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A FEW LACED GENES: SOCIOLOGY, THE WOMENr S MOVEXENT AND THE WORK OF DOR- E, SMLTH
Deirdre Mary Saryth
A thesis submitted i n conformity w i t h the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Sociology and Equity Studies Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the
Unf versity of Toronto
@ Copyright by Deirdre Wary Smyfh 1999
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ABSTRACT
A Pew Laced Genes: Sociology, the Woxuen's Movement, and the Work of Dorothy R. Smith, PhD, 1999 .
Deirdre M, wth, Department of Sociology aad Eqlufty Studies in Education,
Ontario Institute for Studies in Bducatioa of the University of Toronto.
This dissertation examines the productive forces which
gave rise to a sociological method called the Social Organization
of Knowledge (SOK) , formulated by the Canadian sociologist Dorothy
E. Smith. The method is used to study the organizing power of
ob j ectif ied knowledge found in textually-mediated f oms of
discourse. It was created as a subversive response to the
traditional canon of the sociology of knowledge. Smith has a
feminist ancestry, in that her direct foremother is Margaret Fell.
The thesis begins with Fellr s life from her conversion to Quakerism
in 1652, and continues with the militant Suffragette experience of
Lucy Ellison Abraham and Dorothy Foster Abraham, Smithf s mother and
grandmother. It then proceeds with Smith's early life in England
and the development of the SOK is traced through her doctoral
studies at the University of California at Berkeley, the Vancouver
Womenr s Movement, 1968 - 1977, and the Toronto Womenf s Movement from 1977 to the present.
A central argument in this dissertation is that the
women's movement, in its ongoing historical manifestations acts as
a productive force for change. Women's movements are represented
in a way as to reflect the empirical reality of Smith's feminist
lineage, lived life, and her lifework. Historical materialism is
used to reproduce women' s lives, employing the term, appropriated
from Marx's The German Ideology, of 'productive forcesr , defined as
the innovative ways which women, over time, have used household
labour to advance their work for women's equality. I argue that
through the qualities that were offered to Smith in an
intergenerational experience of f e m i n i s m , and the imaginative use
of the historical moment in the Vancouver Womenr s Movement, she
created an identity for herself as a feminist sociologist, shaping,
over her sociological career, a new contribution to the sociology
of knowledge, the SOK method. The dissertation is categorized as
interpretive historical sociology. Data were collected by: 1) in-
depth interviews ; 2 ) participant obsemation; and 3 ) library,
archival, and database research.
Lacing the Genes: Historical Sociology and Historical Materiali~,.,e.o.~e-.,,.,,m,,m..-tm
2 . TIE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE t THEORIZING TEE CRUST AND T'HE C R U M B o a o o o a - - m a - - *
Inventing a Sociology of Knowledge: A Theory for Differing Womenr e Movements, . , - . . . Problematizing the Sociology of Knowledge,
Classical Forms of the Sociology of Kn~wledge..~
Text-Reader Conversation.a~,~a..maw~~,w..,m.~ m o m
Page
i
iii
vi
vii
viii
Chapter Page
Everyday L i f e in the Fell K~usehold.,,~..~,.~,., 140
The Quakerr Roots of D o r o f h y S d t h ~ ~ ~ w ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ w ~ ~ 152
5 , "WONT TO SPgAK PtAIN AND TO THE PWRPOSEm: LUCY ELLISON AND DOROT'HY FOSTER A B ~ ~ ~ ~ e e w ~ w w 166
Number Eleve in Renshaw Street: The WSPD in Liverpoolm,,,~wm,.,,w,.,~~,,,..,e,,, 17 8
A M o t h e r and D a u g h t e r in the W a w x V a Waro.o~.,wm 197
6 . DOROTHY SMITH'S FORMATZVE YEARS, 1926 - 1955~w~..~e~.. 215 The Place Family Life in the North R i d i n g of Y~rkshire,~.~.~~~~~~,.,~~.,,,,.~.,,~,~...,.,,~,, 2 17
Boarding School, 1935 - 1 9 4 3 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ w w ~ . ~ ~ . w . ~ . . , . 230
Woodbrooke College, 1944 - 1946,,,,,,.,.....,.,. 239
The London School of Economics, 1952 - 1955,.,,. 248
7. DOROTHY SMITH IN CALIFORNXA, 1955 - 65: STUDIES IN SOCIAL 0 R O A N Z Z A T I O N w o . o o o o w o o o o m o w o o w 275
Waiting in the Wings: F e m i n i s m in Sociology, 1955 - 1 9 6 5 . , , ~ . ~ ~ ~ ~ . ~ ~ . ~ . ~ . . ~ ~ . , . 293
Patterns of American Womanhood, 1955-65.,.., , . , . 299
Chapter Page
S e t t i n g the Scene: Student Activism, the Georgia Straight and the Status of W a m m , , , , , , , ,
The SOK and the Vancouver Woanenr s Movement: Faminist Principles in the Collected W o r k s of Dorothy E, Smith, 1968 - 770-.-0-.,,,,...-m-.,., The Vancouver Women8s Revolution: Econopllica, Events and Org~i~ations.,-~~~~~.,~~.,..,,...,,
The Social Organization of Knowledge and the Toronto Women's M o v e m e n t , 1977 - 1989.m0m,-~-..
Introduction to Toronto Women's Liberationmoo -.. Feminist Publishing in Toronto.-.,..,.., , - -- ,., ,
APPENDIX I: THE COLLECTED WORKS OF DOROTHY E- S M I T I I ~ ~ e - ~ ~
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks for his contribution to this sociological enterprise goes first to my supervisor, Dr, James L. Heap, Dean of Education, Ohio University. Appreciation also goes to the members of my committee, Dr, Kari Dehli (OISE/UT - SESE) and Dr. Michael Comelly (OISE/UT - Curriculum) . I am especially grateful to Sandra Acker, a member of the oral defense committee, for her extraordinary support at the time of my oral defense-
I extend thanks to Dorothy E. SmLth and her family; her brothers, Ullin T, Place of Boltby, Thirsk, and Milner Place of Huddersfield, and their wives, Peggy and Dorothy, respectively, Also Dorothyr s friend, Anne Canham, from Carlisle, England, and her husband Philip.
The completion of this project would never have been possible without the consistent thoughtfulness and emotional support of the SESE support staff, M a r y Howes, Cheryl Williams, Olga Williams and Kristine Pearson. Also Reuben ~oth, my friend and supporter for endlessly allowing me the use of his computer to print out my chapters,
Intensive research could not be completed without librarians, considered by me to be among the world's finest people. The first is Freda Foreman, librarian at the Women's Educational Resource Centre (WERC) at OISE/UT- I offer further appreciation to Andrea Trudel and Linda Arsenault at the Archives and Special Collections Department at the Morriset Library at the University of Ottawa, for their help in negotiating the Women's Movement Archive Collection (WMAC) . Further afield, David Doughan, the Reference Librarian at the most superb women8 s history library in the world, the Fawcett Library at London Guildhall University in London, England; and Steve Deeming, the curator of Swarthmoor Hall, the ancient home of the Mother of Quakerism, Margaret Fell.
Many people provided academic and intellectual support. David Livingstone, Chair of the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies (SESE) at OISE/UT, gave me several occasions for work on various projects . Krista Cowman, at the University of York, England, supplied me with commentary on the fine points of Suffragette history on the Merseyside and in the Birkenhead area, In addition, my former teachers at Lakehead University, gave me much encouragement: Gerd Schroeter, my former theory professor and friend, for his letters, cartoons and customary good humour; and David Nock, who invited me to present a paper with him at the ASA Meetings in 1997, Finally, I would like to thank my friend and former MA supervisor, Pam Wakewich, who first introduced me to the work of Dorothy Smith in her class in feminist theory,
Margaret Fell born at Marsh-Grange,
Margaret Fell converted to Quakerism at Swarthmoor.
Margaret Fell dies in her daughter Rachel's arms at Swarthmoor Hall at age 88,
Tom Place born in the village of Langton-on-Swale,
Dorothy Foster Abraham born on Lancaster Avenue in Liverpool.
Women's Social and Political Union formed in Manchester.
Dorothy Foster Abraham arrested and incarcerated in Holloway for three weeks in London.
Dorothy Foster Abraham marries Tom Place at Bidston.
Dorothy Edith Place born in Northallerton.
Lucy Ellison Golding (Mrs. Alfred Clay Abraham) dies in a climbing accident in the Lake District.
Dorothy E. Place begins attendance at the Birklands School in St- Albanfs just outside of London.
Dorothy E. Place graduated from the University of Birmingham with a Social Studies Diploma-
Tom Place dies from pneumonia that he caught while on a fishing trip in Scotland.
Dorothy begins studying Social Anthropology at LSE.
Dorothy graduates with honours from LSE, marries William Reed Smith and moves to California.
Dorothy Smith's son David is born.
Dorothy Smith's son Steven is born.
Dorothy receives her doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley,
Dorothy Smith begins teaching at the University of British Columbia.
Dorothy Foster Place dies at the age of 89-
Dorothy Smith begins teaching at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
viii
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
History is nothing but the succession of separate generations, each of which uses the materials, the capital funds, the productive forces handed down to it by all the preceding generations, and thus, on the one hand, continues the traditional activity in completely changed circumstances and, on the other, modifies the old circumstances with a completely changed activity- ' (Emphasis mine)
This dissertation studies how the mothers and daughters
in one family, over a genealogical history reaching back to
the seventeenth century, contributed to the production of one
woman's sociology. The thesis is a study of a series of
social settings over time, in which women are the leading
actors, and through their work on behalf of other women, and
fired by a belief in the principle of women's equality,
contributed to the creation of a sociological method for
examining objectified and textual forms of knowledge, named
the Social Organization of Kn~wledge.~ The woman whose life
and work is studied here is Dorothy Edith Smith, n6e Place, a
world-renowned sociologist, who has spent twenty-one years
(1977 - 1998) of her career at the Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, Ontario,
Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels . 1976, The German Ideology. Moscow: Progress, P. 58.
From here on the Social Organization of mowledge will be represented as the SOK. It should not be confused with the sociology of knowledge. The differences between the two will be explained in Chapter Two.
Canada, She has accumulated forty-four years service to the
discipline of sociology. It is a dissertation in which women
are asserted to have reirforced the invention of an
intellectual product, through the power of their own labour,
the material conditions of which they were a part, and their
individual commitments to women's equality,
The thesis will argue f r o m a perspective of historical
sociology, that one woman's contribution to sociology began
centuries ago and is a result of the organising power of
women's particular knowledgeb), their ordinary practices that
were a part of their everyday lives, andl how their skills and
strengths as women, passed on from generation to generation
ultimately influenced the development of a sociological
method. The historical sociology of the creation of the SOK
begins at the time of the conversion to Quakerism of Margaret
Fell and her household in 1752, and in the way that members of
the Quaker Movement adopted the unprecedented belief in the
equality of women and their right to preach in the church,
into the foundations of their spiritual life. It was this
belief, I argue, that was present in the lives of Lucy Ellison
Abraham (Mrs. Alfred Clay Abraham, Dorothy Smith' s
grandmother) and Dorothy Foster Abraham (Dorothy's mother) and
what was, in the course of time, transmitted to Dorothy,
providing an underlying strength and example to pursue a
demanding career in sociology, despite the fact that she was
single parent, and a woman in a discipline that was controlled
by men. In this thesis, I interpret that this kind of
inheritance likely enabled, strengthened, encouraged, and
2
provided the precedent for her adoption of feminist beliefs in
the Vancouver Women's Movement of the early 1970s. A feminist
belief system in turn coloured every aspect of her way of
doing sociology and the production of the S O L
The creation process documented here took place over an
interim of some three hundred and fifty years and covered a
geography spanning three countries, England, the United States
and Canada. Through an intergenerational force that was kept
going through mothers and daughters, the hope of women's
equality was kept alive, producing, against all odds and
despite the active repression that accompanied its
transference, a significant contribution to sociology and the
sociology of knowledge. The most important source of evidence
for the intergenerational transference of this feminist belief
system comes from a book which Dorothy Smith lent me for the
purposes of this dissertation, which was likely handed down
through the women on her mother's side of her family from the
time of Margaret Fell, from the origins of the Quaker Movement
in the seventeenth centurp3 It is a first edition of
Margaret Fell's collected works, called A Brief Collection of
I questioned Dorothy Smith as to the history of the ownership of Fell's collection of writing. This is her reply: "1 got the collection of Fell's writing from my mother. It must have been passed down in my motherf s family, but I don8 t know the route. I am pretty confident that it would not have been purchased. If it had been owned by someone else, their name would likely have been in the book-ft (E-mail Communication, Monday, July 6, 1998) - Written inside the front cover are the inscriptions: I) "The Gift of Sarah Meade to Sarah Sheppard the 14th of y. 2Mo:th - 1713: 2 ) Sarah Sheppard E Goldingrs great great grandmother her daughter was married to G Cockfield. 3) the signature of Dorothy Foster Place, Dorothy Smith's mother, written after she was married: 'Dorothy F. Place8 -
the Remarkable Passages and Occurrences Relating to the Birth,
Education, Life, Conversion, T2avelsr Services, and Deep
Sufferings of that Ancient, Eininent, and F a i t h f u l Servant of
the Lord, Margaret Fell (1710) published by members of Fellr s
family after her death. and signed by her fourth daughter,
Sarah Meade-
It is a dissertation which investigates historical forms
of the women's movement that are juxtaposed with the emerging
lives of the generations of women in Dorothy Smith's family.
This thesis explores how the dynamics of women's activism in
its variations have attracted and sustained the attention of
these generations of women, allowing the women in her family
to become a force for change in their own particular
circumstances. Women's experience has usually meant work in
the household, consequently I argue throughout the thesis that
the skills involved in domestic labour are a productive force
which have been appropriated by succeeding generations of
women in the accompanying historical forms of the women's
movement. These women have used domestic labour in
resourceful and inventive ways in their efforts to reproduce
and bequeath a belief in women's equality to their daughters,
which ultimately became a part of Dorothy Smith's sociological
method, the Social Organization of Knowledge. To state it
concisely, the argument for this thesis is that the
generations of women in Dorothy Smith's family, and the
women's movements of which they were a part, through their
domestic labour over the centuries, and by their example, have
assisted her in the production of her SOK method. My task
4
here is to show how this was accomplished- In the late 1960s
and early 70s. Dorothy Smith's sociology became radically
transformed as a consequence of her participation in the
women's movement, in ways that reflected its organizational
and political practices, These practices were based on the
affirmation of the experience of women. This had an impact on
Smith's first imagining of the SOK and its emphasis on direct
experience. During the height of the Toronto Womenrs Movement
in the 1980s. and continuing to the present, Dorothy Smith's
work has been committed to the study of the social
organization of women's experience.
I first met Dorothy E. Smith in October, 1994. She had
been invited to Lakehead University, where I was completing my
MA in sociologyr to give a lecture. My MA thesis4 was a study
of the creation of her feminist theory called 'the standpoint
of We shook hands shortly before she gave her
presentation. What initially drew me to Dorothy's work was
her 'standpoint of womenr theory, and the fact that it
originated in women's experience. To me, it meant that my own
past, which I had until then taken for granted, took on a
value which I had never attributed to it before. When I came
to OISE/UT to do PhD work, I discovered more. It was
Dorothy's method of teaching, the point that she was
Smyth, Deirdre, 1995. "The Creation of Dorothy Smithr s Standpoint Epistemology: A Feminist ~ ~ ~ r o ~ r i < t i o n of Male theorist^.^^ MA thesis, Lakehead University.
Smith , D. E. 1979b. "A Sociology for W0rnen.I' In: Sherman, Julia A. and Evelyn Torton Beck, eds . The Prism of Sex: Essays in the Sociology of mowledge, Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. P. 163-172.
interested in her student's expressions of their actual
experience, I found it interesting that she encouraged
students to start a serious intellectual project from their
own circum;stances, and to build on it in the learning process,
I remember how 1 decided to study her work. I had
written a review of The Conceptual Practices of Power: A
Feminist Sociology of Knowledge (1990a) for Pam Wakewichrs
feminist theory course- When I began thinking about a topic
for my MA thesis, I first thought of writing about what I
knew, which was the discipline of ballet, because I had taught
it for many years. 1 discussed the topic with my theory
teacher, Gerd Schroeter one afternoon, which turned out to be
a gradual process of talking myself out of writing a critique
of what I felt was the unnaturalness of the dance environment,
Moreover, I wanted to study a meaningful form of sociology
which would require serious effort- Since we had been
chatting for a long time, I got up to leave, and on the way
out of his office, I said to him, " I ' m going to write m y
thesis about Dorothy Smith." And that was the beginning. As
I continued to think more about my choice, it made sense from
a professional, sociological, and a feminist standpoint. Men
have always taken up intellectual projects which critique and
analyze the work of other men as a stepping stone to an
academic career. 1 have consciously taken up a womanr s work
to study, to demonstrate that it is possible for women to
study the examples put forward by other women.
