{"id":3121,"date":"2016-07-06T13:47:40","date_gmt":"2016-07-06T17:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/?p=3121"},"modified":"2016-07-07T13:03:25","modified_gmt":"2016-07-07T17:03:25","slug":"joan-acker-and-the-shift-from-patriarchy-to-gender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/2016\/07\/06\/joan-acker-and-the-shift-from-patriarchy-to-gender\/","title":{"rendered":"Joan Acker and the Shift from Patriarchy to Gender"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally posted at <\/em>Inequality by (Interior) Design<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve read some of the tributes to the feminist sociological genius of Joan Acker.\u00a0 And much of that work has celebrated one specific application of her work. \u00a0For instance, Tristan posted last week<\/a> on Acker\u2019s most cited article\u2014\u201cHierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations\u201d (1990)<\/a>\u2014which examined the ways that gender is so embedded in the structure of organizations that we often fail to appreciate just how much it shapes our lives, experiences, and opportunities.\u00a0 But, this specific piece of her scholarship was actually her applied<\/em> work. It was an application of a theoretical turn she was suggesting all sociologists of gender follow.\u00a0 And we did.\u00a0 Acker was involved in an incredibly important theoretical debate that helped shape the feminist sociology we practice today.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatriarchy\u201d is a concept that is less used today in feminist social science than it was in the late-1970s and 1980s.\u00a0 The term has a slippery and imprecise feel, but this wasn\u2019t always the case. There were incredibly nuanced debates about patriarchy as a social structure or as one part of \u201cdual systems\u201d (capitalism + patriarchy) and exactly what this meant and involved theoretically. Today, we examine \u201cgender.\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, the chief sociological publication is entitled Gender & Society<\/em><\/a>, not Patriarchy & Society<\/em>.\u00a0 \"Acker<\/a>But in the 1970s and 1980s, patriarchy was employed theoretically much more often.\u00a0 Feminist scholars identified patriarchy to focus the critique of existing theoretical work that offered problematic explanations of the subordination of women.\u00a0 As Acker put it in \u201cThe Problem with Patriarchy<\/a>,\u201d a short article published in Sociology<\/em> in 1989: \u201cExisting theory attributed women\u2019s domination by men either to nature or social necessity rather than to social structural processes, unequal power, or exploitation\u201d (1989a: 235). The concept of patriarchy offered a focus for this critique.<\/p>\n

Joan Acker was among a group of scholars concerned about the limitations of this focus; in particular, patriarchy was criticized for being a universal, trans-historical, and trans-cultural phenomenon\u2014\u201cwomen were everywhere oppressed by men in more or less the same ways\u201d (1989a: 235).\u00a0 Concluding that patriarchy could not be turned into a generally useful analytical <\/em>concept, Acker proposed that feminist social science move in a different direction\u2014a route that was eventually largely accepted and taken up.\u00a0 It\u2019s no exaggeration to suggest that Acker was among a small group of feminist scholars who shifted the conversation in an entire field.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been relying on their suggestion ever since.<\/p>\n

\"BridgesAcker\u2019s short 6-page article was published in the same journal that had published Raewyn Connell\u2019s article, \u201cTheorizing Gender\u201d (1985)<\/a>, which spelled out her initial delineation of the problems with sex role theory and what she labeled \u201ccategoricalism.\u201d Connell was also concerned with how feminist theories of patriarchy failed to differentiate among the categories of \u201cwomen\u201d and \u201cmen\u201d\u2014that is, femininities and masculinities. Judith Stacey and Barrie Thorne\u2019s \u201cThe Missing Feminist Revolution in Sociology\u201d<\/a> (in Social Problems<\/em>) was published that year as well (1985), specifically criticizing sociology for solely including gender as a variable but not as a theoretical construct. Acker (1989a) explained why feminist social scientists ought to follow this trend and shift their focus from patriarchy to gender relations and the construction of gender in social life.\u00a0 As Acker wrote, \u201cFrom asking about how the subordination of women is produced, maintained, and changed we move to questions about how gender is involved in processes and structures that previously have been conceived as having nothing to do with gender\u201d (1989a: 238).\u00a0 And in another piece published in the same year\u2014\u201cMaking Gender Visible\u201d (1989b) in the anthology, Feminism and Sociological Theory<\/em><\/a>\u2014Acker argued for a paradigm shift that would place gender more centrally in understanding social relations as a whole. Acker suggested a feminist theoretical framework that was able to conceptualize how all social relations are gendered\u2014how \u201cgender shapes and is implicated in all kinds of social phenomena\u201d (1989b: 77). Today, this might read as a subtle shift.\u00a0 But it was monumental when Acker proposed it and it helped open the door too much of what we recognize as feminist sociology today.<\/p>\n

