So how is it that the subordinate position of women persists so long after legislation designed to ‘liberate’ women was implemented? Why is it that today so many women still apparently choose to follow traditional paths? What is the relationship between patriarchy and capitalism? In short, how can feminism address the persistence of gender ideologies?
Pierre Bourdieu may be regarded as one of the most influential sociologists in recent years; his texts have been widely discussed, dismissed, deconstructed and critiqued. Influenced by the works of Marx, Weber and Durkheim and frustrated by the oversimplification of the structuralists, Bourdieu extended economic analysis into the cultural sphere to which Marx had paid little attention, believing it to be little more than a false veneer; a by-product of the capitalist organisation of the relations of production which served to mask the reality of social exploitation. Though it is Comte that is often accredited as the founding father of classic sociology, it is the class analysis, as inspired by Marx that informs much of modern sociology; many theorists have developed Marx’s theory to explain how the capitalist system reproduces itself over generations.
Bourdieu outlined his theory of cultural capital in an attempt to explain the persistence of class inequality, as exemplified by the unequal levels of scholastic achievement by the different social groups. His study of the education system in France led him to propose that it was the education system itself that was enabling the maintenance of traditional hierarchies, as the criteria by which students are judged tended to favour those from middle class backgrounds.
Yet gender is central to Bourdieu’s argument; he seeks to over turn Levi-Strauss’ conception of gender as the fundamental symbolic binary opposition turning the idealist theory into a materialist schema in a way not dissimilar to Marx’s treatment of Hegel.
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