&acing the Genes : Historical Sociology and Historical Materialisra
A Few Laced Genes is categorized as an instance of
interpretive historical sociology, which has been used to
examine the sociohistorical conditions that were available to
Dorothy Smith in the creation of her lifework. It is not an
ethnography, biography, intellectual portrait, critique, or a
narrative, nor does this thesis use Dorothy Smith's method.
Further, I make no definitive claims of causality. in other
words, the women's movements studied here are not argued to be
the single underlying producer and origin of Dorothy Smithrs
approach to sociology- The strategy I take to characterize
the connections between women's movements and the work of
Dorothy Smith is one of informed interpretation based on
historical evidence. data which is disciplined by the
theoretical approach which 1 have formulated in Chapter Two.
The strength of these connections are represented by words
like 'logicalr, 'deductiver. 'plausibler, 'likelyr,
'reasonabler and in some cases 'obvious'. The linkages
between the social conditions which are argued to have given
rise to Smith's work must be seen as substantive, so the
interpretive procedures I use here are based on verifiable
historical documentation. Scholars who are familiar with her
work may find this method disconcerting, but I decided to take
up this analytic direction for several reasons. You will
find, as the thesis progresses, that I am as interested in
history as I am in sociology. I have a meticulous approach to
my work, which stems, I believe, from a skill in forms of
needlework which require an attention to fine detail- 1
further have a background in Cecchetti ballet, which demanded
the execution of difficult forms of movement and an eye for
technical precision. My reading for this thesis has resulted
in a high respect for historical work which painstakingly
documents the precise components of ordinary life during an
historical period, such as Isabel Ross' Margaret Fell: the
M o t h e r of Quakerism (1949)
I felt that the method I have taken in writing an
interpretive historical sociology of Dorothy Smith's ancestry,
life and work was the most appropriate frame to profile the
feminist quality of her work. To me, something which required
a considerable time to create and which used a variety of rich
materials in its construction, eventually unfolded to become
something of value. There is no question of the present
stature of Dorothy Smith's contribution to sociology. She is
the first woman in the history of the discipline to break into
the sacred inner circle of classical sociological theory,
which has heretofore been made up of male writers. Her work
is now regularly included in introductory sociology texts and
undergraduate texts on sociological theory- Using h i s to r i c a l
sociology is an interpretive method, an exegesis which
provides the historical background of a sociological
procedure.
A few years ago, I read Gerda Lernerr s The Creation of
Feminist Consciousness: From the Midd le Ages to Eighteen-
seventy (19931, a book which had an enormous effect on me. It
taught me the power of the historical process, how something
8
consequential, such as feminist consciousness, or in the case
of my dissertation, a sociological method, was not created in
the course of one biological generation, but could have
threads and connections which stretched back for centuries. I
could further use the analogy of geology here to explain what
I mean. Geology is the study of pressure over time, how the
creation of a commodity like coal, for example, could take *
millions of years. Taking the fastidious approach of showing
the creation process of a sociological method was something
which I thought would engage a community of feminist scholars,
as well as others who were interested in the work of Dorothy
Smith. It was Dorothy who originally presented me with the
facts of her feminist ancestry, and it became a magnet whose
appeal was impossible for me to ignore, and although Dorothy
Smith herself places a lesser significance on the place of her
feminist ancestry, I. felt that it would intrigue an academic
community which likely knew little about her.
Finally, Dorothy Smith has an enormous, world-wide
reputation. Using the method of historical sociology was a
means for me to think independently of her and a way of
confronting her writing without simply regurgitating her work
in ways which I had seen done over and over again in the body
of criticism that has grown up around her sociology. As a
scholar, I saw my responsibility as one of creating new
knowledge, so writing an historical sociology of the ancestry,
life and work of an important sociologist was one way of
accomplishing this* In this dissertation, I am the researcher
and Dorothy Smith is the sociological subject of study. As a
9
knower of her lived life, she is the authority, but I am
capable of creating an informed representation- Although I
have valued and insisted on her participation and shaping of
my work, there was a clear boundary where I: had to become a
scholar who was completely independent of her,
As a subdiscipline, historical sociology had its
beginnings in cultural anthropology, and was traditionally
concerned with social origins and the history of the social
life of human beings and their institutions- A primitive
example of historical sociology is the Gilgamesh Epic and its
Hebrew adaptation in the Book of Genesis, a history of the
generations of peoples who succeeded Adam and Eve? Early
historical sociology was heavily influenced by social
Darwinism and the comparative method in anthropology, which
sought to establish laws of social evolution through the
compilation and comparison of various historical cases of
social institutions such as the family. These early
sociological 'lawsr were applied to human belief systems, so
that Franklin H. Giddings created what he called 'emotional
typesf, such as 'American Quicknessf, and 'Athenian
Vi~acity'.~ One of these outmoded 'lawsr that might have been
applied to this work, were it now appropriate in contemporary
sociological research, was 0. Tarders imitation theory, found
Barnes, Harry Elmer. 1948. H i s t o r i c a l Sociology: Its Origins and D e v e l o p m e n t ; T h e o r i e s of Social Evolution from Cave Life to A t o m i c Bombing. New York: Philosophical Library. P. 6.
' Giddings , Franklin H. 1906. Readhgs in Descriptive and Historical Sociology- New York: Macmillan- P. 196-7.
10
in his The Laws of Imitation (1903) . It could be applied to
the intergenerational 'imitationr of a belief in women's
equality extant in Dorothy Smith's family. Tarde argued that
there were two types of imitation, and that example was never
copied exactly: 1) custom imitation, or the copying of
tradition; and 2) mode imitation, or the copying of new
fashion^.^ Rather than being useful here, however, these
'laws' are now just a quaint reminder of sociologyrs past,
Another early prototype of historical sociology which is
a classic work for feminist scholars is Frederick Engelsr The
Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884) ,
In a similar vein, Edward Alexander Westermark' s History of
Human M a r r i a g e (1891) and Robert Briffaultr s The Mothers
(1927) are illustrations of the use of an uncritical,
comparative method.g In North America, W, I, Thomas was also
interested in primitive culture, and his Source Book for
Social Origins (1909) brought a scepticism to the broad
generalizations used in the comparative method. A Few Laced
Genes is both an illustration of a single case study, in that
it is the social history of women in one family, and a use of
the comparative method, in that it compares the attendant
historical forms of women's activism that accompany the lives
of the women in that particular family. Rather than
attempting to prove the existence of 'laws' of social
Ibid, p, 157.
Barnes, 1948, op. cit-I p. 39,
Ibid, p. 50.
I1
evolution, this thesis seeks to uncover the meaning in the
changing course of women's activism connected to the
historical emergence of the SOK method,
Feminist versions of historical sociology have emerged as
a conseqgence of the impact of the women's movement, but
women's history is by no means a recent branch of knowledge.
As a discipline, Natalie Zemon Davis informed us that womenrs
history, as it was taken up in the early 1 9 7 0 ~ ~ was not an
original form, An ancient framework for the creation of
womenr s history was the genre of llWomen WorthiesI1, a construct
which goes back to Plutarch. This kind of women's history
consisted of historical biographies of outstanding women which
had the underlying moral objective of demonstrating that women
could and ought to benefit by instruction. Christine de
Pisan's C i t y of Ladies (1405) is an example of this model.
These biographies had several aims, in that they were created
to demonstrate the extent of female intelligence, to produce
an example for other women to follow, and to claim that since
women had achieved great things, there was no limit to what
they could do if given the opportunity and the education.ll
This dissertation in historical sociology has been formulated
as a legacy of the "Women WorthiesI1 found in the traditional
paradigms of women's history,
One important question in the method of historical
sociology is that of causality. Skocpol has analyzed several
Davis, Natalie Zemon. 1976. lgWomenr s Historytr in Transition: The European Case. Feminist Studies, 3, 3-4. p. 83-103, P, 83,
current approaches in historical research: 1 applied
universal prototypes to history (deductive) ; 2) investigated
patterns of causality (inductive) ; and 3) produced explicit
historical interpretations (interpretive) .12 This work is
characterized as ineerpretive historical sociology, and seeks
to establish the meaning which women drew from their
experience in various women's movements. By the phrase
'interpretive historical sociologyr, I intimate that I have
employed a number of interpretive schema, for example, women's
household labour and everyday life, women's work for women's
equality , and geographical relevance, to interpret the
historical evidence 1 collected through the research process.
The work in this dissertation does not make causality claims:
1) from the feminist activism of women from one generation to
another; or 2) the women's movement as the sole origin of
Dorothy Smith's sociology. Rather, it is concerned with the
problem of situating the individual, in this case the life of
Dorothy Smith, within the construct of an historical
sociology, It means looking at the historical stock of
materials that w e r e available to Dorothy Smith in her creation
of the Social Organization of Knowledge. It further means
concurrently tracing the formation of her identity as a
sociologist and a feminist. History, as well as the social,
provides the substance that is used in a process of identity-
formation,
l2 Brown, David K. 1990. IfInterpretive Historical Sociology: Discordances of Weber, Dilthey and Others.Ir Journal of Historical Sociology, 3, 2, 166-191, P. 185.
13
For the purposes of tracing the history of an identity-
formation, Philip Abrams makes the distinction between
biological and sociological generations. A sociological
generation takes in a span of time in which an identity could
be assembled on the basis of an unchanged system of meanings
and possibilities, and could envelop several biological
generations, or be a space of time as short as ten years.
Within the time frame of a sociological generation, like the
early Quaker Movemect and the Militant Suffragette Movement
examined in my thesis, types of identities are shaped, and so
shape the possibilities for generations, identity tmes, and
identities in the future.13 A critical sociological
generation for Dorothy Smith, for example, was the interval of
the Vancouver Women's Movement from 1968 - 1977, in which her
identity as a sociologist and a feminist was formed as a
consequence of the meanings she herself drew from this
particular historical period. At the same time, she had the
examples of Margaret Fell, Lucy Ellison Golding and Dorothy
Foster Abraham, as women in past sociological generations who
w e r e also feminists, to assist her in the creation of a new
version of feminist identity, I argue in this thesis that she
seized this historical moment to create a specific identity
for herself as a sociologist, and that her work reflects the
meaning she drew from this experience. Through the identity
that was offered to her in an intergenerational experience of
feminism in her family, and the imaginative use of the
13 Abrams , Philip. 1982. Historical Sociology. Ithaca, New York: Cornefl University Press- Po 256-
14
historical moment of the Vancouver Women's Movement, Dorothy
Smith was able to create an identity for herself as a feminist
sociologist, shaping, over the course of her sociological
career, a new contribution to the sociology of knowledge, her
method known as the Social Organization of Knowledge,
I was also wanted to produce a form of historical
materialism which was sensitive to the material conditions of
womenf s lives, their labour, and the qualities of the
movements they created, The idea to have women's household
work, a familiar interlocking form of experience for women as
forming the uniting thread of this work came from Dorothy
Smith herself- One day in the OISE/UT cafeteria, she
described to me the process of making marzipan in her mother's
kitchen:
She [Dorothy's mother] knew how to do so much because she spent part of her life working on a farm, so she knew how to make bacon, ham, all those kinds of things. She had all these skills- I remember having the job of grinding up almonds to make marzipan for Christmas cake and you had to grind the almonds extremely small and you had this sieve. It was made out of horsehair, very fine, and you were a little girl and you spent hours doing this and she was never satisfied, it had to be finer, you had to get it finer. It was all done by hand- 1 mean I loved to be in the kitchen with her- She had a woman who helped her from the village and they made all the bread, two or three times a week, on this big white kitchen table, the top which was scrubbed, and filled up with loaves of bread. - -there was this wonderful hot bread and this wonderful smell and we would have it with lashings of butter.'*
I4
during Unstructured lunch in the
Interview by the author with Dorothy Smith OISE/UT cafeteria, August 21, 1997.
I unexpectedly became conscious of w h a t had been obscured
because it had be- taken f o r granted, that the most ordinary
thing for women to do was to work in the home, it was
something they have always done, and frequently this involved
the passing on of the skills of their labour to their
daughters. It could become a bridge joining an historical
study of women and women's movements, mothers and daughters,
and the creation of an intellectual pro j ect . To support an historical materialism, there is a
conceptual motif, found in Karl Marx and Frederick E n g e l r s The
German Ideology, which I feel is useful in tying together the
several generations of women and forms of women's activism
t h a t I have studied. This is the idea, suggested in the
opening quotation at the beginning of this chapter, of
productive forces. There are few Marxist writers who have
tackled an examination of this abstract theoretical term, but
1 will mention the analyses of two who have, and have
formulated what I propose for the intention of this term in
relation t o this dissertation and in regard to an historical
materialism for women, their labour in the household, its
relation to their political activism, and the outcome of these
forms of labour, Dorothy Smithrs intellectual product called
the Social Organization of Knowledge.
A well known analysis of Marxrs understanding of the
productive forces is G. A. Cohenr s Karl Marx's Theory of
History: A Defence (1978). The productive forces and its
related term, 'productive powersr are what one has to build
with in any project involving labour. C o h e n argued that Marx
16
placed a 'primacyr on the explanatory nature of the productive
forces, and that they tended to change over time.15 Most of
Cohenfs study was an argument against the primacy that Marx
placed on this, and the persuasion of Marxist theorists as to
the correct nature of this primacy. According to Cohen, the
productive forces, in the way that Marx. formulated them and
used them, are not part of the economic structure, Cohen
presented the productive forces as 'what are used to produce
thingsr, Le., the 'labour power, the productive power of
producing agents: strength, skill, knowledge, inventivenessf,
and emphasized them as technological strength.16
In Jon Elster's M a k i n g Sense of Marx (1985), the meaning
of the productive forces is largely a reworking of G, A,
Cohen' s work:
The productive forces must be (i) ownable, even if not necessarily owned; (ii) developing throughout history in the sense (broadly speaking) of reducing the labour content of the goods produced; (iii)- capable of explaining the form of the relations of production and (iv) capable of being fettered by these relations.17
In this thesis, it was my objective to show how the concept of
productive forces became useful as an explanatory term. Using
Elster's precepts regarding the nature of the productive
forces, it was possible to create a meaning for this term in
" Cohen G. A. 1978. Karl Marx's Theory of History: a Defence, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, P. 134.
l7 Elster, Jon. 1985. Making Sense of Marx. New York: Cambridge University Press. P, 243,
regard to a historical materialism far women, as it applied to
the particular histories that are examined here, Firstly,
Marx himself never considered women to be a part of the
economic structure, isolated, as they often were, in the
household, and even if they did participate in the labour
force, their labour power was 'below all calculationr ,lS What
is categorized in this dissertation as a 'productive farcer in
the creation process of the Social Organization of Knowledge,
is the labour of women in the household as it develops over
time, and the 'strength, skill, knowledge, inventiveness' that
the women in Dorothy Smith's ancestry and immediate family
used to reproduce the belief of women's equality, Domestic
labour, according to Elsterfs list of principles, is argued to
be at first 'ownabler by men in Margaret Fell's time, and as
it develops historically, controlled by men. Further,
household work has changed over time, appropriated
politically, as it was, by women in various creative ways to
increase their own status in society, in the historical forms
of the women's movements that are studied here. The skill and
inventiveness required in the execution of women's domestic
labour can be used as a device to explicate historical changes
in womenr s activism, and since womenr s political
accomplishments were almost always accompanied by forms of
repression through male-controlled governing positions of
society, it encompasses the concept of 'fetteringr that Elster
alludes to as well-
l8 The Woman Question (1951). P. 2 7 - 2 8 .
