Sociological Inquiry

44 ( I ) : 7-13

Women’s Perspective
as a Radical Critique of Sociology*
DOROTHY E. SMITH
University of British Columbia

1. The women’s movement has given us a sense lished sociology by addressing ourselves to what
of our right to have women’s interests represented has been left out, overlooked, or by making socio-
in sociology, rather than just receiving as author- logical issues of the relevances of the world of
itative the interests traditionally represented in a women. That merely extends the authority of
sociology put together by men. What can we the existing sociological procedures and makes
make of this access to a social reality that was of a women’s sociology an addendum. We can-
previously unavailable, was indeed repressed? not rest at that because it does not account for the
What happens as we begin to relate to it in the separation between the two worlds and it does
terms of our discipline? We can of course think not account for or analyze for us the relation
as many d o merely of the addition of courses to between them. (Attempts to work on that in
the existing repertoire-courses on sex roles, on terms of biology operate within the existing struc-
the women’s movement, on women at work, on ture as a fundamental assumption and are there-
the social psychology of women and perhaps fore straightforwardly ideological in character.)
somewhat different versions of the sociology of The first difficulty is that how sociology is
the family. But thinking more boldly or perhaps thought-its methods, conceptual schemes and
just thinking the whole thing through a little theories-has been based on and built up within,
further might bring us to ask first how a sociology the male social universe (even when women have
might look if it began from the point of view of participated in its doing). It has taken for granted
women’s traditional place in it and what happens not just that scheme of relevances as a n itemized
to a sociology which attempts to deal seriously inventory of issues or subject matters (industrial
with that. Following this line of thought, I have sociology, political sociology, social stratifica-
found, has consequences larger than they seem tion, etc.) but the fundamental social and political
at first. structures under which these become relevant and
From the point of view of “women’s place” are ordered. There is a difficulty first then of a
the values assigned to different aspects of the disjunction between how women find and experi-
world are changed. Some come into prominence ence the world beginning (though not necessarily
while other standard sociological enterprises ending up) from their place and the concepts and
diminish. We might take as a model the world theoretical schemes available to think about it in.
as it appears from the point of view of the after- Thus in a graduate seminar last year, we discussed
noon soap opera. This is defined by (though not on one occasion the possibility of a women’s
restricted to) domestic events, interests and sociology and two graduate students told us that
activities. Men appear in this world as necessary in their view and their experience of functioning
and vital presences. It is not a woman’s world in experimental group situations, theories of the
in the sense of excluding men. But it is a emergence of leadership in small groups, etc. just
women’s world in the sense that it is the rele- did not apply to what was happening as they
vances of the women’s place that govern. Men experienced it. They could not find the correlates
appear only in their domestic or private aspects of the theory in their experiences.
o r a t points of intersection between public and A second difficulty is that the two worlds and
private as doctors in hospitals, lawyers in their the two bases of knowledge and experience don’t
offices discussing wills and divorces. Their oc- stand in an equal relation. The world as it is
cupational and political world is barely present. constituted by men stands in authority over that
They are posited here as complete persons, and of women. It is that part of the world from which
they are but partial-as women appear in a sociol- our kind of society is governed and from which
ogy predicated on the universe occupied by men. what happens to us begins. The domestic world
But it is not enough to supplement a n estab- stands in a dependent relation to that other and
its whole character is subordinate to it.
The two difficulties are related to one another
in a special way. The effect of the second inter-
*This paper was originally prepared for the meet- acting with the first is to impose the concepts and
ings of the American Academy for the Advancement
of Science (Pacific Division) Eugene, Oregon, June, terms in which the world of men is thought as
1972. The original draft of this paper was typed by the concepts and terms in which women must
Jane Lemke and the final version by Mildred Brown. think their world. Hence in these terms women
I am indebted to both of them. are alienated from their experience.
