F eminist and g ender t heories

SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY IN THE CONTEMPORARY ERA
sociology emerged as a provocative new discipline dedicated to explaining the inequalities and 
systems of stratification at the heart of various societies (especially apparent, for instance, in Marx 
and Weber), it created its own version of domination by shifting attention almost exclusively to 
one particular dimension of human social life—the masculine-dominated macrolevel public 
sphere—at the expense of another—the world of women.
In short, Smith underscores not only that the standpoint of men is consistently privileged 
and that of women devalued, but also that the standpoint of the (white) male upper class 
pervades and dominates other worldviews. This idea—that not all standpoints are equally 
valued and accessed in society—clearly reflects Smith’s critical/Marxist roots. As discussed 
previously, beginning with her pamphlet Feminism and Marxism (Smith 1977), Smith 
explicitly links her feminism with Marxism. She explains how “objective social, economic 
and political relations . . . shape and determine women’s oppression” (ibid.:12). She focuses 
on “the relations between patriarchy and class in the context of the capitalist mode of pro-
duction” (Smith 1983:1) and emphasizes how “the inner experiences which also involved 
our exercise of oppression against ourselves were ones that had their location in the society 
outside and originated there” (Smith 1977:10).
Yet, Smith’s feminist theory is not just derived from an application of Marx to the issue 
of gender; rather, it reflects Smith’s phenomenological roots (see Chapter 6), as well. 
Specifically, Smith links a neo-Marxist concern about structures of domination with a phe-
nomenological emphasis on consciousness and the active construction of the taken-for-
granted world. She explicitly demonstrates the extent to which men and women bracket and 
view the world in distinctive ways, in conjunction with their distinct, biographically articu-
lated lifeworlds. In her own case, for instance, Smith recognizes that she experienced “two 
subjectivities, home and university” that could not be blended, for “they ran on separate 
tracks with distinct phenomenal organization” (Smith 2005:11). “Home was organized 
around the particularities of my children’s bodies, faces, movements, the sound of their 
voices, the smell of their hair . . . and the multitudes of the everyday that cannot be enumer-
ated,” while the “practice of subjectivity in the university excluded the local and bodily 
from its field” (ibid.:12). In this way, Smith (1987:83–84) notes that female-dominated 
work in the concrete world of the everyday demands one to be attuned to the sensory expe-
riences of the body. “Here there are textures and smells. . . . It has to happen here somehow 
if she is to experience it at all” (ibid.:82). The abstract world of the professions, conversely, 
requires an individual to take this level of experience for granted.
Smith is particularly indebted to the phenomenologist Alfred Schutz (see Chapter 6). 
Recall that it was Schutz (1970:11, as cited in Smith 1987:83) who argued that we put 
various levels of our personality “in play” in various provinces of reality. Schutz used the 
term mitwelt relations to refer to relations in which individuals are experienced as “types” 
(e.g., the relationship between you and the person who delivers your mail), and he used the 
term umwelt relations to refer to more intimate face-to-face relations. According to Schutz, 
in contrast to mitwelt relations, in which others are experienced only indirectly, that is, as 
social “types,” in umwelt relations each person must be aware of the other’s body as a field 
of expression that fosters the development of intersubjectivity. Smith (1987:83) extends 
Schutz’s distinction between umwelt and mitwelt relations by asserting, “if men are to 
participate fully in the abstract mode of action, they must be liberated from having to attend 
to their needs in the concrete and particular.” That is, traditionally not only are umwelt rela-
tions more central in women’s lives, but also men relegate their umwelt relations to women 
(for instance, a boss has his secretary shop for an anniversary present for his wife and make 
his personal calls). Thus, Smith argues that “women’s work conceals from men the actual 
concrete forms on which their work depends” (ibid.:83–84).
This brings us to Smith’s concept of bifurcation of consciousness. Smith uses this term 
to refer to a separation or split between the world as you actually experience it and the 

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