women s reproductive roles as essential for society. AdamSmith held that women did not have the capacity to take rational decisions ineconomic matters.

Here i s another common example to show the how the feminist ap p ro a dinterrogates and challenges very sensitive and deep-rooted structures,leading to considerable ho stility and at the least discomfort. Often peoplesay that women are making a fuss over a minor thing when they do notwish to change their surname after marriage. However i the question isposed that if it is so minor then why the fuss when she wishes not to


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change. Or t could be asked that if i t is so trivial then why do not menchange their surname on marriage. The issue of course is not of scoringdebating points. The issue is that ordinary customs do often rest on adeep-rooted patriarcha l structure. Change of surname implies change of

Lineage, family, belonging, and identity and is seen as demonstrative ofeffectual loyalty. You will clearly note how the comparative approachwould not evoke sharp criticism or passionate reac tion unlike the feminist.

Let us complete Reflection and Action 10.1 in order to explore our ownresponses to the issue raised above.

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Reflection and Action 10 1Organise a debate at your Study Center on No harm i f a woman does not change

Iher surname after marriage . Listen carefully to a ll the points of view in favor oragainst the topic and then write a note of about one thousand words,I .incorporating all the social reasons given by the speakers for and against theI theme. At the end of the note, you may aLso give your own viewpoint. Fifteendays after the debate and writing of the note, reflect once again on your views.

I Do you s t i l l hold the same views as you did earlier?L ----------J

10 3 The Historical ContextWe n oted the nineteenth century academic context w ithin w hich the

comparative method arose. More recent anthropologists would point tothe fac t that colonialism and the access to the study o f other cultureswas a political c ontext tha t cannot be wished away. This po litica l contextwas, i n a manner, cam ouflaged, ow ing to t he unquestioned dominanceof western p ower and western scholarship. The natives have just beguntalking back. The po litic al con text also we nt u nnoticed because themethod explicitly advocated value neutrality and indeed took pains todelineate guidelines to avoid obvious pitfalls of bias. n sharp contrastthe fem inist approach has an ov ert p ol itic al context. And also overtly

states its value preferences. A com mitment to gender equity is embeddedwithin the approach.

Wh ile th e firs t phase of the women s movement dates back to thesuffragette movement of the west (see Box10.3) and the nationalmovem ent in the colonised countries lik e ours, t i s only wi th the secondphase of the women s mo vem ent in th e 1970s th a t a systematicinterrogation o f th e social sciences from a femin ist approach took place.Unlike the lineage of the com parative method , as shown by Chaudhuri(2004), the feminist method has an inextricable link with the feminist

movement. The issue here is not whether each practitioner of feministscholarship is an activist or not. The issue s that the basis of feministknowledge emerged from a rad ical movement tha t questioned the givensocial order as both natural and divinely destined. We discussed the far-reaching impact of changing or not changing surnames above (see Box10.3 about lesser known facts about fem,inist movement).

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ResearchMethodologies Box 10.3 DidYou Know?

Did you know that the suffragette movement of the West was a long-drawn outstruggle. Despite various femin ist movements, form al equality for wom en tooklong to come. Women in late nineteenth ce ntury England were not recognised

as individuals in either the legal or lib era l theoretical sense. Men stil l had formalpower over the rest of the family, and women were mostly excluded from thepublic sphere. M ill and Taylor, along w it h some early U nited States feminists suchas Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, argued that the equality ofwomen required full citizenship for women. This would include giving womenenfranchisement. After 1865 when Mi ll was in th e English parliament, he foughtfor women's suffrage. He also fought to amend the laws tha t gave husbandscon trol over the ir wives' money and pro perty (Eisenstein 1979: 128).Source: http: //uregina.ca/ gingrich/o28f99. h tm

Furthermore by the 1980s, i t was becoming clear that the feministscientific revolution, like those that Kuhn (1970) had studied, would nottake place without resistance (see also Unit 6). As Kuhn (1970) hasnoted, scientific disciplines are aptly named; they discipline thought bymaking some ideas seem natural and others almost unthinkable. Thepractice of science involves commitments to such disciplines. Thecommitments of the scholarly community to certain ideas and ways ofthinking seem to stand in the way o f new theories, however useful theymight prove to be i n the long run, as we w il l shortly discuss in the nextsection on features of the feminist approach to sociology. While callingfor a critical appraisal of research in women's studies Krishnaraj (2005:3008-3017) said, Fem inist research is expected to use theory not somuch to test hypotheses but develop a better understanding throughgrounded concepts.