8 SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY

The profession of sociology is predicated on a pragmatic procedures of governing as those which

universe which is occupied by men and it is itself frame and identify its subject matter. Issues are
still largely appropriated by men as their “ter- formulated as issues which have become admin-
ritory.” Sociology is part of the practice by which istratively relevant not as they are significant first
we are all governed and that practice establishes in the experience of those who live them. The
its relevances. Thus the institutions which lock kinds of facts and events which are facts for us
sociology into the structures occupied by men are have already been shaped up and given their
the same institutions which lock women into the character and substance as facts, as relations, etc.,
situations in which they find themselves oppressed. by the methods and practice of governing. Men-
To unlock the latter leads logically to an un- tal illness, crimes, riots, violence, work satisfac-
locking of the former. What follows then, or tion, neighbors and neighborhoods, motiva-
rather what then becomes possible-for it is of tion, etc., these are the constructs of the practice
course by no means inevitable-is less a shift in of government. In many instances such as mental
the subject matter than a different conception illness, crimes, neighborhoods, etc., they are con-
of how it is or might become relevant as a means stituted as discrete phenomena primarily by
to understand our experience and the conditions administrative procedures and others arise as
of our experience (both women’s and men’s) in problems in relation to the actual practice of
corporate capitalist society. government, as for example concepts of motiva-
2. When I speak here of governing or ruling I tion, work satisfaction, etc.
mean something more general than the notion of The governing processes of our society are
government as political organization. I refer organized as social entities constituted externally
rather to that total complex of activities differ- to those persons who participate in and perform
entiated into many spheres, by which our kind them. The managers, the bureaucrats, the admin-
of society is ruled, managed, administered. It istrators, are employees, are people who are used.
includes that whole section which in the business They do not own the enterprises or otherwise ap-
world is called “management.” It includes the propriate them. Sociologists study these entities
professions. It includes of course government under the heading of formal organization. They
more conventionally defined and also the activities are put together as objective structures with goals,
of those who are selecting, training and indoc- activities, obligations, etc., other than those which
trinating those who will be its governors. The its employees can have as individuals. The acad-
last includes those who provide and elaborate emic professions are also set up in a mode which
the procedures in which it is governed and develop externalizes them as entities vis-8-vis their practi-
methods for accounting for how it is done and tioners. The body of knowledge which its mem-
predicting and analyzing its characteristic con- bers accumulate is appropriated by the discipline
sequences and sequences of events, namely the as its body. The work of members aims at con-
business schools, the sociologists, the econo- tributing to that body of knowledge.
mists, etc. These are the institutions through As graduate students learning to become sociol-
which we are ruled and through which we, and ogists, we learn to think sociology as it is thought
I emphasize this we, participate in ruling. and to practice it as it is practiced. We learn
Sociology then I conceive as much more than that some topics are relevant and some are not.
ideology, much more than a gloss on the enter- We learn to discard our experienced world as a
prise which justifies and rationalizes it and at the source of reliable information or suggestions
same time as much less than “science.” The about the character of the world; to confine and
governing of our kind of society is done in con- focus our insights within the conceptual frame-
cepts and symbols. The contribution of sociology works and relevances which are given in the
to this is that of working up the conceptual pro- discipline. Should we think other kinds of
cedures, models and methods by which the thoughts or experience the world in a different
immediate and concrete features of experience can way or with edges and horizons that pass beyond
be read into the conceptual mode in which the the conceptual we must practice a discipline which
governing is done. What is actually observed or discards them or find some procedure which
what is systematically recovered by the sociologist makes it possible to sneak them in. We learn a
from the actualities of what people say and do, way of thinking about the world which is recog-
must be transposed into the abstract mode. nizable to its practitioners as the sociological
Sociology thus participates in and contributes to way of thinking.
the formation and facilitation of this mode of We learn to practice the sociological subsump-
action and plays a distinctive part in the work of tion of the actualities of ourselves and of other
transposing the actualities of people’s lives and people. We find out how to treat the world as
experience into the conceptual currency in which instances of a sociological body of knowledge.
it is and can be governed. The procedure operates as a sort of conceptual
Thus the relevances of sociology are organized imperialism. When we write a thesis or a paper,
in terms of a perspective on the world which is a we learn that the first thing to do is to latch it on
view from the top and which takes for granted the to the discipline at some point. This may be by
WOMEN’S PERSPECTIVE AS A RADICAL CRITIQUE OF SOCIOLOGY 9
showing how it is a problem within an existing (the office he writes in, the libraries he consults,
theoretical and conceptual framework. The the streets he travels, the home he returns to)
boundaries of enquiry are thus set within the without any sense of having made a transition.