18
Method
The procedures which I have employed for the data
gathering for this work have been for the most part founded on
traditional sociological methods, I have used in-depth
interviewing techniques, participant observation, as well as
standard library and archival research, In the data
collection process, which has materialized over the last five
years (1993-1998), I have built on a substantial amount of
material that I had already collected when writing my MA
thesis, I have a complete collection of Dorothy El Smithf s
published work, including book reviews, a number of her
xnpublished papers, and a complete list of the accumulated
citations to these works taken from Social Sciences Citation
Index. In addition, I have a comprehensive anthology of the
growing body of criticism of her work that has appeared over
the course of her career.
In the course of my MA and doctoral research, I have had
the opportunity to conduct interviews with a number of people,
some of them members of Dorothy Smith's family, and one person
who is a close friend of hers, as well as several interviews
with Dorothy Smith herself. The interviews with Dorothy
Smith, as well as all of the others that I conducted for my
dissertation followed the procedures established in the
ethical review process required by the Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. All
participants were given written notice, before they
participated in the interview, that the material gathered
would be used in a dissertation, and would likely be used for
19
publication, They were presented with a loosely structured
list of ten questions, which they were given the option to
amend, if they wished. In addition, Milner Place was formally
asked permission in writing to use an excerpt from one of his
poems for the title of the dissertation. Finally, Dorothy
Smith was furnished with a draft of the thesis, Anne Canham,
Milner Place and Ullin Place were supplied with a diskette of
my dissertation accompanied by a letter which encouraged them
to submit to me, and which I subsequently received, revisions
and corrections which I incorporated into the thesis upon the
completion of my oral defense.
My first interview with Dorothy Smith took place at
Lakehead University in October of 1994, which I term
throughout the dissertation as the "Preliminary InterviewIt.
It came about partially in Pam Wakewichrs office at Lakehead
University, and partly at the Thunder Bay Airport where
Dorothy and I were waiting for her departure to Toronto,
Later that fall, I took part in another exchange with her in
her office at OISE/UT, on November 11, 1994, where we talked
primarily about the later stages of her career and her
'standpoint of womenr theory. Once I started studying in the
Sociology Department at OISE/UT, I began a series of
interviews with Dorothy Smith, the first of which was a
structured interview on her childhood and boarding school
experience. We also had one informal interview during lunch
in the OISE/UT cafeteria. Dorothy and I have lunched together
on several occasions, where she related much about her life
and work. We have maintained a regular contact by e-mail.
20
Three of these extended interviews took place in England,
in the Fall Term of 199% The first was in Carlisle, Cumbria,
in the Northwest corner of England up near the Scottish
border- This interview transpired with Anne Canham, nee
Clarkson, an old friend of Dorothy's who she met at school
during World War II, '~ Anne met me at the Carlisle station
while a large brass band played Beatlesr music in celebration
of the christening of a new train. She lives with her husband
Philip, a retired Church of England clergyman, in an
immaculate house with a traditional English garden. When I
was there, she took me for a drive in the surrounding
countryside, where we visited an 11th century church and
looked an ancient stone circle called Long Meg and Her
Daughters* Anne and Philip took me to church in Carlisle
Cathedral, a magnificent piece of architecture,
My next interview occurred in Kuddersfield with Dorothy
Smith's youngest brother, Milner Place. In complete contrast
to my experience in Carlisle, but one equally interesting,
Milner took me to lmch in an English Pub fittingly called
I1Abrahamf su2', and we chatted until it closed around 3 r30 pm,
whereupon we moved down the street a bit to another pub and
continued talking, Milner lives in a rich pocket of cultural
l9 Anne Canhamr s maiden name was Anne Clarkson* In the references to her in Chapters Four and Six, I will refer to her as Anne Clarkson, as during the time period under study, she was not as yet married-
'' Dorothy Smith's grandmother's name was Lucy Elizabeth Abraham. She was married to Alfred Clay Abraham, and consequently. Dorothy Smith's mother's maiden name was Dorothy Foster Abraham-
activity, and is part of a thriving artistic community. He is
a published poet, the author of several books of poetry, His
book called P i l t d o w n Maa and Bat Wontan (1994) is a series of
verses which he says are influenced by his talks with Dorothy
about women's experience, One of the poems in this book,
called IIDown Draughtn1, is the source of the title of this
dissertation, The relevant passage is meant to convey the
presence of Dorothy's genealogy rather than the biological
connotation of the word 'genesr- It is the image of
succeeding generations of women that Milner meant to convey in
his poem2=:
Here in the cave, my child and I; - my child, outsprung of thighs, 0-K-, a little sperm, a few Iaced genes, but of my blood, teeth, flesh and bones; calcification of my milk -22
Milner and his partner, also named Dorothy, drove me to the
country around Huddersfield, where I was able to observe
several abandoned mills for the processing of wool that were
in use during the time of the industrial revolution, I also
saw the narrow canals which Karl Marx talks about in Das
Kapi ta l , where women performing the same work which was
sometimes assigned to horses hauled materials to and from the
mills. Milner and Dorothy also showed me some tiny weaver's
cottages from an earlier era when economic life was still
21 In a letter to the author dated November 11, 1997, Milner Place writes: When I invented and wrote Bat Woman I was very conscious of both Dorothy and my mother looking over my shoulder, but now, thanks to you, when I read it again my grandmother has j oined them, "
22 Place, Milner. 1994, Piltdown Man and Bat Woman. Birstall, Batley, West Yorkshire: Spout Publications. P.20.
contained in individual households. Huddersfield's buildings
were still, in some instances, covered in the black grit which
had been an effect of the factory smoke that had blanketed
Northern England in Marx's time, Milner kindly lent me his
father's three remaining diaries, which Tom Place began
writing at the age of sixteen, and I took notes from them on
the train from Huddersffeld to Thirsk,
My final interview in England was with Ullin T, Place,
Dorothy Smith's oldest brother, who lives in Boltby, Thirsk, a
few miles outside of Northallerton where she was born. Thirsk
is part of an English landscape made up of rolling hills
divided by stone walls and hedges, The view from the stone
terrace at Willowtree Cottage, Ullin and Peggy Placer home,
looks out over a classic English setting, where you could hear
the neighbourfs dogs barking at rabbits and watch people
riding horses along winding country lanes. Ullin took me to
see Sowber Gate, Dorothy Smith's family home during her
childhood years, and the secluded l a t e 12th century churchyard
where Thomas Place is buried beside his little sister, Emma.
Poignant inscriptions on their grave stones read:
Thomas Place of Sowber Gate Born January 16, 1872/ d, June 28, 1948
"His Ways were Ways of Gentleness And All His Paths were Peace, If
Emma Place Died February 12, 1873 Aged 7 Years
"Tender Shepherd thou hast stilled Now thy little lamb's brief weeping Oh how peaceful pale and mild In her narrow bed she's sleeping And no sigh of anguish sore Heaves that little bosom more. l1
Ullin further took me to several of the Place children's
haunts in the Yorkshire Dales around Wensleydale, where
Dorothy played as a child exploring the hills with her
brothers, One of the most romantic places I have ever seen,
the experience of seeing the Yorkshire Dales was the most
breathtaking part of my research trip to England, I conducted
the interview with Ullin Place in his study at Willowtree
Cottage, and he hauled down a huge box of family memorabilia
from his attic for me to look at, including old childhood
photographs of Dorothy, newspaper clippings, and old papers
all of which were invaluable to my research.
As an exercise in participant observation, I attended and
tape recorded all of Dorothy Smith's classes in the Fall Term
of 1996. As I had already taken the two courses with her the
previous year, the fall of 1995, the content of these classes
was already familiar to me. These were OISEfUT courses 1928F
Studies in the Social Organization of Knowledge and BDT 3928
Advanced Studies in the Social Organization of Knowledge,
which Dorothy Smith taught that year in association with her
former student, James L. Heap This resulted in a collection
of tape recordings, for which I kept companion notes, co-
ordinating the tape counter with relevant commentary of what
was taking place in the classroom, in terms of the conceptual
frameworks were being discussed- This satred a lot of time and
expense regarding transcription- Not only did I not have to
transcribe all of the recordings verbatim, I had a ready
reference for any supportive commentary that 1 would be able
to use throughout the dissertation. These tape recordings
24
were employed indirectly in
Organization of Knowledge:
augment my understanding of
examine.
Chapter Three, called "The Social
An Overviewn, where I used them to
the conceptual frameworks that I
For data documenting the diverse recorded forms of the
women's movement I made use of several fine collections of
women's historical material, and archival work quickly became
a passionate interest of mine, In the Toronto area, 1 worked
for several weeks in the Women's Educational Resource Centre
(WERC) on the eleventh floor at OISE/UT assisted by the
librarian, Freda Foreman. I also worked at the New College
Library at the University of Toronto, the Robarts Library, the
Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library on several occasions, the
Metro Reference Library, and the quaint little library
belonging to the Society of Friends (Quakers) close to OISE/UT
at 60 Lowther Avenue.
I was also worked in libraries outside of Toronto, On
three occasions I travelled to Ottawa to work in the Women's
Movement Archive Collection (WMAC) housed at the Morisset
Library at the University of Ottawa- Here, the archivist,
Andrea Trudel and her assistant Linda Arsenault made
innumerable trips retrieving files for me from their
incredibly rich collection of materials, where I: was able to
gather valuable data on the Canadian women's movements in
Vancouver and Toronto. In addition, I spent a week and a half
working in
in London,
Librarian,
the Fawcett Library at London Guildhall University
England, where I was assisted by the Reference
David Doughan. He was very helpful to me, in that
25
I was a newcomer, both to archival work and to England- This
library was exciting beyond measure, and yielded a treasure-
trove of data, in that I came across, quite unexpectedly,
specific historical documentation of the Suffragette
activities of Dorothy Smith's mother and grandmother, Dorothy
Foster Abraham and Lucy Ellison Abraham, n6e Golding. It was
material that Dorothy and her brothers had been unaware of
until that time, Finally, I worked in a private library at
Swarthmoor Hall, just outside of Ulverston in the North of
England. The curator, Steve Deeming, a practising Quaker,
left me to work in the Great Hall unattended while he went
about his chores. The books available here were on Quaker
history, some not available anywhere else in the world.
This extensive research process resulted in an enormous
collection of materials which had to be carefully scrutinized
and designated for inclusion in the dissertation, using the
interpretive schema mentioned above on page 13 in the section
which described my use of interpretive historical sociology.
The selection process was largely based on the theoretical
guidelines which I have constructed at length in Chapter Two,
in the segment on theorizing different women's movements. The
choice of materials was performed with these strictures in
mind, but with an eye to what was relevant geographically,
details that gave a history of the everyday material
conditions of the lives of the women being studied,
particulars relating to domestic labour, to the economic
concerns of women's movements, and to the historically
relevant 'productive forcesr that were available to the women
26
involved, In this way, I would try to imagine what their
lives were like as they were actually lived and include what
fitting historical evidence I had at m y disposal, In some
cases, I chose materials because I felt they would add a
richness to the historical account in which I was working, and
they might interest the audience for which the dissertation
was intended. I chose items for inclusion both out of my own
interest and for the education of my readers, In the choices
made from interviewing data, I was further prompted by
theoretical restraint, in that I was sensitive to factual
material provided by the interviewees which supported an
account of Dorothy Smith's everyday family life, domestic
labour as a productive force, the economic resources of
women's movements, possible historical origins of the SOK, and
the presence of forms of women's activism.
Synopsis of Chapters
Chapter Two establishes the theoretical principles which
are to guide the choices of data throughout the dissertation,
It is comprised of two components: 1) a theory of women's
movements, which constitutes the historical and social setting
which gives rise to the Social Organization of Knowledge; and
2) a section devoted to a critique of classical and neo-
classical forms of the sociology of knowledge, which forms the
rationale, motivation and point of departure for Dorothy
Smith's creation of the Social Organization of Knowledge. In
Chapter Three, a conceptual framework for the Social
27
Organization of Knowledge is formulated, based on the primary
concepts which Smith employs for her method of studying
objectified and textual forms of knowledge, These are:
social organization, direct experience, document and text, the
text-reader conversation, botanizing and finally, disjuncture.
The concepts are historicized, to provide an understanding of
their uses and development.
4tWomenrs Equality and the Quaker Ancestry of Dorothy
S m i t h t r , Chapter Four, is the first of the chapters documenting
historical forms of the women's movement, and studies the
origins of the Quaker Movement in England- Margaret Fell,
often called the 'Mother of Quakerism', is a direct ancestor
of Dorothy Smith, and I provide evidence which points to the
attendant presence of Quakerism in her upbringing and young
adulthood, Here, I establish the first instance of a distinct
form of women's domestic labour, the starting place for a kind
of analysis which is contained throughout the thesis. Chapter
Five documents another form of feminist activism, this time
the militant Suffragette work of Dorothy SmithrS mother,
Dorothy Foster Abraham, and her grandmother, Lucy Ellison
Abraham, nee Golding. This is accomplished in consecutive
layers of the protest activities of the Women% Social and
Political Union (WSPU) in Great Britain, starting with the
London Chapter, moving to the Liverpool, and finally focusing
on the Birkenhead area, and the work of Dorothyr6 mother and
grandmother. These two women worked in all of these separate
but interdependent spheres of the WSPU, so a breakdown of all
three locales has been provided,
28
In Chapter Six, 1 look at the logical origins of the SOK
concept known as 'botanizingr. in the kind of boarding school
education that Dorothy Smith received prior to and during
World War 11, I study her first contacts with social life,
through the social work training that she received at
Woodbrooke College from 1944 - 1946. Finally, I explore her
discovery of sociology and social anthropology at the London
School of Economics, from 1952 - 1955, documenting the conspicuous formative influences that she would have received
from the world-renowned teachers at the school,
Chapter Seven is an investigation of some the theoretical
origins of social organization that Dorothy Smith learned in
graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley.
During this period, she spent a year studying organizational
theory, which likely has served as a foundation for her future
intellectual work. I examine her doctoral dissertation, from
the standpoint of two of the organizational theorists that she
uses. In Chapter Eight, I produce an historical sociology of
the Vancouver Women's Movement, and the kind of work that
Dorothy Smith created in this environment. Here, I present an
interpretation of possible linkages between themes in her work
at this time and the organized womenrl movement and Dorothy
Smith's thinking on these lines. Chapter Nine contains an
inquiry into Dorothy Smith's work from 1977 to the present,
1998- I look at her first years in Toronto, the apex of the
women's movement and its obvious impact on her sociology; the
1990s, where Smith confronts poststructuralist theory; and
include a selective history of the Toronto Women's Movement.
29
CHAPTER Two
THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT AND TEE SOCZOG000 OF KNOWIiEDGE: THEORIZING TEE CRUST AND THE CRUMB.'
This chapter will serve two separate functions, one that
is represented as a 'crustr and one as a 'crumb' . It
organizes the principles that will guide the rest of the
dissertation, and marks the boundaries of the data that is
included, The 'crustr is an allegory for the dissertation's
most salient component, Dorothy Smith's ancestry, life and
work, and the ongoing historical forms of the women's
movement, of which she and the women in her immediate and
ancient family werelare a part. The 'crumb' is metaphorical
for the subordinate focus of the thesis, a critique of
classical and neo-classical forms of the sociology of
knowledge, which forms the logic behind Dorothy Smith's desire
to change sociology, resulting partly in the creation of the
procedure called the Social Organization of Knowledge.
Women's movements are given a principle focus because their
various manifestations have been an interest of Dorothy
Smith's for thirty years of her life. Although it can be
observed that an equal portion of her attention was given to
sociology, I will argue that she used what she learned from
the women's movement to change aspects of the discipline which
she felt were no longer practical. The sociology of knowledge
assumes a lesser position, and serves the purpose that a grain
From the proverb: "If your wife be crust, mind that you are the crumb.tt Brown, Raymond Lamont. 1970. A Book of Proverbs. Newton Abbott, England: David and Charles. P. 109,
of sand does in an oyster, the source of irritation around
which a pearl grows and evolves, the 'pearlr in this case
being the SOK. The sociology of knowledge is argued to be a
sphere of sociology which has lost its meaning, especially for
women members of the discipline, and whose canon of
literature, created by and for men, became a form which
Dorothy Smith resisted. It is a central argument of this
thesis that the women's movement, in its ongoing historical
forms, acts as a productive force for change.
