The Sociology Book

FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIOLOGY 49 political, and economic systems. Unemployment can lead to people Wright Mills’ ideas were, in many But Wright Mills was calling for blaming themselves for their situation. ways, ahead of their time, and his them to address the ways in which But a sociological imagination would, untimely death in 1962 meant that rationalization and the shift of says Wright Mills, prompt such people he did not live to see many of them social control to an elite were to look to wider causes and effects. gain general acceptance. His work affecting people on an individual foreshadowed the emergence of level too. The adoption of a outside the social science new socialist thinkers, especially sociological imagination implied establishment. The philosophers in France, with the counterculture a move from the objective study and political activists who emerged of the 1960s. Michel Foucault’s of “what is” to a more subjective from the period of McCarthyism emphasis on the notion of power answer to the question of “what were particularly attracted to his bears a particularly strong ought to be?” He advocated that description of a power elite. Many resemblance to ideas that were power should effectively be of his ideas were adopted by the first raised by Wright Mills. transferred to an intellectual elite. social movements of the US New Left (a term that Wright Mills Today, the so-called War on A pioneering spirit popularized in his “Letter to the Terror in the aftermath of the Unsurprisingly, Wright Mills’ New Left” in 1960), which in turn 9/11 attacks and the disastrous criticism of sociology was met paved the way for sociologists financial crises of the early 21st with hostility and he became such as the German scholar century have led to a growing isolated from the mainstream. Herbert Marcuse to adopt a New realization that much of our His interpretation of the changing Leftist approach in the 1960s. everyday lives is shaped by wider nature of the class struggle was social and historical issues. also largely dismissed. The US urban policy analyst Professor conservative establishment also Peter Dreier claimed in 2012 that shunned him, rejecting his claims Wright Mills would have loved of a concentration of power in the the Occupy Wall Street movement military, business, and political against social and economic elite, which was seen as a direct inequality. This example of attack on the basis of Cold War ordinary people objecting to policy in the West. a power elite that they claim is controlling society and affecting Nevertheless, the books and their lives is the sociological articles of Wright Mills were widely imagination being exhibited in read, and became influential a campaign for social change. ■ Charles Wright Mills degree in philosophy. An spent the rest of his career. obviously talented, but difficult, Although his outspoken Fiercely independent and student, he went on to study at criticism of the social science critical of authority, Charles the University of Wisconsin, where establishment saw him pushed Wright Mills attributed his he fell out with his professors out of the mainstream, he unconventional attitudes to an and refused to make revisions gained much popular attention. isolated and sometimes lonely to his doctoral thesis. He was, His career ended abruptly when childhood because his family however, eventually awarded his he died of heart disease in 1962, moved around frequently. He PhD in 1942. By this time, he had at the age of only 45. was born in Waco, Texas, and taken up a post at the University initially studied at Texas A&M of Maryland, and with one of his Key works University, but found the doctoral supervisors, Hans Gerth, atmosphere there stifling and wrote From Max Weber: Essays 1948 The New Men of Power: left after his first year. He in Sociology. America’s Labor Leaders transferred to the University of 1956 The Power Elite Texas in Austin, graduated in In 1945 Wright Mills moved, 1959 The Sociological sociology and gained a master’s on a Guggenheim fellowship, to Imagination Columbia University, where he

50 PAY TO THE MOST COMMONPLACE ACTIVITIES THE ATTENTION ACCORDED EXTRAORDINARY EVENTS HAROLD GARFINKEL (1917–2011) IN CONTEXT The structure of society is not I n the 1930s, the US sociologist determined “top down” by a Talcott Parsons embarked FOCUS upon a project of bringing Ethnomethodology limited set of general rules. together the various strands of sociology in a single, unified theory. KEY DATES Instead, the rules are built His 1937 book The Structure of 1895 Émile Durkheim “bottom up,” from our small Social Action combined ideas from advocates a strict scientific exchanges and interactions. Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and methodology for the social others, and attempted to present sciences in The Rules of These rules can be seen in our a universal methodology for Sociological Method. spontaneous behavior in sociology. In the years after World everyday life, rather than War II, Parsons’ ideas gained him 1921–22 Max Weber’s in social structures and a significant number of supporters. methodological individualism institutions. is explained in Economy Among his admirers was Harold and Society, published Pay to the most Garfinkel, who studied under posthumously. commonplace Parsons at Harvard. While many activities the of the followers were attracted by 1937 Talcott Parsons attempts attention accorded the idea of a “grand theory” of to form a single, unified social extraordinary events. sociology, Garfinkel picked up on theory in The Structure of Parsons’ idea of examining the Social Action. roots of social order, rather than social change, and in particular his 1967 Harold Garfinkel methods of researching the subject. publishes Studies in Ethnomethodology. The workings of society Parsons had suggested a 1976 Anthony Giddens “bottom up” rather than “top incorporates ideas of down” approach to analyzing Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology the foundations of social order. into mainstream sociology This meant that to understand how in his book New Rules of social order is achieved in society, Sociological Method. we should look at micro interactions and exchanges rather than at social structures and institutions.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIOLOGY 51 See also: Émile Durkheim 34–37 ■ Max Weber 38–45 ■ Anthony Giddens 148–49 ■ Erving Goffman 190–95; 264–69 ■ Talcott Parsons 300–01 This approach turned traditional Procedurally it is my they use the theories to explain the sociological methodology on preference to start with examples—a circular argument. its head: until then, it had been Instead, they should examine thought that people’s behavior familiar scenes and particular social interactions could be predicted by finding the ask what can be done independently, and not set out to underlying “rules” of society. find an overall pattern or theory. to make trouble. He referred to jury deliberation Garfinkel took the idea further, Harold Garfinkel and standing in lines as “familiar developing what amounted to an scenes” that we simply know how to alternative to the conventional formally as “Mr. X” or “Mrs. X” or organize intelligibly in recognizable sociological approach, which he to act as though they were lodgers— ways. Any social setting, he argued, called ethnomethodology. The often provoked exasperation or can “be viewed as self-organizing underlying rules of social order are anger, as the foundations of the with respect to the intelligible built from the ways that people social order were challenged. character of its own appearances as behave in reaction to different either representations of or as situations, and it is by observing Ethnomethodology not only evidences of a social order.” everyday interactions that we offered an alternative method of can gain insight into the social research, but also indicated Garfinkel’s approach was set out mechanisms of social order. a flaw in conventional methodology. in Studies in Ethnomethodology in According to Garfinkel, social 1967. In an age when “alternative” New perspectives researchers support their theories ideas were popular, Garfinkel One category of experimental with evidence from specific attracted a large following, despite methods Garfinkel advocated examples, but at the same time his impenetrable writing style. His became known as “breaching ideas were initially dismissed by experiments.” These were designed mainstream sociologists, but by to uncover social norms—the the end of the 20th century had expected, but largely unnoticed, become more generally accepted, ways people construct a shared perhaps not as an alternative to sense of reality. Breaching these sociological methodology, but norms—for example by asking his offering an additional perspective students to address their parents to the field of social order. ■ Harold Garfinkel gained his PhD He then taught An orderly line is a collectively at Princeton and Ohio State negotiated, member-produced form Born in Newark, New Jersey, universities before settling of organization that is based on the Harold Garfinkel studied in 1954 at the University of unspoken rules of social interaction business and accounting at the California. Garfinkel retired in in a public space. University of Newark, then later 1987, but continued to teach as earned an MA at the University an emeritus professor until his of North Carolina. At the same death in 2011. time, he began his writing career, and one of his short Key works stories, “Color Trouble,” was included in the anthology The 1967 Studies in Best Short Stories, 1941. Ethnomethodology 2002 Ethnomethodology’s After noncombatant service Program in the army during World War 2008 Toward a Sociological II, he studied under Talcott Theory of Information Parsons at Harvard, where he

52 IN CONTEXT WHERE THERE IS FOCUS POWER THERE Power/resistance IS RESISTANCE KEY DATES MICHEL FOUCAULT (1926–1984) 1848 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels describe the oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie in their book The Communist Manifesto. 1883 Friedrich Nietzsche introduces the concept of the “Will to Power” in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 1997 Judith Butler’s Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative develops Foucault’s idea of power/ knowledge in relation to censorship and hate speech. 2000 In Empire, Italian Marxist sociologist Antonio Negri and US scholar Michael Hardt describe the evolution of a “total” imperialist power, against which the only resistance is negation. T he power to maintain social order, or to bring about social change, has conventionally been seen in political or economic terms. Until the 1960s, theories of power usually fell into two types: ideas of the power of government or state over citizens; or the Marxist idea of a power struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. However, these theories tended to concentrate on power at the macro level, either ignoring the exercise of power at lower levels of social relations, or seeing it as a consequence of the primary exercise of power (or only of secondary importance).

FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIOLOGY 53 See also: Karl Marx 28–31 ■ Max Weber 38–45 ■ Charles Wright Mills 46–49 ■ Herbert Marcuse 182–87 ■ Erich Fromm 188 ■ Jürgen Habermas 286–87 Power is not simply Power is something wielded by one level of that is enacted rather society over another, but is present in every than possessed... level of society. Power relations ...it is not a thing, Michel Foucault involve discourse but a relation. (systems of ideas), which A brilliant polymath, allows the possibility influential in the fields of philosophy, psychology, of resistance. politics, and literary criticism as well as sociology, Michel Where there is power Foucault was often associated there is resistance. with the structuralist and post-structuralist movements Michel Foucault, however, thought has, but something that is done to in France, but disliked being that in today’s Western liberal others, an action that affects the labeled as such. He was societies, these approaches are an action of others. born in Poitiers, France, oversimplification. Power, he said, and studied philosophy is not just exercised by the state Power relations and psychology at the École or capitalists, but can be seen Instead of thinking of power Normale Supérieure in Paris. at every level of society, from as a “thing,” Foucault sees it as a He taught in Sweden, Poland, individuals through groups and “relation,” and explains the nature and Germany in the 1950s, organizations to society as a whole. of power through examination and received his doctorate in In his words, “power is everywhere, of the power relations present at 1959. He lectured in Tunisia and comes from everywhere.” He every level of modern society. For from 1966 to 1968 and when also disagreed with the traditional example, a power relation exists he returned to Paris was view of power as something that between a man and the state in appointed head of philosophy can be possessed and wielded, like which he lives, but at the same at the University of Vincennes. a weapon. This, he says, is not time, there are different forms Two years later, he was power, but a capacity to exercise of power relation between him elected to the Collège de power—it does not become power and his employer, his children, France as professor of “the until some action is taken. Power is the organizations to which he history of systems of thought.” therefore not something someone belongs, and so on. ❯❯ He died in 1984, one of the first prominent victims of HIV/ AIDS-related illness in France. Key works 1969 The Archaeology of Knowledge 1975 Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison 1976–84 The History of Sexuality (three volumes)

54 MICHEL FOUCAULT Foucault acknowledges that conduct could be corrected and Foucault’s History of power has been, and continues regulated, and above all monitored Sexuality... warns us against to be, the major force in shaping and controlled. social order, but describes how imagining a complete the nature of power relations has This element of surveillance liberation from power. changed from medieval times to is especially important in the There can never be a total today. What he calls the “sovereign” evolution of the way power is liberation from power. exercise of power, such as public exercised in modern society. torture and executions, was the Foucault was particularly struck Judith Butler method that authority figures in by the Panopticon, the efficient feudal society used to coerce their prison design inspired by British behavior. Rather than an authority subjects into obedience. With the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, forcing people to act in particular advent of the Enlightenment in with a watchtower that enabled ways, or preventing them from Europe, however, violence and continual observation of inmates. behaving differently, people force were seen as inhuman and, The cells, Foucault points out, are participate in a complex system of more importantly, as an ineffective backlit to prevent inmates from power relations operating on many means of exercising power. hiding in shadowy recesses. levels, regulating the conduct of the Prisoners can never be certain of members of a society. Surveillance and control when they are under surveillance, In place of harsh physical so they learn to discipline their This pervasive sort of power is punishment came a more pervasive behavior as if they always are. determined by the control society means of controlling behavior: Power is no longer exercised by has over people’s attitudes, beliefs, discipline. The establishment coercing people to conform, but and practices: the systems of ideas of institutions such as prisons, by establishing mechanisms that Foucault refers to as “discourse.” asylums, hospitals, and schools ensure their compliance. The belief system of any society characterized the move away from evolves as people come to accept the notion of merely punishing to Regulating conduct certain views, to the point that a disciplinary exercise of power: The mechanisms by which power specifically, acting to prevent is exercised, the “technology of people from behaving in certain power,” have since become an ways. These institutions not integral part of society. In the only removed the opportunity modern Western world, social for transgression, but provided norms are imposed not so much the conditions in which people’s by enforcement, as by exercising “pastoral” power, guiding people’s The Panopticon, Prisoners are unsure of when designed by Bentham, they are being watched. is the supreme eye of power for Foucault. An overseer in a central Backlit cells eliminate The circular space tower closely monitors shadows, where inmates enables a permanent the movements and might hide from the visibility that guides behavior of inmates. overseer’s gaze. prison inmates to comply with their own disciplining and control. Foucault argues that not only prisons, but all hierarchical structures (such as hospitals, factories, and schools) have evolved to resemble this model.

FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIOLOGY 55 A shepherd tending his flock is the analogy Foucault uses to describe “pastoral” power, whereby people are guided to act in certain ways and then allow themselves to be governed. these views become embedded in nothing specific that can be possibility of resistance—without that society, defining what is good resisted. Indeed, Foucault points resistance, there is no need for the and bad, and what is considered out that political resistance, in the exercise of power. normal or deviant. Individuals form of revolution, may not lead to within that society regulate their social change, as it challenges only The deployment of power behavior according to these norms, the power of the state, not the Foucault’s concepts of power– largely unaware that it is the ubiquitous, everyday way in which knowledge and discourse are subtle discourse that is guiding their power today is exercised. and at the time were rejected conduct, as it makes opposing by many scholars as speculative thoughts and actions unthinkable. However, Foucault argues that and vague. But his lectures and there is a possibility of resistance: writings became enormously Discursive regimes what can be resisted is the popular, despite the difficult Discourse is constantly reinforced, discourse itself, which can be concepts and his sometimes as it is both an instrument and an challenged by other, opposing convoluted prose style. The ideas of effect of power: it controls thoughts discourses. Power that relies on power described in Discipline and and conduct, which in turn shape complicity implies at least some Punish and The History of Sexuality the belief system. And because it degree of freedom of those subject gradually gained acceptance defines what is right and wrong, it to it. For the discourse to be an by some in the mainstream of is a “regime of truth,” creating a instrument of power, those subject sociology (if not among historians body of what is considered to it must be involved in a power and philosophers), and eventually undeniable common knowledge. relation, and he argues that if there influenced the analysis of how is a power relation, there is also a discourse is used in society as Foucault challenged the idea an instrument of power in many that “knowledge is power,” saying Discourse transmits different arenas. that the two are related more and produces power; subtly. He coined the term “power– it reinforces it, but also The development of modern knowledge” for this relationship, undermines and exposes it. feminism, queer theory, and noting that knowledge creates Michel Foucault cultural studies owes much power, but is also created by to Foucault’s explanation of how power. Today, power is exercised norms of behavior are enforced. by controlling what forms of Today, opinion is still divided as knowledge are acceptable, to whether his theories are the presenting them as truths, somewhat vague conclusions of and excluding other forms of poor research and scholarship knowledge. At the same time, or whether he should be considered accepted knowledge, the discourse, one of the 20th century’s most is actually produced in the process original and wide-ranging thinkers of exercising power. in the social sciences. ■ Unlike the way power had traditionally been used to compel and coerce people to behave in a particular way, this form of power– knowledge has no immediately recognizable agent or structure. And because of its all-pervasive nature, it would appear to have

GENDER IS A KIND OF IMITATION FOR WHICH THERE IS NO ORIGINAL JUDITH BUTLER (1956– )



58 JUDITH BUTLER People perform Traditional in ways that are expectations IN CONTEXT expected of them of gender are based on how most people FOCUS by their culture. behave in their Gender performativity culture. KEY DATES 1905 Austrian psychoanalyst Gender is a kind of imitation Sigmund Freud describes the for which there is no original. formation of infantile sexuality in Three Essays on the Theory Gender is what you do, rather than of Sexuality. a universal notion of who you are. 1951 French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan begins his weekly seminars in Paris, further developing Freud’s idea of “sexual drives” and sexuality. mid-1970s Michel Foucault talks about regulatory regimes in Discipline and Punish, and about sex, power, and the social construction of sexuality in The History of Sexuality. 1996 Steven Seidman examines the sociological implications of the emergence of queer theory in Queer Theory/Sociology. I t was not until after World masculine) paved the way for a published in the 1930s, but were War II that gender and reappraisal of the role of gender more openly considered by a post- sexuality were recognized in society. It also kick-started war generation that was addressing as issues for sociological study. The the women’s liberation movement previously taboo subjects—such so-called “second-wave” feminism of the following decades. as promiscuity and extramarital of the 1960s to 1980s snowballed sex—as social phenomena rather from the insight of the French Attitudes toward sex in than deviant behavior. feminist Simone de Beauvoir in Western society were also The Second Sex (1949) that “one being reshaped by the work of Challenging convention is not born a woman: one becomes anthropologists, such as Margaret At the forefront of this examination one.” Her idea that there is a Mead. Her studies of tribes in the of sexual conventions in Western difference between sex (what South Pacific and Southeast Asia society was Michel Foucault, who determines whether one is showed that many behavioral tackled the subject head-on in biologically female or male) and differences between males and 1976 in The History of Sexuality. gender (the social forces that females were culturally, rather than Running through this text was act upon one to be feminine or biologically, determined. These his central theory of the way that findings were shocking when

FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIOLOGY 59 See also: Michel Foucault 52–55; 302–03 ■ Margaret Mead 176–77 Adrienne Rich 304–09 ■ Jeffrey Weeks 324–25 ■ Steven Seidman 326–31 (or at least, decriminalization) of homosexuality in many countries, and the sexual liberation brought by the Women’s Lib movement. Gender is an impersonation... Gender identities Judith Butler becoming gendered involves Among the “baby boomers” of the impersonating an ideal that post-war generation was US scholar One of the most influential Judith Butler, who took these ideas figures in feminist and nobody actually inhabits. yet further. While accepting de LGBTI issues from the 1990s Judith Butler Beauvoir’s main point that gender onward, Judith Butler has is a social construct, Butler felt that also been a prominent activist power in society is exerted by the traditional feminism ignores the in anti-war, anti-capitalism, imposition of social norms, and in wider implications of this notion, and anti-racism movements. particular that not only our gender and merely reinforces male and Her parents were of Russian but our sexuality is shaped by the female stereotypes. Gender is and Hungarian Jewish culture in which we live. Just as not as simple, she contends, as descent. She studied at de Beauvoir had brought the issue masculinity and femininity, nor Yale University, where she of gender into the social sphere, is sexuality as simple as gay and received her doctorate in Foucault broadened the debate straight. Gender and sexuality are philosophy in 1984. In 1993, significantly to include sexual neither as polarized in this way, after teaching at various orientation, and indeed the whole nor as fixed and unchanging as universities, she took up of sexual behavior. we have come to believe, but a post at the University of can be fluid, covering a whole California, Berkeley, and The generation after Foucault spectrum of gender identities. ❯❯ was appointed Maxine Elliot grew up in an era marked by a Professor of Rhetoric and relaxation of sexual mores: the “free Gay Pride events, which were Comparative Literature in love” of the 1960s, acceptance first held in the US in 1971 to protest 1998. Other posts include against persecution of gays, challenged chair of the board of the the notion that sexuality was confined International Gay and Lesbian to masculinity and femininity. Human Rights Commission. She was awarded the Theodor W. Adorno Prize in 2012. Butler lives with her partner, the political theorist Wendy Brown, in California. Key works 1990 Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity 1993 Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” 2004 Undoing Gender

60 JUDITH BUTLER ...laughter emerges It is, Butler says, these “gender To escape the restrictiveness in the realization acts”—which include such things of this kind of sexual typecasting, that all along the as dress, mannerisms, and all sorts Butler advocates subversion, original was derived. of everyday activities as well as deliberately performing in a way Judith Butler sexual activity and choice of sexual that goes against the conventional partner—that determine the sex gender acts. Using what she calls Butler argues that both sex and we perceive ourselves to be. Even “performativity of gender,” such as gender are socially, not biologically the language we use reinforces cross-dressing or drag, the norms determined. At the heart of the social norms, ensuring that are challenged, but also one’s her argument is the idea that we perform in a certain way. perception of gender and even “gender is not something that one sex can be changed. Butler insists is, it is something one does... a Subversive acts that this should not be merely a ‘doing’ rather than a ‘being’.” Butler claims that, crucially, it is trivial lifestyle choice—we cannot the constant repetition of this kind wake up and decide what gender Conventionally, our anatomical of performance that molds gender we want to be that day—but a sex (female or male) is considered identity, so that .”..the actors genuine act of subversion, and like to be the cause of our gender themselves come to believe and the gender acts it is subverting, (femininity or masculinity), to perform in the mode of belief.” one that is performed on a regular according to the cultural norms associated with them. But Butler Gender identity, according to Butler, is not a part of a person’s challenges the idea of a stable and essence but the product of actions and behaviors. It is the coherent gender identity. According repeated performing of these actions and behaviors—combined to her, it is the things that we do, with the taboos imposed by society—that produce what is seen our “gender acts,” that determine as an essentially masculine or feminine identity. our gender, and even the way we perceive our biological sex. Taboo Dress When we behave in ways that are “appropriate” to our sex, we are Gender acts imitating the norms of gender identity, which are based on the Behavior Gestures ways that each sex behaves. We are performing a role that does not in fact exist; in essence, there is no original template for “female” or “male”—the original itself is derived. So, if one is born female, one behaves in what is considered to be a “feminine” way (by, for example, desiring a male partner), and comes to accept the fact that sex with men is associated with that gender.

FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIOLOGY 61 Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a 1994 cult movie about two drag queens and a transsexual. Some claim it merely reproduces stereotypes; others that it brings LGBTI issues to the fore. basis, through constant repetition. In this way, the sexual norms imposed by society are “troubled,” shown to be artificial and based on a nonexistent status quo, and the rights of all kinds of different sexual identities (straight, gay, lesbian, transgender, and beyond) can be asserted as having equal validity. Controversy and change society. It is not necessarily just our followers than critics, and the field Butler’s widening of the issue sexual identity that is shaped by of gender and sexuality in sociology of sexuality and gender was a repeated performance of certain has been much influenced by her cornerstone of what came to be behaviors, but our whole social and broadening of its scope. Whether known as queer theory. As well as political outlook. Butler maintains in part as a result of her work, or moving the discussion away from that we can challenge other simply contemporary with it, there traditional ideas of masculinity and aspects of the status quo by has been increasing liberalization femininity to include a broad deliberately performing in new, of attitudes to different forms of spectrum of sexuality and gender subversive ways. sexuality in Western society, to the identity, her ideas showed how our extent that same-sex couples and perceptions of sexuality are socially Butler has faced considerable LGBTI issues are accepted in molded, rather than an essential criticism, not least from feminist mainstream and popular culture part of us. But she is also a political thinkers such as US scholar almost without controversy in some activist, and beneath her theories Martha Nussbaum. Some have places, changing the nature of of gender are the Foucauldian ideas argued that she implies a lack of the “gender acts” that inform our of power and how it is exercised in free will in those imitating the individual sexual identities. But in sexual norms of society, whereas those countries where the cultural Drag is subversive to the in fact those norms have frequently mores continue to be restrictive, extent that it reflects on been broken by those who felt and regimes push ferociously the imitative structure uncomfortable with them. And, straight agendas, the impact of by which... gender is itself as with many postmodern thinkers, those not conforming to the rigid produced and disputes her writing has attracted the sexual norms is that much greater, heterosexuality’s claim criticism that its convoluted form and more clearly demonstrates the conceals some basically simple power of subversion. ■ on naturalness. ideas. Butler has, however, more Judith Butler

SOCIAL INEQUAL

ITIES

64 INTRODUCTION Harriet Martineau Karl Marx and Max Weber argues The Universal Richard Sennett, highlights the Friedrich Engels that ethnic groups Declaration of with Jonathan Cobb, call for a socialist are distinguished by Human Rights is unjust treatment revolution in socially specific adopted by the examines the of women, the The Communist world views rather United Nations negative effects of than by biological General Assembly. class consciousness working class, and Manifesto. black people in the differences. in The Hidden Injuries of Class. US and Britain. 1830S AND 40S 1848 1906 1948 1972 1845 1903 1920 1964 Friedrich Engels describes W.E.B. Du Bois Max Weber outlines his The US Civil Rights the oppression and describes socially Three Class System Act outlaws constructed racial exploitation of working prejudice against theory of social discrimination people in The Condition of African Americans in stratification, based on based on race, color, The Souls of Black Folk. wealth, social status, the Working Class in religion, sex, or England in 1844. and political power. national origin. T he modernity that emerged it was not the utopian dream that proletariat) and the capitalist class from Enlightenment ideas had been expected. By the 19th (the bourgeoisie). Later sociologists and the technological century, many thinkers had begun also recognized that social innovations of the Industrial to realize that this progress came inequality is manifested in a class Revolution offered the promise not at a cost, and that some of the system, but suggested that the only of greater prosperity but also promises had yet to be kept. stratification was more complex. of a more just society. In Europe, Instead of becoming more just, Max Weber, for example, proposed at least, the absolute power of modern industrial society had that as well as economic situation, monarchs, the aristocracy, and created new inequalities. status and political standing also the Church was challenged, and play a part. Perceptions of class and old dogmas were discredited by Among the first to study the the issue of class consciousness rational and scientific thought. new social order was Friedrich became focuses for sustained At the same time, advances in Engels, who saw the emergence sociological study of inequality, technology brought mechanization of a working class exploited by the including the concept of “habitus,” to many trades and gave birth to owners of the mills and factories. as explained by Pierre Bourdieu. new industries, increasing wealth With Karl Marx, he identified and bringing hope of improvement oppression of this class as the Racial oppression to people’s working lives. result of capitalism, which in turn While Engels and Marx fueled and fed off industrialization. concentrated on the economic Class consciousness disparity between the classes, As the modern industrialized Marx and Engels considered the others realized that it was not only society became established, social problems of industrial society the working classes that suffered however, it became apparent that in material, economic terms, social injustice. Harriet Martineau and saw inequality as a division between the working class (the

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES 65 In A Place on the Corner: In Distinction: A Social Paul Gilroy’s There Ain’t In Theorizing Patriarchy, A Study of Black Street Critique of the no Black in the Union Sylvia Walby identifies a system of patriarchal Corner Men, Elijah Judgment of Taste, Jack argues that ideas of social structures and Anderson begins his Pierre Bourdieu a fixed national identity, research into the stigma ethnicity, or culture can systems in which of being black, and its explains “habitus,” women are exploited. link with the ghetto. a sense of belonging foster racism, and should be abandoned. to a social group. 1978 1979 1987 1990 1978 1979 1984 1987 2009 In Orientalism, Edward In Poverty in the In Feminist Theory: In Gender and Power Richard Wilkinson Said challenges the United Kingdom, Peter From Margin to Center, R.W. Connell says and Kate Pickett Townsend argues for bell hooks argues that masculinity is a argue that most stereotypical view of poverty to be defined forms of oppression— social construct things are affected the East he says is still that reinforces a not by wealth but in relative rather of women, race, and patriarchal society. social equality. prevalent in the than absolute terms. class—are connected. Western world. highlighted the gap between the that have persisted to the present injustice in societies that remained Enlightenment ideal of equal rights day. Sociologists such as W.E.B. fundamentally patriarchal through and the reality of modern society. Du Bois examined the position the 20th century and up to the Her experiences in the US, where of ethnic groups in predominantly present day. It had taken “first she encountered slavery, showed white European industrial wave” feminism over a century to that even in a democracy founded societies, and in the 20th century get women the vote, and the task on ideals of liberty, some groups— attention became focused on the of the second wave, starting soon women, ethnic minorities, connections between race and after World War II, was to examine and the working classes—were social inequality. Elijah Anderson and overcome persistent social excluded from participation in began his study of black people injustice based on gender. shaping society. The connection and their association with the she made with these various forms concept of “the ghetto”; Edward Rather than simply addressing of oppression was re-explored by Said analysed negative Western the economic and political bell hooks some 150 years later. perceptions of “the East”; and factors underlying the continued British sociologists such as Paul oppression of women, Sylvia Even when slavery was finally Gilroy sought to find ways of Walby suggested a comprehensive abolished, true emancipation was eradicating racism in modern analysis of the social systems that incomplete; the political exclusion multicultural societies. maintain society’s patriarchal of black people—by being denied structure, while R.W. Connell the vote—persisted in the USA Gender equality pointed out the prevalence of well into the 20th century. Black Women likewise struggled for conventional perceptions—socially people in the USA and Europe also political suffrage, but even after constructed forms—of masculinity faced prejudices as a hangover from this had been achieved they faced that reinforce the concept of slavery and European colonialism patriarchal society. ■

66 I BROADLY ACCUSE THE BOURGEOISIE OF SOCIAL MURDER FRIEDRICH ENGELS (1820–1895) IN CONTEXT L iving in England from He claimed the bourgeoisie was 1842 to 1844, the German turning a blind eye to their part in FOCUS philosopher Friedrich the early deaths of their workers, Class exploitation Engels had seen, first-hand, when it was within their power the devastating effects of to change things, so he accused KEY DATES industrialization on workers and them of “social murder.” 1760 The Industrial Revolution their children. The bourgeoisie, or begins when the “flying capitalist class, he said, knowingly In the 1840s, England was shuttle” weaving machine causes the workers’ “life of toil seen as the workshop of the world; shifts textile manufacture and wretchedness... but takes no it enjoyed a unique position at the to England. further trouble in the matter.” center of the Industrial Revolution. Engels observed that it was 1830s–40s The British railway system expands In the 1840s, mortality in working class streets in rapidly, allowing easy Manchester was 68 percent higher than in those of the “first class.” movement of people, products, and capital. Bourgeois society condemned the workers to unhealthy living conditions, insecure wages, 1844 Graham’s Factory Act lowers the minimum age and physical and mental exhaustion. for working in factories in the UK to eight years old. If society puts people in such a position that they die an early and unnatural death, it is murder. 1848 Marx and Engels publish The Communist Manifesto. I broadly accuse the bourgeoisie of social murder. 1892 James Keir Hardie is the first socialist elected to the British parliament. 1900 The Labour Party is formed in Britain to represent the interests of the workers and trade unionists.

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES 67 See also: Karl Marx 28–31 ■ Peter Townsend 74 ■ Richard Sennett 84–87 ■ Max Weber 220–23 ■ Harry Braverman 226–31 ■ Robert Blauner 232–33 undergoing a massive but silent epidemics of consumption and entire families starved to death. transformation that had altered typhus. Workers were packed The worker, Engels explained, the whole of English civil society. into one-room huts or the cellars could only obtain what he needed— of damp houses that had been healthy living conditions, secure Industrialization had driven built along old ditches to save employment, and a decent wage— down prices, so handcrafted work, the house-owner money. They from the bourgeoisie, “which which was more expensive, was lived in conditions that defied can decree his life or death.” He less in demand; workers moved all consideration of cleanliness was insistent that this hugely to the cities only to endure harsh and health, Engels said—and this exploitative, capital-owning class conditions and financial insecurity. in Manchester, “the second city of should therefore take immediate The industrialized, capitalist England, the first manufacturing steps to change workers’ conditions economy lurched from boom to city of the world.” and stop its careless murder of an bust, and workers’ jobs could entire social class. ■ quickly disappear. Meanwhile, the The proletariat were worked to bourgeoisie grew richer by treating the point of exhaustion, wearing Working-class families in England the workers as disposable labor. cheap clothing that gave no during the 1840s endured social protection against accidents deprivation, crippling financial The legacy of industrialism or the climate. They could buy instability, and terrible sickness due In Engels’ first book, The Condition only the food spurned by the to the effects of industrial capitalism. of the Working Class in England bourgeoisie, such as decaying in 1844, he described the appalling meat, wilted vegetables, “sugar” way of life of the workers, or that was the refuse of soap-boiling proletariat, in Manchester, London, firms, and cocoa mixed with earth. Dublin, and Edinburgh, and found similar situations in all these cities. When work disappeared and He reported filthy streets with pools wages failed, even this meager of stagnant urine and excrement, diet proved impossible, and many filled with the stench of animal workers and their families began putrefaction from the tanneries. to starve; this caused illness and a Widespread cholera outbreaks continued inability to work, should occurred, along with constant work become available. Doctors were unaffordable, and very often Friedrich Engels Political theorist and philosopher financial sponsor. They Friedrich Engels was born in jointly wrote The Communist Germany in 1820. His father Manifesto, and worked together was a German industrialist who until Marx’s death in 1883, after struggled with Engels’ reluctance which Engels completed the to attend school or work in the second and third volumes of Das family business. As a teenager, Kapital, along with many books he wrote articles under the and articles of his own. pseudonym Friedrich Oswald, which gained him access to a Key works group of left-wing intellectuals. 1845 The Condition of the After working for a short time Working Class in England in a family factory in Manchester, in 1844 England, he became interested in 1848 The Communist Manifesto communism. In 1844 he traveled 1884 The Origin of the Family, to Paris, where he met Karl Marx Private Property and the State and became his colleague and

THE PROBLEM OF THE 20TH CENTURY IS THE PROBLEM OF THE COLOR LINE W.E.B. DU BOIS (1868–1963)