framework of what is already established. Even He works in the same medium as he studies.
when this becomes, as it happily often does, a But like everyone else he also exists in the
ceremonial authorization of a project which has body in the place in which it is. This is also then
little to do with the theory used to authorize it, the place of his sensory organization of imme-
we still work within the vocabularies and within diate experience, the place where his coordinates
the conceptual boundaries of what we have come of here and now before and after are organized
to know as “the sociological perspective.” around himself as centre; the place where he
An important set of procedures which serve to confronts people face to face in the physical mode
constitute the body of knowledge of the discipline in which he expresses himself to them and they
as something which is separated from its practi- to him as more and other than either can speak.
tioners are those known as “objectivity.” The It is in this place that things smell. The irrelevant
ethic of objectivity and the methods used in its birds fly away in front of the window. Here he
practice are concerned primarily with the separa- has indigestion. It is a place he dies in. Into this
tion of the knower from what he knows and in space must come as actual material events,
particular with the separation of what is known whether as the sounds of speech, the scratchings
from any interests, ”biases,” etc., which he may on the surface of paper which he constitutes as
have which are not the interests and concerns document, or directly anything he knows of the
authorized by the discipline. I must emphasize world. It has to happen here somehow if he is to
that being interested in knowing something experience it at all.
doesn’t invalidate what is known. In the social Entering the governing mode of our kind of
sciences the pursuit of objectivity makes it pos- society lifts the actor out of the immediate local
sible for people to be paid to pursue a knowledge and particular place in which he is in the body.
to which they are otherwise indifferent. What He uses what becomes present to him in this place
they feel and think about society can be taken as a means to pass beyond it to the conceptual
apart from and kept out of what they are profes- order. This mode of action creates then a bifurca-
sionally or academically interested in. tion of consciousness, a bifurcation of course
which is there for all those who participate
3. The sociologist enters the conceptually ordered in this mode of action. It establishes two
society when he goes to work. He enters it as a modes of knowing and experiencing and doing,
member and he enters it also as the mode in one located in the body and in the space which
which he investigates it. He observes, analyzes, it occupies and moves into, the other which
explains and examines as if there were no problem
in how that world becomes observable to him. passes beyond it. Sociology is written in and aims
at this second mode. Vide Bierstedt
He moves among the doings of organizations,
governmental processes, bureaucracies, etc., as a Sociology can liberate the mind from time and
person who is at home in that medium. The space themselves and remove it to a new and tran-
nature of that world itself, how it is known to scendental realm where it no longer depends upon
him and the conditions of its existence or his these Aristotelian categories. (1966)
relation to it are not called into question. His
methods of observation and inquiry extend into Even observational work aims at its description
it as procedures which are essentially of the same in the categories and hence conceptual forms of
order as those which bring about the phenomena the “transcendental realm.”
with which he is concerned, or which he is con- 4. Women are outside and subservient to this
cerned to bring under the jurisdiction of that structure. They have a very specific relation to
order. His perspectives and interests may differ, it which anchors them into the local and partic-
but the substance is the same. He works with ular phase of the bifurcated world. For both
facts and information which have been worked traditionally and as a matter of occupational
up from actualities and appear in the form of practices in our society, the governing conceptual
documents which are themselves the product of mode is appropriated by men and the world
organizational processes, whether his own or organized in the natural attitude, the home, is
administered by him, or of some other agency. appropriated by (or assigned to) women (Smith,
He fits that information back into a framework 1973).
of entities and organizational processes which he It is a condition of a man’s being able to enter
takes for granted as known, without asking how and become absorbed in the conceptual mode
it is that he knows them or what are the social that he does not have to focus his activities and
processes by which the phenomena which cor- interests upon his bodily existence. If he is to
respond to or provide the empirical events, acts, participate fully in the abstract mode of action,
decisions, etc., of that world, may be recognized. then he must be liberated also from having to
H e passes beyond the particular and immediate attend to his needs, etc. in the concrete and
setting in which he is always located in the body particular. The organization of work and ex-
10 SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY

pectations in managerial and professional circles aries of an experience in the same medium in
both constitutes and depends upon the alienation which it is constituted. It therefore takes for
of man from his bodily and local existence. The granted and subsumes without examining the
structure of work and the structure of career take conditions of its existence. It is not capable
for granted that these matters are provided for in of analyzing its own relation to its conditions
such a way that they will not interfere with his because the sociologist as actual person in an
action and participation in that world. Providing actual concrete setting has been cancelled in the
for the liberation from the Aristotelian cate- procedures which objectify and separate him from
gories of which Bierstedt speaks, is a woman who his knowledge. Thus the linkage which points
keeps house for him, bears and cares for his back to its conditions is lacking.