The dissertation is itself a sociology of knowledge,
employing the method of interpretive historical sociology to
explain the productive forces that were available to Dorothy
Smith in the development of her scholarship. Quite often, the
women's movement is depicted as having its origin in the
thinking of Mary Wollstonecraft, but I argue that Dorothy
Smith's feminist imagination was ostensibly assisted by the
examples of the strong women in her family. The thesis begins
with the model of the exceptional leadership ability of her
Quaker ancestor, Margaret Fell, and continues with the example
of her grandmother, Lucy Ellison Abraham, and her mother,
Dorothy Foster Place. Lucy Ellison and Dorothy Foster Abraham
were active members of the Womenfs Social and Political Union
(WSPU), the militant faction of the Suffragette Movement in
England. The feminist historian Gerda Lerner argued that
throughout European history, women were educationally deprived
because of a lack of continuity, that there was no passing on
of learning from one generation to another, and therefore
women were continually forced to create knowledge 'as though
31
no woman before her had ever thought or Here I
show that Dorothy Smith's case is an exception. The tough-
minded women who were her predecessors present an anomaly to
Lerner's argument. These early influences in Dorothy Smith's
childhood and teenage years, likely not taken seriously at the
young age at which they were encountered, provide part of the
material for the formation of her identity as a feminist
sociologist during the Vancouver Women's Movement from 1968 - 1977,
This chapter also provides an analysis of the 'crumbr
portion of my opening metaphor, the sociology of knowledge. I
will analyze the epistemological limitations that have been
put forward by various critiques, by Dorothy Smith and others,
relating to classical and neo-classical forms of the sociology
of knowledge, that prompted Professor Smith to assume
responsibility for 're-makingr sociology, of which one outcome
was the innovation she terms the Social Organization of
Knowledge. This part of the analysis is important, because it
represents the logic behind her life-long sociological
pro j ect . I introduce the sociology of knowledge as it has
originated in the thinking of G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx, and
Emile Durkheirn as illustrations of classical work; and Karl
Mannheim, Barnes and Bloor, and Peter L, Berger and Thomas
Luckmann as examples of neo-classical forms,
In the sociology of knowledge segment of the thesis, a
Lerner, Gerda. 1993. The Creation of F e m i n i s t Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-Seventy. New York: Oxford University Press. P. 166,
dynamic of rebellion is created. It is an examination of
writers in the sociology of knowledge, and is not an
examination of Dorothy Smith's uses of sociological theorists
in the ongoing development of her work- As a canon of
sociological literature written by and for men, the sociology
of knowledge is rejected by Dorothy Smith, My choice of
writers reflects a simple overview of this canon of
literature, including only those who I feel have made the most
influential contributions, These writers are not necessarily
ones who Dorothy Smith has referred to in her writing, as both
her critical use or dismissal of their work is significant-
It would not make sense, for example, to include feminist
theorists which she has used to augment her thinking, because
these writers were her peers, and she was not, at least in the
beginning of the women's movement, actively rebelling against
their thinking, It was men that feminist theorists confronted
in their early work, and men with whom they were angry13
Here, it is important to differentiate between 'theoristsr and
'sociologists of knowledgef- In the case of the sociological
fathers, these two roles overlap, but when the sociology of
knowledge emerged as a distinct subdiscipline in the 19209,
writers became associated with the single genre of the
sociology of knowledge.
This chapter has identified the sociological puzzle or
M y MA thesis is a study of the male theorists which Dorothy Smith appropriated to create her 'standpoint of womenr method- Called "The Creation of Dorothy Smith's Standpoint Epistemology: A Feminist ~ppropriation- of Male ~heorists l1
(19951, it is a study of her use of Hegel, Marx, Schutz and Garfinkel.
sociological problematic to be solved through writing the
thesis. For Dorothy Smith, the problematic was sociology
itself and she undertook the task of 'doing sociology
differentlyr early in her career-4 My assignment here was
smaller, and a description of its character is contained in
Karl Mannheim's Ideologic und U t o p i e (1929). where he argues
that 'there are modes of thought which cannot be understood as
long as their social origins are obscuredf .* What was the
problematic for my thesis in a sociological sense is what
would have remained obscured concerning Dorothy Smith's work
were her collected writings to remain as they now exist,
largely unexamined with the exception of a small but growing
body of criticism, published in article, review or essay form.
This criticism is, for the most part, I argue, superficial.
(See: Bandyopahyay, 1974; Harding, 1986; Cheal, 1990;
Collins, 1992; Connell, 1992; Harding, 1992; Lemert, 1992;
Clough, 1993, Doran, 1993; Hennessey, 1993; Weeks, 1995; Mann
and Kelley, 1997; Denzin, 1997; Helanan, 1997) . When I say
superficial, 1 mean that the essay or journal article form is
inadequate for in-depth studies, not that the authors of these
criticisms have created work that is without substance,
although the latter can certainly be confirmed in a few
Smith, D. E. 1994. "A Berkeley Education. In: Meadow-Orlans, Kathryn PI and Ruth A. Wallace, eds. G e n d e r and the A c a d e m i c Experience : Berkeley Wamen Sociologists . Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. P- 5 5 .
Mannheirn, Karl. C19291. 1936. Ideology and U t o p i a : An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge. Translated by Louis Wirth and Edward Shils. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. P. 2.
instances. My task as a sociologist is demystificatfon.
As a final metaphor to explain the function of this
chapter, I turn again to my experience as a dancer, which
taught me about discipline- Every ballet exercise at the
barre begins with an arm movement called a 'preparationf - A
dancer's arm moves to the front and then to the side and is
often accompanied by a stretch of the foot as well. It is
performed to a few bars of music from the actual exercise.
The movement is deceptively simple, A whole chapter could be
written on the theory and training required to perform that
one unembellished movement. This chapter is a 'preparationr
for a long, intricate and demanding exercise. It will contain
'a f e w bars of musicf from the work to be done. Here, I have
looked at some aspects of the development of Dorothy Smithrs
thinking, and confronted what 1 have learned in my reading on
the women's movement and the sociology of knowledge. This
chapter is concerned with discipline, the creation of an
appropriate system of principles that will allow me to
rigorously restrict the choices I have made to complete the
exercise. The disciplining that took place in this chapter
put into place the organizational tools that were necessary to
manage what became a huge collection of materials, In ballet,
you cannot move every which way the wind blows, or it would
not be ballet, similarly, a dissertation means a scholarly
exercise where of necessity your thinking and writing must be
strictly prescribed, or it would not be a dissertation.
Inventing a Sociology of Rnowledge t A Theory for D i f f e r i n g W a ~ e n ' s M o v e a u m t s
Reverberations from the organized women's movement meant
that the way that the sociology of knowledge was written
changed forever, and in the 19709, feminist sociologists began
to write things differently- Their epistemologies, subject
matter, and methodologies were drastically revised to deal
effectively with the material conditions of women's lives.
The precedent within the sociology of knowledge for using a
social movement as a backdrop for knowledge creation comes
from the work of Karl Mannheim, who expanded on the historical
materialism of Marx. One of Mannheimrs conceptual frameworks
was the notion of 'contextual historicismf:
[The] sociology of knowledge seeks to comprehend thought in the concrete setting of an historical -social situation out of which individually differentiated thought only gradually emerges, .,it does not sever the concretely existing modes of thought from the context of collective action,
The women's movement as an ongoing social force that has been
realized in several historical and geographical locations is
what Mannheim would have formulated as a utopia. He would
have argued that the women's movement wasfis 'incongruous with
the state of reality within which it occursr.' The women's
movements depicted in this thesis, as they have existed since
the time of Margaret Fell, and the political activism that has
been taken up by the women involved, has largely been based on
Mannheim, 1936,
Mannheim, 1936,
OP-
OP-
a struggle for women's equality with men, In the sundry
historical contexts wherein the women's movement has ebbed and
flowed, women's equality with men has almost never been a
reality, not in its history and not in its present ontology in
the 1990sr despite what the status quo or the ideological
pressures of neo-conservatism would have us believe, and
despite the successes that the recent 'renaissancef for women
has achieved in the last twenty-five to thirty years- Thus,
one objective that the women's movement strived for, women's
equality with men, is frequently 'incongruousr with present
actualities.
The women8 s movement, embodying as it does a huge
literature and a vast number of representations of women's
lives, must be theorized in such a way to reflect the
empirical reality of Dorothy Smith's historical lineage and
lived life as well as her 6lan vital (lifework) - The womenf s
movement is also more than simply a political movement, as is
so often depicted. It also includes many cultural expressions
of feminist consciousness - in art, music, theatre and
literature. r have included examples of feminist culture,
particularly since Dorothy Smith has frequently demonstrated
an interest in the feminist arts, especially poetry,
To a some extent, I: will allow what I know about Dorothy
Smith's life and thinking to shape the limitations of what
data is included here- For example, Professor Smith once told
me that she was not explicitly 'taughtr feminism from her
mother and grandmother, or by having the figure of Margaret
Fell in her family background- Rather, what these women
37
imparted to her was a sense of the necessity for women's
independence, that women w e r e as capable as m e n , as deserving
of a good education as men, qualities which came from the
Quaker way of doing things, In contrast, she was also brought
up to have a deep respect for the skills required for women's
work in the home, - "1 didn't want to be a housewife, but I
honoured the work.u8 I hope to narrow my documentation to
women's everyday practices in the household, and analyze the
ways in which these endeavours were translated into the
political activism in differing historical settings of the
women's movement,
Another goal here is to make a case for the continuous
existence of feminist consciousness from the time period of
militant Suffragette activism in England (1905 - 1915) to the
present day in Toronto, Canada, The example of the Quaker
leadership of Margaret F e l l in Dorothy Smith's life comprises
an exception to this constancy, as there is a considerable gap
of 200 years from Fell's death in 1702 to the suffrage
activism of Lucy Ellison Abraham and Dorothy Foster Abraham-
Albeit that the intensity and concrete formations of feminist
activism have changed over time, I attend to these changes,
demonstrating that feminist thinking and activism did not
entirely disappear, as is commonly thought, once women
Unstructured personal interview by the author with Dorothy Smith during lunch in the OISE/UT cafeteria, August 21, 1997.
achieved the right to vote.9 The claim for an ongoing
feminist consciousness that did not wane entirely between the
First and the Second World Wars, strengthens my argument that
there was a transference of a belief in womenrs equality
through the generations of women in Dorothy Smith's family.
Guida West and Rhoda Lois Blumberg have theorized the
progression of women's movements from a feminist perspective,
identifying four types of reasons why women have been drawn
into social protest: I) economic survival; 2) nationalist
or racial/ethnic issues; 3) humanistic/nurturing issues (eg.
world peace, the environment); and 4 ) women who become
activists on behalf of their own rights as women (the
suffragists, battered women and child brides) ,I0 The choices
of data in this thesis were selected with these motivations
for feminist activism in mind- Further, I: constructed
accounts of localized women's movements, that is, I have
followed the women's activism as it has been enacted in the
geographical sites where Dorothy Smith and the women in her
family have lived and worked.
More recent studies have shifted a focus on 'discontents,
grievances and psychological dispositionsr as explanations for
the rise and decline of social movements to an interest in the
availability of resources - 'money, expertise, access to
publicity and the support of influential groups outside the
West, G u i d a and Rhoda Lois Blumberg, eds. 1990. Women and Social Protest. New York: Oxford University Press. P. 278,
West and Blumberg, 1990, op. cit . , p. 13.
3 9
movementf *u Termed resource mobilization theory. this
approach is used to facilitate the exposure of the vital
character of the social movement under scrutiny. This kind of
inquiry is particularly suitable to the militant Suffragette
Movement, the Vancouver Womenr s Movement from 1968 - 1977, and the Toronto Women's Movement from 1977 to the present. The
Women's Social and Political Uion (WSPU) kept meticulous
records of the events and drives that were held to raise
money. Their financial records were superbly kept, due to the
excellent management skills of Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, who
was the societyr s treasurer. l2 Similarly, although the data
is not as accessible, the Women's Movement Archive Collection
at the University of Ottawa has considerable evidence of the
kinds of financial support and the media to which the
Vancouver and Toronto womenf s movements had access.
My framework for data selection includes accounts of
events which are evidence of women's confrontation with the
issue of racism in the organized women's movement. It can be
argued that Dorothy Smith has had to deal with the question of
racism at two levels: 1) in her own thinking, through
criticism that has been levelled at the 'standpoint of womenr
theory, notably in the symposium on her work published in
Sociological Theory in 1992. Her former student, Himani
Bannerji, refers to Dorothy Smith's struggle with 'her own
- -
West and Blumberg, 1990, op. cit.. p. 2 8 0 .
l2 Rosen, Andrew. 1974. Rise Up, Women! The Militant Campaign of the Women's Social and P o l i t i c a l Union, 1903 - 1914. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, P. 63.
work, problems of change with respect to inner and outer
racismf .= 2) The racism that is/was extant in the womenr s
movement, a widely acknowledged reality (See: Davis, 1981;
hooks, 1981; Harding, 1986; Smith, 1987; Stanley, 1990;
Goodleaf, 1993 ; Bannerji, 1995 and Agnew, 1996) . In creating
these accounts, 1 have avoided sentimentality, and a
standpoint of 'white guiltr, as I: am a white sociologist,
which is 'paralysing and self -def eatingr , l4 Further, I
concurred with Lise Vogel who stated that she 'resented the
common assertion that issues of race and class were not of
interest to [white] feminists until the 1980s'.~~ I have
provided evidence to the contrary, within the context of the
Canadian women's movement in Vancouver, from 1968 - 1977.
Avoidance of the issue of 'racef until the early 1980s was an
'ideologically dominant accountr of the way that women's
movement has been historicized, and not always accurate.16 I
have included two historical events involving the incidence of
racism in the womenrs movement relevant to Dorothy Smith: I)
the Indo-Chinese Conference held in Vancouver in 1971 where
Dorothy Smith was a delegate; and 2) the events surrounding a
confrontation with structurally endemic racism in The Women's
l3 Bannerj if Himani . 19 95. Thinking Through : Essays on Feminism, Marxism and Anti -Racism. Toronto : Womenr s Press, P* 111.
l4 Ryan, Barbara, 1992. Ferninism and the Women's Movement: Dyllamics of Change in Social Movement, Ideology and Activism. London : Routledge + P . 13 1.
" Vogel, Lise. 1995. Woman Questions: Essays for a Materialist Feminism. London: Pluto Press. P . 100 .
Press, part of the Toronto Women's Movement and a publisher to
which Dorothy Smith had submitted a prospectus for a book-
Finally, some thoughts on periodization, w h i c h must
accompany a project in historical sociology. Joan Kelly tells
us that through the development of feminist historiography,
traditional ways of dividing up time have become unsettled.''
Here, I expect to let the material that I have accumulated
dictate the way that it is divided up into time periods, and
since this data deals almost exclusively with wonen's lives,
it will of necessity include time periods that corres2ond with
the materiality of those lives, In the case of Margaret Fell
(1614-1702) , her conversion to Quakerism took place in 1752,
and most of her activity for women w i t h i n the Quaker Movement
took place within the next forty years. Her last trip to
London took place at age of 76, so a way of creating a time
period for the work of Margaret F e l l would be to look at the
years from 1652 - 1690 .le
Similarly, the militant Suffragette Movement and the
activism of Lucy and Dorothy Abraham provide a way of
confining the years of study, The Women's Social and
Political Union was formed after a violent incident at the
Manchester Free Trade Hall at a Liberal election rally in
l7 Kelly, Joan. 1984. Women, History and Theory: The Essays of Joan Kelly- Chicago: University of Chicago Press. P o 3.
Fell, 1710, op. cit., p. 2-14.
42
1903 ?' The first mention of the Abraham in for Votes f o r
Women (the first official publication of the WSPU) came on
October 7, 191OZ0, and they continued their involvement with
the organization until the outbreak of the First World War in
1914, Consequently, the periodfzation for the suffrage
activism of Dorothy Smith's mother and grandmother will be
from 1903 - 1914. It is an uncomplicated task to assign periods of study to
Dorothy Smith's lived life, She was born in Northallerton,
North Yorkshire on July 26, 1926- In 1955, after graduating
from the London School of Economics, she emigrated to the
United States with her husband, William Reed Smith, so a way
of periodizing her early life would be to divide it from 1926
- 1955. In the course of her academic career, sne has moved
several times, and these changes in geographical location lend
themselves easily to the creation of time periods. She
studied at the University of ~alifornia at Berkeley from 1955
- 1966, spent a brief time at the University of Essex at
Colchester from 1966 - 68, taught at the University of British Columbia from 1968 - 1977, and has remained at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of
l9 Pankburst, Dame Christabel. 1959. Unshackled: The Story of How W e Won the Vote. Edited by Lord Pethick Lawrence. London : Hutchinson. P . 50 -51.
