Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Doing gender wikipedia , lookup
Sociology of culture wikipedia , lookup
Postdevelopment theory wikipedia , lookup
Public sociology wikipedia , lookup
Sociological theory wikipedia , lookup
Feminist theory wikipedia , lookup
Sociology of knowledge wikipedia , lookup
Sociology of the family wikipedia , lookup
Index of sociology articles wikipedia , lookup
The Heterosexual Imaginary: Feminist Sociology and Theories of Gender Author(s): Chrys Ingraham Source: Sociological Theory, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Jul., 1994), pp. 203-219 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/201865 Accessed: 24/10/2010 20:29 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asa. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. John Wiley & Sons and American Sociological Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Sociological Theory. http://www.jstor.org The Heterosexual Imaginary: Feminist Sociology and Theories of Gender* CHRYS INGRAHAM Russell Sage College This essay argues that the material conditions of capitalist patriarchal societies are more integrally linked to institutionalizedheterosexuality than they are to gender. Building on the critical strategies of early feminist sociology through the articulation of a materialist feminist theoretical framework, the author provides a critique of contemporarysex-gendertheory.She argues that the heterosexualimaginaryinfeminist sociological theories of gender conceals the operationof heterosexualityin structuring gender and closes off any critical analysis of heterosexuality as an organizing institution. ? . . every sociological concept and thesis, as well as the overall patterning of these concepts and theses, is potentially open for reconsideration. . . With the emergence of feminist sociological theory, the critical emphases in sociology are strengthenedby an insistence that sociological work be critical and change-oriented... in an intensely reflexiveway towardssociology itself (Lengermannand Niebrugge-Brantley1990:318). We mustproduce a political transformationof the key concepts, that is of the concepts which are strategicfor us (Wittig 1992:30). Feminist sociology, once at the vanguard of academic feminism, is showing signs of losing its conceptual and political edge. Feminists once sought to effect transformative social change by making visible the investment of sociology in practices contributing to the reproduction of gender inequality and relations of ruling.1 But in the 20 years since feminists announced the need for sociology to attend to gender as an organizing social category, gender studies have been gradually canonized; more than that, the founding concept, gender, has come to be taken as obvious. From textbooks to research studies to theory, there is little or no debate over what is meant by gender. In this essay I make the argument that feminist sociological understandings of gender need to be reexamined for the ways in which they participate in the reproduction of what I call "the heterosexual imaginary." The "imaginary" is a Lacanian term borrowed by Louis Althusser for his theory of ideology. Defining ideology as "the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence" (1971:52), Althusser argues that the imaginary is that image or representation of reality which masks the historical and material conditions of life. The heterosexual imaginary is that way of thinking which conceals the operation of heterosexuality in structuring gender and closes off any critical analysis of heterosexuality as an * I would like to express my appreciationto Steve Seidman for his kindness and courage. His hardwork and dedication, from conception to completion, made this symposium possible. Additional considerationgoes to Alan Sica and the editorial board for their commitment to the advancementof all knowledges in sociology. And, finally, I would like to thankRosemaryHennessy for her keen theoreticalinsights and unwaveringsupport. Address all correspondenceto Chrys Ingraham,Russell Sage College, Departmentof Sociology and Criminal Justice, Troy, NY 12180. 1 The phraserelations of ruling can be attributedto DorothySmith. Accordingto Smith, "'Relationsof ruling' is a concept that grasps power, organization, direction, and regulationas more pervasively structuredthan can be expressedin traditionalconcepts providedby the discoursesof power. I have come to see a specific interrelation between the dynamic advance of the distinctive forms of organizingand ruling contemporarycapitalist society and the patriarchalforms of our contemporaryexperience"(1987:3). Sociological Theory 12:2 July 1994 ? AmericanSociological Association. 1722 N Street NW, Washington,DC 20036 204 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY organizing institution. The effect of this depiction of reality is that heterosexualitycirculates as taken for granted, naturallyoccurring, and unquestioned,while gender is understood as socially constructedand central to the organizationof everyday life. Feminist studies of marriage,family, and sexual violence (which might seem to cover this ground) invariably depend upon the heterosexual imaginary deployed in a variety of heteronormative assumptions. Heteronormativity-the view that institutionalizedheterosexuality constitutes the standardfor legitimate and prescriptivesociosexual arrangements-represents one of the main premises not only of feminist sociology but of the discipline in general. As such, it underlies and defines the direction taken by feminist sociology and by gender studies in particular. If this is to change, feminist sociology must develop a critique of institutionalized heterosexualitywhich does not participatein the heterosexualimaginary.To interruptthe ways in which the heterosexual imaginary naturalizesheterosexualityand conceals its constructednessin the illusion of universalityrequiresa systemic analysis of the ways in which it is historicallyimbricatedin the distributionof economic resources,culturalpower, and social control. It will be the work of this essay to call for a reconsiderationof gender as the key organizing concept of feminist sociology. The main argumentof this article is that the materialconditions of capitalist patriarchalsocieties are more centrally linked to institutionalizedheterosexualitythan to gender and, moreover,that gender (underthe patriarchal arrangementsprevailingnow) is inextricablyboundup with heterosexuality.Rearticulating some of the critical strategies of early feminist sociology within a materialistfeminist framework,it is possible to both redressand disruptthe heterosexualimaginarycirculating in contemporarygender theory. Gender, or what I would call "heterogenders,"is the asymmetricalstratificationof the sexes in relation to the historically varying institutions of patriarchalheterosexuality. Reframinggender as heterogenderforegroundsthe relation between heterosexualityand gender. Heterogenderconfronts the equation of heterosexualitywith the natural and of gender with the cultural, and suggests that both are socially constructed, open to other configurations (not only opposites and binary), and open to change. As a materialist feminist concept, heterogenderde-naturalizesthe "sexual"as the startingpoint for understanding heterosexuality, and connects institutionalizedheterosexualitywith the gender division of labor and the patriarchalrelationsof production. MATERIALISTFEMINISTCRITIQUE Materialist feminism developed in response to a series of global social changes and associatedcritical currentsin intellectualand political work. Westernmaterialistor marxist feminists attemptedto expose and disruptthe interfaceof patriarchalsocial structureswith multinational(particularlyU.S.) corporatecapitalism'sexpandingsphere of accumulation and exploitation (Barrett1980; Hennessy and Mohan 1989; Kuhn and Wolpe 1978; Mies 1986). Complaintsabout the global effects of patriarchyand capitalismprovokedprotests from non-western or U.S. Third World feminists about western feminism's own racist, classist, and colonialist assumptions in attemptingto "speak for" all women (Minh-ha 1989; Mohanty 1988; Sandoval 1991; Spivak 1985, 1988). These criticisms were buttressed by escalating claims in the west that feminism privileged the interests of white, middle-class, heterosexualwomen at the expense of an emancipatoryprojectwhich could intervene in white supremacist, classist, and heterosexist social arrangements(E. Brown 1989; R. Brown 1976; Bunch 1976; Carby1982; Collins 1991; CombaheeRiver