Let us now tu rn t o th e stages in the growth of a feminist approach andthen to key features of the feminist method. But before proceeding tothis ,mportant section of the unit, as you need to complete the Reflectionand Action 10.2 exercise for fu lly understanding the thinking involved inpursuing the feminist method.

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I Reflection and Action 10.2 IRead once again sections 10.1 and 10.2 of the un it and write the answers to th efollowing questions on a separate sheet of paper.What are th e implications of a woman retaining her m aiden surname?Is it correct for a boy or a girl t o p ut th e mother's name as guardian in the schooladmission form?Is it natural for th e male to dominate in the family?

Is it possible to wrlte gender-sensitive Language?Is it at al l necessary to wr ite gender-sensitive anguage? If yes, why and i f no, whynot?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

*Th e Academlc Counsellor may please organise a discussion on 'Critically lookingat th e Given Social Order' and encourage the learne rs to w ri te short essays forpublication I n th e local newspapers.


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10.4 Features of the Feminist MethodMuch as in the case of the comparative m ethod (wh ile there are certainlysome common features within the vast body of studies that warrantthem being called comparative or feminist), i t s important to assertthat important differences also characterise what can be broadly termed

the feminist method. For purposes of elucidation, w il l firs t begin withthe stages in the development of a feminist approach to sociology andthen see what could be seen methodologically as some common features.

A) Stages in the development of a feminist approach to sociologyA useful way t o m ark the growth of a feminist approach to sociology isto ide nt ify th ree stages in the study of gender re lated issues since 1970.

O Initially, the emphasis was on sex differences and the extent towhich such differences might be based in biological properties ofindividuals.

O In the second stage, the focus shifted to individual-leve l sex rolesand socialisation, exposing gender as the product of specific socialarrangements, although st il l conceptualising i t as an individual trait .

: The hallmark of the thi rd stage s the recognition of the centralityof gender as an organising princ iple i n a ll social systems, includingwork , pol i t ics , everyday in te rac t ion , fami l ies , economicdevelopment, law, education, and a host of othe r social domains.As our understanding of gender has become more social, so has

our awareness that gender s experienced and organised in race-and class-specific ways.

We can now usefully discuss some key features of the feminist method inthe light of the above three stages.

0 Some Key FeaturesI t has already been emphasised tha t im por tant differences exist betweendifferent feminist approaches. Along with notingdown the direc t and lndirect links with different

political and theoretical approaches, we are heremaking a case for delineating what a feministme thod in sociology entails. To sta rt with, wecan clearly distinguish between the traditionalsociological approach to gender and the feministapproach. Most introductory sociology textbooksstill treat gender as an individual attribute andgender inequality as an outcome of childhood a r b i e s

1931.)soc ia li sa tion . In cont ras t , cur ren t fem inis tthinking stresses the far greater input of the division of labour, power,social contro l, violence, and ideology as st ruc tura l and interac tional basesof inequality, not only between women and men, but among women andmen of diverse social classes and racial ethnic groups. Gorelick (1991:461) referred t o Maria Mies, who had in the nineteen seventies provided

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ResearchMethodologies

methodological guidelines for feminist research. She stressed the needfor replacing the practice of value-free research with a conscious biastowards women's struggles fo r soda1 change. Secondly, she made a casefor conscientisation of the researcher as well as the researched. Let usnow outline the following key features that mark the feminist method.

* Feminist sociology argues that research designs were based onmen's experiences.Feminist social scientists demanded a fundamental transformation inhow questions are asked and what criteria are employed to define ananswer as acceptable (see Box 10.4 and Unit 4). lllustra tive of this i s thelong practice of assuming that the head of the household is the eldestmale member. I t has been increasingly shown that the number of female-headed households in the rural areas of India i s very high. But the very ,

concept of a head of household was based on the urban middle class

men's experience th at women are 'housewives'. Another very commonexample i s the manner tha t the category 'work' assumed th at t meantregular work outside the home for which wages were given. However thas been increasingly realised tha t women fo r the most par t work in theinfo rm al sector, i n what are term ed as household prod uction units.Instances in the city of Delhi would be bangle and toy making, zardozi,assembling of electronic parts th at are subcontracted t o poor women i nthe slums, domestic workers etc. Indeed concerted efforts were madein the 1991 census to educate both census personnel and ordinary citizens

that breaking stones or carrying bricks i s also work. Apart from this informalwork, which is growing with globalisation, the idea that housework i s also'work' is s t l l considered alien (see Box 10.4 about ignoring women).

