Shavon Gardner Extra Reflection Paper April 10, 2014 Social Theory

Shavon Gardner Extra Reflection Paper

It was in the year of 1985 when Judith Stacey and Barrie Throne, who are both feminist sociologists discovered what they called, missing feminist revolution in sociology. They said that sociology was something that was male dominated. They said that the sociologist that we study are mostly men and that the ideas from these sociologist are made and thought of by men, therefore the studies and ideas not being accurate because it is one sided, and the female gender is not being considered or represented in an appropriate matter. Their frustration is that although there are more women sociologist that are being considered and studies by women that are being discovered, recognized and put into perspective, the women are an add-on and not considered equal. The article goes into telling the reader that feminist theory is that of which focus on womens inequality, and how that inequality is structured and experienced at macro and micro levels. Harriet Martineau was a feminist sociologist that studied two different outlooks concerning womens equality. One of the studies were the contradictions on what equality was and the other outlook was things that denied women the right to be active in areas that men were not denied such as political, educational, occupational and economic opportunities. I find this to be very interesting as far as what society say that equality is and what others could consider it to be. For instance, one person could feel as though a man making a dollar more than a woman is equal because if the woman gets pregnant then she will have to take maternity leave which is in a period of time when she will not be used for the work that the company hired her for verses a man who typically would not take off, or not as long as a woman, for addition to their family. So for some they may say that is equality because the man is more dependable and works harder and are more dependable. However some would say that is something that is natural for a woman and it should be treated the same and that is discrimination because of gender. Question 1) What is something that is said to be socially equal that you disagree with and why?

Shavon Gardner

Charlotte Gilman was another feminist sociologist and she says that we live in a manmade world and that men were the race that was socially acceptable and the women were the outcast of the sub-species. She argues that women have been tricked into thinking that the desire to want to work is wrong and that women have been socially excluded from the work world and that is not normal. She says that it is men who have made history and taken what has happened and made it out to be what they thought it should be and that they have built the image of what the world should be like, off of their understanding and wants and women should be accepting to it because the men has said so. This is very interesting to me because it gives a different perspective to the history of our nation. Question 2) What is something that we have learned this semester from the feminist sociologist that makes your rethink something that you have been taught prior to learning about these feminist studies?

Shavon Gardner Work Cited Feminist Theories Article.