Collective 1983; Davis 1981; Giddings 1984; hooks [sic] 1984; Lugones 1989; Moraga 1986; Rich FEMINISTSOCIOLOGYAND THEORIESOF GENDER 205 1980; Spelman 1989). This call for an internalre-evaluationof western feminism intersected with the circulation of newly forming critical knowledges such as Afrocentrism, postcolonial criticism, poststructuralism,neo-marxism, and postmodernism,and brought about a rethinkingof feminist concepts and politics. Throughoutthe strugglesand debateswithin feminismover the past 20 years, materialist feminists have continuallyworked to develop an analytic capable of disruptingthe takenfor-grantedin local and global social arrangementsand of exposing the economic, political, and ideological conditions upon which exploitation and oppression depend. Materialist feminism, however, is not to be confused with vulgar Marxism, with what is frequently referredto as base-superstructure Marxismor economic determinism.Rather,materialism here means a mode of inquiry that examines the division of labor and the distributionof wealth in the context of historicallyprevailingnationaland state interestsand ideological strugglesover meaningand value. Utilizing both marxistandfeministcritiquesof ideology, materialist feminism breaks away from the growing trend toward discursive politicspostmodernand poststructuralistfeminism-and takes as its object the "social transformation of dominant institutions that, as a totality, distribute economic resources and culturalpower asymmetricallyaccordingto gender"(Ebert1993:5). Committedto systematic analysis, materialistfeminism is an inquiryintendedto disclose how activitiesareorganizedandhow they arearticulated to the social relationsof the larger social and economic process . . . how our own situationsareorganizedanddeterminedby social processesthatextendoutsidethe scope of the everydayworld and are not discoverablewithinit (D. Smith 1987:152). This form of analysis assertsthe systematicoperationof historicallyspecific social totalities that link the local to the macro level of analysis. It is not, however, a "totalizing"theory in that it does not generalize its findings to apply to absolutely all phenomena, nor does it argue from an abstractor objectivist stance. As a form of "criticalpostmodernism"(Agger 1992), materialistfeminism argues that the nexus of social arrangementsand institutionswhich form social totalities-patriarchy, capitalism, and racism-regulates our everydaylives. They are not monolithic, but consist of unstable patternsof interrelationsand reciprocaldeterminationswhich, when viewed together, provide a useful way of theorizingpower and domination.To theorize in terms of social totalities is to have a way of making sense of events in relation to pervasive social patterns. Rape and domestic violence, for example, can be seen as the effect of social structuresthat situate men in a hierarchicalrelation to women and to each other according to historical forms of social differentiationsuch as heterosexuality,with its historically specific heterogenderedand racial components. According to Dorothy Smith, "relationsof ruling"such as patriarchy bringinto view the intersectionof the institutionsorganizingandregulatingsociety . . . a specificinterrelation betweenthe dynamicadvanceof thedistinctiveformsof organizing andrulingcontemporary formsof ourcontemporary capitalistsociety andthe patriarchal experience. . . a complexof organizedpractices,includinggovernment,law, business andfinancialmanagement,professionalorganization,andeducationalinstitutionsas well as the discoursesin texts thatinterpenetrate the multiplesites of power(1987:3). Significantin Smith's theory of ruling is her referenceto forms, complexes, and "multiple sites of power." It is evident that for Smith, capitalism and patriarchyare organizing structures which are varied and multiple, institutionally as well as textually. Before 206 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY returningto the role of ideology in materialistfeminist work in this essay, let us first addressthe struggles over concepts such as capitalismand patriarchy Theories which focus on capitalismand patriarchyas social totalities are becoming less and less acceptable. In recent years an importantdebate about the explanatoryreach of such frameworkshas challenged feminists to defend or rethinkmany of their assumptions. In particular,many postmodernistand poststructuralisttheoristshave criticized the use of "masternarratives"such as marxism, as "totalizing"and have disputedany theory which conceptualizesin terms of social totalities, such as capitalismor patriarchy.For example, Jean Francois Lyotard argues against master narratives,but his argumentconfuses everchanging and historically specific social totalities with totalitarianismand (for some) positivism. These ideological debates are crucial and consequential. When critiques of Westernculture's masternarrativesprivilege the local and the particularat the expense of making connections, these argumentsendanger any effort to conceive a "social change movement designed to remake the world" (Agger 1992:113). Furthermore,they fail to acknowledge the significant rewriting social totalities and marxism have undergone in recent years (Hennessy 1993; Walby 1989). It is my position thatwe should continueto critiquecapitalismand patriarchyas regimes of exploitation which organize divisions of labor and wealth, nationaland state interests, and those ideologies which legitimize the orderingand justificationof these totalities and the productionof social hierarchiesand difference. In particular,we need to examine their varying historical, regional, and global conditions of existence. For instance, capitalism in Japanis not the same as capitalismin the United States, even thoughthey are interrelated and reciprocal, and produce similar effects. They emerge from different historical and materialrelations of productionand thereforedefy reductivegeneralization. Patriarchyis also historically variable, producinga hierarchyof heterogenderdivisions which privileges men as a group and exploits women as a group. It structuressocial practices which it represents as natural and universal and which are reinforced by its organizing institutions and rituals (e.g., marriage). As a totality, patriarchyorganizes difference by positioning men in hierarchicalopposition to women and differentially in relation to other structures,such as race or class. Its continued success depends on the maintenanceof regimes of difference as well as on a range of material forces. It is a totality that not only varies cross-nationally,but also manifests differently across ethnic, racial, and class boundarieswithin nations. For instance, patriarchyin African-American culturediffers significantly from patriarchyin other groups in U.S. society. Even though each group shares certain understandingsof hierarchical relations between men and women, the historical relation of African-Americanmen to African-Americanwomen is dramatically different from that among Anglo-EuropeanAmericans. Among AfricanAmericans, a group which has suffered extensively from white supremacistpolicies and practices, solidarity as a "racial"group has frequentlysupersededasymmetricaldivisions based on gender. This is not to say that patriarchalrelations do not exist among African Americans, but that they have manifested differently among racial-ethnic groups as a result of historical necessity. Interestingly,racism has sometimes emerged in relation to criticisms of African-Americanmen for not being patriarchalenough by Euro-American standards.As a totality, patriarchyproduces structuraleffects that situate men differently in relationto women and to each other accordingto history. To critique the way gender is theorized in feminist sociology, a materialistfeminist mode of inquiry begins by investigating foundationalassumptions. This investigation is followed by an examination of what is concealed or excluded in relation to what is presented.A materialistfeminist critiqueattemptsto determinethe ideological foundations of a particularset of knowledges and the interests served by the meanings organizing a FEMINISTSOCIOLOGYAND THEORIESOF GENDER 207 particulartheory. For example, theories which foregroundand bracket off its link with heteronormativity-the ideological productionof heterosexualityas individual, natural, universal, and monolithic-contribute to the constructionof (patriarchal)heterosexuality as naturaland unchangeable. To examine the ways in which feminist sociology reproducesthe heterosexualimaginary requires