Acker published what became her most well-known article\u2014\u201cHierarchies, Jobs, Bodies\u201d<\/a>\u2014in Gender & Society<\/em> (1990) as an illustration of what the type of work she was proposing would look like. \u00a0She was concerned with attempts that simply tacked patriarchy onto existing theories which had been casually treated as though they were gender-neutral.\u00a0 She explained in detail how this assumption is problematic and limits our ability to understand \u201chow deeply patriarchal modes are embedded in our theorizing\u201d (1989: 239).\u00a0 And Acker illustrated this potential in her theorizing about gender in organizations.\u00a0 But her suggestion went far beyond organizational life.<\/p>\n

And by all measures, we took up Acker\u2019s suggestion:\u00a0 \u201cGender,\u201d \u201cgender relations,\u201d and \u201cgender inequality\u201d are now the central foci of sociological theory and research on gender.\u00a0 But Acker also concluded her short 1989 article with a warning.\u00a0 She wrote,<\/p>\n

[T]here is a danger in abandoning the project of patriarchy.\u00a0 In the move to gender, the connections between urgent political issues and theoretical analysis, which made the development of feminist thought possible, may be weakened.\u00a0 Gender lacks the critical-political sharpness of patriarchy and may be more easily assimilated and coopted than patriarchy. (1989a: 239-240)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Certainly, Acker\u2019s concern leads us to honestly ask: Will shifting the theoretical conversation from patriarchy to gender eventually result in simply a cursory consideration of gendered structured inequality? Will the shift to gender actually loosen our connections with conceptualizations of gendered power? We don\u2019t think so but one way to commemorate the legacy of Joan Acker is to both celebrate gender diversity while simultaneously visualizing and practicing gender equality.\u00a0 This means continuing to recognize that inequality is perpetuated by the very organization of society, the structure of social institutions, and the historical contexts which give rise to each.<\/p>\n

___________________________
\nReferences<\/strong>
\nAcker, Joan. 1989a. \u201cThe Problem with Patriarchy.\u201d Sociology<\/em> 23(2): 235-240.
\nAcker, Joan. 1989b. \u201cMaking Gender Visible.\u201d Pp. 65-81 in Wallace, P.A., Ed., Sociological Theory and Feminism<\/em>. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
\nAcker, Joan. 1990. \u201cHierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations.\u201d Gender & Society<\/em> 4(2): 139-158.
\nConnell, Raewyn. 1985. \u201cTheorising Gender.\u201d Sociology<\/em> 19(2): 260-272.
\nStacey, Judith and Barrie Thorne. 1985. \u201cThe Missing Feminist Revolution in Sociology.\u201d Social Problems<\/em> 32(4): 301-316.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally posted at Inequality by (Interior) Design. We\u2019ve read some of the tributes to the feminist sociological genius of Joan Acker.\u00a0 And much of that work has celebrated one specific application of her work. \u00a0For instance, Tristan posted last week on Acker\u2019s most cited article\u2014\u201cHierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations\u201d (1990)\u2014which examined the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1958,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[245,30335,55,35058,26,175,76],"tags":[38008,37898,38006,38007,38004,3497,4182],"class_list":["post-3121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism","category-feminist-sociology","category-gender","category-in-the-news","category-public-sociology","category-sociology","category-work","tag-feminist-social-science","tag-feminist-sociology","tag-gender-and-work","tag-gender-theory","tag-joan-acker","tag-social-justice","tag-sociology-of-gender"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1958"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3121"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3126,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3121\/revisions\/3126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}