The Feminist Critique of Mainstream/Malestream Sociology

About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about feminist critiques of traditional, sometimes called malestream, sociology, focusing in particular on: (i) the characteristics of early, male-dominated social research, such as its emphasis on male experiences and the public sphere and its use of positivist methods; (ii) criticisms of positivist methods in sociology with the arrival of greater numbers of women in academia from the mid-twentieth century; (iii) key feminist critiques of traditional research; (iv) the emphasis in feminist research on the research process, and on producing knowledge which contributes to social change.

About the lecturer

Professor Gayle Letherby is Honorary Professor of Sociology at the University of Plymouth. Her areas of interest include social research methods, particularly feminist methodologies, and the sociology of the family. She is co-author of Introduction to Gender: Social Science Perspectives (2014) and Objectivity and Subjectivity in Social Research (2013), and author of Feminist Research in Theory and Practice (2003).