a theoretical frameworkcapable of investigating the interests and assumptions embedded within any social text or practice. This mode of inquiry would make visible the frames of intelligibility or the "permitted"meanings in constructionsof gender and heterosexuality.More than this, it would connect heterosexualityand intereststo a problematic. As Althusser has argued, "A word or concept cannot be consideredin isolation; it only exists in the theoreticalor ideological frameworkin which it is used:its problematic" (1982:253). To determinea text's problematicis to reveal anotherlogic circulatingbeneath the surface. It appearsas the answer to questions left unasked. It is not that which is left unsaid or unaccountedfor, but that which the text assumes and does not speak. What is required, then, is a process of analysis capable of inquiring into the power relations organizing the allowed as well as the disallowed meanings in an effort to expose the artificialityof the theories and ideologies organizingthe use of particularconcepts. The practice of ideology critique used by Marx (1985, 1986) and rewrittenas symptomatic reading by Althusser (1968) has had a significant influence on sociology, most recently in the work of Dorothy Smith (1987, 1990). Ideology critiqueseeks to demystify in ways in which dominant or ruling class ideologies are authorizedand inscribed in subjectivities, institutionalarrangements,texts of ruling, various culturalnarratives,and, in this case, feminist sociological theories of gender. Like those taken-for-grantedbeliefs, values, and assumptions encoded as power relations within social texts and practices, ideology is central to the reproductionof a social order. Because it produces what is allowed to count as reality, ideology constitutesa materialforce and at the same time is shaped by other economic and political forces. As Althussertheorizedit, ideology is the "'lived' relationbetween [persons]and their world, or a reflectedform of this unconscious relation"(1986:314) or imaginary. This theory of ideology addressesthe meaning-makingprocesses embeddedwithin any social practice, including the production of (social) science. Inherently contradictory, capitalistand patriarchalsocial arrangementsare in a continualstate of crisis management. The work of dominantideologies is to conceal these contradictionsin order to maintain the social order.At the same time, however, these breaksin the seamless logic of capitalism and patriarchyallow oppositionalsocial practicesand counterideologiesto emerge. Centralto a materialistfeminist analytic is its critical focus on ideology (see Althusser 1971; D. Smith 1987). Critique is a mode of inquiry which makes use of what is and what is not said in any social text, and theorizes the disjuncturebetween the two. Of particularimportanceis the examinationof what is missing from the text. What is unsaid can be read symptomatically2to reveal the organizingproblematic,or how the text raises certainquestions while suppressingothers. The unsaid of a text also reveals the interests served by what is left out. This understandingof absence speaks to the boundaries established by any conceptual or theoreticalframework,which distinguish that which is addressedand that which is constructedas outside the limits of the theory at hand. What 2 This refers to Louis Althusser's theory of symptomaticreading, which he ultimatelyattributesto Marx: "A word or concept cannot be considered in isolation; it only exists in the theoreticalor ideological frameworkin which it is used: its problematic.... [it] is not a world-view. It is not the essence of the thoughtof an individual or epoch which can be deduced from a body of texts by an empirical, generalizingreading;it is centredon the absence of problems and concepts within the problematicas much as their presence; it can thereforeonly be reachedby a symptomaticreading"(1968:316). 208 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY is unsaid is as constitutive of the problematicas what is said. Critiqueis a "decoding" practice which exposes these textual boundariesand the ideologies which manage them, revealing the taken-for-grantedorder they perpetuateand opening up possibilities for changing it. Materialistfeminism then situatesthese ideologies historicallyand materially in relationto the division of labor and the relationsof production.Finally, critiqueinquires into the political consequences of theorizing from this site of opposition. This approach attempts to put into crisis those organizing ideologies which naturalizeor universalize particular sets of power relations implicated in the production of exploitation and oppression. Feminist sociology has long made use of critiquein orderto pressurethe discipline for its participationin relations of ruling. Many critical works served as significantinterventions in the business-as-usualof sociology, and stand as landmarksfrom which to extend the reachof feminist theory. Althoughthe following sections of this essay examine feminist sociology for its participationin the heterosexualimaginary,I think it only fair to say that some of the challenges to disciplinaryauthorityby feminists were made at great risk and that much can be learned from these early critiquesof sociology. The strategiesused by feminist sociologists created the opening for furthercritical social inquiry and should be considered in their historical and materialcontexts. FEMINISTSOCIOLOGYAND THE HETEROSEXUALIMAGINARY Feminist sociology has been a powerful force for change since its emergence in the 1960s and 1970s. In additionto its significantcontributionto gender studies, feminist sociology has provided a critical evaluation of mainstreamsociology. Contesting the foundations upon which the productionof sociological knowledges depends, feminist sociologists have provideda profoundcritique and rewritingof both the theoreticaland the methodological assumptions of mainstreamsociology (Acker 1973; Bart 1971; Bernard 1973; Deegan 1978; Hacker 1969; Hughes 1975; Long Laws 1979; Millman and Moss Kanter 1975; Oakley 1974; Reinharz 1983, 1984; Schwendinger and Schwendinger 1971; D. Smith 1974, 1975, 1987, 1990; Spender 1985; Stanley and Wise 1983). In a recent essay, PatriciaLengermannand Jill Niebrugge-Brantley(Ritzer 1990) discuss the defining characteristicof feminist sociological theory: Feministsociologicaltheoryattemptsa systematicandcriticalreevaluationof sociology's core assumptionsin the light of discoveriesbeing made within anothercommunityof discourse-the communityof those creatingfeministtheory(1990:316). Central to this description is a reading of feminist sociological theory as responsive to "discoveries"and critical insights emanatingfrom feminist theory and research. Feminist sociological theory has continually pressuredthe discipline to account for its political investments. In this regard, a key feature of feminist theory in sociology has been its exposure of sociological inquiry as value-ladenand implicatedin ruling practices. If it is to continue as a vital critical force in the discipline, feminist sociology must attend to contemporarytheoreticaland political debates, even those which questionthe problematics of feminist sociology. Recent trends in social thought, especially in what is becoming known as queer theory or lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered studies, are challenging the in general. of indeed and of feminist foundations sociology sociology, very Critiqueswhich reveal the implicit perpetuationof a normativeheterosexualityrequire new ways of thinking for feminist sociology. Significantinsights for this kind of analysis can also be found, however, in the works of those whose critical sociology questions the FEMINISTSOCIOLOGYAND THEORIESOF GENDER 209 assumptionsof the discipline. Of particularimportanceare the contributionsof feminist sociologists whose analyses provide the possibility for examining the circulationof the heterosexualimaginary in sociology, even as their work also bears the marks of participating in it. Two feminist theorists who have been highly influentialin this regard are Shulamit Reinharz and Dorothy Smith. Reinharz argues that sociology is a field of study which demonstratesits conservative politics by "reinforc[ing]the currentorder and its values" (1983:165) ratherthan taking into account "specific historical, cultural, ideological" contexts (1983:162). Arguing from a sociology of knowledge perspective, Reinharz asserts the importanceof explaining "the relationshipbetween the knowledge produced or accepted in