children, washes his clothes, looks after him when For women those conditions are central as a
he is sick and generally provides for the logistics direct practical matter, to be somehow solved in
of his bodily existence. the decision to take up a sociological career. The
The place of women then in relation to this relation between ourselves as practicing sociol-
mode of action is that where the work is done to ogists and ourselves as working women is con-
create conditions which facilitate his occupation tinually visible to us, a central feature of experi-
of the conceptual mode of consciousness. The ence of the world, so that the bifurcation of
meeting of a man’s physical needs, the organiza- consciousness becomes for us a daily chasm which
tion of his daily life, even the consistency of is to be crossed, on the one side of which is this
expressive background, are made maximally con- special conceptual activity of thought, research,
gruent with his commitment. A similar relation teaching, administration and on the other the
exists for women who work in and around the world of concrete practical activities in keeping
professional and managerial scene. They d o things clean, managing somehow the house and
those things which give concrete form to the household and the children a world in which the
conceptual activities. They d o the clerical work, particularities of persons in their full organic
the computer programming, the interviewing for immediacy (cleaning up the vomit, changing the
the survey, the nursing, the secretarial work. A t diapers, as well as feeding) are inescapable. Even
almost every point women mediate for men the if we don’t have that as a direct contingency in
relation between the conceptual mode of action our lives, we are aware of that as something that
and the actual concrete forms in which it is and our becoming may be inserted into as a possible
must be rcalized, and the actual material con- predicate.
ditions upon which it depends. It is also present for us to discover that the
Marx’s concept of alienation is applicable discipline is not one which we enter and occupy
here in a modified form. The simplest formula- on the same terms as men enter and occupy it.
tion of alienation posits a relation between the We d o not fully appropriate its authority, i.e., the
work an individual does and an external order right to author and authorize the acts and know-
which oppresses her, such that the harder she ing and thinking which are the acts and knowing
works the more she strengthens the order which and thinking of the discipline as it is thought,
oppresses her. This is the situation of women in We cannot therefore command the inner prin-
this relation. The more successful women are in ciples of our action. That remains lodged outside
mediating the world of concrete particulars so us. The frames of reference which order the
that men do not have to become engaged with terms upon which inquiry and discussion are con-
(and therefore conscious of) that world as a con- ducted originate with men. The subjects of
dition to their abstract activities, the more com- sociological sentences (if they have a subject) are
plete man’s absorption in it, the more effective male. The sociologist is “he.” And even before
the authority of that world and the more total we become conscious of our sex as the basis of
women’s subservience to it. And also the more an exclusion (they are not talking about us), we
complete the dichotomy between the two worlds, nonetheless do not fully enter ourselves as the
and the estrangement between them. subjects of its statements, since we must suspend
5. Women sociologists stand at the centre of a our sex, and suspend our knowledge of who we
contradiction in the relation of our discipline to are as well as who it is that in fact is speaking and
our experience of the world. Transcending that of whom. Therefore we d o not fully participate
contradiction means setting up a different kind in the declarations and formulations of its mode
of relation than that which we discover in the of consciousness. The externalization of sociol-
routine practice of our worlds. ogy as a profession which I have described above
The theories, concepts and methods of our becomes for women a double estrangement.
discipline claim to account for, or to be capable There is then for women a basic organization
of accounting for and analyzing the same world of their experience which displays for them the
as that which we experience directly. But these structure of the bifurcated consciousness. At the
theories, concepts and methods have been organ- same time it attenuates their commitment to a
ized around and built up out of a way of know- sociology which aims at an externalized body of
ing the world which takes for granted the bound- knowledge based on an organization of experi-
WOMEN’S PERSPECTIVE AS A RADICAL CRITIQUE OF SOCIOLOGY 11
ence which excludes theirs and excludes them observation, of sociologist to “subject,” is a
except in a subordinate relation. specialized social relationship. Even to be a
6. An alternative approach must somehow stranger is to enter a world constituted from
transcend this contradiction without re-entering within as strange. The strangeness itself is the
Bierstedt’s “transcendental realm” (1 966). Wom- mode in which it is experienced.