20 Mrs. A. C. Abraham, Dorothy Smith's grandmother, is first mentioned in Votes for Women on this date, She is referred to in regard to a meeting that would have been held at Grange Road, Birkenhead (a village close to Liverpool) where she would have been the guest speaker, along with Miss Ada Flatman, who was the second paid organizer for the WSPU in Liverpool.
Toront~ from 1977 to the present day, My periodization of the
women's movements will correspond to these life changes, with
the exception of the period at Essex,
I have created a theorization of the women's movements in
this dissertation that lends itself to praxis. I began with
Mannheim, a traditional way of beginning an enterprise in the
sociology of knowledge, but whose own epistemology offers
little in the way of assistance for the construction of a
sociological enterprise that is concerned with women's lives,
I am concerned with a representation of the women's movement
that includes women's political as well as cultural activism,
and one which demonstrates an awareness of the ebbs and flows
of feminist consciousness that occur over time. It has
attended to the reasons why women became involved in feminist
activity, and accounted for the practicalities which are a
part of women's organizing with respect to money, connections
and access to the media, Evidence of the existence of racism
in the Vancouver and Toronto women's movements are included.
Finally, I have provided a rationale for periodization, in
that the thesis uses the method of historical sociology.
Problematizfrrg the Sociology of Knowledge
Then she replied, "Daughter, to give you a way of entering into the question more deeply, I will first carry away this first basketful of dirLtt2'
In sociology, the origins of social thought are usually
associated with the French Revolution and Enlightenment
thinkers, Les Philosophes - Montesquieu, Diderot, Voltaire and
Mary Wollstonecraft, As a political event, the French
Revolution is a starting point for the awareness that leads to
sociology, During the Enlightenment, a separation occurred,
where the creation of new knowledge, rather than being
connected to established religion and the organized church,
became associated with the veneration of science. Science,
rather than God, became the widely accepted way to explain
phenomena. Previously, during the time of Renaissance
Humanism in Europe (16th century), social philosophy was
intimately connected to Christianity. For example, Martin
Luther's social thought consisted of a rejection of religious
brotherhoods as a form of social organization, as he believed
* that they inevitably became self -centredt . 22 Rather, he
advocated a community which emanated from a social theory
Pisan, Christine de. [I4051 . 1982. The Book of the C i t y of Ladies. New York: Persea Books, P. 16. These words are spoken by Lady Reason in The Book of the C i t y of Ladies, written in 1405. Lady Reason commanded Christine to lay the foundation of the city. I am making an analogy here - the work of our sociological fathers, or the 'foundationf of sociology, is represented as 'this first basketful of dirtf.
22 Trinkhaus Charles. 1983. The Scope of Renaissance Humanism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. P. 304.
based on ethics and 'religious sub jectivism' . 23 In contrast,
the work of L e s Philosophes displayed a discontent with their
political and economic system and the domination of the
Church, They argued that ideas should be based on science,
reason and rationality.
In this section I have highlighted the limitations of
some forms of the sociology of knowledge that have been
debated in succeeding generations of scholarly critiques. I
have argued that each new formation of the sociology of
knowledge that has emerged has been based on the criticism and
limitations that are 'discoveredr by the scholarship which
replaces it, I have established relationships between these
various authors, in some cases with each other. They all have
a connection to the work of Dorothy E. Smith, either one where
she has referred to their work or one where she has not,
In addition, I have developed a structure that attends to
the 'problematicg of each of the schools of the sociology of
knowledge studied, The concept of 'problematicg , or
problematique, attained currency in sociology in the late
1960s through the work of Louis ~lthusser.~~ Althusser
borrowed it 'from Jacques Martin to designate the particular
unity of a theoretical formationf ,25 He used the expression
in much the same way as Thomas Kuhn employed the word
23 Ibid.
24 Marshall, Gordon, ed. 1994, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. P. 418.
25 Althusser, Louis. El9651 . 1977. For M a n . Translated by Ben Brewster. London: Verso. P. 32.
'paradigmr or the way that Michel Foucault, a student of
Althusser's, created the idea of an e p i ~ t h e - ~ ~ The
Althusserian sense of problematic, grammatically, a noun, is
different from the usage employed in the work of P e t e r L,
Berger and Thomas Luckmann and Dorothy Smith who use the word
grammatically as an adjective, i-e,, 'the everyday world as
problematicr ,27 Berger, Luckmann and Smith employ it in the
connotation of a puzzle or problem of the social order which
can studied. Further, 'problematicr is treated differently in
the work of Berger and Luckmann and that of Dorothy Smith.
The 'problematic' for each author in the sociology of
knowledge shifts historically in meaning and use and I have
provided a sense of the ways in which it has been used and
understood,
The originators of the thinking that is now accepted as
the classical forms of the sociology of knowledge are G.W.F.
Hegel, because of his obvious connections to Marx's work,
Hobbes, Tbennies, Auguste Comte, Karl Marx and Frederick
Engels, and Emile Durkheim - the sociological fathers. I look
at the work of G - W - F . Hegel, Karl Marx and Emile Durkheirn .
Karl Marx must be studied in any serious analysis of the work
of Dorothy Smith, and she has criticized the work of Emile
Durkheirn. Hegel is included because of his connection to what
have become known as feminist standpoint epistemologies.
26 Jary, David and Julia Jary, eds - 1995 . Coll ins Dictionary of Sociology. Second Edition. Dlascow: Harper Collins. P. 524-
27 Berger and Luckmann, 1966; Smith, 1987.
47
Classical Fozms of the Sociology of Knowledge
~ormal sociological theorizing an4the sociology of
knowledge began in the work of Auguste Comte, who coined the
term sociology, and constructed his Law of Three Stages, or
the three stages of development in human thinking. He founded
his vision of sociology on a scientific model, using biology
as the prototype for the new discipline. Shunned by the
academic community, his eccentric ideas formed the basis of a
critique that was taken up by Karl Manc, and more intensively.
by Emile Durkheim. His best known work, Cours de P h i l o s o p h i e
Positive (1830) . did not receive one review and his mature years were accompanied by mental breakdown and increasing
idiosyncrasy. In his mid-thirties, he adopted a practice
called 'cerebral hygiener, wherein he refused to read any new
contributions to science, eventually limiting himself to
reading and re-reading a single book, The Imitation of
~ h r i s t . ~ ~ Cava ab homine unius libri (Be cautious of the man
of one book!)
Auguste Comte was conservative in the extreme when it
came to ideas about 'the Woman Question' and women's
emancipation, despite his long time connection to the Utopian
socialist, Saint-Simon. He argued against equality of the
sexes, believed in 'the natural subordination of womenr and
tried to provide a biological basis for women's intellectual
inferiority in his Cours de Philosophie P o s i t i v e ( 1 8 3 0 ) . He
" Coser, Lewis A. 1971. Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and Social Context. New York: Harcourt , Brace, Jovanovich . P . 4 - 18 -
felt that women would be attracted to him as disciples because
of the stress he put on the emotion of love, and he called the
female sex 'Wornan..-the spontaneous Priestess of H~manity'.'~
Durkheim based his theory on a critique of Auguste Comte,
but Marx and Engels based their early ideas on a confrontation
with the philosophy of G-W-F- H e g e l . There is a minor
connection to Hegel for Dorothy Smith, to be found in Sandra
Hardingrs ground-breaking analysis of four 'standpoint
theoristsr, in The Science Question i n Feminism (1986) - These
were Dorothy E, Smith, Hilary Rose, Nancy Hartsock and Jane
Flax, who refer to the master and slave metaphor in the work
of Hegel in the creation of their 'episternologie~'.~~ Harding
characterizes their use of Kegel this way:
The feminist standpoint originates in Hegel ' s thinking about the relationship between the master and the slave and in the elaboration of this analysis in the writings of M a r x , Engels, and the Hungarian Marxist-theorist, G. Lukacs. Briefly, this proposal argues that men's domination in social life results in partial and perverse understandings, whereas women's subjugated position provides the possibility of more complete and less perverse understandings. Feminism and the women's movement provide the theory and motivation for inquiry and political struggle that can transform the perspective of w o m e n into a I1standpoint" - a morally and scientifically preferable grounding for our interpretations and explanations of nature and social If fe?
29 Kandal, Terry R. 1988. The Woman Question in Classical Sociological Theory. Miami : Florida International University Press, P . 74-79.
30 Harding, Sandra. 1986. The Science Question in F e m i n i s m . Ithaca. New York: Cornell University Press. P. 141-160.
31 Harding, 1986, op. cit., p. 26.
Scholars who use Dorothy SSmihrs SOK method for the discovery
of how a particular knowledge claim organizes social life
often begin with the 'point of departurer termed by her as
'the standpoint of ~omen'.'~ The metaphor from Hegelian
philosophy that Dorothy Smith refers to briefly in the
creation of the 'the standpoint of womenf came from his
Philosophy of Mind, first published in 1807, The section of
this work that is cited by Dorothy Smith, as well as the above
mentioned feminist writers, is a sub-section under the title
of 'Self-Consciousnessr called 'Independence and Dependence of
Self Consciousness: Lordship and B~ndage'.'~ In Hegelian
philosophy, the human relationship of lordship and bondage is
a primary one, 'the immediate relationship established by
nature between two persons'.34
Dorothy Smith rejects the idea that her thinking is in
any way indebted to Hegelian philosophy, or the 'lordship and
bondagef metaphor, although she admires Sandra Karding 'for
taking on the big boys in philosophy with a big smile on her
face' in the early women's movement in the 1970s.'~ She is
does not characterize her 'standpoint of womenr as an
l2 Smith, D. E. 1979. Sociology for Women.11 In: Sherman, Julia A- and Evelyn Torton Beck, eds . The Prism of Sex: Essays in the Sociology of mowledge. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. P. 163-172.
'' aill lie, 3. B., tr. 1967. The Phenomenology of Mind by G.W.F. Hegel. London: George Allen and Unwin. P. vii.
34 Harris, IF. S. 1983. Hegelgs Development: Night Thoughts (Jena 1801 -1 806) . Oxford: Clarendon Press, P , 120.
35 Unstructured interview by the author during lunch with Dorothy E. Smith, August 21, 1997.
epistemology, and calls it a method. Hegel is important to
the sociology of knowledge because of Mancrs heavy criticism
of him, and to the SOK because the 'master and slaver relation
was referred to in creations of the feminist standpoint,
T. B. Bottomore states that although Marxr clearly aspired
to develop a 'science of societyr he never used the term
'sociologyR, despite the fact that the phrase was widely
circulated by his contemporary, Auguste Comte. Given that
Comters work was receiving considerable attention in France
and England, Marx began to read it, but only after 1866. He
held Comte and his followers in low esteem:
[He] judged it greatly inferior to Hegelr s writing- Despite its anti-theological appearance, the positive philosophy seemed to him "profoundly rooted in the Catholic soilt1. He scornfully remarked, in connection with one of Comtefs English disciples, "Positive philosophy means ignorance of everything positiveu . 36
Marx dismissed Comte's work without feeling it necessary to
criticize it in detail, and most likely formed his opinions on
the writing of Camte's followers in England and France. His
antipathy was related to the certainty that positivists wished
to impose their doctrine on the labour movement, and he also
rejected any f o n of ideology, especially Comters Religion of
Humanity, 37
Beginning the creation of a science of society at the age
of 25, Marx based his early work on a critique of G.W.F.
36 Bottomore, T. M. 1956. K a r l M a r x : Se lec ted Wri t ings in Sociology and Social Philosophy. New York: McGraw-Hill. P. 13.
37 Ibid, p . 14.
FIegelr s PhiIosophy of Right (1821) . He had received his doctorate in 1841 from the University of Jena, where he
submitted a thesis called "On the Differences Between Natural
Philosophy of Democritus and Epicuras . The dissertatf on was also an inquiry into Hegelian philosophy. Marxrs commentary
on Hegel was part of a larger clamour that arose from liberal
writers at the time, who viewed the Philosophy of Right as 'an
authoritarian doctrine of the stater." The style of Marxrs
commentary on the Philosophy o f Right was to work from a small
quotation of Hegel's work, and to follow with some criticism:
Hegel* 2 7 7 . If The individual functionaries and agents [of the state] are attached to their office not on the strength of their immediate personality, but on the strength of their universal and objective qualities- Hence it is an external and contingent way that these offices are linked with particular persons "
Marx'a Commentary-. Hegel speaks here as if the activities of the state were related in only a "contingentw way to individual personalities. This is absurd- The functions of the state are necessarily related to individual persons, because of the essentially social nature of individual human beings. 39
Marx' s critique of the Philosophy of Right was accomplished in
1843 in Paris, where he and his wife Jenny had emigrated from
Germany to escape a reactionary social atmosphe~e.'~ The
notation on the Philosophy of Right was the beginning of an
38 Baillie, 1967, op. cit., p. xxviii.
39 Quoted in: K a i n z , Howard P. 1974. Hegel's Philosophy of Right w i t h Marx's Commentary: A Handbook for Students. The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff. P. 54.
*O Coser, 1971, op. cit., p. 61.
attempt by Marx, in his early writing, to trace the linkages
between particular philosophies and the social context from
which they emanated, particularly in respect to the class
positions of individuals 'and the historical situations of
those who uphold themr ,41 When the sociology of knowledge was
created in Europe in the 19209, and Hegelrs popularity was
revived, this initial writing of Marx is widely understood to
be its starting place. During his lifetime, Marx was unknown
in academic circles.
The Holy F a m i l y or C r i t i q u e of Critical C r i t i q u e (18451,
the first collaborative project of Marx and Engels, was an
attack on 'the insipid pretentious articlesr that were
published by the 'Freer group of Young Hegelians in the
publication R h e i n i s c h e Z e i tung (Rhine Gazette) . 42 M a r x became
the editor of Rheinische Zeitung in 1842, and assigned the
nickname of the 'Holy Familyr to the Bauer brothers and their
disciples, By attacking this faction, Marx was at the same
time criticizing the idealism in Hegel's philosophy. The
Bauer brothers used Rheinische Z e i tuag as a vehicle for their
reactionary propaganda, i . e, , their elitist ideas that only
'selected individualsr made history and ordinary people, the
masses, were passive 'ballast in the historical process'.43
Here is a humorous excerpt by Engels:
41 Ibid, p- 53.
42 D ~ x o ~ , R., tr. 1956- K. Marx and F. Ekzgels. The Holy Family or C r i t i q u e of Critical Critique. London: Lawrence and Wishart. P. 278.
43 Ibid.
It goes without saying - and histoq, which proves that everything goes without saying, also proves this - that Criticism does not become mass in order to remain mass, but to redeem the mass from its massy massiness, that is, to raise the popular way of speaking to the critical language of Critical Criticism- It is the lowest degree of humiliation for Criticism to learn the popular language of the mass and transfigure that vulgar jargon into the transcendent intricacy of critical criticism (19) .
This first volume written by Manc and Engels was a scathing
invective directed at what they felt was the Bauer brothersr
offensive and partisan idealism, as well as an outrageously
amusing lampoon of their style.
The K o l y Family is the initial setting in Man' s work to
point out that it is human beings who make history through
their own interaction, that there is no abstract process that
makes things happen. Here, Marx establishes that ideas of
themselves are without agency, that men and women are required
for their realization in the world. For example, in the
segment written by Marx called "The Revealed l1Standpointl1
Mystery1@, he criticizes Bauer's attempt to re-make Hegelian
concepts, Bauer audaciously renames Hegel's concept of
'Absolute Knowledger and calls it Criticism and changes the
term ' self-consciousness' (the H e g e l i a n term for sub j ective
thought) to standpoint. Marx points out the limitations of
using the term Criticism:
It must be shown, on the contrary, how the state, private property, etc., change human beings into abstractions, or are products of abstract man, instead of being the reality of individuals, of concrete human beingse4'
This critique of M a r x toward "criticismr is almost identical
to the objection to traditional sociology that Dorothy Smith
begins to formulate in her graduate student days at the
University of California at Berkeley, in that she could not
find real life in the abstractions that sociology at that time
used in its theory and practice. For the SOK, Dorothy Smith
employed this kind of thinking to question the process that
takes place when knowledge becomes an objectified form, when
human activity becomes objectified,
The German Ideology, written between September, 1845 and
the following summer of 1846", is unquestionably the most
important work of Karl Marx to influence Dorothy Smith's
creation of the S O L Its ideas have continued to attract her
throughout her career. Marx's overall problematic in the
Althusserian sense is the evolution, throughout his work, of
the way that ideas and material conditions are conceptualized.