a particularsociety at any time, and the other dimensions of that society" (1983:163). She is referringto mainstreamsociological knowledge, but her critique can be applied as well to feminist sociology. For instance, feminist theories of gender which posit males and females, masculine and feminine, heterosexualand homosexual as opposites participatein dominantways of thinkingwhich organize all areas of difference as hierarchicaland oppositional binaries. To produce theories of gender which bracket off heterosexualityas a social organizing structureis to "reinforcethe currentorder and its values" by participatingin the productionof "acceptable"knowledges or ideologies. This closes off the possibility of theorizing the complex ways in which gender is tied to heterosexualityas institutionalizedand hegemonic, as organizing the division of labor, and as instrumentalto capitalism and patriarchy.If heterosexualityis assumed to be the naturalattractionof opposites, somehow outside of social production,it does not require explanation.Feminist theories of gender, as well as common sense and acceptableknowledges, reflect these assumptions. By not considering the "historical,cultural, and ideological" contexts in which gender circulates-the heterosexual imaginary-feminist theories of gender not only are contradictorybut also leave heterosexualityas the unsaid on which gender depends. Gender cannot be simultaneouslyan achieved status and an organizing concept for a "naturallyoccurring" heterosexuality. If both gender and heterosexuality are socially produced, then feminist sociology should be engaging with both of them at that level. Heterogenderand its correspondingheterosexual imaginary are among those "other dimensions" which can affect the organization of knowledge and the reach of feminist sociology. Dorothy Smith (1974, 1987, 1990) also takes the discipline to task, in this case for participatingin the production of "objectified modes of knowing characteristicof the relations of ruling" (1990:13) and for using ideas exclusive to a "male social universe" (1990:13). The profession of sociology has been predicatedon a universe groundedin men's experienceand relationshipsand still largely appropriated by men as their "territory." is of the we are all which Sociology part practiceby governed;thatpracticeestablishes its relevances(1990:13). Smith critiques the disjuncturebetween women's experience and the prevailing "male" sociological frameworks,raising feminist sociology to a new height by makingvisible the significance of knowledges pertainingto women which sociology has typically ignored. She theorizes the silences in sociological theory as implicating sociology in male domination, and rewrites sociological practiceto attendto women's everyday lives. The neglect of women's everyday lives by sociology is of central concern to Smith, who argues for a sociology from the standpointof women. This means not only analyzing 210 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY women's daily lives and practicesbut also placing women within the largersocial context of capitalist and patriarchalrelations. Smith aims to explicate the "actualsocial processes and practices organizing people's everyday experience from a standpointin the everyday world"(1987:151). Her argumentdiffers from Reinharz'sin that she links the organization of women's lives to political economic dynamics. Of particularimportancehere is Smith's contributionto a theory of the everyday. In rewritingMarx for a feminist sociology, she opens up the study of the everyday as organizedby relationsof ruling. In her contributionto the study of women's invisible labor and everyday experience, however, Smith makes repeated reference to the work of mothering and housework as largely overlooked by social scientists. Expandingthe concept of work for our purposesrequiresits remakingin more ample and generous form . . . to include all the work done by women to sustain and service their and men's functioning in the wage relation . . . (1987:165). In her references to motheringand women's domestic labor as enablingthe work of men, heterosexualityonce again appears as the assumed and unacknowledgedstructureorganizing women's lives as well as the division of labor. Heterosexualityis a natural or universal condition that Smith's theory of gender assumes. Although Smith makes great strides in shifting the starting point of feminist sociology to incorporatea version of ideological critique, her own work reveals a political investment in a heteronormative social order, which by definitionmaintainsthe very relationsof rulingthat she tries to put into crisis. Feminist sociologists have challenged sociology to account for its "politics"-its investment in practices and knowledges organized hierarchicallyalong lines of power. As can be seen in the work of Reinharzand Smith, these analyticalstrategiesindeed create important conceptual and political openings, but by participatingin the heterosexual imaginarythey also reproducesome of the very social conditionsthey seek to interrupt. In additionto Reinharzand Smith, otherfeministshave challengedthe discipline (Abbott 1992; Lengermanand Niebrugge-Brantley1990; Maynard1990). Their groundbreaking efforts have also paved the way for a critiqueof feminist sociology. Yet at the same time they, too, participatein the reproductionof the heterosexualimaginary.In their overview of the contributionsof feminist sociology, Lengermannand Niebrugge-Brantley(1990) outline the ways feminists have challenged sociology, beginning with questioning the absence of women and of knowledges related to women in all areas of sociology. This heuristic is particularly important for questioning the circulation of the heterosexual imaginary in feminist sociology. A particularlyimportantpatternthat these authorsidentify in feminist sociology is the contestationof the andronormativestartingpoint of sociological inquiry, which relegates all otherknowledges to the marginsand therebyreinforcespatriarchalauthorityand value. For example, studies of mothering, teaching, child care, caregiving, and other aspects of the "domestic sphere" have been either ignored or devalued by mainstreamsociology. Patriarchy,however, is not only andronormative;it is also heteronormative.Those aspects of the division of labor which are trivialized and neglected in sociological research and theory are also those practices which count as "women's work"in heterogenderedsocial arrangements.By shifting the focus from gender to heterogenderas the primaryunit of analysis, institutionalizedheterosexualitybecomes visible as centralto the organizationof the division of labor. This shift also reveals the ways in which the heterosexualimaginary depends on an abject "other,"which is regulatedas deviant. This "other"consists of any FEMINISTSOCIOLOGYAND THEORIESOF GENDER 211 sexual practice which does not participatein dominant heterogenderarrangementsand thereforedoes not count as legitimate or normal. When I say that the critical insights of feminist sociologists can be employed to interrogatethe heterocentrismof feminist sociology, I am not talking only about the marginalizationof lesbian/gay/bisexualknowledges from sociological inquiry, but also about the way in which heteronormativeassumptions organize many conceptual and professionalpractices. For instance, many social science surveys ask respondentsto check off their marital status as either married, divorced, separated, widowed, single, or (in some cases) never married.Not only are these categoriespresentedas significantindexes of social identity;they are offered as the only options, implying that their organizationof identity in relation to marriage is universal and not in need of explanation. Questions concerning marital status appearon most surveys regardlessof relevance, in some cases as "warm-up"questions. The heteronormativeassumptionof this practiceis rarely,if ever, called into question; when it is questioned, the response is generally dismissive. Heteronormativityworks in this instance to naturalizethe institutionof heterosexuality. For those who view questions concerning marital status as benign, one need only consider the social and economic consequences for those respondentswho do not participate in these arrangements,or the cross-culturalvariationswhich are at odds with some of the Anglocentric or Eurocentricassumptionsregardingmarriage.All respondentsare invited to situate themselves as social actors accordingto their participationin marriage or in heterosexualityas a "natural"and monolithic