70 W.E.B. DU BOIS The US Civil War freed slaves in the South. IN CONTEXT The government introduced schools, home ownership, a banking system, and legal redress for freed slaves… FOCUS Race and ethnicity …but this increased the enmity of white people. KEY DATES Black people were legally free, but racial prejudice made them 1857 US Chief Justice Roger B. “slaves of society.” Taney rules against a petition for freedom from enslaved Prejudice cannot be legislated away: Dred Scott, saying that blacks the continuing problem of the 20th century cannot be granted citizenship and therefore equal protection is the problem of the color line. under the law because they are inferior to whites. 1906 Max Weber says that shared perceptions and common customs, not biological traits, distinguish ethnic groups from each other. 1954 The legal case of “Brown vs Board of Education” rules that establishing “separate but equal” schools for black and white children is unconstitutional. l964 The Civil Rights Act outlaws public segregation and ends discrimination based on race, color, religion, or sex. T oward the end of the In 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois investigated begins his study by pointing out 19th century, the US social the idea of the color line in The that no white person is willing to reformer and freed slave Souls of Black Folk. A literary, talk about race explicitly, choosing Frederick Douglass drew attention sociological, and political landmark, instead to act out prejudice in to the continuing prejudice against it examines the changing position various ways. But what they really black people in the US. He of African-Americans from the US want to know is this: “How does it claimed that although blacks had Civil War and its aftermath to the feel to be a problem?” ceased to belong to individuals, early 1900s, in terms of the physical, they had nevertheless become economic, and political relations of Du Bois finds the question slaves of society. Out of the depths black and white people in the unanswerable, because it only of slavery, he said, “has come South. It concludes that “the makes sense from a white this prejudice and this color line,” problem of the 20th century perspective—black people do not through which white dominion is the problem of the color line”— see themselves as “a problem.” was asserted in the workplace, the continuing division between He then examines how this duality the ballot box, the legal courts, the opportunities and perspectives of perspective has occurred and and everyday life. of blacks and whites. Du Bois gives the example of his first encounter with racism. While

SOCIAL INEQUALITES 71 See also: Harriet Martineau 26–27 ■ Paul Gilroy 75 ■ Edward Said 80–81 ■ Elijah Anderson 82–83 ■ bell hooks 90–95 ■ Stuart Hall 200–01 at primary school, a new pupil That central paradox two thoughts, two unreconciled refused to accept a greeting card of the South—the social strivings; two warring ideals in from Du Bois, at which point “it separation of the races. one dark body.” dawned on me that I was different from the others.” W.E.B. Du Bois The unfolding history of the black person in the US is, He felt like them in his heart, he through the reflection of the white Du Bois claims, the history of this says, but realized that he was “shut world, which views them with inner conflict, which itself is a out from their world by a vast veil.” amused contempt and pity, and result of the external, worldly battle Initially undaunted, he says that he through their own sense of self, between black and white people. felt no need to tear down the veil which is more fluid and less well He suggests that a black person until he grew up and saw that all defined. These combine to form wants to merge the double- the most dazzling opportunities in what Du Bois calls a double- consciousness into one state, and the world were for white people, not consciousness: “...two souls, find a true African-American spirit black people. There was a color that does not Africanize America, line, and he was standing on nor “bleach his African soul in the side that was denied power, a flood of white Americanism.” opportunity, dignity, and respect. The Freedmen’s Bureau Identity crisis How had black people become Du Bois suggests that the color the “problem”? To try to explain line is internal too. Black people, this issue, Du Bois looks to the according to him, see themselves history of slavery in the US and the in two ways simultaneously: turning point of the Civil War. ❯❯ African-American professional man’s self-image. Double-consciousness is Du Bois’ term The racial stereotype of for the peculiar problem of “two-ness” faced African-Americans held by African-Americans, who must develop by many white people a sense of self while simultaneously being in society. aware of how they are seen through the eyes of others. A young black man may be a doctor (above and right), but he will also be acutely conscious of white society’s stereotyping of black males as dangerous and threatening and as, for example, criminals or ghetto gangstas (far right).

72 W.E.B. DU BOIS Ulysses S. Grant and his generals advance on horseback in the Civil War. In 1868 the votes of a new black electorate were vital to Grant’s election as Republican president. According to him, slavery was the Du Bois points out that this was that a nation which today sneers real cause of the war, which started seen as a problem, because “the at Negro shiftlessness has never in 1861. As the Union army of the South believed an educated Negro yet made good.” northern states marched into the to be a dangerous Negro.” The South, slaves fled to join it. At opposition to black education in The Bureau had set up a system first, slaves were returned to their the South “showed itself in ashes, of free (non-slave) labor and ex-slave owners, but the policy changed and insult, and blood.” proprietorship, secured the they were kept as military labor. recognition of black people as free At the same time, the Bureau people in courts of law, and In 1863, slaves were declared sowed division in legal matters. founded common schools. The free, and the government set up the According to Du Bois, it used its greatest failing of the Bureau was Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and courts to “put the bottom rail on that it did not establish goodwill Abandoned Lands (also called the top”—in other words, it favored between the former masters and Freedmen’s Bureau) to issue food, black litigants. Meanwhile, the the ex-slaves; in fact, it increased clothing, and abandoned property civil courts often aided the former enmity. The color line remained, to the “flood” of destitute fugitive slavemasters. Du Bois describes but instead of being explicit it former slaves (men, women, and white people as being “ordered now operated in more subtle ways. children). However, the Bureau was about, seized, imprisoned, and run by military staff ill-equipped to punished over and over again” Compromise or agitation? deal with social reorganization. The by the Bureau courts, while black Following the post-war period Bureau was also hampered by the people were intimidated, beaten, known as the Reconstruction, sheer size of the task: the promise raped, and butchered by angry and some of the newly won black rights of handing over slave-driven revengeful (white) men. started to slip away. A ruling in a plantations to former slaves “melted US legal case (Plessy vs Ferguson, away” when it became clear that The Bureau also opened a 1896) made segregation in public over 800,000 acres were affected. Freedman’s Bank in 1865 to handle places permissible and set a the deposits of former slave men pattern of racial separation in the One of the great successes of and women. This initiative was South that lasted until Brown vs the Bureau was the provision of free hampered by incompetency, and Board of Education, 1954. Anxiety schools for all children in the South. the bank eventually crashed, taking caused by modernity also fueled the dollars of the freedmen with it. a rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan and Slavery is gone, but its Du Bois says that this was the least its nativist white supremacism, shadow still lingers… of the loss, because “all the faith in accompanied by a rise in racist and poisons… the moral saving went too, and much of the violence, including lynchings. atmosphere of all sections faith in men; and that was a loss of the republic. Frederick Douglass US social reformer (c.1818–1895)

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES 73 In 1895 the African-American during the Nazi occupation, and of African descent everywhere, and politican Booker T. Washington 85 percent of the city lay in ruins. during the 1920s he helped found had given a speech now known He was shocked by the experience, the Pan-African Association in as “the Atlanta Compromise.” He which he said gave him a “more Paris, France, and organized a suggested that black people should complete understanding of the series of pan-African congresses be patient, adopt white middle- Negro problem.” Faced with around the world. However, at the class standards, and seek self- such absolute devastation and time of writing about the African advancement by self-improvement destruction, and knowing that it soul, in the early 1900s, he said and education to show their worth. was a direct consequence of racist that the conditions that were By foregoing political rights in segregation and violence, Du Bois necessary to achieve a true and return for economic rights and legal reassessed his analysis of the unified African-American spirit justice, Washington argued that color line and declared it a had not yet been reached. social change would be more phenomenon that can occur to likely in the longer term. This any cultural or ethnic group. In his Du Bois applied systematic accommodating stance became 1952 essay for the magazine Jewish methods of fieldwork to previously the dominant ideology of the time. Life, “The Negro and the Warsaw neglected areas of study. The use Ghetto,” he writes: “The race of empirical data to catalog the Du Bois disagreed strongly, problem... cut across lines of color details of black people’s lives and in The Souls of Black Folk he and physique and belief and status enabled him to dispel widely held said that while black people did not and was a matter of... human hate stereotypes. For example, he expect full civic rights immediately, and prejudice.” It is therefore not produced a wealth of data on the they were certain that the way color that matters so much as effects of urban life on African- for a people to gain their rights “is the “line,” which can be drawn Americans in The Philadelphia not by voluntarily throwing them to articulate difference and hatred Negro (1899), which suggests away.” Du Bois had hoped to in any group or society. that rather than being caused by eliminate racism and segregation anything innate, crime is a product through social science, but he came Activist and scholar of the environment. His pioneering to believe that political agitation Du Bois became one of the sociological research and thinking was the only effective strategy. founder members of the civil was a huge influence on later rights organization, the National prominent civil rights leaders, Stretching the color line Association for the Advancement including Dr. Martin Luther In 1949, Du Bois visited the Warsaw of Colored People (NAACP). His King, Jr. Du Bois is recognized Ghetto in Poland, where two-thirds ideas were concerned with people as one of the most important of the population had been killed sociologists of the 20th century. ■ W.E.B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Atlanta University, and from Du Bois was a sociologist, 1934 to 1944 he was chairman historian, philosopher, and of the department of sociology. political leader. He was born in In 1961 Du Bois moved to Massachusetts three years after Ghana, Africa, to work on the the end of the Civil War. Encyclopedia Africana, but died two years later. He wrote After graduating from high numerous books, articles, and school, Du Bois studied at Fisk essays, and founded and edited University, Nashville, and the four journals. university of Berlin, Germany, where he met Max Weber. In Key works 1895 he became the first African American to receive a PhD when 1903 The Souls of Black Folks he gained a doctorate in history 1920 Darkwater: Voices from at Harvard University. From Within the Veil 1897 to 1910 he was professor 1939 Black Folk, Then and Now of economics and history at

74 THE POOR ARE EXCLUDED FROM THE ORDINARY LIVING PATTERNS, CUSTOMS, AND ACTIVITIES OF LIFE PETER TOWNSEND (1928–2009) IN CONTEXT P overty was defined by However, in 1979 the British the social campaigner sociologist Peter Townsend said FOCUS Seebohm Rowntree at the that “poverty” should be defined Relative poverty beginning of the 20th century as a not in absolute terms, but in terms state in which “total earnings are of relative deprivation. He indicated KEY DATES insufficient to obtain the minimum that every society has an average 1776 Scottish economist necessaries for the maintenance of level in terms of living conditions, Adam Smith says the merely physical efficiency.” This is diet, amenities, and the type of necessities of life include, the “subsistence level” definition activities people can participate in. “whatever the custom of the of poverty, which has been used by Where an individual or family lacks country renders it indecent for governments to determine the cost the resources to obtain these, they creditable people, even of the of a person’s basic needs such as are socially excluded from normal lowest order, to be without.” food, rent, fuel, and clothing. life, as well as being materially deprived. Other factors, such as 1901 British sociologist Food banks have faced surging poor skills or bad health, must also Seebohm Rowntree publishes demand in recent years. They meet be taken into account. Poverty: A Study of Town Life. basic needs, but often include non-essential foodstuffs that are now Townsend—a leading 1979 Peter Townsend considered normal for people to have. campaigner who cofounded the publishes Poverty in the Child Poverty Action Group— United Kingdom. pointed out that there was an assumption that poverty had been 1999 The UK government steadily decreasing in affluent carries out the Poverty and societies. But he drew attention to Social Exclusion survey the increasing income gap between of Britain. those at the top and lower levels of society, and said that when a 2013 French economist country becomes wealthier, but Thomas Piketty publishes income distribution is markedly Capital in the 21st Century, uneven, the number of people in documenting extreme income poverty is bound to increase. ■ inequality in 20 countries. See also: Karl Marx 28–31 ■ Friedrich Engels 66–67 ■ Richard Sennett 84–87