Althusser identifies The German Ideology as a point in Marx's
work where there is an epistemological break. Marxrs former
problematic is one of 'ideologyr, whereas in The German
Ideology he formulates Max's new theoretical formation as
'the science of historyr .46
The complete version of this book is 700 pages long, and
contains an even more sophisticated critique of Marx's German
contemporaries, Feuerbach, St irner and Bauer , than The Holy
45 From: Arthur, C. J., ed. 1970. The G e m a n Ideology. P. 1.
Althusser, 1977, op. cit., p. 33-34.
55
~amily ." It is herer in Part I, that M a n c and Engels
formalize their We2 tanschauung called historical materialism,
as well as the idea that 'man produces himself through
labourf ." For Dorothy Smith, the most salient theme in The
G e m Ideology is Mancrs emphasis 'on the practical activity
of men [sic] f 4 9 :
the circumstances which are held to shape and form consciousness are not independent of human activity, They are precisely the social relations which have been historically created by human action. Hence the importance of "practicew in Marxr s work,
Part I1 of The German Ideologytakes up a critical analysis,
line by line, of Max Stirnerr s book called Der Einzige und
sein Eigentum (The Ego and its Own) (1844). The final part of
The German Ideology sets out for the first time what Marx and
Engels envision as a 'true socialismr, Here, they insist on
the need 'for studying real social relationsr
The use of The German Ideology as the primary
epistemological ground for the construction of her method is
referred to by Smith as 'an extrapolation of materialist
ontology'; however, she sees the materialism in The Geman
Ideology as limited, in that it 'stops short at a materialism
47 Ibid, p. 1.
4B Arthur, C * J., ed. 1970. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: The Geman Ideology: Part One. New York: International Publishers. P 21,
Smith, D. E. 197433. "The Ideological Practice of Sociology.@@ Catalyst, 8, 39-54. P. 42.
Arthur, 1970, op. cit., p. 21.
Ibid,
enabling the investigation of the social relations and
organization of consciousnessr~s2 She argues that it was the
material reality of Marx's age that hindered him from the
actual
locate
class,
study of social relations - M a r x went so far as to
the production of knowledge within a certain ruling
however :
[The] conditions for the exploration of a differentiated social consciousness, a social consciousness as differentiated practices and relations, did not yet exist- The forms that were prototypical in M a n c r s day, have in our times emerged as a complex of loosely co- ordinated functions of organization and regulation vested in texts and documents and increasingly in computer software and data banks, Information, knowledge, reasoning, decision-making, control. etc.. become properties of external organf zation and technological forms. 53
The limiting character of Marxrs work for Dorothy Smith was
not due to any failure in the construction of his vision, it
was the underdevelopment of social relations as they were
historically located, i . e . , 'history itself has supplied the
reality of what could formerly be arrived at by a conceptual
leap ' . 54 The SOK, it could be w e d . was founded in Ma=' s
historical materialism but was contingent on a certain
historical development, What Marx and Engels argued in The
German Ideology is that consciousness cannot be separated from
'' Smith, D. E. 1990b. Texts. Facts and F e m i n i n i t y : Exploring the Relations of Ruling. London: Routledge. P. 6- 7.
53 Ibid, p. 8.
54 Ibid.
the individual, and hence, the actions of individuals, 55
To a lesser extent, Dorothy Smith has referred to T h e
Grundrisse: Foundations of the C r i tique of Political Economy,
originally a notebook outlining a project of a six. volume work
on economics, and was eventually realized as the three
published volumes of Kapi t a l . 56 She identified T h e Grundrisse
as Marxrs critique of Hegel, who created philosophy that
allowed for a disjuncture between abstract thinking and the
experience of real human beings5' ,-
H e g e l fell into the illusion of conceiving the real as the product of thought concentrating itself, probing its own depths, and unfolding itself of itself, by itself, whereas the method of rising from-abstract to concrete, reproduces itself as the concrete in the mind- But this is by no means the process by which the concrete itself comes into being. sB
In Hegelian philosophy, there was no possibility for a
knowledge that was socially organized, because the concrete
existed only in the mind. Dorothy Smith also cited The
Grundrisse in "The Sociology for Women" (1979) . Here, The
Grundrisse is used to augment the reader's understanding of
the powerlessness experienced by individuals in local social
settings under what she terms 'the relations of ruling'. When
55 Smith, D. E. 1987a. The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Toronto : University of Toronto Press. P. 123.
56 M a n , Karl. 1980. Grundrisse. Edited by David McLellan- London: Macmillan. P. 12.
57 Smith, D- E. 1990a. The Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Khowledge. Toronto : University of Toronto Press. P. 209,
Ibid, p. 2 0 8 .
the social relations in production became the abstraction
known as 'commodity'. the organization of human activities
became 'external and beyond the power of individuals to
control' ." For the SOK. the implication was that direct
experience of human beings was permeated by organization
external to that experience.
The Poverty of Philosophy, written in the winter of 1846-
1847, quickly followed the completion of The G e m
Ideology. 60 It was a critique of Proudhonr s Philosophy of
Poverty (1846), and evidence of the breach between them. To
Marx, Proudhonrs work was flawed because he failed to
understand that the abstract categories which represented
economic relations were ephemeral. For Proudhon, the nature
of human beings was not tied to an historical setting, but to
economic conditions. In Marxrs sociology of knowledge, the
context was important, but it was also time-bound:
Economists explain how production takes place in the above mentioned relations, but what they do not explain is how these relations themselves are produced, that is, the historical movement which gave them birth, M. Proudhon, taking these relations for principles, categories, abstract thoughts, has merely put into order these thoughts, which are to be found alphabetically arranged at the end of every treatise on political economy. The economist's material is the active, energetic life of man; M. Proudhonr s material is the dogma of the economist^.^^
59 Smith, D. E. 1987. The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. P. 95.
60 Marx. Karl. 1963. The Poverty of Philosophy. New York: International Publishers. P. 7,
M a r x , 1963, op. cit., p. 105.
The Poverty of Philosophy. although cited in n a m e only in the
work of Dorothy Smith, also contributed to the development of
the sociology of knowledge. Marx refined Proudhonrs work by
suggesting that the history of ideas (the sociology of
knowledge) must be seen as more than a chronological list. but
as part of a sociohistorical setting-
In The Poverty of Philosophy, M a n differentiates between
productive forces and material reality- Humans have no
control over their productive forces. which they inherit from
a former generation:
It is superfluous to add that men [sic] are not free to choose their productive forces - which are the basis of all their history - for every productive force is an acquired force, the product of former activity. The productive forces are therefore the result of practical human energy; but this energy is itself conditioned by the circumstances in which men [sic] find themselves, by the social form which exists before they do, which they do not create, which is the product of the preceding generation,62
This passage and Marx's formulation of the productive forces
supports Dorothy Smith's argument above, that in Marx's time
the social consciousness necessary for the examination of the
way that knowledge organizes social life was not possible.
The productive forces necessary for allowing the examination
of knowledge's organizing qualities w e r e produced by Marx, but
at the same time unavailable to him.
Frederick Engels, more than Karl M a r x . provided the most
creditable beginnings for a theory of socialist-feminism in
The Origin of the Family, P r i v a t e Property . and the State
62 Marx, 1963, op. cit., p. 181.
(1874). K a r l Marxrs direct treatment of 'the Woman Questionr
was very sketchy indeed, and is limited to cursory examination
in The German Ideology, Das Kapital , and receiving only
slightly more attention in The Manf fes to of the C o m m u n i s t
P a r t y (1848) , In The Gernan Ideology, Marx referred to the
emancipation of women in the chapter called True Socialismm,
but rather than advocating this belief directly, he refers to
it only as a vehicle for criticizing the 'sheer nonsenser of
Herr GricULrs treatment of saint-~imon? Women are theorized
in The German Ideology only as part of a larger analysis of
the family.64 There are two important references to the
exploitation of women in Das Kapi ta l : one is an account of
the death of the twenty-year-old milliner, Mary Anne Walkley,
from overwork; another is with regard to cheap labour, where
he intimates that the hiring of women and children depreciates
the value of the man's labour power, and that women were still
hired to haul canal boats or 'narrow boatsr65, and women's
63 M a n , Karl and Frederick Engels. 1976. The German Ideology. Moscow: Progress Publishers. P. 525,
64 Vogel , Lise . 1983 . Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary Theory. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. P. 49-
65 'Narrow boatsr are small, thin, wooden boats covered in on the top like a tiny house-boat. They are still used in England as pleasure craft. Today, they are usually painted in pastel colours, and there may be more than one colour used on the boat. Originally, they were used to haul materials in small canals to and from the woollen mills during the industrial revolution. They would be dragged in the canals by horses or by women. The women would be waist deep in water while performing this work.
use-value was 'below all calculationr , 66
F i n a l l y , The Manifesto of the Communist P a r t y (1848) . provided a larger analysis of the subordination of women, His
linkage of the position of women in marriage to that of
prostitutes was d e m e a n i n g to all women, as if prostitutes were
not for the most part women, and often the supporters of a
family, and in so doing, 'reduced the family relation to a
mere money relationr . 67 Despite these awkward beginnings,
which reflect the sexism that was a part of Marxrs historical
setting, this attention to 'the Woman Questionr was part of
the source for the emergence of Marxist-feminism in the late
1960s, which Dorothy Smith adopted with such interest in the
Vancouver Women's Movement.
It could be argued that as a sociologist of knowledge,
Emile Durkheim was Marxrs opposite. Where Marxrs thinking
about the social was connected to economics and ideology,
Durkheim8s social thought was linked to a moral sense, to the
idea of boundaries, the external constraints that are imposed
on human lives, and the notion of a collective consciousness.
Two generations later, Durkheim was still talking about the
same ideas created by Auguste Comte, and his career mirrors
the same stages as Comtersr in that there was an enthusiasm
that was evident at the beginning which waned at the end?'
66 The W o m a n Question: Selections from the Writing of K a r l Marx, Frederick Engels, V. 1- Lenin, Joseph Stalin. 1951. New York: International Publishers. P. 27-28.
67 Vogel, 1983, OP. it., P. 51.
68 DurWleim, E m i l e . 1951. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. New York: The Free Press, P. 9 .
The dedication to the English translation of Dulrkhef mr s
Suicide (1951), reads: T o Those Who, with Durkheim,
Understand the Life of Reason as a Moral Commitmentr,
In his first book, The Division of Labour in Society,
based on his dissertation published in 1893, I argue that
Durkheim drew from Comters w o r k extensively in an uncritical
way. Durkheim believed that his forerunners 'aroused a great
deal of scepticism towards sociologyr and was most likely
concerned with presenting Comte in a favourable light?' In
theorizing that the division of labour in society was the
setting w h e r e social solidarity can be found, Durkheim uses
Comte to support this view. Here Durkheim quotes from Cours
de Philosophie Positive:
[One] applies it [the division of labour] to the totality of all our diverse operations of whatever kind, instead of attributing it, as is ordinarily done, to simple material usages, It is thus the continuous repartition of different human endeavours which especially constitutes social solidarity and which becomes the elementary cause of the extension and growing complication of the social organism,
This non-judgemental treatment of Comte continues throughout
The Division of Labour in Society (1933), becoming an
extrapolation of ComteDs conception of the family, human
happiness, as his authority on demography, co-operation, the
biological basis for sociology, the history of an hierarchy of
69 Thompson, Kenneth, ed. 1991. Readings from Ernile Durkheim. London: Routledge, P. 15.
Durkheim, Emile, 1933. The Division of Labour in Society. New York: Free Press. P. 62.
Ibid,
the sciences and evidence for the moral imperfections of the
division of labour, its anomic qualities and the indictment of
'degrading the individual by making him [sic] a machiner . 72 In
contrast, Warren Schmaus argues that Durkheirn was critical of
Comte, and saying that he 'failed to establish a tradition of
research in sociologyr and did not allow for 'an intellectual
division of labour' . 73 However, Schmaus supports this
reasoning based on the examination of original journal
articles written by Durkheim around the turn of the century,
and not from the book, The Division of Labour in Society,
first published earlier in 1893. Schmausf scholarship on
Durkheim's later work reveals a critical approach to Comte:
According to Durkheim, Comte's sociology reduces to the single problem of discovering the law according to which all societies develop- Once Comte solved this problem through proposing the three-state law, Durkheim said, there was nothing left for anyone to do. 74
To Durkheim, Comte's Law of Three Stages was limited in
usefulness for historical analysis as well, in that it
'expresses no causal relations but only a lrsummary glancem of
the history of mankind [sic] ' ."
Durkheim's mature writing also included a critique of
Marxrs religious views found in
73 Schmaus, Warren- 1994-
a review that he wrote in 1897
Durkheimgs Philosophy of Science and In te l lec tua l P. 21,
74 Ibid,
75 Ibid,
- - the Sociology of Khowledge: Creatinq an Niche. chicago : university of chicago P r e s s .
of Antonio Labri olar s Essai sur la Conception Mat&iaZiste de
lW..stoire (Essays on the Materialist Conception of ~istory) :
Not only is the Marxist hypothesis unproved, but it is contrary to facts which seem well established- Sociologists and historians tend more and more to meet in the confirmation that religion is the most primitive of all social phenomena. From it, by successive transformations, have come all other manifestations of collective activity: law, ethics, art, political forms, and so on, Everything is religious in principle. ''
Durkheimf s form of the sociology of knowledge is based on a
critique of the limitations of Comte's Law of the Three Stages
and the anti-religious posture of Marx-
Dorothy Smith wrote a feminist critique of Emile
Durkheirnrs The Rules of Sociological Method (1895) in an essay
called lrSociological Theory: Methods of Writing Patriarchyw
(1989). She stated that early sociological writing created a
'constitutional f o m for sociology, in that Durkheim and
others created the 'normal practicer of writing objectified
knowledge, that continues to organize the way that present-day
sociological texts are written.77 Durkheim's rules create
objectifications which 'ascribe agency to law or customr so
'thinking and feeling can now be treated as objectified agents
acting on and controlling individualsr7':
Such methods operate within and give technical substance to the parameters of
'6 Quoted in: Thompson, Kenneth, ed. 1991. Readings from Ernile Durkheim. London: Routledge. P. 30.
77 Smith, D- E. 1989~. llSociological Theory: Methods of Writing Patriarchy. l1 In: Wallace, Ruth, ed. Feminism and Sociological Theory, London: Sage. P. 45.
the discursive space organized by the founding fathers- They realize as sociological practice 1 ) a discursive universe vis-a-vis which the subject is positionless - she cannot locate its presences in relation to the actual. site and situation of her reading; (2) the suppression of the presence of subjects as others whose presence defines the reader, who are related to the reader in and through the text; (3) the constitution of the boundaries demarcating sociology from other disciplines and establishing an internally referential universe of entities; (4) the constitution of a self-contained discursive world that does not require (let alone insist on) a reflexive grounding in actualities for its sense or, while dependent on actual individuals to produce what it recognizes as phenomena, require their active presence to be registered in the textJ9
Smithrs argument was that through Parsons treatment of
Durkheim, agency was transferred to sociological concepts, and
though Robert Merton suggested the creation of middle-range
sociological theory, and Kingsley Davis declared the collapse
of functionalism in 1959, the organization of sociological
knowledge was already established by the fathers of sociology.
This space was allocated to an analysis of Lady Reason's
'first basketful of dirtr, the epistemological limitations of
some of the fathers of sociology, establishing what is
'problematicr or paradigmatic in the work of these classical
authors. I have incorporated the weaknesses that have been
observed from traditional sources, as well as Dorothy Smith's
feminist critiques. My argument is that new epistemologies in
the sociology of knowledge are often imagined and formulated
on the perceptions of the weaknesses and limitations found in
'' Ibid, p, 48,
the work of writersr contemporaries, as well as their
forerunners,
Critical theory was established through the process of
Karl Marxrs analysis and final rejection of Hegelian idealism.