institution. This invitation includes those who, regardless of sexual (or asexual) affiliation, do not consider themselves "single"or defined in relation to heterosexuality,and do not participatein these arrangements. Above all, the heterosexualimaginaryworking here naturalizesthe regulationof sexualitythroughthe institutionof marriageand state domesticrelationslaws. These laws, among others, set the terms for benefits such as tax, health, and housing on the basis of marital status. Rarely challenged except by nineteenth-centurymarriagereformers and early second wave feminists (Bunch 1974, 1976; Harman 1901; Heywood 1876; MacDonald 1972; Sears 1977; Stoehr 1979; Wittig 1992), these laws and public policies use marriageas the primaryrequirementfor social and economic benefits ratherthan distributing resources on some other basis, such as citizenship. Heteronormativesociology, then, plays its part in what Dorothy Smith has conceptualized as textually mediated social practice. Such textualsurfacespresupposean organizationof poweras the concertingof people's activitiesand the uses of organizationto enforceprocessesproducinga versionof the worldthatis peculiarlyone-sided,thatis knownonly fromwithinthe modesof ruling, and thatdefinesthe objectsof its power(1990:84). To not answer such seemingly innocent or descriptive questions is to become deviant accordingto sociology's enactmentof modes of ruling, which signal to respondentsin a varietyof ways-from theory to surveys-what counts as normal.Underthese conditions, sociology is a political field of study, invested in the reproductionof a heteronormative social order, and closed off to struggles over the constructionof sexuality and to the explorationof social relations in all their layered and complex configurations. Dorothy Smith's theory of the everyday world as problematiccan be particularlyuseful for investigatingthe circulationand productionof heteronormativityin sociological practice. As a mode of inquiry which begins with people's everyday lives, it illustratesand explains how individual lives are organized by extralocal social arrangements.For instance, to study how institutionalizedheterosexuality organizes everyday professional 212 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY activities in sociology, considerthe case of the two nontenuredfacultymemberscompeting for the same job in a departmentwhich was allotted funds for only one. One candidate was a heterosexualman; the other, a lesbian. Two weeks before the final decision is made concerninghiring, the heterosexualman announceshis engagementto a local woman and sends out wedding invitationsto all membersof the department.Well situatedwithin the heterosexualimaginary,members of the departmentdo not view this event in relation to the decision concerning the job but ratherrespond to it as a celebratoryoccasion and a chance to have a good time. The effect of this event on the materiallife of the candidates is never considered. Weddings, like many other rituals of heterosexual celebration such as anniversaries, showers, and Valentine's Day, provide images of reality which conceal the operationof heterosexuality both historically and materially. In this sense they help constitute the heterosexual imaginary's discursive materiality.When used in professional settings, for example, weddings work as a form of ideological controlto signal membershipin relations of ruling as well as to signify that the bride and groom are normal, moral, productive, family-centered,good citizens, and, most important,appropriatelygendered. (Or I should say "heterogendered"?)Although these patternspervadethe cultureat large in everything from Tums commercials to the "Style" section of the New YorkTimes-not to mention their prolific use in soap operas and prime time television-little work has been done to critically examine their reasons for being and their effects. Otherexamples aboundregardingthe heteronormativityor heterocentrismof sociology (e.g., privileging marriedcouples in hiringpractices, sanctionsagainstresearchon lesbian/ gay/bisexual/transgenderedpeople, use of heteronormativeconcepts to describe nonheterosexual relationships, invisibility of nonheteronormativeparenting practices), but to critique them is beyond the scope of this essay. Certain questions can be raised here, however, as a way to convey the extent to which heterosexualityremains an unexamined issue in the discipline. Of particularinterest from a materialistfeminist perspective are the complex ways in which institutionalizedheterosexualityhelps guaranteethat some people will have more class status, power, and privilege than others. Sociologists need to ask not only how heterosexualityis imbricatedin knowledges, but how these knowledges are related to capitalist and patriarchalsocial arrangements.How does heterosexuality carryout their projectboth ideologically and institutionally?How do so many institutions rely on the heterosexualimaginary?Consideringthe rising levels of violence and prejudice in U.S. society, how are we to understandthe social and ideological controls regulating sexuality? What would a critical analysis of institutionalizedheterosexualityreveal about its relationship to divisions of labor and wealth, national and state interests, and the production of social and economic hierarchies of difference? And, finally, how will sociology change if we shift away from a heteronormativeor heterocentricsociology througha critique of heterosexuality? Lengermannand Niebrugge-Brantleypoint to the contributionof feminist sociology in critiquingthe discipline for its lack of social activism. Sociological studies rarelyexamine how women's lives are organized by dominant ideology and practice, or what role sociological inquiryplays in the maintenanceand productionof social inequality.Feminist sociologists insist that the discipline be reflexive, accountablefor its politics, and actively engaged in reducing any oppressive consequences of its practices. Reclaiming the critical legacy of feminist sociology not only promises to advance the theoreticalreachof sociological inquiry,but also restoresthe activistorientationof feminist sociology. By questioning the starting point of gender studies while denaturalizingthe institutionof heterosexuality,feminist sociology once again can become politically reflex- FEMINISTSOCIOLOGYAND THEORIESOF GENDER 213 ive and active in ideological struggle. The following section is a step toward initiating this process throughan exploratoryexaminationof contemporarygender texts. CRITIQUINGHETERONORMATIVEGENDER THEORY Over the past quarter-century,feminist sociologists have made an enormouscontribution to the study of gender across all social institutionsand categories of analysis, theorizing everythingfrom gender-basedpower arrangementsto sex differencedevelopment. Moreover, they have pressuredthe discipline to account for the ways in which it is implicated in the reproductionof gender oppression and exploitation. As a formidable force for change, feminist sociology, with its counterpart,the Section on Sex and Gender of the ASA, has established itself as one of the largest and most successful areas of inquiry in the discipline. Feminist sociology, however, is losing its impetus for interventionor for ideological debate. Recent works within areas of inquirycovered by the sociology of sex and gender3 generally assume a level of agreementon what gender is, how to study it, and why it is important. Gender, family, and introductorysociology textbooks, journal articles, and conference presentationsin recent years show little variation in definitions of sex and gender. A samplingof gender texts within sociology reveals the presence of a dominantframework in gender theory. Sex is typically defined as "the biological identity of the person and is meant to signify the fact that one is either male or female." Genderis describedas "the socially learned behaviors and expectations that are associated with the two sexes" (Andersen 1993:31). The idea of sex as biological and gender as sociocultural was originallytheorizedby Oakley (1972) and then again by Gould and Kern-Daniels(1977), and has become the standardfor most of sociology. In additionto MargaretAndersen's widely used text, Thinkingabout Women,LaurelRichardson'sThe Dynamics of Sex and Gender describes sex as "the biological aspect of a person"and gender as the "psychological, social, and culturalcomponents... an achieved status"(1981:5). LauraKramer's The Sociology of Gender employs a similar version, arguing that "physically defined categories are the