Box 10 4 Women Ignored from Social ResearchOne general line of criticism of feminists is that women are absent from thesocial analyses and social world of classical sociology. The language and analysiso f classical sociology is th at o f men, ma le act ivitie s and experiences, and theparts of society dominated by males. Marx Weber and Durkheim were typical ofnineteenth century European writers who assumed that the social world wasprimarily tha t of m ale activities.Source: http://uregina.ca/-gingrich/oZBf99.htm

* Feminist sociology is against separation and reific atio n of a divisionbetween' th e public and private.In sociology, when gender was seen primarily as an organising principleof the family, th go th er areas of social lif e were falsely conceptualiscd asungendered . The division between an ungendered public sphere and

a gendered priva te sphere is bo th ideological and misleading (see Box10.5). lllustrative o f this would be the fact tha t m ale professionals wouldbe preferred in the corporate sector and the argument given would betha t men are more committed to work while women would be distracted;they get married and pregnant. The significant point is that men too


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get married and become fathers but the dominant assumption i s that eminist Approach

the private sphere comprises the cleaning, cooking, shopping, child care,attending parent-teachers meet, looking after th e sick, would be thewomen's work. The public sphere of work for women cannot thereforebe reorganised until the private sphere is. In developing countries and

increasingly in the developed ones too there are pa rt-tim e or fu ll-tim efemale domestic workers. r i Lankan, Philippino and Bangladeshi womenamong others are migrating across national borders to run middle classhomes. This leads us to the third point (elaborated below) about theintersection of gender with other categories like class or ethnicity.

* Feminist sociology recognises the diversity of gender statuses inthe social order.Com menting on re fining methods of study, Krishnaraj (2005:3012) wrote,...,a positive fea ture of feminist method i s the attention i t pays to

contex ts rather than predefined , opera tionalised hypotheses. Feministsociology focuses on statuses that inters ec t w ith social class, caste, race,eth nic ity and intern ation al division of labour. Gender i s therefore imbuedwith enormous differences in economic opportunity and political power(see Box 10.6).

Gender categories are no t homogeneous. As m en tione d above th edomestic worker functions as the bridge between the public and privatedomains for she facilitates her employer's move into the public domainby taking over the latter's socially reproductive work, fill ing the gap asi twere between the two domains. Although domestic service i s low i n thehierarchy of occupations, i t s easy availability throughout the world hascaused economically vulnerable women w ith or w ithou t particular skills,training or education to migrate to distant places both nationally and

internationally. Feminist research endeavours to emphasise diversifiedexperiences and practices of women in terms of t he ir race, age, ethnic,historical, backgrounds (see Stacey and Thorne 1998: 219-240). t makesa concious effort to include more than to exclude. Sociological conceptssuch as class, status, honour he lp in examining women place in society.

jB0x10.5 ivision betw een Public nd Private omainsOne aspect of the long history of modern urban industrial society was thedevelopment of a separation between the public and private spheres. These had

not always been separated in traditional societies although there was often asex-based division of labour and male dominance. But there i s no doubt that withthe development of capitalism cities and industry a public sphere dominated bymen and male activities developed. Women generally became restricted to theprivate sphere of household and family and had limited involvement in politicaleconomic or even social public li fe. While women were involved in more publicactivities there were movements to restrict the participation of women in publiclife for example factory legislation and the family wage.