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES 75 THERE AIN’T NO BLACK IN THE UNION JACK PAUL GILROY (1956– ) IN CONTEXT I n his book There Ain’t No a concept created in society. Where Black in the Union Jack, some sociologists have suggested FOCUS British sociologist Paul Gilroy a discussion of “ethnicity” or Racism focuses on racism in Britain in “culture” instead, Gilroy proposes the 20th century. He points out that we should abandon all of these KEY DATES that in the 1970s Britain worried ideas. Whatever terms we use, he 18th–19th centuries about its “national decline” says, we are creating a false idea Biological-based ideas of race almost obsessively, and many of “natural” categories by putting are used to justify slavery commentators ascribed this disparate people into different and colonialism. to the “dilution of homogenous groups, leading to a division and continuous national stock”— between “them” and “us.” 1940s The Nazi party uses specifically, Gilroy says, to the “race” to justify political arrival of black people in Britain. Raciology inequality and introduces According to Gilroy, all these types ideas of “racial purity.” Gilroy indicates that fixed of discussion leave us enmeshed notions of nationality, such in what he calls “raciology”—a 1950 UNESCO declares that as “Britishness,” may not be discourse that assumes certain “race” is a social myth. intentionally racist, but they have stereotypes, prejudices, images, racist consequences. In seeking and identities. Anti-racists find 1970s Michel Foucault argues to define Britishness, 20th-century themselves inverting the position that biological ideas of race, writers always seemed to imagine of racist thinkers, but are linked with certain essential a white Britain—black people were nevertheless unable to displace traits, arose with colonialism. seen as permanent outsiders. They the idea of racism altogether. The were denied authentic national solution, Gilroy suggests, lies in 1981 US sociologist Anne membership on the basis of their refusing to accept racial divisions Wortham publishes The Other “race,” and it was often assumed as an inescapable, natural force, Side of Racism, identifying that their allegiance lay elsewhere. and instead developing “an ability five black movements that to imagine political, economic, prevent society from reaching While accepting that the idea and social systems in which a position “beyond racism.” of race has been a historical and ‘race’ makes no sense.” ■ political force, Gilroy says that it 1987 Paul Gilroy publishes is no more than a social construct, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack. See also: Michel Foucault 52–55; 270–77 ■ W.E.B. Du Bois 68–73 ■ Elijah Anderson 82–83 ■ bell hooks 90–95 ■ Benedict Anderson 202–03

76 IN CONTEXT A SENSE OF FOCUS ONE’S PLACE Habitus PIERRE BOURDIEU (1930–2002) KEY DATES 1934 The essay “Body Techniques” by French sociologist and anthropologist Marcel Mauss lays the foundations for Pierre Bourdieu’s re-elaboration of the concept of “habitus.” 1958 Max Weber suggests that “a specific style of life can be expected from those who wish to belong to the circle.” 1966 English historian E.P. Thompson says class is “a relationship that must always be embodied in real people and in a real context.” 2003 US cultural theorist Nancy Fraser says that capitalist society has two systems of subordination—the class structure and the status order—which interact. F rom Marx to Durkheim and Weber to Parsons, sociologists have been keen to determine how the social class system is reproduced, in the belief that it is structurally bound to economics, property ownership, and financial assets. But in the 1970s Pierre Bourdieu claimed, in Distinction, that the issue was more complex: social class is not defined solely by economics, he said, “but by the class habitus which is normally associated with that position.” This concept was first discussed by the 13th-century Italian theologian Thomas Aquinas, who claimed that the things people want or like, and

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES 77 See also: Karl Marx 28–31 ■ Émile Durkheim 34–37 ■ Friedrich Engels 66–67 ■ Richard Sennett 84–87 ■ Norbert Elias 180–81 ■ Paul Willis 292–93 The habitus is a set of It is created from activities were all similar to one socially internalized the interaction of the another. The French upper classes, dispositions that informs he noted, enjoyed reading poetry, a person’s perceptions, individual self, philosophy, and politics. They liked feelings, and actions. group culture, and the going to classic or avant-garde social institutions of theater, museums, and classical- Habitus is reproduced the family and the school. music concerts; they enjoyed going and evolves over time camping and mountaineering. through the interplay of an Acting out these individual’s subconscious dispositions Within the working classes, with the social structures Bourdieu found that people liked strengthens the reading novels and magazines, they encounter. habitus of the individual betting, visiting music halls and boutiques, and owning luxury cars. the way they act, is because they and the group. The choices were relatively limited think of themselves as a certain and they were determined not by kind of person: each of us has a members of their social class cost, but by taste. He realized that particular inclination, or habitus. group. An individual from one people who were members of a class will “know” that something certain class, or “class fraction” Bourdieu, however, develops is “pretentious” or “gaudy,” whereas (class subset), shared tastes the idea significantly. He defines a person from another class will because they shared dispositions, habitus as an embodied set of see the same thing as “beautiful” or “habitus.” They had somehow socially acquired dispositions that or “stunning.” He suggests that a come to like and dislike the same lead individuals to live their lives child learns these things from their things. And this awareness of in ways that are similar to other family, and then from their school shared habitus gave them a and peers, who demonstrate to the distinct sense of place; they Habitus is society written growing child how to speak and “fitted” into this or that class. into the body, into the act, and so on. In this way, he says, biological individual. “the social order is progressively The construction of habitus is Pierre Bourdieu inscribed in people’s minds.” due neither to the individual nor the existing environment—it is created through the interplay of the subjective mind with the structures and institutions around him or ❯❯ Class dispositions Fox hunting is a leisure pursuit While researching class divisions that feels natural to some as a result in France in the 1960s, Bourdieu of their habitus, or disposition. The noticed that people of the same same tendency makes other types of class exhibited similar cultural activity (such as karaoke) feel strange. values. The things they knew and valued, the way they spoke, their choice of clothes and decoration of the body, and their views on art, leisure, and entertainment

78 PIERRE BOURDIEU Expressing a view about something, such as a work of art, provides another person with information that enables them to assess the speaker’s cultural capital and judge his or her social class. her. Individuals are born into a Habitus gives individuals a unique Bourdieu says the habitus is often particular social class group. Each “sense of one’s place,” because obvious through “judgments is defined by a specific lifestyle, their internalized self perfectly of classification,” which are referred to by Bourdieu as the matches the structure of their pronounced about a thing, such as habitus of the group. Every social external world. But if they were to a painting, but act to classify the class group has a group habitus stray into the “fields” (institutions person speaking. Where one person that simultaneously defines, and or structures) of a different class, describes a painting as “nice,” and differentiates it from, all the other they would feel like “a fish out of another as “passé,” we learn little group habitus in society. water,” wrong-footed at every turn. about the artwork, but much more about the person and their habitus. The habitus of the group is also Forms of capital People use these judgments inscribed in the bodily dispositions Bourdieu maintains that the deliberately to distinguish and gestures of the individual. habitus of an individual is made up themselves from their neighbors The social class of a person can of different types and amounts of and establish their class. be discerned from how they walk, capital (economic, cultural, and talk, laugh, cry, and so on—from social), which he redefined as In addition to economic and everything they do, think, and “the set of actually usable resources cultural capital, people may have say. For the most part, because and powers” that a person has. social capital—human resources they are born and raised within (friends and colleagues) gained a particular group habitus, Economic capital refers, quite through social networks. These individuals are generally unaware simply, to monetary resources and relationships give a sense of mutual of the ways in which habitus both property. A person’s cultural capital obligation and trust, and may offer enables and restricts how they is their capacity to play “the culture access to power and influence. think, perceive, act, and interact game”—to recognize references in with the world around them. books, films, and theater; to know This idea of social capital how to act in given situations (such can be seen in the success of Habitus—as the embodiment as apt manners and conversation at social networking websites such of the dispositions of the wider the dinner table); to know what to as Facebook and LinkedIn, which group to which the individual wear and how; and even who “to provide ways for individuals belongs—provides people with a look down your nose at.” Because to increase their social capital. clear sense of the type of person habitus defines a person within any Bourdieu also saw scholastic they are and what it is that people situation as being of a certain class like themselves should think and or class fraction, it is critical in Scientific observation shows feel, as well as the manner in delineating the social order. that cultural needs are which they should behave. the product of upbringing and education. Pierre Bourdieu

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES 79 capital (intellectual knowledge), During their lifetimes, people put Pierre Bourdieu linguistic capital (ease in the their various forms of capital to command of language, determining work. They also “strategize,” Born in 1930 in a rural village who has the authority to speak and figuring out how to compete with in southwest France, Pierre be heard), and political capital each other for increased power Bourdieu was the only son (status in the political world) as and capital. The particular forms of a postman. A teacher playing a part in class. that these strategies can take are recognized his potential and governed by habitus, and yet most recommended he go to Paris The class game people are not consciously aware to study. After graduating The class struggle, outlined so of the extent to which their actions from the prestigious École comprehensively by Marx, can be and choices in life are determined Normale Supérieure with played out on an individual level by these acquired dispositions. a degree in philosophy, he using Bourdieu’s terms. He says taught at the University of that an individual develops within The possibility of change Algiers during the Algerian relationships (the family and Because Bourdieu’s idea of cultural Liberation War (1956–62). school), before entering various capital rests so heavily on the social arenas or “fields” (such as constantly reproduced habitus, While in Algeria, he institutions and social groups), which is embedded in all of us, undertook ethnographic where people express and he seems quite pessimistic about studies that resulted in his constantly reproduce their the possibility of social mobility. first book, The Sociology of habitus. Whether or not people are Algeria (1958). On his return successful in the fields they enter However, the habitus is open to France he became Director depends on the type of habitus to change through different forces of Studies at the École des they have and the capital it carries. within the field. The interaction of Hautes Études en Sciences institutions and individuals usually Sociales, Paris, and began Every field has a set of rules reinforces existing ideas, but it is an acclaimed career in social that reflects the group habitus, possible for someone from a lower studies. He believed research to the extent that the rules seem social class to gain cultural capital should translate into action, “common sense” to them. People by, for instance, being sent to and was involved in many are recognized for their “symbolic a “good” school. This might raise political protests against capital” and its worth within their economic capital—and inequality and domination. the field. Their symbolic capital their children, in turn, might be Bourdieu died in 2002. represents the total of all their other privately schooled and benefit from forms of capital, and is reflected increased economic and cultural Key works as prestige, a reputation for capital and a different habitus. So, competence, or social position. for Bourdieu, all forms of capital are 1979 Distinction: A Social interrelated: people convert their Critique of the Judgment Those who talk of equality economic capital into cultural and of Taste of opportunity forget social capital in order to improve 1980 The Logic of Practice their life chances. 1991 Language and Symbolic that social games… are Power not ‘fair games.’ Bourdieu’s habitus has had a major impact on sociological debate Pierre Bourdieu in the last few decades. More than any other idea, it captures the extent to which impersonal social structures and processes influence what are regarded as seemingly unique personal dispositions. In short, habitus brings together insights of a number of prominent thinkers in one compact and versatile concept. ■

80 THE ORIENT IS THE STAGE ON WHICH THE WHOLE EAST IS CONFINED EDWARD SAID (1935–2003) IN CONTEXT T he idea of “the Orient” The concept of Orientalism, he evolved from Western says, works in two important FOCUS colonial powers and is a ways: it presents the East as one Orientalism politically dangerous and culturally homogenous region that is exotic, biased idea that continues to infect uncivilized, and backward; and at KEY DATES Western views of the Eastern the same time, it constructs and 1375 Chaucer refers to the world. This powerful argument fixes the West’s idea of the East Orient as the lands lying is made by Edward Said in his in a simplified, unchanging set east of the Mediterranean. influential text, Orientalism (1978). of representations. Early 19th century French European “experts” (historians, scientists, academic Silvestre de Sacy and linguists) report on what “the Orient” sets out the terms of modern Orientalism. is like, from their own perspective. 1836 Edward William Lane’s Their ideas are reduced still further into stereotypes and book Manners and Customs representations that construct and fix Western views of the Modern Egyptians becomes an important of “the East” and its peoples... reference work for writers such as French novelist ...and fuel and perpetuate Western fears about the East, Gustave Flaubert. especially Arabs, as dangerous and “other.” 1961 Franz Fanon writes The Orient is the stage on which about the dehumanizing the whole East is confined. forces of colonialism in The Wretched of the Earth. 1981 Sadik Jalal al-’Azm argues that Orientalism tends to categorize the West in the same way that Said says it packages the East.