sexes" and that the "system of meaning, linked to the sexes through social arrangementconstitutes gender"(1991:1). Likewise, in Clare Renzetti and Daniel Curran'sWomen,Men, and Society, sex is a "biological given . . . used as the basis for constructinga social category that we call gender"(1989:2). In each case, sex is distinguishable as biology, implying that it is natural, while gender is viewed as learned or achieved. Even in essays offering an overview of the field of gender studies within sociology, gender is perceived as an establishedconcept in a discipline which needs only to take it more seriously as a central category of analysis (Abbott 1992; Maynard1990). These patternssuggest that the biological-culturaldifferentiationof sex and gender has become "normalized"in sociology generallyand among feminist sociologists in particular. Althoughinclusionof gender studiesin "legitimate"sociology may be cause for celebration for some, the lack of debate over such a crucial concept as gender-not to mention its companionconcept, sex-should be groundsfor concern among feminists. Acquiescence to an unexamined gender concept goes against the grain of two of feminist sociology's foundingprinciples-to keep a critical eye on the discipliningof knowledge and on forms of gender bias. 3 These areas include marriageand family, human sexuality, homosexuality, and any other category which makes use of sex or gender for its secondarylevel of analysis. 214 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY Consider some of the contradictionspresent in the acceptanceof these theories of sex and gender. As Maria Mies (1986) points out, separatingsex from gender reinforces the nature/culturebinary, opening the study of sex to the domain of science and closing off considerationof how biology is linked to culture. Sex, as a biological category, escapes the realm of constructionor achieved status, even though it is "defined"or "constructed." Because we are always engaged in giving meaning to the naturalworld, how we do that and to what end are questions of major significance. Sex as a category of analysis can never exist outside prevailing frames of intelligibility. It is a concept that is related to ways of making sense of the body, often by those-sociologists and biologists-who have a great deal of authorityin the creationof knowledges. As a socially constructedcategory, sex must be scrutinizedin relation to the intereststhat its definitionfurthers.That is, as sociologists we need to ask what ends are served by constructingsex as "the division of humanityinto biological categories of female and male" (Macionis 1993:350). The institution of science and its authorityin relation to the productionof biological knowledges have far-reachingeffects. It is one thing to assert that two X chromosomes producea female and that an X plus a Y chromosomeproducesa male. But what happens when introductorysociology texts claim that it is a "hormoneimbalance"which produces "a humanbeing with some combinationof female and male internaland externalgenitalia" (Macionis 1993:351)? What investment or perspective is present in connoting this hormonal and genital configurationas an "imbalance"?Or, reading the unsaid here, what constitutes balance according to these knowledges? Clearly, a society of scientifically defined and authorized males and females is considered the "natural"order of things. How, then, do we make sense of cross-culturaldifference in the "treatment"of sex variation?For example, the Dine (Navajo) view persons born with a combinationof male and female genitalia as the exemplification of complete humanness, not as evidence of some dis-order(Geertz 1973). Contemporarysex-gender ideology provides limited options for how we organize sexuality, but expanding these options is not simply a matter of attendingto marginalized sexualities. Instead, it seems to me that we need to question our assumptionsabout sex and gender as to how they organize difference, regulate investigation, and preserve particularpower relations, especially those linked to institutionalizedheterosexuality. All of the institutionsinvolved in the productionof sex as a biological category defined as male or female, where each is distinct and opposite from the other, are participatingin reproducinglines of power. Claims that XX is female and XY is male are just that: scientific claims about the naturalworld, authorizedby the ruling order and processed through organizing structureswhich assign meanings based on frames of intelligibility alreadycirculatingin the culture at large. What counts as normaland naturalor as "fact" comes out of ways of making sense already ideologically invested in the existing social order. Often it closes off our ability to imagine otherwise. Any manifestationwhich does not fit the facts is renderedabnormal,deviant, or (worse) irrelevant.Consider,for instance, that the same institutionswhich organize these knowledges also historicallyneglected the study of women, scientifically justified the inferiorityof nonwhite people, and claimed that social Darwinism was fact. These "findings"were coherent with dominantways of thinking about sex, race, and class, and worked in their historical moment to legitimize prevailingpractices and policies (Gould 1981; Takaki 1990). Currently,with the rise of the lesbian/gay/bisexualrights movements, many "factual" knowledges concerning gender, sexuality, desire, morality, sex differences, labor, and nationality have been put into crisis. The more these critiques challenge the taken-forgranted concerning sex and gender, the clearer it is that current ways of thinking in sociology do not adequately account for sex variation. This investment in the dominant FEMINISTSOCIOLOGYAND THEORIESOF GENDER 215 constructionof sex begs the question of what interests are served by the disciplining of knowledge in sociology and what social arrangementsthat disciplining makes possible. The uncriticalparticipationof feminist sociologists in these knowledges implies the possibility that there exists an investment in "naturalized"social arrangementsat the risk of renderinginvisible the intereststhat organizethese ideas and benefitfrom theirproduction. At the present, the dominantnotion of sex in feminist sociology depends upon a heterosexual assumptionthatthe only possible configurationof sex is male or female as "opposite sexes," which, like otheraspects of the physical world (e.g., magneticfields), are naturally attractedto each other. Masking the historicalrelation of sex to history and to heterosexuality is guaranteedby what I have defined as the heterosexualimaginary. Gender,as the culturalside of the sex-genderbinary,is frequentlydefinedby sociologists as either achieved or constructedthrougha process of "socialization,"wherebymales and females become men and women attainingopposite and distinct traits based on sex. In addition to appearing in prominent texts and articles on gender, this understandingof gendercirculatesin introductorysociology texts. For instance, Hess, Markson,and Stein's Sociology asserts that gender is made up of "femininity and masculinity as achieved characteristics"but that maleness and femaleness are "ascribed traits" (1989:193). Although this particulartext makes reference to gender as variable cross-culturallyand historically, its reliance on an unsaid heterosexualdualism implies a static or normative understandingof gender. In addition, this definitionof gender illustratesthe need for the concept of heterogenderas a more appropriatedescriptionof the relationbetween sex and gender. Finally, this explanation does not account for the "necessity" of gender. This theory of gender as an "achieved"statusdoes not addressto what ends gender is acquired. Nor does it account for the interestsserved by ascribingor assigning characteristicsbased on sex. In other words, this text, as well as many others, does not examine what historical and materialarrangementsorganize or are organizedby gender. By foregroundinggender as dependenton the male-femalebinary,the heterosexualassumptionremainsunaddressed and unquestioned. A similar approach is evident in John Macionis's introductorytextbook, where he defines gender as society's division of humanity,based on sex, into two distinctivecategories.Gender guides how females and males thinkaboutthemselves,how they interactwith others, and whatpositionsthey occupy in society as a whole (1993:352;my emphasis). Likewise, consider CraigCalhoun, Donald Light, and SuzanneKeller's text, which claims that sociologists conceptualizegender as "nonbiological,culturallyand socially produced distinctionsbetween men and women and masculinityand femininity"(1994:269). Again we see the dependence of theories of gender on the existence of two distinct categories, male and female. This so-called biological configurationis actually the foundation of establisheddefinitions of gender. Accordingly, gender is not treatedas variable;rather,it is made up of two distinct entities, unquestioned, ahistorical, static, and consequently normative. These understandingsserve as the standardin mainstream sociology and legitimize the organization of all other manifestations as deviant, alternative, or nontraditional. Evident in most conceptualizationsof gender is an assumptionof heteronormativity.In other words, to become gendered is to learn the properway to be a woman in relationto a man, or feminine in relation to the masculine. For instance, consider Mary Maynard's argumentthat "a significantfactor in understandingthe organisationof society is women's socially constructed difference from men" (1990:281). Patricia Lengermannand Ruth 216 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY Wallace state that "exploringthe genderinstitutionmeans looking at the identityof females in relation to males and vice versa . . . in the context of a two gender social reality" (1985:3). As MargaretAndersenexplains, "Genderrefers to the complex social, political, economic, and psychological relations between women and men in society" (1993:34). These are just a few examples among many that identify gender as a cultural binary organizingrelations betweenthe sexes. Ask studentshow they learnedto be heterosexual, and they will consistently respondwith stories abouthow they learnedto be boys or girls, women or men, throughthe various social institutionsin theirlives. Heterosexualityserves as the unexamined organizing institution and ideology (the heterosexual imaginary) for gender. Most importantin these theories is the absence of any concept of heterosexualityas an institutionalorganizing structureor social totality. The culturalproductionof behaviors and expectationsas "socially learned"involves all social institutionsfrom family, church, and education to the Departmentof Defense. Without institutionalizedheterosexualitythat is, the ideological and organizational regulation of relations between men and women-would gender even exist? If we make sense of gender and sex as historically and institutionallybound to heterosexuality,then we shift gender studies from localized examinationsof individualbehaviorsand group practicesto critical analyses of heterosexuality as an organizing institution. By doing so, we denaturalizeheterosexuality as a taken-for-grantedbiological entity; we begin the work of unmasking its operations and meaning-makingprocesses and its links to large historical and material conditions. Although feminist sociologists have made importantcontributionsto the analysis of the intersectionof gender and social institutions,they have not examinedthe relationof gender to the institution of heterosexuality.By altering the startingpoint of feminist sociology from gender to heterosexuality,or heterogender,as I have defined it, we focus on one of the primaryroots of exploitation and oppressionratherthan on one of the symptoms. CONCLUSION The position I am taking in this essay is not new. It has a long and controversialhistory in feminist thought. Early second-wave feminists such as the Furies Collective, Purple September Staff, Redstockings (1975), Rita Mae Brown (1976), and Charlotte Bunch (1976) challenged dominantnotions of heterosexualityas naturallyoccurring, and argued thatinstead it is a highly organizedsocial institutionrife with multipleforms of domination and ideological control. Adrienne Rich's (1980) article "On CompulsoryHeterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" and Monique Wittig's (1992) "The StraightMind"confrontedthe institutionof heterosexualityhead on, assertingthat it is neithernaturalnor inevitable but instead is a contrived, constructed, and taken-for-grantedinstitutionor, as Wittig argues, a political regime. Now classics in feminist theory, these works have left a legacy that can be found in knowledges circulatingprimarilyin the humanities. In relationto other disciplines, sociology is losing groundon these issues as the contest over sexuality and gender escalates in other areas of the social sciences and in the humanities.For example, debates within gay/lesbiantheory, culturalstudies, and feminist theory in the humanitiesindicate that a majorrethinkingof gender and heterosexualityis underway (Butler 1989; de Lauretis 1987; Fuss 1991; Hennessy 1993; Sedgwick 1990; Seidman 1991, 1992, 1993; Warner1993; Wittig 1992). Queertheory, as it is now called, has emerged as one of the prominent new areas of academic scholarship. A virtual explosion of books, articles, and special issues has issued from majoracademicpublishers and high-level journals. Yet these new knowledges have been producedprimarilywithin the humanities. Queer theory has been dominatedby postmodernculturaltheorists such FEMINIST SOCIOLOGY AND THEORIES OF GENDER 217 as Butler (1989), de Lauretis(1987), and Sedgwick (1990), who posit heteronormativity and gender as performativeaspects of postmodernculture. More recent materialistapproaches to rethinkinggender and sexuality include the works of Delphy (1980), Evans (1993), Hennessy (forthcoming), George Smith (1988, 1990, 1991), and Wittig (1992), to name a few. I am arguingin this essay for a returnto feminist sociology's political high ground. By "political"I mean all those social, materialpractices in which the distributionof power is at stake. Attendingto these practicesrequiresan internalcritiqueof sociological gender theory for its participationin the very conditions feminist seeks to pressure and for its reproductionof the heterosexual imaginary.In the interests of materialistfeminism and the lesbian/gay/bisexualrights movements, I am arguingfor an examinationof the ways in which feminist sociology's theories of gender contributeto the productionand institutionalization of hegemonic heterosexuality. Finally, I am calling for something really queer: a critique of institutionalizedheterosexualityas a formal area of inquiry within feminist sociology. REFERENCES Abbott, Pamela. 1992. "Feminist Perspective in Sociology: The Challenge to 'Mainstream'Orthodoxy."Pp. 181-90 in Revolutionsin Knowledge:Feminism in the Social Sciences, edited by S. R. Zalk and J. GordonKelter. Boulder:Westview Press. Acker, Joan. 1973. "Women and Social Stratification:A Case of Intellectual Sexism." American Journal of Sociology 78:936-45. Agger, Ben. 1992. Cultural Studies as Critical Theory.London:Falmer. Althusser,Louis. 1968. Reading Capital. London Verso. 1971. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. London:Monthly Review Press. 1982. For Marx. London: Verso. Andersen, Margaret. 1993. Thinkingabout Women.New York: St. Martin's. Barrett,Michele. 1980. Women'sOppressionToday. London:Verso. Bart, Pauline. 1971. "Sexism in Social Science: Fromthe IronCage to the Gilded Cage-The Perils of Pauline." Journal of Marriage and the Family 33: 742-50. Bernard, Jessie. 1973. "My Four Revolutions: An AutobiographicalHistory of the ASA." Pp. 235-53 in Changing Womenin a Changing Society, edited by J. Huber.Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Brown, Elsa Barkley. 1989. "WomanistConsciousness:Maggie Lena Walkerand the IndependentOrderof St. Luke." Signs 14: 610-33. Brown, Rita Mae. 1976. Plain Brown Rapper. Baltimore:Diana Press. Bunch, Charlotte. 1974. "The Reform Tool Kit." Quest 1(1): 43. . 1976. "Forum:Learningfrom Lesbian Separatism."Ms., November, pp. 60-61, 99-102. Butler, Judith. 1989. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge. Calhoun, Craig, Donald Light, and Suzanne Keller. 1994. Sociology. New York:McGraw-Hill. Carby, Hazel. 1982. "White Woman Listen! Black Feminism and the Boundariesof Sisterhood."Pp. 212-35 in The EmpireStrikesBack: Race and Racism in 70's Britain, edited by the Centerfor ContemporaryCultural Studies. London: Hutchinson. Collins, PatriciaHill. 1991. Black Feminist Thought. New York:Routledge. CombaheeRiver Collective. 1983. "A Black Feminist Statement."Pp. 210-18 in This Bridge Called My Back: Writingsof Radical Womenof Color, edited by Gloria Anzaldua and CherrieMoraga. New York: Kitchen Table Press. Connell, R.W. 1987. Gender and Power. Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press. Davis, Angela. 