Sara Delamont - The Sociology of Women

Volume 3

THE SOCIOLOGY OF WOMEN

First published in 1980 by George Allen & Unwin Ltd

This edition first published in 2022

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158

1980 Sara Delamont

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-03-207714-7 (Set)

ISBN: 978-1-00-321960-6 (Set) (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-03-210943-5 (Volume 3) (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-03-210961-9 (Volume 3) (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-00-321789-3 (Volume 3) (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003217893

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

First published in 1980

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. All rights are reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, 1956, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:

GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD

40 Museum Street, London WC1A 1LU

Sara Delamont, 1980

Typeset in 10 on 11 point Times by Watford Typesetters

and printed in Great Britain

by Billing & Sons Ltd., Guildford. London and Worcester

Good evening, this is the ten oclock news and Mary Lyon reading it. First, the news headlines.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Right Honourable Frances Buss, has announced today that there will be a mini-budget on 19 June before the summer recess.

The results of the Democratic presidential primary in Georgia shows Bella Azbrug a clear winner over Shirley Chisholm.

The Derby was won today by Blakeneys Niece at 7 to 4, ridden by Emma Willard, trained by Annie Kenny and owned by Lady Hester Stanhope, the millionaire industrialist.

The Secretary of State for the Environment, Prudence Crandall, announced that the Royal Commission on the Road Haulage Industry is to be chaired by Dame Lucy Larcom, President of the Royal College of Surgeons.

The President of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, Phillippa Fawcett, has made it clear that the club is to discipline Geoff Burkett over the controversial incident at Hove last Sunday.

At Question Time the Prime Minister, Dorothea Beale, faced tough questions from Opposition Leader Rhoda Nunn over the new wages settlement for the airline pilots. Nunn claimed that the settlement was highly inflationary, but this has been denied tonight by Captain Catherine Beecher, leader of BALPA, the pilots union.

Our Middle East correspondent, Lousia Lumsden, has reported further fighting from the Iraq/Iran border tonight.

The Archbishop of Canterburys visit to Dover today was disrupted by women demonstrating for the right to be ordained full priests of the Anglican Church.

Finally, good news for consumers. Julia Ward Howe, chief executive of the giant food manufacturers CapCorp, has promised to cut Sp in the kilo off coffee from next Monday.

Imagine those are the news headlines for Derby Day, 1984. While the world portrayed has little to do with Orwells nightmare vision of totalitarianism, it is not a world like ours today. There has obviously been some kind of revolution, which has changed the power relationships in the world in one fundamental way yet left most features of the political and social system untouched. The fundamental change I am suggesting (and if you have not noticed it, you should read the headlines again) probably seems more bizarre and improbable to you than the science fiction ideas of world governments and inter-planetary wars. Yet all I am imagining is that women might be occupying some of the many social positions for which they are at present eligible. I am not suggesting a role-reversal, for men are still fighting the wars and playing professional cricket. A woman could be President of the United States, Chancellor of the Exchequer of Britain or lead a large union today but on the whole women do not reach such exalted posts. This book examines the various spheres of social life outlined in those news headlines (finance, politics, sport, mass media, work and religion) where women conventionally do not figure in positions of power, and those spheres in which women do figure (education, medicine and the family).

I suggest that most people who read those news headlines will find the world portrayed disquieting and even unnatural. Yet the everyday world in which we live has a power balance between the sexes which is just as one-sided, because all the powerful jobs are held by men. It would be perfectly possible for a similar set of head.: lines to include only men and their occupations, and no one would even notice this or remark upon it. News readers, Chancellors of the Exchequer, foreign statesmen (sic), American presidential candidates, jockeys, trainers and owners, chairmen (sic) of Royal Commissions, presidents of the Royal College of Surgeons and of county cricket clubs, prime ministers and opposition leaders in the United Kingdom, trade union secretaries, foreign correspondents and leading industrialists are normally all men. This does not make us feel uneasy or uncomfortable. Yet there is no inherent reason why any of these posts cannot be held by women, and we can tolerate one or two of them being so held. At the time of writing the British Prime Minister is a woman, there are a few women news readers, a woman might own the Derby winner, and both Shirley Chisholm and Bella Azbrug might run for President of the USA. Women are no longer unthinkable in one or two top jobs, but a whole Cabinet, a whole trade union council, university senate or board of directors, is still unbelievable. Margaret Thatcher has no other women in her Cabinet, and the 1979 election saw nearly all the leading women politicians in Britain lose their seats. One Prime Minister makes no difference to the male-dominated power structure, unless she is a conscious feminist. One of the aims of this book is to examine why this is so, by discussing the imbalances between the sexes in all areas of endeavour in modern Britain, and analysing the ways in which they are developed and sustained.