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Dorothy Smith
Dorothy Smith (1926-2022)
- Dorothy Smith was a British-Canadian sociologist and feminist studies scholar, best known for her ethnography and the development of core feminist theories.
- Smith received her Ph.D. in Sociology in 1963 from the University of California, Berkeley, where she would later become a lecturer. She was the only woman in a 44 person faculty.
- Smith developed standpoint theory (coined by Sandra Harding), which posits that what one knows is impacted by their position in society
Background
Standpoint Theory
Major tenents of standpoint theory:
1. No one can have complete and objective knowledge
2. No two people can have exactly the same standpoint
3. We must not take our own standpoint for granted.
What do you think about this? Could you see
any potential objections?
Standpoint Theory
"The only way of knowing a socially constructed world, is knowing it from within."
- Analyzes women’s position in society, ruling, and sociology
- Heavily influenced by Marx and alienation
- Argues that creating women’s sociology around what has been previously overlooked makes women an addendum rather than part of the established study
- Bifurcated Consciousness
- Influenced by Double Consciousness (DuBois)
- Women must live a “double life” within patriarchal society
- Women socialize differently within personal life and society
Conceptual Practices of Power
"Women's Work"
“Women’s” work is typically rooted in the abstract and conceptual (Smith), and a male dominated world ignores the lives (or “world”) of women.
Women’s work is not valued because it is feminized or ignored.
Because traditionally women’s work (ex. Running of household, reproductive work, etc.) is devalued, in society women are not treated as capable of “ruling” and their issues are separated from that of men or greater society.