‘Gender, (social) science, and academia: reflections on a journey of 60 years’ – Ann Oakley 2022

Professor Ann Oakley, UCL.

This seminar will draw on many years’ experience of university work to explore the persistent gendering of knowledge and methodology (an issue which is closely related to the marginalization of feminism and women). My journey began with work on sex, gender and housework in the early 1970s, continued through research on medicalization and women’s health in the next decade, travelled down the path of social scientific methodology and research unit founding in the 1990s, and is currently occupied with work on the forgotten women of social and household science. Using moments from this journey, I will address the recurrent question for feminists of how to engage women’s knowledge and experience with the masculinist architecture of the academy. There are no easy answers, but the journey is an interesting one.

Speaker

Professor Ann Oakley  is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the UCL Social Research Institute, and was the founding Director of the Social Science Research Unit (SSRU) at the Institute of Education, where she also headed the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordinating Centre (EPPI-Centre). She is best known for her work on sex and gender, housework, childbirth and social science. Her more recent interests have focused on evidence-based public policy and methodologies of research and evaluation, on the sociology of the body and on biography and autobiography as forms of life-writing.

Details

12^th July, 5pm-7pm (seminar 5-6pm, followed by refreshments).

A recording is now available via UCL Media Cental ‘Gender, (social) science, and academia: reflections on a journey of 60 years’