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES 81 See also: Michel Foucault 52–55 ■ W.E.B. Du Bois 68–73 ■ Paul Gilroy 75 ■ Elijah Anderson 82–83 ■ Stuart Hall 200–01 ■ Benedict Anderson 202–03 ■ Stanley Cohen 290 Said explains that the idea of rational, civilized, hardworking, and A memorial to victims of the modern Orientalism arose when progressive. The reports sent back bombing in Oklahoma in 1995. The a French army led by Napoleon to Europe by Napoleon’s “experts” attack was first blamed by media on Bonaparte conquered Egypt in meant that the East was presented “Muslims“ and “Arabs” (the Other), but 1798. This conquest was significant to Europeans in a highly packaged was the work of a white American. because Napoleon took with him way; the East was explained by the not only soldiers, but also scientists, West, and in the process molded us that the peoples of the East are philologists, and historians. These to suit the Europeans. This idea different and frightening. In this experts were given the job of of what “Orientals” were like was context, “the Arab” is viewed as a recording and categorizing what appropriated and disseminated violent fanatic, and Western nations they saw. In describing their widely by literary figures such as feel the need to protect themselves experience of “the Orient” as Lord Byron, who romanticized the from “the infiltration of the Other.” objective knowledge, their words Orient but continued to emphasize The challenge, he says, is to find a gained an unquestionable authority its inalienable difference. way of coexisting peacefully. ■ and influence in Europe. Perpetuating fear Categorizing the East The problem continues, Said says, However, as Said suggests, they because the idea of the Orient has were looking at the peoples around prevented people in the West from them through the lens of imperialist being able to view the East in all its conquest. They saw themselves as complexity. The same repertory the superior power and therefore of images keeps arising: the Orient as superior people. They drew an is seen as a place of mythical imaginary line between Us and exoticism—it is the home of the Them, West and East, and began Sphinx, Cleopatra, Eden, Troy, to define both sides in opposition Sodom and Gomorrah, Sheba, to one another. Where the peoples Babylon, and Muhammad. of the East were perceived as irrational, uncivilized, lazy, and Orientalism is a framework used backward, those of the West were to understand the unfamiliar, says Said, but at the same time it tells Edward Said Cultural theorist and literary critic Said stated that he was Edward Said was the founder of politicized by the Six-Day War postcolonial studies. Born in West of 1967 between Israel and its Jerusalem during the British Arab neighbors, after which he Mandate in Palestine, his father became an important voice for was a wealthy Palestinian- the Palestinian cause, especially American of Christian faith, and in the US. In 1999 he founded Said went to private international an Arab-Israeli orchestra with schools in Lebanon, Egypt, the conductor Daniel Barenboim, and the US. He later studied in the belief that music at Princeton and Harvard before transcends politics. becoming a professor of English Literature at Columbia University, Key works where he taught until his death in 2003. Said wrote prolifically on 1978 Orientalism a wide range of topics, including 1979 The Question of Palestine music and Palestinian issues. 1993 Culture and Imperialism

82 THE GHETTO IS WHERE THE BLACK PEOPLE LIVE ELIJAH ANDERSON (1943– ) IN CONTEXT When white people see a black stranger in public... FOCUS ...they associate them with “the ghetto,” with The iconic ghetto lower-class status, criminality, violence, and poverty. KEY DATES Middle-class black Working-class black 1903 W.E.B. Du Bois says the people may overcome this people are unable to problem of the 20th century is stigma by emulating the escape the stigma and the problem of the color line. upper class and providing discrimination. Early 20th century Blacks proof of address. migrate from the rural South to cities throughout the US. “The ghetto” acts as a reference point to interpret black identity. 1920 Black political leader Marcus Garvey holds an I n 2012, Elijah Anderson wrote impoverished, drug-infested, international convention in “The Iconic Ghetto,” which chaotic area of the city, ruled Harlem, the traditionally black argued that many Americans by violence. So when they think area of New York City. associate the ghetto with a place of “black people,” they imagine where “the black people live.” He them as immoral, drug-addicted, 1960s There is a “white flight” said that to these same Americans, criminal “hoods,” deserving of from areas in the US where the ghetto symbolizes a lawless, prejudice and discrimination. black people live, leading to “black ghettos.” 1972 The Equal Employment Opportunity Act is passed in the US. 1992 Riots take place in Los Angeles after police are filmed beating a black motorist, Rodney King, and then acquitted of his assault.

See also: Michel Foucault 52–55 ■ W.E.B. Du Bois 68–73 ■ Paul Gilroy 75 ■ SOCIAL INEQUALITIES 83 Edward Said 80–81 Elijah Anderson Working-class black people who says that middle-class black live in impoverished areas are, says people do this by “speaking white” Elijah Anderson is one of the Anderson, routinely stigmatized and (mimicking the formal speech leading urban ethnographers “demoralized by racism.” style of upper-middle-class whites), in the US. He was born or demonstrating exceptional on a plantation in Mississippi Anderson gives the example of intelligence, manners, and poise. during World War II. His a racist incident while he was on They deal with insults by laughing parents were originally holiday in a “pleasant Cape Cod them off with friends, but in fact sharecroppers who picked town full of upper-middle-class these small events, like Anderson’s cotton, but after his father’s white vacationers.” As he enjoyed jogging incident, can make “the experience of fighting as a a jog through the town, a middle- scales fall from one’s eyes” and soldier in Europe during the aged white man blocked the road induce a feeling of having been war, the family found the with his car, and shouted “Go a fool for believing that they fitted racism of the South intolerable home!” to Anderson. Bemused, seamlessly into society. and moved to Chicago and Anderson later questioned what then Indiana, both in the the man meant, and realized that Disproving the ghetto north of the country. it was an order to “go home” to the Middle-class black people can ghetto. The institution of the ghetto work to disabuse others of this Anderson studied sociology is persistent, says Anderson, and it “assessment,” Anderson says, but at Indiana University and leads many to think that the black the problem for poorer black people then Chicago, where his person’s place is most often in the is less easily solved. If they actually dissertation on black ghetto, not in middle-class society. live in a ghetto, how can they streetcorner men became his distance themselves from all its first book, A Place on the Iconic status associations? How do working- Corner (1978). He was Vice Most black people in America do class black people signify that they President of the American not come from a ghetto, and legally are not violent drug addicts, or in Sociological Association (ASA) they have access to the same any way counteract the prejudice in 2002, and has won many schooling and job opportunities as already operating against them? awards, including the ASA’s white people. However, because Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award. “the ghetto” has reached iconic Anderson points to the shooting status, it operates as a mindset, of Trayvon Martin in 2012: the Key works and black people of all classes find unarmed, innocent 17-year-old themselves having to prove that was shot dead by a neighborhood 1990 Streetwise they are not from the ghetto before watch coordinator, who said Martin 1999 Code of the Street: they do anything else. Anderson looked “out of place.” This exposes Moral Life of the Inner City the danger of many white people’s 2012 “The Iconic Ghetto” belief that black people come from, and should remain in, “the ghetto,” The black man is treated not white neighborhoods. as a dangerous outsider According to Anderson, the idea until he proves he is that black people have a specific worthy of trust. “place” in society (the “ghetto”) persists in the imagination of white Elijah Anderson people. This is despite a black presence in every social class and neighborhood. The iconic ghetto acts to continually stigmatize people with black skin, and treat them as “dangerous outsiders.” ■

84 IN CONTEXT THE TOOLS FOCUS OF FREEDOM Class inequality BECOME THE SOURCES OF KEY DATES INDIGNITY 1486 Italian philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola RICHARD SENNETT (1943– ) says that unlike animals, people search for meaning and dignity in life. 1841 In “Self-Reliance,” US philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson sees self- reliance as a moral imperative that enables individuals to shape their own destiny. 1960s French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre says that a class society is a society of resources unfairly distributed because some people have arbitrary power. 1989 British academic Richard Hoggart says, “Every decade we swiftly declare we have buried class, each decade the coffin stays empty.” S ociologists and economists traditionally accepted the idea that social class was linked to money: as workers earned higher incomes and gained more possessions, they would move into the middle class and enjoy not just prosperity, but also an increased sense of dignity. But this concept was challenged when US sociologist Richard Sennett, in collaboration with Jonathan Cobb, investigated a paradox that seemed to afflict working-class people who moved into the middle class. What Sennett discovered in his interviews with workers, as outlined in The Hidden Injuries of Class, published in 1972, was

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES 85 See also: Friedrich Engels 66–67 ■ W.E.B. Du Bois 68–73 ■ Pierre Bourdieu 76–79 ■ Elijah Anderson 82–83 ■ Georg Simmel 104–05 ■ Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis 288–89 ■ Paul Willis 292–93 But highly educated Education is said But higher education working-class students to offer the best results only in jobs become alienated from that working-class their peers and exposed route to personal people regard as development not “real work.” to middle-class and freedom. social ridicule. The tools of freedom become the sources of indignity. that an increase in material for example. Here the old languages and switched the focus of their power and freedom of choice were spoken and cultural traditions machinery to replacing the more was accompanied by a significant were kept alive. expensive, skilled labor. Hostility crisis in self respect. In reaching arose toward the newcomers and for greater freedom, workers were This mass immigration meant there was a rise in racist attitudes. being asked to use “tools,” such that industrialists soon realized as education, that left them feeling that unskilled labor was cheaper A kind of “moral hierarchy” alienated and incapable. than machine production. So they among nationalities soon gained hired large numbers of immigrants widespread acceptance. Western ❯❯ Immigration and racism To explain how this might be happening, Sennett looked first at the history of the working class in the US. During the urbanization of the 19th century, rural workers moved from small farms to towns and then cities, which grew quickly under this sudden influx. In addition, most US cities had large enclaves of newly arrived European immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Poland, and Greece, Immigrants disembark from a ship in New York in the early 20th century. These “foreigners” were often used for cheap labor, which led to hostility from some US citizens.