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ResearchMethodologies 10 6 Male ernale Inequalities

Classical sociologists generally focused on differences and inequality. Maw wasmost explic it in this, but Durkheim and Weber developed various ways of examiningdifference and inequality. Issues such as the division of labour, exploitation andpower, domination, and authority emphasise difference and inequality. Yet male/

female inequalities, or racial and ethnic inequalities, form little part of classicalsociology. Feminists have identified patriarchy as a social system of inequality,but classical sociology had only a limited analysis of this. Marx and Engels didhave a model of m ale/ female inequality, but i t derived from property and economicconsiderations. Weber analysed patriarchy, but male/ female inequalities werenot his primary concern in such analysis.Source: ht tp : //uregina .ca/-ging rich/o28 f99,htm

Indeed the belief that women move only on marriage or with families

rested on a set of patriarchal assumptions such as that women areprimarily and solely homemakers, that they are not independent workers,and that therefore migration for them can be only be as accompanyingmembers of the migrant again believed to be the adult male breadwinner.Facts suggest otherwise. In terms of the scale of m igration, women andchildren outnumber adult men. Of 150 million migrants worldwide, it isestimated by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) that 36-42million are migrant workers and 44-55 million are members of theirfamilies. Furthermore female-headed migrant households are less like ly

to have adult male family members accompanying than male-headedhousehold. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees,(UNHCR), women const itute 51 per cent of the 6.1 millio n refugees forwhom information by gender is available (Bhabha 2003).

10.5 Feminist Methods adopt the ReflexiveStanceThe transformations we seek in the disciplines are also transformations

of our own ways of thinking. t s useful and reassuring then to sharewith others tha t the actua l expertise and language of women s thecentral agenda for fem inist social science and scholarship (Du Bois 1983:108). Feminist researchers have over the last decade been increasinglyemphasising the need to hear the voices of women. Malavika Karlekar(2004: 387) writes,

My confidence also grew in large part because of the ease with whichwomen are today willing to share, to speak, and to rethink their livesagain. Before venture d back to the field again, had many encounters of

mutu al sharing and trus t which assured me that a context s not impossibleto create and even recreate anew. For a fieldworker has to tell the storyof many lives, one of which s surely her own, and when those voices shewishes to hear speak to her wlth a poignancy and an almost crystal-clearhonesty, she works hard to suppreds too many questions on her role andthe problems of inte rpre tatio n, understanding and so on. Twenty yearsago el t threaten ed, pained, inadequate, by tha t honesty and the reaching


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out for answers. Today, I find it easier to cope with the expectations ofrespondents not only w ithin myself but also because the scope of childcare,employment, domestic conflict resolution mechanisms, and so on, haveincreased and been legitimised. can at Least try and work towards somesolutions to the age-old problem of wife abuse with a battered woman:w ith t he balmikis did not even have the courage to ask the question notonly because I fel t that i t would be an invasion of privacy but also because

did not know how to approachit

Engendering sociology means interrogating the processes by whichsociological discourse was gendered by putting forth feminist reflexiveunderstanding of sociology as emanc'ipatory. Hence, for those of uscommitted to reflexive modernity, the task of engendering is one ofunderlining the ways i n which sociological discourse is patriarchal, middleclass, H indu and Brahmanical. As Rege 2003: 41) said, 'The uphil l taskis of reconceptualising basic categories of analysis, once the experiencesof the marginalised have been brought to center .

Now at the end of the unit, let us complete the Reflection and Action10.2 exercise i n order to generate more debate on the theme of feministapproach to sociology.

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I Reflection and Action 10.3 I( After once again reading the entire text of Unit 10, discuss some of the following

questions with at least five adults around you. Then write the answers to theI questions on a separate sheet of paper. Based on your answers, write an essayI on 'My Vision of Sociology'.

QuestionsI

I Like the classical sociologists, do you also consider that the re are n atura l II differences between women and men?

Do you reckon the female to be associated with the world of nature while men II are wsociated with culture? II Do YOU regard women to be emotional and men to be rational in their thought II and activities?I Do you agree with the observation that classical definitions of the social worldI do not include all parts of human action and interaction?

Would you like to see a sociology that includes social spaces occupied by womenand children and social domains where women's experiences have been centred?