1981. Woman,Race, and Class. New York: RandomHouse. Deegan, Mary Jo. 1978. "Early Women Sociologists and the American Sociological Society: The Patternsof Exclusion and Participation."The AmericanSociologist 16 (February):14-24. de Lauretis, Teresa. 1987. "The Female Body and the HeterosexualPresumption."Semiotica 67(3-4): 259-79. Delphy, Christine. 1980. The Main Enemy. London:Women's Research and Resource Centre. Ebert, Teresa L. 1991. "The 'Difference' of PostmodernFeminism."College English 53(8): 886-904. 218 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY . 1993. "LudicFeminism, the Body, Performance,and Labor:Bringing MaterialismBack into Feminist CulturalStudies." Cultural Critique (Winter):5-50. Evans, David T. 1993. Sexual Citizenship:The Material Constructionof Sexualities. New York: Routledge. Frankenberg,Ruth. 1993. White Women, Race Matters: The Social Constructionof Whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Fuss, Diana, ed. 1991. Inside/Out. New York:Routledge. Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretationof Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Giddings, Paula. 1984. When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Womenon Race and Sex in America. New York: Bantam Books. Gould, Meredith and Rochelle Kern-Daniels. 1977. "Toward a Sociological Theory of Gender and Sex." AmericanSociologist 12 (November): 182-89. Gould, Stephen Jay. 1981. The Mismeasureof Man. New York: Norton. Hacker, Helen. 1969. "Womenas a MinorityGroupin Higher Academics." TheAmericanSociologist 4 (May): 95-9. Harman,Moses. 1901. InstitutionalMarriage. Chicago: Lucifer. Hennessy, Rosemary. 1993a. Materialist Feminism and the Politics of Discourse. New York: Routledge. . 1993b. "Women'sLives/FeministKnowledge:FeministStandpointas Ideology Critique."Hypatia 8(1): 14-34. . Forthcoming."The Politics of 'Queer' in PostmodernCommodityCulture."Social Postmodernism. Hennessy, Rosemary and Chrys Ingraham. 1992. "Puttingthe HeterosexualOrderin Crisis." Mediations 16(2): 17-23. Hennessy, Rosemary and Rajeswari Mohan. 1989. "The Constructionof Woman in Three Popular Texts of Empire:Towards a Critiqueof MaterialistFeminism."TextualPractice December:323-59. Hess, Beth, E. Markson, and P. Stein. 1989. Sociology. New York:Macmillan. Heywood, Ezra and Angela. 1876. Cupid's Yokes. Princeton,MA: Co-operativePublishingCompany. hooks, bell. 1984. Feminist Theory:From Margin to Center. Boston: South End Press. Hughes, Helen MacGill. 1975. "Womenin Academic Sociology, 1925-1975." Sociological Focus 8(3): 21522. Kramer,Laura. 1991. The Sociology of Gender. New York: St. Martin's. Kuhn, Annette and AnnMarieWolpe, eds. 1978. Feminismand Materialism:Womenand Modes of Production. London:Routledge. Landry,Donna and Gerald MacLean. 1993. MaterialistFeminisms. Cambridge,MA: Blackwell. Lengermann, Patricia and Jill Niebrugge-Brantley. 1990. "Feminist Sociological Theory: The Near-Future Prospects." Pp. 316-44 in Frontiers in Social Theory, edited by George Ritzer. New York: Columbia University Press. Lengermann,Patriciaand Ruth A. Wallace. 1985. Gender in America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Long Laws, Judith. 1979. "Patriarchyand Feminism:CompetingWays of Doing Social Science." Resources in Education (June): 101-20. Lugones, Maria. 1989. "On the Logic of PluralistFeminism." Lecture. SyracuseUniversity, Fall. MacDonald, George. 1972. Fifty Years of Freethought. New York: Arno. Macionis, John J. 1993. Sociology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Marx, Karl. 1985. "The EighteenthBrumaireof Louis Bonaparte."Pp. 300-25 in Karl Marx: Selected Writings, edited by David McLellan. Oxford:Oxford University Press. Marx, Karl and FrederickEngels. 1986. The GermanIdeology. New York: InternationalPublishers. Maynard,Mary. 1990. "The Re-Shapingof Sociology? Trends in the Study of Gender."Sociology 24(2): 26990. Mies, Maria. 1986. Patriarchy and Accumulationon a WorldScale. London:Zed Books. Millman, Marcia and Rosabeth Moss Kanter. 1975. Another Voice: Feminist Perspectives on Social Life and Social Science. New York: Anchor. Minh-Ha, Trinh. 1989. Woman,Native, Other. Bloomington:IndianaUniversity Press. Mohanty, Chandra. 1988. "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses." Feminist Review 30: 61-88. Moraga, Cherrie. 1986. "Froma Long Line of Vendidas:Chicanasand Feminism"edited by TeresadeLauretis. Pp. 173-91 in Feminist Studies/CriticalStudies. Bloomington:IndianaUniversity Press. Oakley, Ann. 1972. Sex, Gender, and Society. London:Harper. . 1974. The Sociology of Housework. London:MartinRobertson. Parker, Andrew, Mary Russo, Doris Sommer, and Patricia Yaeger. 1992. Nationalisms and Sexualities. New York: Routledge. Plummer,Kenneth. 1992. ModernHomosexualities. New York: Routledge. RedstockingsCollective. 1975. Feminist Revolution. New York:RandomHouse. FEMINIST SOCIOLOGY AND THEORIES OF GENDER 219 Reinharz,Shulamit. 1983. "ExperientialAnalysis: A Contributionto FeministResearch."Pp. 162-91 in Theories of Women'sStudies, edited by Gloria Bowles and Renate Duelli Klein. London:Routledge. . 1984. On Becoming a Social Scientist. New York:TransactionBooks. Renzetti, Claire and Daniel Curran. 1989. Women,Men and Society. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Rich, Adrienne. 1980. "CompulsoryHeterosexualityand Lesbian Existence." Signs 5(Summer):631-60. Richardson,Laurel, 1981. The Dynamics of Sex and Gender. Boston: HoughtonMifflin. Ritzer, George. 1990. Frontiers in Social Theory. New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press. Sandoval, Cheyla. 1991. "U.S. ThirdWorldFeminism:The Theory and Methodof OppositionalConsciousness in the PostmodernWorld."Genders 10(Spring):1-24. Schwendinger,J. and H. Schwendinger. 1971. "The Subjectionof Women: Ideological Views and Solutions." Pp. 287-335 in Sociologists of the Chair: A Radical Analysis of the Formative Years of North American Sociology. New York: Basic Books. Sears, Hal D. 1977. The Sex Radicals: Free Love in High Victorian America. Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1990. Epistemologyof the Closet. Berkeley: University CaliforniaPress. Seidman, Steven. 1991. RomanticLongings. New York: Routledge. .1992. EmbattledEros. New York: Routledge. .1993. "Identity and Politics in a PostmodernGay Culture:Some Conceptualand Historical Notes." Pp. 105-42 in Fear of a Queer Planet, edited by Michael Warner.Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press. Smith, Dorothy. 1974. "Women's Perspectiveas a Radical Critiqueof Sociology." Sociological Inquiry44: 7390. . 1975. "An Analysis of Ideological Structuresand How Women Are Exclude: Considerationsfor Academic Women." Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology12(4): 131-54. 1987. The EverydayWorldas Problematic. Boston: NortheasternUniversity Press. 1990. The ConceptualPractices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge. Boston: Northeastern Press. Smith, George W. 1988. "Policing the Gay Community:An Inquiryinto Textually-MediatedSocial Relations." InternationalJournal of the Sociology of Law 16: 163-83. 1990. "Political Activist as Ethnographer."Social Problems, 37(4): 87-98. 1991. "The Ideology of 'Fag': Barriersto Educationfor Gay Students."Paper presentedat Meetings of the CanadianSociology and AnthropologyAssociation, Kingston, Ontario. Spelman, ElizabethV. 1989. Inessential Woman:Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought. Boston: Beacon. Spender, Dale. 1985. Man Made Language. London:Routledge & Kegan Paul. Spivak, Gayatri. 1985. "Feminism and Critical Theory." Pp. 119-42 in For Alma Mater, edited by Paula Treichler,Chris Kramarae,and Beth Stafford. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. . 1988. "Can the SubalternSpeak?"Pp. 271-316 in Marxismand the Interpretationof Culture, edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Stacey, Judithand Barry Thorne. 1985. "The Missing Feminist Revolution in Sociology." Social Problems 32: 301-16. Stanley, Liz and Sue Wise. 1983. Breaking Out: Feminist Consciousness and Feminist Research. London: Routledge. Stoehr, Taylor. 1979. Free Love in America:A DocumentaryHistory. New York: AMS Press, Inc. Takaki, Ronald. 1990. Iron Cages: Race and Culture in 19th CenturyAmerica. New York:Oxford University Press. Walby, Sylvia. 1989. TheorizingPatriarchy. London:Blackwell. Warner,Michael. 1993. Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory. Minneapolis:University of MinnesotaPress. West, Candace and Don H. Zimmerman. 1987. "Doing Gender."Gender and Society 1(2): 125-51. Wittig, Monique. 1992. The StraightMind. Boston: Beacon.