86 RICHARD SENNETT The pyramid of achievement were not considered “real work.” These jobs were not worthy, so Middle- and upper-class a worker could not view himself people at the top look with respect while doing them. down on those below. In addition, although intellect The working-class ACADEMIC AND As the laborer and education were held in high laborer climbs PROFESSIONAL JOBS moves up the pyramid, esteem by the middle and upper he feels a sense of classes, it seemed to the workers the achievement betrayal—both to that “the educated” did nothing pyramid, striving himself and to those worth respecting; on the contrary, for a high-status job. he has left behind. they were often seen to use their privileged position to cheat, lie, The laborer experiences and avoid working, while at the conflicting emotions as same time commanding high he ascends the pyramid. salaries. How, therefore, could a worker aim to maintain his dignity TRADES AND MANUAL LABOR JOBS and self-respect in this position? Europeans (apart from the Irish) from their own. In the wider US The workers interviewed by were at the top of this hierarchy; society, higher educated, “cultured” Sennett use the word “educated” they were seen as diligent, hard people were treated with the most to stand for a range of experiences working, and skilled. However, respect. An honest, hard-working and feelings that move beyond at the opposite end of the scale, man or woman who may have been pure schooling. Education’s Sennett notes that “Slavs, highly regarded in the “old elevated status results from the Bohemians, Jews, and Southern neighborhood” was now viewed fact that it is thought to increase Europeans… were accused with disdain and suspicion for rationality and develop the finest of dirtiness, secretiveness, or being ignorant and “foreign.” human capacities. But Rissarro, a laziness.” The new immigrants shoeshine boy turned bank clerk, found that they could depend only Education and failure explains how this works differently on their countrymen for support, Sennett says that the working class across the social divisions. He so ethnic communities flourished. was being challenged to become believes that people of a higher “cultured”; education seemed to be class have the power to judge him But during the mid-20th the way to acceptance and respect. because they are more “internally century, US cities underwent urban However, there were several developed.” Despite Rissarro’s rise renewal programms that broke notable problems with this. First, to professional employment, his up the immigrant communities. to people who had always valued Immigrant families were integrated hard, physical labor, the “pen- The educated... middle-class into the larger society, which had pushing” jobs of the middle class people... [with] the ‘right’ different attitudes of social respect values stand out from a mass whose understanding... they believe inferior to their own. Richard Sennett

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES 87 middle-class colleagues look down the rules and lacking in wider Richard Sennett on him and he lacks respect for cultural knowledge. Their himself, because he feels that he is educational achievement exposes Literary author and sociologist not doing “real work.” He accepts them not to respect but to disdain Richard Sennett was born in society’s admonitions to “better from the middle-class people Chicago to parents with himself,” but he feels like an around them and they suffer a communist beliefs. Both his imposter and is puzzled by his sense of failure and alienation. father and uncle fought as sense of discomfort. He believes internationalists in the civil that the only explanation is that According to Scottish-American war in Spain. Sennett was there is something wrong with him. businessman Andrew Carnegie, brought up by his mother in the justice of industrial capitalism one of the first racially mixed Sennett maintains that workers is that society will always reward public housing projects. tend to see their failure to fit in and “a man of talent.” If a person is achieve respect as personal failure, worthy of escaping poverty, he Sennet studied cello at not as a condition of societal or she can do so. If he or she does Juilliard in New York City, but divisions and inequalities. He not have the ability to “make it,” a wrist operation in 1964 quotes James, a highly educated however, what right does that brought his musical career son of an immigrant, who sees person have to complain? As to an end. He began a career himself as a failure, whatever he Sennett notes: in a meritocracy, if in sociology at Harvard does. “If I really had what it takes,” you fail, you have no merit. Failure University, and has taught at he says, “I could make this school to succeed is due to personal Yale and the London School of thing worthwhile.” On the other inadequacy. In this way the Economics (LSE). In the 1970s hand, if he “had the balls to go out inequalities of class become hidden he cofounded The New York into the world” and get a real job, by the widespread “personal Institute for the Humanities that would earn him real respect. failures” of working people. with writers Susan Sontag and James holds himself responsible Joseph Brodsky. Sennett made for not having more self-confidence The Hidden Injuries of Class is his name with The Hidden and for having failed to “develop.” a subtle and sensitive exploration Injuries of Class, which he of working-class lives that exposes wrote after spending four The political is personal how social difference can be made years researching with This conjunction of class and self to appear as simply a question of Jonathan Cobb. He is married is a uniquely US phenomenon, says character, competence, and moral to sociologist Saskia Sassen. Sennett, that is tied up with the resolve, when it is essentially a prizing of “the individual.” Success matter of inherited class. ■ Key works in IQ tests and schooling is seen as a way of freeing an individual from Arthur Miller was a working-class 1972 The Hidden Injuries of his or her social conditions at boy who rose to become one of the Class (in collaboration with birth—everyone who truly has merit leading US dramatists of the mid-20th Jonathan Cobb) or intelligence will rise. This belief century—he was, however, largely 1974 The Call of Public Man in equality of opportunity is at the looked down upon by US critics. 2005 The Culture of the New heart of the American Dream. Capitalism Working-class children do not have the same opportunities as children from more affluent backgrounds, and those who strive to excel are seen as traitors. They are exiled from their peer groups, with a subsequent loss of self- worth. The tools of freedom are a source of indignity for them, both at school and at college, where they are looked down on for not knowing

88 MEN’S INTEREST IN PATRIARCHY IS CONDENSED IN HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY R.W. CONNELL (1944– ) IN CONTEXT Patriarchy Hegemonic masculinity is a power system... is a power system... FOCUS Hegemonic masculinity ...that empowers men ...that ranks “male” men and enables their above those who display KEY DATES 1930s Italian social theorist domination of women. “feminine” traits. Antonio Gramsci uses the term “hegemony” to explain Patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity both value and how the views of the dominant empower men above women. class become seen as “common sense.” Men’s interest in patriarchy is condensed in hegemonic masculinity. 1957 US sociologist Helen Hacker writes about the social I t is often assumed that any extended period of time, and, nature of masculinity. masculinity is a natural, she says, we should speak about biological state that cannot masculinities, not masculinity, 1985 Carrigan, Connell, and be altered. R.W. Connell claims, when exploring what it means Lee publish Toward a New however, that it is not a fixed thing, to “be a man.” Sociology of Masculinity. but an acquired identity: there is no one pattern of masculinity Masculinity also has multiple 1990 US sociologists Messner that is found everywhere or over definitions within multicultural and Sabo use hegemony to societies. In any one setting, such explain homophobia and violence at sporting events. 1993 US sociologist James Messerschmidt publishes Masculinities and Crime. 2003 Japanese sociologist Masako Ishii-Kuntz traces the emergence of diverse masculinities in Japan.

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES 89 See also: Harriet Martineau 26–27 ■ Judith Butler 56–61 ■ bell hooks 90–95 ■ Margaret Mead 298–99 ■ Adrienne Rich 304–09 ■ Christine Delphy 312–317 ■ Jeffrey Weeks 324–25 ■ Steven Seidman 326–31 as a school or workplace, a position aligns with the hegemonic Most men find it difficult to particular form of masculinity ideal in Western societies. As men be patriarchs... but they fear will be seen as the “best” and reap significant benefits from most effective way to be a man. maintaining dominance over letting go of the benefits. women, their general interest bell hooks This idea lies behind Connell’s and investment in patriarchy is concept of hegemonic masculinity, formidable—it is what gives them patriarchal religions and romantic which claims that in any time or social, cultural, and economic narratives, and their perpetuation place, different forms of masculinity control. The closer a man’s of gender expectations of are organized into a hierarchy. masculinity is to the hegemonic children, sustains the power The dominant form—seen as the ideal, the more power he has. of the patriarchal ideal and the ideal masculinity and the one hegemonic masculinity associated that others will be judged against— Practicing gender with it. By describing masculinity is the hegemonic form. It will Connell claims that the European/ within the terms of hegemony constitute that society’s idea of American hegemonic form, which or hierarchy, Connell grants it a “manliness” and those few men is linked closely to the patriarchal fluidity, which means that there who can embody this form of ideal of the powerful, aggressive, is an opportunity for change. masculinity will be “the most unemotional male who will often A move to establish a version of honored and desired.” use violence to get his way, is masculinity that is open to equality being extended across the world with women, she says, would Subordinate masculinity through processes of globalization. constitute a positive hegemony. ■ Subordinated or marginalized The media glamorizes the forms of masculinity are those hegemonic ideal through its that deviate from the norm; men adulation of ruthless billionaire espousing these suffer humiliation, entrepreneurs and fit, contact- exclusion, and loss of privilege. sports stars. When the masculine role moves toward a more “female” position (as Women are complicit in in homosexuality), there is a recognizing a hierarchy of corresponding loss of status and masculinities, according to power. In this way, the patriarchal Connell. Their continued loyalty to Exclusion of homosexual desire R.W. Connell chair when she was appointed from the definition of masculinity professor of sociology at is, according to Connell in The Men R.W. Connell was born in Macquarie University, New and the Boys, an important feature of Australia in 1944 as Robert South Wales, in 1976. Although modern-day hegemonic masculinity. William (“Bob”) Connell. A best known for her work on transsexual woman, Connell the social construction of completed her transition late masculinities, Connell has also in life and took the first name lectured extensively and written of Raewyn. Educated in high on poverty, education, and the schools in Manly and North northern hemisphere bias of Sydney, Connell went on to gain mainstream social science. degrees from the universities of Melbourne and Sydney. Key works During the 1960s Connell 1987 Gender and Power was an activist in the New Left. 1995 Masculinities She became one of the youngest 2000 The Men and the Boys people to attain an academic

WHITE WOMEN HAVE BEEN COMPLICIT IN THIS IMPERIALIST WHITE-SUPREMACIST CAPITALIST PATRIARCHY BELL HOOKS (1952– )



92 BELL HOOKS White women... IN CONTEXT ...do not ...do not wish ...have a experience to be seen as vested interest FOCUS “unfeminine” in exploiting Feminism and the same (a fear of breaking class and race intersectionality intersectionality of oppressive away from privileges, KEY DATES forces as black patriarchy’s so they can be 1979 The Combahee River women, so may gender roles). Collective, a black feminist freed from lesbian organization in the not recognize “dirty work.” US, claims it is essential to them. consider the conjunction of “interlocking oppressions.” White women have been complicit in this imperialist white-supremacist 1980s US economist Heidi Hartmann says that in the capitalist patriachy. “unhappy marriage” of Marxist feminism, Marxism (the husband) dominates feminism (the wife), because class trumps gender. 1989 US law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw uses “intersectionality” to describe patterns of racism and sexism. 2002 German sociologist Helma Lutz claims at least 14 “lines of difference” are used in power relations, including age, gender, skin color, and class. T he “second-wave” feminists women as the “sisterhood” masked “intersectionality.” She likened this of the 1960s to 1980s what she saw as the “opportunism to a place where traffic flows in four presented a far more of bourgeois white women.” directions. Discrimination, like formidable and thoroughgoing traffic, may flow in one direction or challenge to male domination than hooks says that the situation is another. If an accident happens at earlier feminists. Their broadening more complicated than the second- an intersection, it could have been agenda included issues such as wave feminists recognized. Worse caused by cars traveling from any legal inequalities, sexuality, rape, still, these women helped maintain number of directions—sometimes the family, and the workplace. an intersecting network of from all directions. If a black oppressive forces that impacted the woman is harmed because she But the US feminist bell hooks lives of working-class women of is “at the intersection,” this may criticized the feminism of the 1980s color: white women have been have been caused by sex or race in particular as representing the complicit in perpetuating white discrimination, or both. view of privileged white women. patriarchal domination. In Feminist Theory: From Margin As a lawyer, Crenshaw found to Center, published in 1984, she In 1989, US lawyer Kimberlé that black women in the workplace claimed that an emphasis on Crenshaw described the criss- were discriminated against on both crossing forces of oppression as

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES 93 See also: Harriet Martineau 26–27 ■ Karl Marx 28–31 ■ Judith Butler 56–61 ■ Friedrich Engels 66–67 ■ Paul Gilroy 75 ■ Elijah Anderson 82–83 ■ R.W. Connell 88–89 ■ Christine Delphy 312–17 Second-wave feminism of the been their color, as black men still acts are in the minority no 1960s to 1980s, with its emphasis on worked there. The law could only matter the class standing of the “sisterhood,” is criticized by hooks as deal with one or other form of neighborhood,” racial prejudice opportunistic and as representing the oppression, not the two together. is still apparent in beliefs that interests of middle-class white women. a person is lazy, stupid, or more Hierarchy systems violent, for instance, because of counts—being black and female— bell hooks was to take the idea of their racial background. This form but fell through a legal loophole. intersectionality still further. In The of stereotyping means that an They were the last to be hired and Will to Change (2004), she says: “I Indian doctor or Hispanic teacher the first to be laid off, but their often use the phrase ‘imperialist might be viewed as less competent employers denied this had anything white-supremacist capitalist than white Europeans. to do with discrimination. When a patriarchy’ to describe the case went to court, the judge ruled interlocking political systems that Capitalism refers to the that they could not have been laid are the foundation of our nation’s economic system that is off because they were women, as politics.” The phrase is used to characterized by private or other women still worked in the describe a set of systems that corporate ownership of firms and firm. Neither could the reason have combine to situate people within goods, together with control over the power hierarchies of society. the prices, goods, and the labor force. It has an inherent hierarchy: White supremacy is the those who own the means of assumed superiority of lighter- production and control the labor skinned or “white” races over force are privileged over the others. While hooks acknowledges workers. hooks agrees with the that “those who allow [racial] US writer and prominent activist prejudice to lead them to hostile Carmen Vázquez, who she ❯❯ Intersections are hotspots for motor collisions. Lawyer Kimberelé Crenshaw uses traffic as an analogy to show how discrimination can have multiple causes that are hard to determine. It was clear to black Race women... that they were Gender never going to have equality Social class within the existing white- Disability supremacist capitalist patriarchy. bell hooks