The critical style, initiated by the Young Hegelians and
refined by M a r x , has become an important part of the w a y that
much of sociological inquiry is practised, Indeed, without
criticism, sociologists w o u l d be left w i t h very little to do,
and our knowledge would have failed to develop as it has.
Without M a n c , sociologists would have become, according to
Comte, unemployed Great Priests of Humanity! Ma=, by his
cursory attention to 'the Woman Questionf provided the
theoretical linkage needed to bridge the gap between the
sociology of knowledge and the organized women's movement.
Durkheim, in his early work, apologized for sociologyr s
eccentric beginnings by attempting to demonstrate the
strengths of Comters seminal w o r k Cours de Philosophie
Positive (1830) . When he finally did render a critique of
Comte, it was accomplished after a careful analysis, unlike
Marx, who summarily dismissed Comters positive philosophy,
Perhaps the greatest epistemic weakness in the erudition
created by the founding fathers of sociology was their failure
to acknowledge, and their blindness to, the knowledges that
are particular to women. This has been taken up in the
feminist critiques of Dorothy Smith. Comte, for example, even
though he must have been aware of emancipatory themes that
were being advocated for women through the work of his mentor,
the utopian socialist Saint-Simon, failed to include them in
67
his own sociology, and, when theorizing marriage and the
family, put forward a biological argument for women's
inferiority.
Dorothy Smith appropriated M~Kx's materialism based on
the interaction of human beings in the world, as being the
starting point for the construction of the Social Organization
of Knowledge. She argued that Marxgs liability was not
contained in his epistemology, but in the particular
development and organizational- character of the social
relations that existed at the time of his reading an& writing.
However, she does criticize the work of the founding fathers
through an analysis of Durkheim, which she extends to all of
them by implication, with the possible exception of Marx. She
could not find the experience of women or men in their work
because of their mode of writing 'positionlessg versions of
howledge. Their epistemologies, with their weaknesses,
limitations and defects continue to organize the way that
sociology is conceptualized, written, and actually practised.
Neo-Classical Modela of the Sociology o f Knowledge
The social nature of knowledge creation was determined
through the work of the early sociological fathers. The
sociology of knowledge became a recognized subdiscipline in
sociology in the decade following World War I, through a
renewed interest in Hegelian philosophy and the work of Marx.
Karl Marxrs sociology had been disseminated beyond the
boundaries of Europe to the U.S.A., through considerable
68
numbers of Americans who studied there, particularly in
Germany and France- An extensive school of Marxist sociology
flourished, and one European survey covering the years from
1918-1925, counted '500 fairly important works-..on various
themes of Marxr s sociology~
By the beginning of the 19309, Marx's thinking had become
familiar to the faculty in the larger universities offering
degrees in the social sciences. It was this school of
quarrelsome debate among Marxist scholars that gave rise to a
new field called the sociology of knowledge, whose primary
contributors were Lukacs. Mannheim and S~heler-'~ Karl
Mannheim, in particular, is frequently acknowledged as the
creator the sociology of knowledge, but, as in the case of
most claims, this one is extravagant. German philosophers
had been writing about the social origins of knowledge for
some time, and this kind of approach was already extant,
though not named as such. in the work of the sociological
fathers. Karl Mannheim is examined here because of his
acceptance as one of the founders of the subdiscipline, and he
has been infrequently critiqued in the work of Dorothy Smith.
A poignant account on the life and intellect of Karl
Mannheim was written by Edward Shils, called simply, Varl
Mannheim" (1995) - When Shils died on January 23, 1995, it
80 Bottomore, 1956, op. cit., p. 45.
'' Nock, David A. 1993. Star Wars in Canadian Sociology: Zxploring the Sociology of mowledge. Halifax: Fernwood. P - 22.
was reprinted in The American Scholar. Shils' mentor, Louis
Wirth at the University of Chicago. met Mannheim in Germany in
1932, and became interested in his work, Wirth hired Shils to
be his research assistant, and instead of continuing with the
original research project that he was hired for, Wirth asked
Shils to help him translate Ideologie und Utopie , which
Mannheim badly wanted translated into English. Mannheimrs
objective was to become famous in the United States, and he
kept writing to Wirth about the translation. Shils said that
he 'was as fidgety, for no good reason, as a hen on a nest of
woodpeckers ' . Political instability dominated Mannheim's first year of
teaching at the University of Budapest. There were three
revolutions in one year. beginning in October, 1918. Although
there was no threat to his position, Mannheim chose a self-
imposed exile in Germany that year, He obtained a job as a
privadozent in sociology at the University of Heidleberg, when
Max Weber still held the chair. Here, his work on the
sociology of knowledge, specifically, several essays and
Ideologie und Utopie (1929) earned him an international
standing as a sociologist.s4 The second exile, one from which
Mannheim never recovered, occurred when Hitler was elected in
1933, and he fled to England to the London School of
Economics, which hired several scholars who were Jewish
83 Shils, Edward. 1995. "Karl M a n n h e i r n . " The American Scholar, 64, 2, 221-235. P. 226.
B4 Stewart, W. A. C. 1967. Karl Mannbeim on Education and Social Thought. London: George G. Harrap. P. 7.
European refugees, on compassionate grounds After the
forced emigration from Germany Mannheim was devastated, and it
left him, although a world-renowned sociologist, with a deep
sense of insecurity? The effect of the mass
destruction of the First World War on Europe generated a
renewed interest in Manc. Many European intellectuals thought
of the war as the realization of Marx's prophecy of the demise
of capitalism, particularly in Russia and Central Europe.''
Mannheirn was by no means an avowed Marxist (he was a liberal-
democrat) although he agreed that at that time in history.
there was evidence of increased power in the proletariat,
From Ma=, he certainly acquired the ideological nature of
thought, yet, 'he wanted to go beyond a Marxist orthodoxyr ."
Like many intellectuals in Germany who were his contemporaries
at the time of writing Ideologie und Utopie, he gave Marx and
Marxism a great deal of attention. Mannheim's 'problematicr
was the reworking of Marx to create a theory for writing the
history of ideas.
Mannheim felt that an intellectual's
concept of ideology was largely dependent
of Marx to which they adhered, and he set
Utopie to provide a history of its uses,
understanding of the
on the explanation
out in Ideologie und
The sinister meaning
Ibid, p . 12.
Shils,
Mannheim, Karl. 1952. Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge. Edited by Karl Keckskemeti . London: Routledge and Keagan Paul. P. 4,
88 Ibid, p. 4 .
that ideology often carries with it actually originated, he
tells us, with Napoleon:
The modern conception of ideology was born when Napoleon, finding that this group of philosophers [the mideologists~ in the tradition of Condillac, who rejected metaphysics] was opposing his imperial ambitions, contemptuously labelled them wideologistsm, Thereby the word took on a derogatory meaning which it has retained to the present dayea9
Through the development of Marxist theories. the meaning of
ideology underwent a metamorphosis. In Marxism, ideology was
associated with notions of class and political economy, and
its connotation went 'beyond the mere psychological level of
analysis.,.to pos i t the problem in a more comprehensive.
philosophical settingr
M a n provided a view of ideology that connected it to
'collective thinkingr, which evolved according to group
interests and a material ontology- In Marxist theory,
ideology lost much of its unfavourable tone:
As sociologists, there is no reason why we should not apply to Marxism the perceptions which it itself has produced, and point out from case to case its ideological character. Moreover, it should be explained that the concept of 'ideologyf is being used here not as a negative value judgement, in the sense of insinuating a conscious political lie, but it is intended to designate the outlook inevitably associated with a given historical and socia l situation, and the W e 1 tmschauung and style of thought bound up with iLg2
Mannheim, 1936, op. cit., p. 72.
Ibid, p. 74,
Ibid, p . 124.
92 Ibid. p. 125.
Further along in his analysis, Mannheim observed that Marxism
also addressed the issue of ideology as being 'a tissue of
His idea was that another group's thinking could be
explained by their social circumstances, and that ideology
could comprise a form of attack on another group's principles.
For him, knowledge was often linked to individual ideologies,
such as that taught in universities .g4
Karl Mannheim sought to improve what he called Schelerrs
' impractical and unclear' system by creating an objectifying
method for examining various knowledges, His critics have
usually resorted to arguments of relativism, which he
endeavoured to circumvent in three ways that he thought would
facilitate objectivity: I) that acknowledgement of the
problem would supply part of the answer; 2) as knowledge is
perspectival, the reconciliation of several perspectives will
bring about objectivity; and 3) the idea that the
intelligentsia were a classless, detached group. 95 All three
of these 'escape-hatchesr received stormy criticism.96
Dorothy Smithr s feminist critique of Mannheim is raised
around the issue of objectified forms of knowledge- Her
quarrel with the work of the founding fathers of sociology,
especially Durkheim, is extended to include MannheimOs
93 Ibid, p . 139-
94 Neck' op. cit . , p. 22.
95 Novick, Peter. 1988, That Noble Dream: "The Objectivity QuestionN and the American Historical Profession- Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, P. 159-60.
sociology of knowledge, The following passage illustrates her
criticism of Ideologic und Utopie:
Thought is held to be a function of the life situation of the thinker, We can in effect forget about the thinker and move directly from the statements to the interests or perspectives identified with that life situation, into which the thinker is collapsed- The presence of the subject is redundant, needed only as a vehicle for the causal nerms. Subjectivity is not a necessary term in that relationOg7
The method Dorothy Smith developed called the Social
Organization of Knowledge seeks to rectify this specific
criticism, by making case for direct experience and
subjectivity as a starting place for knowledge.
Karl Mannheimrs sociology of knowledge never really
achieved any lasting influence, Later developments in the
sociology of knowledge (Barnes and Bloor, Berger and ~uckmann)
occurred 'without Mannheimr . 98 Sociologists who attempted to
keep the Mannheimian debate alive in the 1970s did not manage
to create a research method based on this work. Wittgenstein
and K u h n solved most of the epistemological problems generated
by Mannheirnrs work, and feminist work in the sociology of
knowledge has had contributed as well.99 Mannheim aspired to
become an eminent thinker on the standing of Kant, an
expectation that was never realized-f00
Smith,
Pels. Dick. 1996. "Karl Mannheim and the Sociology of Knowledge : Towards a New Agenda. Sociological Theory, 14, 1, 30-48. P. 30.
LOO Shils.
The new sociology of scientific knowledge, based
originally on Marxist theory, formed after the watershed of
positivism and post-positivism that emerged after the
publication of Thomas K h ' s The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions (1962) * M a r x and Engels attitude to technology
was ambivalent, and, at some points characterized scientific
knowledge as belonging in the Unterbau (the economic sector or
the understructure), while at other times, they wavered and
located it as part of the CTberbau (the superstructure). One
source of the sociology of scientific knowledge was a paper
published by Boris Hessen, a Russian scholar in the history of
science, called "The Social and Economic Roots of Newton's
Principiaw (193 1) . This essay was characterized as 'a
veritable manifesto of the Marxist form of externalismr, and
Hessen's work influenced the begi~ings of the M-ist
sociology of science in North America. lo'
These Marxist sociologists of science, as well as
Mertonian sociologists, who were active primarily from 1935 - 1965, continued to separate 'the conceptual content of science
from its social context8 .Io2 David Bloor, Barry Barnes,
Donald MacKenzie and David Shapin at the University of
Edinburgh sought to remedy what they viewed as 'a lack of
nerve and willr in the intellectual enterprise of the early
Marxist sociologists of science and believed there was no
lol Bunge, Mario. 1991. "A Critical New Sociology of Science." Philosophy of 21, 4, 524-560- P - 527.
Examination of the the Social Sciences,
distinction between the social context and the actual content
of s~ience.'~' The 'failure of nerver argument is crucial to
the Edinburgh Schoolrs Strong Programme, emanating from the
epistemological weaknesses of Mannheirn, who 'failed to carry
through the activist, relativist, and symmetrical impulses of
his own sociology of knowledge8 .la4
The scholars of the Edinburgh School, as it came to be
known, entered into what some sociologists regarded as an
abandonment of their disciplinary standpoint, by stating their
intent or 'problematicr was to study social causality as it
existed externally to the scientific sphere, through a
critical study of the actual content of logic, mathematics and
natural science. The four principles of the Strong Programme
were constructed to incorporate 'the same values that are
taken for granted in other scientific discipline^^.'^^ Here
is a partial iteration of these rules:
1) It would be causal, that is, concerned with the conditions which bring about belief states or knowledge. 2) It would be impartial with respect to the truth and falsity, rationality or irrationality, success or failure- Both sides of this dichotomy will require explanation, 3) It would be symmetrical in its style of explanation- The same types of cause would explain, say, true and false beliefs, 4) It would be reflexive. In principle its patterns of explanation would have to be explicable to sociology itself .lo"
'03 Bloor, David. 1991. Knowledge and Social Imagery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press- P. 4.
lo' Pels, 1996, op. cit., p. 3 8 .
Bloor, 1991, op. c i t , , p. 7.
Ibid.
Thomas Ki&n was the unequivocal hero of the Edinburgh School,
but Kuhn himself was uncomfortable with this role- The men in
this scholarly community adopted that part of Kuhnrs a r g u m e n t
which dealt with revolutionary science (the term 'revohtion'
was extremely popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s) even
though he had sought to describe both normal and extraordinary
science. Kuhn was not a radical but 'a moderate global
externalist historian', and he became concerned with his
reputation in the scientific corcununfty, due to the kind of
attention he was receiving from the Edinburgh ~chool,'~'
men so, Kuhn is still regarded as the inventor of the
sociology of scientific knowledge:
Why, then, has Kuhn been hailed as the father of the new sociology of science? For different reasons, namely because he is a relativist and a conventionalist, because he is inclined to favour irrationalism over either empiricism or rationalism, and because he rejects the idea that logic and method are stronger than intuition, analogy, metaphor, social convention or fashion, lo8
As well as appropriating the work of Thomas Kuhn, the
Edinburgh School developed the new sociology of science from
readings of Wittgensteinrs philosophy, primarily because Bloor
observed two aspects of his work as useful to sociology: 1)
the sociological and naturalistic sides of his thought and 2)
'he was remorseless in stressing the priority of society over
the individual , log To Bloor, Wittgenstein did not 'lose his
B ~ g e , 1991, op- c i t . , p. 538.
Bloor, of ffiowledge.
D a v i d . 1983. Wi ttgenstein: A Social New York: Columbia University Press.
Theory PI 1.
nerve' as Durkhefrn had, by limiting his sociological
explanations to a dependence on descriptions of primitive
religions, but failing to see his own social sphere as a
source of theory,110
Critical attacks were abundant for Barnes and Blcorrs
Strong Programme. Paul A- Roth commented in Meaning and
Method in the Social Sciences (1987) that if it werenf t for
the reflexivity clause, the Edinburgh School's Strong
Programme would have few redeeming qualities.r11 Roth
described the Strong Programme as 'voodoo epistemologyr,
arguing that the 'causality principle is unacceptably
vaguer.l12 His main criticism was that adherence to this set
of rules 'offer led] no prospect for generating an epistemology
independent of potentially distorting interestsr.'*
The criticism of the Strong Programme was so caustic that
David Bloor published a Second Edition of mowledge and Social
Imagery in 1991, with an afterward that addressed groups of
critics individually. Despite widespread censure, he refused
to substantively change the original postulates of the Strong
Programme in the new edition, and still supported a
'naturalistic understanding of knowledge in which sociology
Ibid, p - 3 .
Roth, Paul A. 1987. Meaning and Method in the Social Sciences. Ithaca, new York: Cornell University Press. P. 154.
11* Ibid, p. 188.
I* Ibid, p. 200.
plays a central roler This excerpt does not by any means
document the full extent of the criticism:
Rnowledge and Socia2 Iinagery has won few friends and many enemies, It has been denounced by sociologists as 'sociologically irrelevant ' and a ' failure (Ben-David, 1981, 46,541; by anthropologists as 'socio- centricr and incompatible with the 'unicityf of human nature (Archer, 1987); by cognitive scientists as 'recidivistr and 'recycling classical * . . text-book mistakes ' (Slezak, 1989) ; and by philosophers for being 'manifestly preposterousr and 'catastrophically obscurantistr (Flew. 1982) . Behind these errors critics have seen the sinister hand of ideology and have identified it as Marxist, irrationalist, anti-scientific and behaviourist,'l5
Additionally, the Wittgensteinian influence was criticized on
the grounds that the new sociology of science's ethnographic
description dissolved into a kind of positivism, and its
obsessive concern with the single laboratory setting is an
unsuitable bias in sociology. Steve Woolgar's work in the
sociology of scientific knowledge, called Science: The Very
Idea (1988), contained an analysis of Dorothy Smith's work on
textual analysis in "'Kt is Mentally Illw (1978) .'16 Smith
cites this kind of work uncritically on several occasions: 1)
to describe the 'extemalist' nature of knowledge; 2) to
demonstrate how the facticity of scientific accounts comes
aboutu7; and 3) Latour and Woolgar8 s Laboratory Life:
'I4 Bloor, 1991, op. cit.. p. ix.
