F eminist and g ender t heories
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY IN THE CONTEMPORARY ERA
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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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