94 BELL HOOKS Systematic exploitation of black colonized peoples by white colonizing nations in the 17th and 18th centuries has contributed to the perpetuation of discrimination and social inequality. quotes as saying that the the most about while growing every institution of a community, “American capitalist obsession up. In The Will to Change, hooks from families, schools, and sports for individualism” means that explains how she and her brother arenas to courtrooms. “anything goes so long as it gets were schooled in the meaning you what you want.” Capitalism of “patriarchy.” If challenged, these ideas may values money more than people, be reinforced through violence; so the wealthy are seen as more At church they were told God but sometimes the cold stares important than the poor. was a man and had created man to or mockery of a group of peers is rule the world and everything in it. enough to pull someone back into The attitudes encased in white Women were created to obey and behavior more appropriate to their supremacy and capitalism continue serve men. Men must be strong, gender role. A crying boy or an to cause problems, according to provide for their family, strategize, angry girl may quickly become hooks. Imperialism and colonialism and lead—they could also expect to aware of having transgressed also remain relevant because, be served. These are the patriarchal the gender roles that have been historically, non-white peoples and gender roles that are apparent in defined for them. their countries’ resources have been plundered and exploited by Only privileged women One of the most insidious things white supremacist capitalists in had the luxury to imagine about patriarchy, hooks says, is their pursuit of wealth. working outside the home that it is not spoken about, and we would provide them with cannot dismantle a system as long The rules of patriarchy as we are in “collective denial hooks defines patriarchy as an income... to be about its impact on our lives.” Men “a political-social system economically self-sufficient. rarely even know what the word that insists that males are “patriarchy” means—they don’t use inherently dominating, superior bell hooks the term in everyday life, despite to everything… and endowed with rigidly enforcing its rules while also the right to dominate and rule over suffering from them. Boys submit the weak and to maintain that to the rule of the father just as girls dominance through various forms do, and neither talks about what of psychological terrorism and is happening to them. violence.” She says that of all the interlocking political systems we The aim of feminism encounter, this is the one we learn This interlocking system, hooks says, means there is no sense in making “equality between the sexes” the goal of feminism. Since men are not equals among themselves in white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal class structure, “which men do women want to be equal to?” She notes that women in lower- class and poor groups, particularly black women, would not define women’s liberation as equality with men, because men in their groups are also exploited and oppressed—

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES 95 Feminism is a movement have been suspicious of the In addition, according to hooks, to end sexism, sexist feminist movement since its some women tend to shun exploitation, and inception. They realized that if its identification with any political oppression. stated aim was equality with men, movement, especially one that bell hooks it could easily become a movement is considered radical; or they do that would mostly improve the not wish to be associated with a they too may lack social, political, social standing of middle- and “women’s rights” movement of any and economic power. While these upper-class women. Privileged form. This fear of being seen to join women are aware that patriarchy white women, hooks argues, have a movement that challenges male gives those men privileges, not been anxious to call attention rights and behaviors has been they tend to see exaggerated to race and class privilege because inculcated into them from an expressions of male chauvinism they benefit from these; they could early age through the influence in their own group as stemming “count on there being a lower class of patriarchy, whose rules they from a sense of powerlessness of exploited, subordinated women continue to abide by and enforce. compared to other male groups. to do the dirty work they were refusing to do.” Once we see that it is the The continuing effect of system of patriarchy, and not men, imperialist, white-supremacist, Privilege and politics that is the problem, we can then capitalist patriarchy is a complex Women with multiple social begin to find an answer, suggests “intersectionality” that must be privileges (such as being white, hooks. She says that feminists must examined in its totality of effect heterosexual, and wealthy), may call attention to the diversity of on women, if feminists are to see a situation as demonstrating women’s social and political reality, improve the lives of all women. just one form of oppression, rather and recognize that race and class hooks claims that black women than the intersectionality of many oppression are also feminist issues. different types of oppression. This The feminist movement will then may be due in part to ignorance, not solely benefit any specific hooks suggests—in the town in group of women or privilege women which she grew up, black people over men. The real solution lies, frequently traveled to the white hooks maintains, in changing district to work, but white people the philosophical structures that did not visit her neighborhood. underlie oppression. For this They had no knowledge or reason, feminism is a political experience of that world at all. movement, not a “romantic notion of personal freedom.” ■ bell hooks US social activist and scholar class. In 1973 hooks gained a Gloria Jean Watkins took the degree in English from Stanford name of her maternal great- University, then took an MA grandmother, Bell Hooks, as a pen and a PhD before becoming name to honor her and to gain a professor of ethnic studies strength from her ability to “talk at the University of Southern back.” She uses lowercase letters California. Since writing her to signal to the reader to focus on first book at the age of 19, she her ideas, rather than herself. has published more than 30 books on different topics. Born in 1952 in rural Kentucky, her father was a janitor and her Key works mother was a parent to their seven children. She went to a 1981 Ain’t I a Woman? racially segregated school, but 1984 Feminist Theory: From then attended an integrated high Margin to Center school, where she became acutely 2000 Feminism is for Everybody aware of differences in race and

96 IN CONTEXT THE CONCEPT OF FOCUS “PATRIARCHY” IS Patriarchy INDISPENSABLE FOR AN ANALYSIS OF KEY DATES GENDER INEQUALITY 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft, English advocate of women’s SYLVIA WALBY (1953– ) rights, publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. 1969 In Sexual Politics, US feminist Kate Millett says patriarchy is a universal power relationship that is all-pervasive and enters into all other forms of social divisions. 1971 Italian feminist Mariarosa Dalla Costa argues that women’s unwaged labor is an essential part of the functioning of capitalism. 1981 In “The Unhappy Marriage of Feminism and Marxism,” US feminist economist Heidi Hartmann suggests that the “dual systems” of capitalism and patriarchy oppress women. I n 1990, the British sociologist Sylvia Walby published Theorizing Patriarchy, a groundbreaking book that claims “patriarchy” is a highly complex phenomenon made up of many intersecting forces. Whereas earlier feminists had focused on identifying a single cause of patriarchy, linked to a particular historical era or culture, Walby defines patriarchy as “a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress, and exploit women.” She claims there are six interacting structures: the family household, paid work, the state, male violence, sexuality, and cultural institutions. To examine

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES 97 See also: Karl Marx 28–31 ■ Judith Butler 56–61 ■ bell hooks 90–95 ■ Teri Caraway 248–49 ■ Christine Delphy 312–17 ■ Ann Oakley 318–19 ...paid work. ...the family ...the state. household. Patriarchy is a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress, and exploit women through... ...male violence. ...cultural institutions. ...attitudes to sexuality. these six structures, Walby looks or to gain higher-level education, a “patriarchal mode of production.” back through the struggles and and violence by husbands was Patriarchy within the household is work of previous feminists. legally sanctioned. the first of Walby’s six patriarchal structures; it undervalues the work First-wave feminism The first-wave feminists of housewives (as unpaid labor), Walby notes that the “first wave” of addressed these issues on a legal while apparently valuing them only feminism of the 19th and early level, but Walby maintains that within this role (this was women’s 20th centuries in Europe and the the significant rights they won for “rightful place”). US focused on the private, rather women failed to eliminate all forms than public, nature of patriarchy. of inequality. This was because Walby points out that in At this time, she says, married the family and the household Marxist terms, housewives are the women were excluded from continued to function effectively as producing class, while husbands ❯❯ paid employment, so patriarchal domination occurred mainly within the family, where it was “the man in his position as husband or father who [was] the direct oppressor and beneficiary... of the subordination of women.” The idea of “domesticity” intensified during this era. Middle- class women were confined to the private sphere; they were denied the right to vote, own property, Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928) was a militant, first-wave feminist who fought hard to advance women’s basic rights and to secure married women the vote in the UK.

98 SYLVIA WALBY Women are not passive As she says: “if women are working patriarchy’s six structures) and victims of oppressive for capitalists they have less time work through a set of arrangements structures. They have to work for their husband.” whereby one person is controlled struggled to change both by another. Men’s violence (or Conflicts between patriarchy threatened violence) against their immediate in the home and in the workplace women plays an important part circumstances and the have often been resolved through in their continuing control and wider social structures. the intervention of Walby’s third domination of women. patriarchal structure: the state. Sylvia Walby For example, during World War The fifth of the structures is II, British women were needed sexuality. Walby says that societies are the class that benefits to work in munitions factories. prize heterosexual relationships “individually and directly” The trade unions were unhappy above all others, in many from women’s unpaid labor. about this and persuaded the UK cases seeing them as the only government to introduce legislation permissible option. Sexuality is a Women within capitalism (the Restoration of the Pre-War major area in which men exercise By the 20th century, capitalism Practices Act 1942) to ensure that domination of women: they impose had become the dominant global women would be removed from their ideas of femininity onto economic model. As capitalism employment in factories at the women and have constructed grew, women lost forms of work end of the war. In this way, women sexual practices that revolve that had once been open to them were moved to service the public around male notions of desire. (in textiles, for instance) through or private arenas according to the the growth of industrialization. needs of men, regardless of their Walby points out that the They moved into a position that own preferences. second-wave feminists of the 1960s was disadvantaged in two ways: to 1980s looked at a wider range vertical segregation (being offered In the West, the state has also of “unofficial” inequities than the employment only in the lower intervened to enhance women’s first-wave feminists. They queried grades of work) and horizontal rights, such as the 1970 Equal Pay sexuality, the family, the workplace, segregation (being seen as suitable Act in the UK. However, many and reproductive rights—although only for particular areas of work). of the apparent gains have led some present-day, third-wave For this reason, Walby proposes to little change in practice, with feminists have criticized them for that “patriarchal relations in paid women still earning less than men. “unfinished business.” However, work,” which give men the highest Walby says that this is because when oppressive laws on sexuality opportunities in jobs available and the state is “a site of patriarchal were abolished, some of the hard- level of employment, constitute the relations,” which is necessary to won changes became traps for second of the six structures that patriarchy as a whole. She notes women. Sexual liberty led to the maintain patriarchy. that there have been important mainstreaming of pornography and changes in state policy over the However, Walby notes that in last 150 years but these also include Male violence against women the 20th century an interesting some very significant limitations. is sufficiently common and conflict began to arise between “The state is still patriarchal as well repetitive... to constitute patriarchy and capitalism, because as capitalist and racist,” she says. a social structure. they had rival interests in the Sylvia Walby exploitation of women’s labor. Male violence and sexuality The fourth of Walby’s six structures is male violence against women. Domestic violence includes controlling or threatening behavior, and violence or abuse between intimate partners or family members. These intimate relationships are power-structured (as is the case with all of