en’s perspective, as I have analyzed it here, dis- When Jean Briggs (1970) made her ethno-
credits sociology’s claim to constitute an objective graphic study of the ways in which an Eskimo
knowledge independent of the sociologist’s situa- people structure and express emotion, what she
tion. Its conceptual procedures, methods and learned and observed emerged for her in the
relevances are seen to organize its subject matter context of the actual developing relations between
from a determinate position in society. This her and the family with whom she lived and other
critical disclosure becomes then the basis for an members of the group. Her account situates her
alternative way of thinking sociology. If sociol- knowledge in the context of those relationships.
ogy cannot avoid being situated, then sociology Affections, tensions, and quarrels were the living
should take that as its beginning and build it into texture in which she learnt what she describes.
its methodological and theoretical strategies. As She makes it clear how this context structured
it is now, these separate a sociologically con- her learning and how what she learnt and can
structed world from that which is known in speak of became observable to her. Briggs tells
direct experience and it is precisely that separation us what is normally discarded in the anthropo-
which must be undone. logical or sociological telling. Although socio-
I am not proposing an immediate and radical logical inquiry is necessarily a social relation, we
transformation of the subject matter and methods have learned to disattend our own part in it. We
of the discipline nor the junking of everything recover only the object of its knowledge as if that
that has gone before. What I am suggesting is stood all by itself and of itself. Sociology does
more in the nature of a re-organization which not provide for seeing that there are always two
changes the relation of the sociologist to the terms to this relation. An alternative sociology
object of her knowledge and changes also her must be reflexive (Gouldner, 1971), i.e., one that
problematic. This re-organization involves first preserves in it the presence, concerns and experi-
placing the sociologist where she is actually ence of the sociologist as knower and discoverer.
situated, namely at the beginning of those acts To begin from direct experience and to return
by which she knows or will come to know; and to it as a constraint or “test” of the adequacy of
second, making her direct experience of the a systematic knowledge is to begin from where we
everyday world the primary ground of her are located bodily. The actualities of our every-
knowledge. day world are already socially organized. Settings,
We would reject, it seems to me, a sociology equipment, “environment,” schedules, occa-
aimed primarily at itself. We would not be inter- sions, etc., as well as the enterprises and routines
ested in contributing to a body of knowledge the of actors are socially produced and concretely
uses of which are not ours and the knowers of and symbolically organized prior to our practice.
whom are who knows whom, but generally male By beginning from her original and immediate
-particularly when it is not at all clear what it is knowledge of her world, sociology offers a way
that is constituted as knowledge in that relation. of making its socially organized properties first
The professional sociologist’s practice of thinking observable and then problematic.
it as it is thought would have to be discarded. She Let me make it clear that when I speak of
would be constrained by the actualities of how it “experience” I do not use the term as a synonym
happens in her direct experience. Sociology for “perspective.” Nor in proposing a sociology
would aim at offering to anyone a knowledge grounded in the sociologist’s actual experience,
of the social organization and determinations of am I recommending the self-indulgence of inner
the properties and events of their directly experi- exploration or any other enterprise with self as
enced world. Its analyses would become part of sole focus and object. Such subjectivist inter-
our ordinary interpretations of the experienced pretations of “experience” are themselves an
world, just as our experience of the sun’s sinking aspect of that organization of consciousness which
below the horizon is transformed by our knowl- bifurcates it and transports US into mind country
edge that the world turns. (Yet from where we while stashing away the concrete conditions and
are it seems to sink and that must be accounted practices upon which it depends. We can never
for.) sscape the circles of our own heads if we accept
The only way of knowing a socially constructed that as our territory. Rather the sociologist’s
world is knowing it from within. We can never investigation of our directly experienced world
stand outside it. A relation in which sociological as a problem is a mode of discovering or redis-
phenomena are objectified and presented as ex- covering the society from within. She begins from
ternal to and independent of the observer is her own original but tacit knowledge and from
itself a special social practice also known from within the acts by which she brings it into her
within. The relation of observer and object of grasp in making it observable and in understand-
12 SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY

ing how it works. She aims not at a reiteration ceptual procedures should be capable of explicat-
of what she already (tacitly) knows, but at a n ing and analyzing the properties of their experi-
exploration through that of what passes beyond enced world rather than administering it. Their
it and is deeply implicated in how it is. reality, their varieties of experience must be an
