Chapter 3- Textbook Flashcards
What are the 8 contemporary social theories?
- Western Marxism
- Second-wave feminism
- Third-wave feminist
- Post-structuralist theory
- Queer theory
- Post-colonial theory
- Critical race theory
- Globalization
What does western marxism refer to?
the rule of the dominant class involves ideological control and consent
Who is the leading theorist behind western marxism?
antonio gramsci
What dod Gramsci accept about Marx’s analysis and what did he diverge from?
Accepted Marx’s analysis of the struggle between the ruling class and the working class, but he diverged from Marx in his analysis of how the ruling class ruled.
How did Marx explain how the ruling class domination and how did Gramsci believing the ruling class dominated?
Marx explained the ruling class dominated through force and coercion, using the police and military. Absent from this analysis, acc. to Gramsci, was consideration of the ruling class’s subtle, yet insidious, ideological control and manipulation.
What two different forms of political control exist acc. to Gramsci?
domination and hegemony
What is domination?
direct physical coercion exerted by police and military to maintains social boundaries and enforce social rules.
What is hegemony?
domination through ideological control and consent. -ideological control means that society's dominant ideas reflect the ruling class and help mask social inequalities.
To enjoy longevity and stability of rule, a regime must have the___of the masses.
allegiance.
How does hegemony of the dominant group’s ideas and cultural forms work?
by bringing about the consent of the subordinate class.
What did Gramsci separate the superstructure into?
state (coerce institutions–police) and civil society (schools, religion, etc.)
Whose role did Gramsci focus on when looking at what established hegemony? What happens through them?
Focused on the role civil society plays. Through them, the population internalizes the ruling class’s ideas which become common sense.
Hegemony is a process that is constantly___and___.
negotiated and renegotiated
Can the ruling class take hegemony for granted? Why?
No they can’t because consent secured is active consent, to secure, ruling class incorporates elements of subordinate class’s culture so they don’t feel suppressed.
How is hegemony used in the TV show Will and Grace?
- Will–serious and seen as heterosexual
- Fact that Will and Grace lived together
- Easily forget that will was a gay man
- Show did little to challenge heterosexual hegemony of ruling class
What is hegemony used to explain in regards to particular features of social organizations?
How particular features of social organizations are taken for granted and treated as common sense.
Is here one single feminist theory?
No
-While they differ in their explanations of women’s oppression and nature of gender and ideas about women’s emancipation, they still have at their core a concern for gender oppression.
Who was the leading theorist behind second-wave feminism?
Dorothy Smith
What is the key insight into second-wave feminism?
Women’s common experiences could be used as the basis for a political project of emancipation.
When was first wave feminism and what was the major accomplishment?
mid 1800s-just after WWI with the citron of the right to vote –> “The Persons Case” –> women defined as “persons”.
What is second-wave feminism characterized by an understanding of women as?
a coherent social group with a common experience as women–as victims of sexist oppression and patriarchy.
In second-wave feminism, was gender oppression conceived as being the same or different for all women?
the same
What is patriarchy?
A pervasive and complex social and cultural system of male dominance.
What does Dorothy Smith recognize that women share?
domination by man
What does Dorothy Smith have a desire to produce?
sociology for women
What is Dorothy Smith’s central concern?
- gendered character of he social production of knowledge
- critical of classical sociological approaches as endocentric (male centric)
What concept does Dorothy Smith use to indicate the “socially-organized exercise of power that shapes people’s actions and their lives”?
ruling
What are ruling relations?
organized relations (professions, corporations, etc.) that exist in a generalized form and work to coordinate from outside the local sites of our bodies, what people do (their actions)
Dorothy Smith believes that we need to know and understand what is not___from our individual locations –> make___the social relations that frame the conditions of our experiences.
- visible
- visible
How does Smith’s approach differ from that of macrosociology?
Macrosociology tends to produce accounts of social processes as if they were external to the individual because the kind of sociology she envisions can provide an account of social relations that may transform women into active social agents.
How does Smith’s approach differ from microsociology?
Microsociology is rooted in the microcosms of daily. Rather Smith wants to produce an account that tells people how things happen that go beyond the local sites of their experiences.
In summary, what kind of sociology is Smith interest in?
a sociology that can show people how the relations of the ruling shape their lives.
What is one of the major critiques levied agains second-wave theorizing?
Is that the singular voice that supposedly represents all women is really the voice of white, middle-class, heterosexual, educated women.
What do third-wave feminists believe is needed?
attention to the multiplicity of women’s voices and the emphasize the need for greater acceptance of complexities, ambiguities, and multiple locations
Third-wave feminists are interested inc reading space for feminism that takes up difference based on ___, ___, ___, etc.
- race
- social class
- sexuality
Who is the leading theorist behind third-wave feminist?
bell hooks
What did bell hooks argue?
That no one in the 1960s civil rights or women’s movements paid attention to black women’s lives and that when people talk about blacks, they focus on black men, and when people talk about women, they focus on white women.
Why did bell hooks criticize feminist theorizing that automatically positions households as places of patriarchal oppression for women?
Such position is based on the assumption that gender segregation exists in the labour market in capitalist societies, but hooks believed that households are places of refugee from racism.
What is the key insight into post-structuralist theory?
Power is productive–it produces particular forms of behaviour. The production of knowledge cannot stand outside of power relations.
What does post-structuralist theory argue?
that scientific knowledge or ideas about absolute “truth” cannot stand outside power relations.
What are post-structuralists concerned with in regards to knowledge?
How it is socially produced.
Who is the leading theorist behind post-structuralist theory?
Michel Foucault
What was Foucault interested in?
the ways that power and knowledge work together
Why did Foucault criticize Marxism?
For emphasizing class and the political economy as being the key principles in social organization. This emphasis meant that struggles based on race, gender, and sexuality were marginalized.
What is Foucault’s greatest contributions to post-structuralist thought?
His rethinking of power
What does Foucault refer to Marxist theory of power as? What does this mean?
- Repressive hypothesis
- Oppression (holds that truth is opposed to power). Views “truth” as something that can be produced outside of power relations.
According to Foucault, what is/is not power (how does he view power relations as being created)?
Power is not a thing posses by one individual over another–he views power relations as being created within social relationships.
What does Foucault think power is linked with?
knowledge
Foucault believes that ___and___are contextual–they can never be separated from the relations of power that they are produced with.
truths and facts