Sexual Politics in Comte and Durkheim: Feminism, History, and the French Sociological Tradition

Pedersen, Jean Elisabeth

doi:10.1086/495678

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…In accepting this role for sociology, Durkheim provided justification for the state’s existence, and he also personally served as an advisor to the Ministry of Education and eventually supported World War I (unlike many other European leftists). Similar to his choice to de-emphasize Proudhon, Durkheim accomplished a comparable end by also minimizing (if not eliminating outright) the presence of women and feminist analysis from sociology (see Pedersen, 2001). Choosing to avoid Proudhon’s ideas, and the debates over the relationship between women and men that emerged from the French Revolution, indicates that Durkheim was far more committed to his positivist study of how society presently functioned than criticizing the social order of his day.…”

Section: The Exclusion Of Anarchists From Sociologymentioning

confidence: 99%

A Society in Revolt or Under Analysis? Investigating the Dialogue Between 19th-Century Anarchists and Sociologists

Williams

2013

Critical Sociology

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Anarchism has not had a noticeable impact upon sociology. The two traditions diverged in their interest in society and their relationship to it. This paper contrasts the practitioners or thinkers of one tradition against the other. The analysis shows some strong antagonisms, many instances of close analysis and critique of each other’s perspectives, and a number of friendly and supportive relationships between anarchists and sociologists. Anarchists tended to admire the intellectual rigor of sociologists, but thought sociologists were insiders – mere reformers at best, reactionaries at worst – content to study society, but rarely to act for its improvement. Sociologists viewed anarchists with an even wider range of opinion, including considering them principled and admirable revolutionaries, slightly naïve utopians, or criminals and chaos-lovers bent on the destruction of social order. These factors contributed to the exclusion of anarchist ideas and anarchists themselves from the sociological canon.

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Section: The Exclusion Of Anarchists From Sociologymentioning

confidence: 99%

A Society in Revolt or Under Analysis? Investigating the Dialogue Between 19th-Century Anarchists and Sociologists

Williams

2013

Critical Sociology

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“…Some scholars suggest that if Durkheim's ideas are placed in the context of his time they do not fit neatly into an antifeminist framework, and can even be said to parallel or support the family-centred "familial feminism" of late 19th century France (Di Cristina 2006;Offen 1984). This view has been amply contradicted by feminist scholarship which locates Durkheim's ideas on women at the centre of an ultraconservative and antifeminist ideology, not simply in the light of today's standards, but in relation to the historical context and feminist challenges of his own time (see Pedersen 2001;Gane 1992;Lehmann 1994Lehmann , 1995Wityak and Wallace 1981 to name a few).…”

Section: Gendered Construction Of Justice and Rightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Durkheim on Moral Individualism, Social Justice and Rights: A Gendered Construction of Rights

Cristi

2012

Can. J. Soc.

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A standard interpretation of Durkheim's theory of individualism is that he advocated the rights and dignity of the individual, and a social order based on the principles of equality and justice. Contemporary scholars discuss his notion of individual rights in neutral terms, as if Durkheim applied it equally to both sexes, ignoring the fact that women are excluded from Durkheim's vision of a just society. This article places Durkheim's theory of moral individualism and social justice in the context of his views on women, and offers a critique both of his theory and its present-day interpretation. It is argued that his reputation as defender of human rights is undermined by his theoretical treatment of the female sex. Durkheim refers to the "individual" in generic terms, but his approach to a just social order and rights is essentially formulated in terms of the "social" male individual.

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“…Less well known is that functionalist sociology grew in dialogue with feminism, for Durkheim saw the family as essential to the stability of the social organism. 25 Indeed, whenever Durkheim spoke of women, he resorted to a biological determinism similar to Le Bon's. Both theorists saw society as more than the sum of its parts; both envisaged it as an organism possessed of intrinsic properties.…”

Section: Emile Durkheim and The Crowdmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Gendered Genealogy of Political Religions Theory

Passmore

2008

Gender & History

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In the last three decades, historians have elaborated a sophisticated understanding of the place of women and gender in fascist movements and regimes. They have shown that women occupied positions of relative, not absolute, weakness in movements that were gendered as masculine. The range of choices that they conceived and their degree of autonomy varied according to the class, political, racial, religious and other capital they possessed, and with the available knowledge of alternatives. Women used a range of discourses and practices, differentially invested with power, and exploited contradictions in fascist ideologies, to influence their own futures, and indeed those of the movements and regimes in which they participated. Their motivations were both conscious and unconscious, and they understood their actions and their own identities in a variety of ways. The consequences of their actions were both intended and unintended. A major advantage of this historiography is that it draws on the strengths of both women's and gender history, thus transcending a number of too-simple oppositions to which I shall return in my conclusion. 1 The historiography in question is also part of a wider endeavour that has illuminated the varied motivations and priorities of those who became fascists, and the complex contingencies and violence, pressures and opportunities, which made the histories of fascism. 2 The trend in the theorisation of generic fascism is quite different. Many modelbuilders work at one remove from actual research into their objects of study, while those who do read historical works often see only 'empirical detail'. Yet, as Edward Thompson commented in a polemic against an earlier scholasticism, 'what a philosopher, who has only a casual acquaintance with historical practice, may glance at, and then dismiss, with a ferocious scowl, as "empiricism" may in fact be the result of arduous confrontations, pursued both in conceptual engagements . . . and also in the interstices of historical method itself'. 3 Theorists of generic fascism have been especially reluctant to engage with women's and gender history. This is even truer -if that were possibleof the recently fashionable political religions theory. This approach invests a male elite alone with meaningful agency and makes it entirely responsible for historical change. It relegates most men to passivity, effectively feminising them, and consigns women to an extra-historical limbo. In this narrative, female supporters of fascism possess little latitude to shape the nature of fascist movements and regimes, let alone resist them.

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Sexual Politics in Comte and Durkheim: Feminism, History, and the French Sociological Tradition

Cited by 14 publications

References 0 publications

A Society in Revolt or Under Analysis? Investigating the Dialogue Between 19th-Century Anarchists and Sociologists

A Society in Revolt or Under Analysis? Investigating the Dialogue Between 19th-Century Anarchists and Sociologists

Durkheim on Moral Individualism, Social Justice and Rights: A Gendered Construction of Rights

The Gendered Genealogy of Political Religions Theory

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