Chapter Overview: Women in Sociology

“We have already gathered the empirical facts concerning the distribution of women among students and faculty of graduate sociology departments. What we seek is effective and dramatic action: an unbiased policy in the selection of stipend support of students; a concerted commitment to the hiring and promotion of women sociologists to right the imbalance that is represented by the current situation in which 67 percent of the women graduate students in this country do not have a single woman sociology professor of senior rank during the course of their graduate training, and when we participate in an association of sociologists in which:

• NO woman will sit on the 1970 council,
• NO woman is included among the associate editors of the American Sociological Review, or the advisory board of the American Journal of Sociology, and
• NO woman sits on the committees on publications and nominations.

We urge [that] every sociology department give priority to the hiring and promotion of women faculty until the proportion and rank distribution of women faculty at least equals the sex ratio among graduate students with a long-range goal of increasing the proportion of women among graduate students. In working toward such a goal, this must supplement rather than detract from department efforts to train, hire, and promote black and Third World personnel and students.”

• Excerpt from the Women’s Caucus Statement and Resolutions American Sociological Association General Business Meeting, September 3, 1970

During the 1968 annual business meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA), sociologist Cynthia Fuchs Epstein (she/her) proposed that the ASA “address discrimination against women.” Her proposal was met with dismissive laughter from the male-dominated assembly. The following year, 200 feminist scholars—students, researchers, and faculty—held an alternate event during the ASA annual meeting to support each other and to draft the Women’s Caucus Statement and Resolutions (excerpted above). Out of this collective action, Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) was organized:

a nonprofit professional feminist organization dedicated to encouraging the development of sociological feminist theory and scholarship; transforming the academy through feminist leadership, career development, and institutional diversity; promoting social justice through local, national, and international activism; and supporting the publication and dissemination of cutting-edge feminist social science. (Sociologists for Women in Society, n.d.)

Feminism is an interdisciplinary approach to issues of equality and equity based on gender, gender expression, gender identity, sex, and sexuality, as understood through social theories and political activism (Eastern Kentucky University, n.d.). Feminist sociologists have pushed for the inclusion of people and perspectives previously excluded from the field, including women and people who identify as LGBTQIA+, people who are disabled, and People of the Global Majority (PGM). Applying the tools of sociology to the study of gender and sexuality, they have pioneered innovative research practices and produced a robust body of research and scholarship to support our evolving, expansive, and inclusive understanding of gender and sexuality.

Recall from Chapter Two that gender is socially constructed and that the social construction of gender is an ongoing process for individuals and societies. To understand how feminist theory has revealed and described the many ways that gender is socially constructed, this chapter sketches out the development of feminist theory across three historical “waves” of feminism.

As you work through the chapter, notice how social theory is a way of making sense of social conditions. It is impossible to separate a theory from current political and economic power structures. Notice also how theories change as activism and organizing shifts power within social science disciplines.

The chapter also introduces you to a diverse group of interdisciplinary scholars, each working from a feminist standpoint within gender and sexuality studies, and to four contemporary theories related to gender: post-structuralism, queer theory, crip theory, and postcolonial studies. The final section demonstrates how each of these theories reveals a different aspect of the gender pay gap introduced in Chapter One.

Licenses and Attributions for Chapter Introduction

Open Content, Original

“Chapter Introduction” by Nora Karena is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Figure 4.1. “Major Theorists of Three Foundational Paradigms of Sociology” by Nora Karena and Katie Losier, Open Oregon Educational Resources, is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

All Rights Reserved Content

“Feminism” definition from Eastern Kentucky University is included under fair use.