7. Our knowledge of the world is given to us unconditional datum.
in the modes we enter into relations with the 8. My experience in the train epitomizes a socio-
object of knowledge. But in this case the object logical relation. The observer is already separated
of our knowledge is or originates in a “subject.” from the world as it is experienced by those she
The constitution of an objective sociology as a n observes. That separation is fundamental to the
authoritative version of how things are is done character of that experience. Once she becomes
from a position and as part of the practices of aware of how her world is put together as a
ruling in our kind of society. It has depended practical everyday matter and of how her rela-
upon class and sex bases which make it possible tions are shaped by its concrete conditions (even
for sociology to evade the problem that our kind in so simple a matter as that she is sitting in the
of society is known and experienced rather dif- train and it travels, but those people standing on
ferently from different positions within it. Our the spur do not) the sociologist is led into the
training teaches us to ignore the uneasiness at the discovery that she cannot understand the nature
junctures where transitional work is done-for of her experienced world by staying within its
example, the ordinary problems respondents have ordinary boundaries of assumption and knowl-
of fitting their experience of the world to the edge. To account for that moment on the train
questions in the interview schedule. It is this and for the relation between the two experiences
exclusion which the sociologist who is a woman (or more) and the two positions from which those
cannot so easily preserve, for she discovers, if she experiences begin involves positing a total socio-
will, precisely that uneasiness in her relation to economic order “in back” of that moment. The
her discipline as a whole. The persistence of the coming together which makes the observation
privileged sociological version (or versions) reIies possibIe as well as how we were separated and
upon a substructure which has already discredited drawn apart as well as how I now make use of
and deprived of authority to speak, the voices of that here-these properties are determined else-
those who know the society differently. The where than in that relation itself.
objectivity of a sociological version depends upon Further how our knowledge of the world is
a special relation with others which makes it easy mediated to us becomes a problem. It is a prob-
for the sociologist to remain outside the other’s lem in knowing how that world is organized for
experience and does not require her to recognize us prior to our participation as knowers in that
that experience as a valid contention. process. As intellectuals we ordinarily receive it
Riding a train not long ago in Ontario I saw as a media world, of documents, images, journals,
a family of Indians, woman, man, and three books, talk as well as in other symbolic modes.
children standing together on a spur above a We discard as an essential focus of our practice
river watching the train go by. There was (for other ways of knowing. Accounting for that
me) that moment-the train, those five people mode of knowing and the social organization
seen on the other side of the glass. I saw first which sets it up for us again leads us back into
that I could tell this incident as it was, but that an analysis of the total socio-economic order of
telling as a description built in my position and which it is part. It is not possible to account
my interpretations. I have called them a family; for one’s directly experienced world or how it is
I have said they were watching the train. My related to the worlds which others directly ex-
understanding has already subsumed theirs. perience who are differently placed by remaining
Everything may have been quite other for them. within the boundaries of the former.
My description is privileged to stand as what If we address the probiem of the conditions as
actually happened, because theirs is not heard well as the perceived forms and organization of
in the contexts in which I may speak. If we immediate experience, we should include in it the
begin from the world as we actually experience it, events as they actually happen or the ordinary
it is at least possible to see that we are located and material world which we encounter as a matter
that what we know of the other is conditional of fact-the urban renewal project which uproots
upon that location as part of a relation com- 400 families; how it is to live on welfare as an
prehending the other’s location also. There are ordinary daily practice; cities as the actual
and must be different experiences of the world physical structures in which we move; the organ-
and different bases of experience. We must not ization of academic occasions such as that in
do away with them by taking advantage of our which this paper originated. When we examine
privileged speaking to construct a sociological them, we find that there are many aspects of
version which we then impose upon them as their how these things come about of which we have
reality. We may not rewrite the other’s world or little as sociologists to say. We have a sense that
impose upon it a conceptual framework which the events which enter our experience originate
extracts from it what fits with ours. Our con- somewhere in a human intention, but we are
WOMEN’S PERSPECTIVE AS A RADICAL CRITIQUE OF SOCIOLOGY 13

unable to track back to find it and to find out one of understanding how the world comes about
how it got from there to here. Or take this room for her and how it is organized so that it hap-
in which I work or that room in which you are pens to her as it does in her experience.