Feminist Approach

10.6 Feminist Discourse in lndiaThe feminist discourse in lndia has organised itself around i t s critique ofmarriage and family. In this context, you may say that the feminists inlndia have articulated th e debate i n the last three decades of the twe ntiethcentury by theorising not only around deconstruction of oppression ofwomen but also its negotiation and transformation in real life situations.Focussing on the economic class aspects of women's oppression, socialistfeminismQ has engaged in discussing the relationship between sexual,econom ic class and rac ial oppression. Scholars, lik e Hensman 2005:70, , ht .e provided a socialist feminist critique of marriage, family and


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ResearchMethodologles

community as they feel that 'the original left critique i s inadequate'.Similarly, John (2005: 712) has studied fam ily and m arriage in a his torica lperspective and shown how the social refo rm movem ent during thenineteenth and early twentieth centuries engaged with the domesticdomain via a cri tiqu e of 'tra dition ', as embodied by specific subjectssuch as widows, c hi ld brides and others''. Not jus t con fined to the upper

and middle class social reality, the feminists in lndia have drawn oura t ten t ion to emerging cr i t iques by Dal i t and lower cas te women.Formation of an dl1 lndia group by the name of National Federation ofDalit Women symbolised another arena of debate around caste-basedinequalities and Indian feminists faced the challenges that this critiquebrought ou t in to the open about the inv is ib i l i ty of Dal i t women 'sperception of exclusion from the mainstream the feminist movement(see Rao 2005). Violence against women and legal inequalities were ofcourse the key themes discussed extensively by feminists in lndia but

now they are entering th e domain of marriage and family i n the light ofnow fairly common occurrences, clashes of perceptions about sexualityand gender relationships (fo r an account of women's studies and sociologysee John 2003).

10 7 ConclusionWe may conclude with a quotation from Ferree, Marx, Lorber and Heiser(1999: xii) that the feminist approach works to

make gender visible in social phenomena asking if how and why social processesstandards and opportunities differ systematically for women and men. [Thisapproach also recognises] that gender inequality s inextricably entwined withothe r systems of inequality. Looking a t the world through a gender lens thusimplies two seemingly contrad ictory tasks. First i t means unpacking the taken forgranted assumptions about gender tha t pervade sociological research and socialli fe more generally. At the same time looking through a gender lens means showingjust how central assumptions about gender continue to be the organisation ofthe social world regardless of their empirical reality.

The tasks mentioned in the quotation are i n line wit h t he c urrent practices

of sociology. Almost all over the world, there s a conscious effort inhigher education institutions to integrate theory and research on genderin the cu rricula as a whole. This indicates the curren ts of transforma tionin th e d iscipline o f sociology.

Instead of arguing for a separate feminist methodology in which only womencan carry out feminist research, you can make a case for locating feministresearch with in the theoretical and methodological discourse in mainstreamsocial sciences. The study of gender occupies now a significant space insociological research. The contribution of the feminist approach to sociologyis not confined to providing narratives of women's experiences and tohighlight the signs of sexism in conventional sociology. The fem inist approachhas contributed the inclusion of new themes and concepts. You may wonder


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i f th e feminist approach i s the harbinger of a paradigm shift i n sociology. Inthe works, LikeFeminist Foundation: Toward Transforming Sociology, editedby K. A. Myres e t a1 (1998) you may find claims t o th is e ffec t. We mayagree or disagree with such a reading of the impact of the feminist methodon sociology, you have the right to argue that feminist research has now

grown quite sensitive to its c ritics and as a resultt

tends today to be moreinclusive. I t is inclusive in the sense of focusing on more diverse experiencesand perspectives of women of diffe rent races, ages, colours, cultures andhistories. This trend has meant useful analyses of gender relations, whichare increasingly correlated with the issues of racism, ethno centrism andsocio-economic formations (for example see Jain 1988). Feminism i s nomore a fad and the feminist approach is reflective of larser transformationsi n the perceptions and constructions of social reality.

Further ReadingSydie, R. A. 1987. Natural Women Cultured Men: A Feminist Perspectiveon Sociological Theory. Methuen: Toronto (for a systematic analysis ofclassical sociologists, Marx, Durkheim and Weber, from a feministviewpoint)

Tong Rosemarie 1989. Feminist Thought: A Comparative Introduction.Westview Press Boulder (fo r a discussion of pa triarc hy as a systemcharacterised by power, domination, hierarchy and competition)

John, Mary E. and Janaki Nair (eds.) 1998. A Question of Silence? TheSexual Economies of Modern India. Kali for Women: New Delhi

Chaudhuri, Maitrayee 2004 Feminism in India. Women Unlimited/ Kali:New Del hi

u Bois 1983. P assionate Scholarship: Notes on values, Knowing andMethod i n Feminist Social Science. ING. Bowles and R Duelli-Klein (ed),Theories of Women s Studies. Routledge and Kegan Paul: London.

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