A feminist sociological imagination? Reading Ann Oakley

Abstract

A feminist sociological imagination? Reading Ann OakleyAnn Oakley has achieved more in the last eight years than most of us will during our professional lives.Forever productive, she has written seven books, edited (with Juliet Mitchell) an eighth, and authored an impressive number of articles -about forty, to date.Her books have been translated into foreign languages, and those selling in Britain may be found on the shelves of a wide cross-section of the paperback buying public.Ann Oakley has crossed the Styx surrounding academic scholarship and become a household name.One could go on.There have been articles in the quality newspapers about her and her work, while her books are standard texts on a large number of courses, both here and in the United States.This kind of productivity and success leaves the reviewer with a daunting task.Questions which one might raise about her contribution to the discipline may seem rather petty in the face of the fullblown enthusiasm from reviewers.Nevertheless, what I should like to do in this review, by concentrating upon her writing relating to childbirth, is to evaluate her work in academic terms.I have left this rather broad because I think that despite the obvious orientation of this joumal, one cannot view Ann Oakley's writings within a narrowly sociological focus.She is, as the published information is eager to reveal, a 'feminist writer, researcher, sociologist and a mother'.The order is significant.Reviewing collections by feminist sociologists, Ann Oakley remarked that for her, the 'most interesting pieces are those which combine original research with a critical attitude toward mainstream sociology's (or anthropology's) definition of a woman's place' (Oakley, 1979a(Oakley, , p. 1260)), and I think this tells us much about her own priorities and ambitions as a professional.Ann Oakley's work has always focused upon topics of essential importance to women; specifically, she has been concemed with exploring and delineating the female experience of living in a patriarchal, capitalist society where women's contribution to the overall production was and remains so often neglected.Thus her first empirical study, undertaken as a postgraduate at Bedford College, London, plucked the housewife out of her obscurity and revealed the full extent of her vacuous and unhappy existence.There had been other studies, but 14679566, 1983, 1,

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