reading and treat that as a problem. If we think 9. Though such a sociology would not be ex-
about the conditions of our activity here, we clusively for or done by women it does begin
could track back to how it is that there are from the analysis and critique originating in their
chairs, table, walls, our clothing, our presence; situation. Its elaboration therefore depends upon
how these places (yours and mine) are cleaned a grasp of that which is prior to and fuller than
and maintained, etc. There are human activities, its formulation. It is a little like the problem of
intentions, and relations which are not apparent making a formal description of the grammar of a
as such in the actual material conditions of our language. The linguist depends and always refers
work. The social organization of the setting is back to the competent speakers’ sense of what is
not wholly available to us in its appearance. We correct usage, what makes sense, etc. In her own
bypass in the immediacy of the specific practical language she depends to a large extent upon her
activity, a complex division of labor which is an own competence. Women are native speakers of
essential precondition to it. Such pre-conditions this situation and in explicating it or its implica-
are fundamentally mysterious to us and present tions and realizing them conceptually, they have
us with problems in grasping social relations in that relation to it of knowing it before it has been
our kind of society with which sociology is ill said.
equipped to deal. Our experience of the world The incomprehensibility of the determinations
is of one which is largely incomprehensible of our immediate local world is for women a
beyond the limits of what is known in a common particularly striking metaphor. It recovers an
sense. No amount of observation of face-to-face inner organization in common with their typical
relations, no amount of analysis of commonsense relation to the world. For women’s activities and
knowledge of everyday life, will take us beyond existence are determined outside them and beyond
our essential ignorance of how it is put together. the world which is their “place.” They are
Our direct experience of it constitutes it (if we oriented by their training and by the daily prac-
will) as a problem, but it does not offer any tices which confirm it, towards the demands and
answers. The matrix of direct experience as that initiations and authority of others. But more than
from which sociology might begin discloses that that, the very organization of the world which
beginning as an “appearance” the determinations has been assigned to them as the primary locus of
of which lie beyond it. their being is determined by and subordinate to
We might think of the “appearances” of our the corporate organization of society (Smith,
direct experience as a multiplicity of surfaces, the 1973). Thus as I have expressed her relation to
properties and relations among which are gen- sociology, its logic lies elsewhere. She lacks the
erated by a social organization which is not inner principle of her own activity. She does not
observable in its effects. The structures which grasp how it is put together because it is deter-
underlie and generate the characteristics of our mined elsewhere than where she is. As a sociol-
own directly experienced world are social struc- ogist then the grasp and exploration of her own
tures and bring us into unseen relations with experience as a method of discovering society
others. Their experience is necessarily different restores to her a centre which in this enterprise
from ours. Beginning from our experienced at least is wholly hers.
world and attempting to analyze and account for
how it is, necessitates positing others whose
experience is different.
Women’s situation in sociology discloses to her REFERENCES
a typical bifurcate structure with the abstracted
conceptual practices on the one hand and the con- Briggs, lean L.
1970 Never in Anger. Cambridge,- Mass.: Harvard
crete realizations, the maintenance routines, etc., on University press.
the other, Taking each for granted depends upon Bierstedt, Robert
being fully situated in one or the other so that the 1966 “Sociology and general education.” In Charles
other does not appear in contradiction to it. H. Page (ed), Sociology and Contemporary
Women’s direct experience places her a step back Education, New York: Random House.
where we can recognize the uneasiness that comes Gouldner, Alvin
in sociology from its claim to be about the world 1971 The Coming Crisis in Western Sociology.
we live in and its failure to account for or even London: Heinemann Educational Books.
describe its actual features as we find them in Smith, Dorothy E.
living them. The aim of an alternative sociology 1973 “Women, the family and corporate capital-
would be to develop precisely that capacity from ism.” In M. L. Stephenson (ed.). Women in
that beginning so that it might be a means to any- Canada, Toronto: Newpress.