Ibid, p . 163.
116 Woolgar, Steve. 1988. Science: The Very Idea. London: Tavistock Publications, P. 73-74.
I" Smith, 1990a, op. cit., p. 66, 71.
Social Construction of S d e n t i f i c Facts (1979) , to show how
ordinary language works in the recurrent contexts of social
organization.
Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmannr s The Social
Construction o f R e a l i t y : A T r e a t i s e in the Sociology of
mowledge (1966) was/is likely one of the most well-read books
in the sociology of knowledge. A few years ago it celebrated
the twenty-fifth anniversary of its publication, and at least
two articles were written for this eventr Hans George
Soeffnerrs wReconstruction Instead of Constr~ctionisrn~~ (1992)
and Thomas Eberle8s "A New Paradigm for the Sociology of
Knowledge" (1992) - The book was important because it
'translatedr the phenomenology of Alfred Schutz into
sociological language. The Social Construction of Reality
(1966) was an effort by Berger and Luckmann to distance
themselves from the German as well as the Mannheimian
tradition in the sociology of kn~wledge.~'~ Berger was
concerned that previous formulations of the sociology of
knowledge had been 'overly concerned with the study of the
theoretical8, neglecting
society' in the everyday
in the 1920s, Berger and
Smith, 1990b, op.
'whatever passes for knowledge in a
world. 120 AS their predecessors did
Luc3intann located the beginnings of
Frisby, David. 1983, The Alienated Mind: The Sociology of Knowledge i n Germany, 1918 -1933. London: Heineman Educational Books, P. 225.
120 Hunter, James and Stephen C. Ainlay, eds. 1986. Making Sense of Modern Times: P e t e r L, Berger and the Vision of Interpretive Sociology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. P. 13-14.
their sociology of knowledge with a venture to understand
Marx, especially the concepts of the Unterbau/U&erbau
It is here that the controversy has raged about the correct interpretation of Marxrs own thought. What concerned Marx was that human thought is founded in human activity ("labourt1 in the widest sense of the word) and in the social relations brought about by this activity- 12'
They argue that their own exegesis represents an advance on
earlier thinking about Marx, particularly that of Scheler,
whose explanation of the linkage between the substructure and
superstructure was a vague conjecture based on 'some sort of
relationship between thought and an underlying reality other
than thought ' - u2
Berger and Luckmann's seminal work was a reworking of
Schutz into a more contemporary sociological epistemology and
combined Schutzr theory with the social psychology of Mead.
Peter B e r g e r had already begun the work establishing the
theoretical relationship between the sociology of knowledge
and the work of Mead in an essay called "Identity as a Problem
in the Sociology of Knowledger1 (1966) . Everyday life was 'an
ordered realityr which became objectified by the actor, and
was experienced as either temporally or spatially close or
remote. T h e everyday world was interpreted as 'problematicr,
that is, the material structure of everyday life was full of
121 Berger, Peter L- and Thomas Luckmann- 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Doubleday. P. 6.
122 Ibid.
puzzles and complexities, What was problematic formed the
sub j ect matter of sociology- f23 The Soc ia l Construction of
R e a l i ty (1966) studied social interaction, identifying ' face-
to-facer reciprocal action as the most important. The quality
of action's dfrectedness or indirectedness, its degree of
anonymity, and its predecessors and successors all played an
integral role in a specific encounter, Relationships were
posited on a 'continuum of typifications ' or ' typif icatory
schemes which af eected social interaction-lz4
Language was of the utmost importance, and the most
significant sign system in human so~iety."~ A system of
meanings employed by a given society could therefore be
detected in its language. Language was also useful because it
made possible for individuals the ability to deal with what
they may or may not have experienced, and to accumulate
meanings and knowledge that could become inherited by future
generations. Through language, it was conceivable to
transcend the realities of everyday life, for example, in the
interpretation of a dream. The power of language enabled a
social actor to objectify his or her own existence, or allowed
for the build-up of a variety of 'semantic-fields' which could
be 'modes of indicating degrees of social intimacyr, thereby
allowing for the analysis of a conversation with regard to
lu Ibid, p. 19.
12* Ibid, p . 30-33.
12' Ibid, p, 41,
intersubjective closeness .U6 They use the example of the
French use of the words ' tur and ' vousr which both mean 'your ,
Intimacy can be detected on the basis of which word is used,
Use of the word 'tur in French cccurs in an intimate setting,
whereas the use of 'vousr signifies formality.
Berger and Luckmann also engaged with what they refer to
as the 'social stock of knowledgef, which included knowledge
of one's situation and its limitations. For example,
howledge of one's own work was likely to be very good,
whereas knowledge of othersr vocations was likely sketchy.
They saw human knowledge as structured in terms of relevances,
knowledge was socially distributed and possessed differently
on individual bases. They believed that knowledge of everyday
life meant being aware of the relevance structures of
others."' Locating themselves in the sexism of the 19608,
they remark, 'I know that "woman talkN is irrelevant to me as
a manr
The form of Berger and Luckmannfs sociology of knowledge
was that of phenomenological inquiry, a way of describing
experience, and a theory which sought to uncover various
layers of the social structure. The human social world was
presented as a product of conscious processes, the physical
world and how it was perceived. Their analysis marked an
important shift in the sociology of howledge, from the
126 Ibid.
12' Ibid, p . 42,
"a Ibid, p . 45.
history of ideas to that of the social construction of
everyday reality.ug There is a dearth of criticism of
Berger and Luckmannrs work in North American scholarship, but
George Ritzer has faulted them for their preoccupation with
subjective reality- He claimed that they admitted to a need
for a Manc in order to achieve this, but did not comply with
this fundamental declaration. 13' Criticism of Berger and
Luckmann is more widely accessible in European sociology,
Thomas Samuel Eberlers tribute to Berger and Luckmann on the
event of the twenty-fifth anniversary of The Social
Construction of Reality (1966) , called I1A New Paradigm for the
Sociology of Knowledgem (1992), records one of their
shortcomings, like Ritzer, as the preoccupation with
subjective constr~ctionism.~' Another critique was the work
of Luis Sola, "The Impossible Marginalization of Epistemology:
Reflections on the Sociology of Knowledge of Berger and
Luckmann.lW Solars argument was that they clung to a
positivist tradition by continuing to make the 'hair-splitting
distinctionr between the theoretical and the empirical, which
he asserted are mutually dependent, and whose boundaries are
129 Ibid, p. 14-15.
I 3 O Ritzer, George. 1992. Contemporary Sociological Theory. Third Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill P . 253,
Eberle, Thomas Samuel, 1992, "A New Paradigm for the Sociology of Knowledge: The Social Construction of Reality after twenty-f ive years, " Schweizorische Zei tschrif t fur Soziologie, 18, 2, 493 - 5 0 2 ,
nebulous and difficult to define.u2 Uhfortunately for North
American scholars, many of the critical reviews of Berger and
Luchannrs work have been written in German, Swedish and
Spanish and are published in European journals-
Dorothy Smith has analyzed the everyday world as
'problematicf in a radically different sense. Contrary to
previous meanings of the term she 'shiftCs] it out of its
ordinary place within a scientific or philosophical discourse
and treat [s] it as a property of an actualf ty lived and
practisedr .=' An examination of the references to Dorothy
Smith's body of writing reveals that there are no citations to
Berger and Luckmann's well known book, She confronts many
similar themes in her own work, the interest in Schutzf
phenomenology, everyday life, in subjectivity, and in the
reading of Marx, yet she never engages with Berger and
Luckmannrs model of the sociology of knowledge. Many of these
authors' concepts are comparable to one another, for example,
Berger and Luckmannrs notion of 'institutionalization' and
social control is similar to Smith's 'the relations of
rulingr. Smith's lack of attention may be due to the
dissimilar ways in which she and Berger and Luckmann 'dor
sociology. What Berger and Luckmann have accomplished is
13' Sola, Luis. 1991. "The Impossible Marginalization of Epistemology: Reflections on the Sociology of Knowledge of Berger and Luckman.." Estudios Filosoficos, 40, 115, 555-561.
Smith, D. E. 1987. The Everyday World As Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Toronto : University of Toronto Press. P, 91. For a more complete explanation of how Dorothy Smith has used the term 'problematic' see the index of this book.
purely theoretical, and although Dorothy Smith's Social
Organization of knowledge was based on theory, it was a
definite method, or an orderly, logical way to proceed in the
discovery of how objectified knowledge organized peopler s
lives- Although Berger and Luckmann began with Marx, he was
not given a serious analysis, which Dorothy Smith certainly
gave to Marx in her work. The subjectivity of Berger and
Luckmann was based on social psychology, and was conjectural
when it came to human motivation. They created scenarios and
imaginable exemplars in human behaviour, while Dorothy Smith
offered simply 'direct experiencer, leaving the researcher the
option to fill in whatever that experience may have been.
Berger and Luckmann argued that objectivity was internalized
by a human being, whereas Dorothy Smith followed the premise
that objectified forms of knowledge were contained in texts,
and were aperspectival. The area of investigation for Berger
and Luckmann and Dorothy Smith was fundamentally different, in
that her primary interest was in the 'textr as an organising
mechanism, whereas Berger and Luckmann made categories of
everyday life their field of study. She has never used their
work because she felt that although their contribution to
sociology was considerable, it was very different,13*
l 3 Personal communication with the author by telephone with Dorothy E. Smith, November 11, 1997.
8 6
Conc~usion
My objective for this chapter was to build a clear
outline of the theoretical direction and the guidelines to
which I adhered for the rest of the dissertation, I was
confronted with the task of narrowing and organizing a huge
mass of material that had accumulated in the course of my
research and so have provided practical ways for this data to
be arranged- I created principles to turn to when I needed to
make a decision as to whether or not a particular item, event,
person or idea should be included in my account. The theory
is simple and straightforward. The women's movement as a
social movement, with its relation to the household labour of
women, is described and analyzed in order to show how it
shaped the conditions enabling one woman's thinking in
sociology. Part of the rationale behind this sociological
enterprise was to provide a clarification of the lack of
understanding that has ox is likely to occur when the social
origins of an individual's thinking remain unexamined. This
chapter sought to explain the reason for Dorothy Smith's
desire to 'remake' sociology and her creation of the Social
Organization of mowledge, providing an overview of the
limitations of classical and neo-classical forms of the
sociology of knowledge,
CHAPTSR TIIREB
SOCrAL ORGANIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE: AN OVERVTEOQ
"YOU don't need to have nightmares, just stay awake-uf
Dorothy E, Smith is known principally for her work in the
area of feminist theory, but a good measure of her career in
sociology, especially in the last eight years (1990-1998) has
been devoted to the development of a method for studying
objectified, mainly textual forms of information. These
objectified forms of knowledge are detached from the human
activity from which they are constructed and give a 'bird's
eye viewr of the direct experience they are attempting to
describe. * She has been concerned with how this kind of data
affected what happened to real human beings in the course of
their everyday lives, or the sequence of 'what happens next8,
a method which she called 'the Social Organization of
Knowledger , The SOK is characterized as a procedure, but it
has a theoretical base that draws partly from the historical
materialism of Karl Marx and is feminist in its composition,
though it is capable of dealing with studies that are not
feminist in their style. In this chapter I offer an analysis
of the SOK that has not been attended to by Smith, in a form
that is not available in her publications.
First, this chapter is a descriptive precis of the
One of Dorothy Smith's quips at the end of a class, sometime in October, 1996.
Explanation of objectified forms of knowledge from a tape recording of Dorothy Smith's class called Studies in the Social Organization of Knowledge, on September 19, 1996.
conceptual approaches of the SOK and how it differs from the
traditional sociology of knowledge, The Conceptual Practices
of Power (1990a) is Dorothy Smith's collection of essays on
the sociology of knowledge, so 1 will include examples from
this book as a way of illustrating how this method has been
formulated by her. Marie Campbell and Ann Manicom have
recently edited ffiowledge, Ejrperience and Ruling Relations:
Studies in the Social Organization of mowledge (1995), which
provided a number of essays written by Dorothy Smithr s former
students, and is, in fact, a textual. realization of the SOK
theory and method, Illustrations will be selected from this
work.
Secondly, I will produce an historical overview of how
this method has evolved in Smith's work, noting the points
where the women's movement and her thinking might be seen to
intersect. This account will be based on an analysis of all
of her published and a selection of her unpublished writing,
Thirdly, I: represent in an immediate way what it was like to
be a student in one of her classes, constructing a description
of the dynamics of that environment. This will be recreated
from a collection of tape recordings of two lecture series
called 1) Advanced Studies in The Social Organisation of
Knowledge (EDT 3928F) and 2) The Social Organization of
Knowledge (EDT 1928F) , which I compiled in the fall term of
1996.
A chronological frame that accommodates the contextual
transformations of the SOK method, and its characterization
from the standpoint of a student, extend the ways in which it
89
is already available in textual forms and assist in the
comprehension of this procedure. 1 approach this analysis
conceptually, as there are several ideas in the SOK which not
only change over time, but are at the same time transformed by
distinct social and intellectual forces - Moreover, while I
identify parts of the SOK as 'conceptsr, 1 stress that they
form the way to go in a procedure. The following lexicon is a
kind of SOK 'dictionary', and the principal components are :
'objectified forms of knowledger, 'social organizationr,
'direct experience', 'documents and 'text (s) ' , 'botanizingr ,
' text-reader conversationr , and finally, 'dis juncturer , The
subsections of this chapter will deal specifically with each
of these elements by showing the historical emergence of them
supported by examples from Smith's original work, The
analysis presented here is not meant to be one that is rigid
or prescribed, as that is not the way that Dorothy Smith would
wish the SOK to be taken up, rather, it is an outline of
suggestions, a guide rather than a set of rules.
Social O~ganization
Dorothy Smith began to publish her work in 1959, four
years before she graduated from the University of California
at Berkeley, when her first son David was only two years of
age- She was actively involved in the management of a home,
as well as her work as a graduate student. Smith's first
publication was based on her doctoral research, a study of the
organizational practices of a state mental institution- This
90
paper was called "Legitimate and Illegitimate Deviance: The
Case of the State Mental Hospitalm (1959). The style of this
paper adhered to a conventional, even functionalist way of
doing sociology- There are extensive references to Talcott
Parsons' analysis of 'the sick roler from his book, The Social
System (1951)- Despite these obvious constraints, she was
interested in the way that the older concept of 'lunatic1
rather than the contemporary characterization of the mentally
ill as 'sick peopler still continued to 'organizer the way
that mental asylums dealt with the problem of mental illness.
The voices of the people who made up the concept of the
'mentally illr never entered into her account. The frontline
worker, however, was given a voics, and a vocal presence, in
the second excerpt below, was also given to the physician:
As an attendant in charge of a ward once explicitly stated to a patient in rrry hearing: "You are here because you are not capable of thinking for yourself and It m here to do your thinking for youw.
I have divided in my own mind the custodial patient from the patient who will be leaving the hospital -- of course, they all do, but practically there are those who are more likely, It is treatment for all of them, but for the custodial patients it is more a question of making them feel better,-,From an interview with a doctor on the staff
The mentally ill, the real people who are being studied in
this account, are given no authority for their own experiences
Smith. D. E. 1959. "Legitimate and Illegitimate Deviance: The Case of the State Mental Hospital.I1 Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 2, 1, 15-39. P. 26,
Ibid, p - 32.
as patients, and only the recognized members of the staff of
the state mental hospital are given the power to speak for
them. This was the conventional way of doing sociology when
Dorothy Smith was a graduate student, a method which reduced
the presence and actions of people in the world. human beings
which sociologists as practitioners claimed to be studying, to
the level of a concept. The sociological practice of writing
'positionless accountsr5 was still an accepted part of
sociological writing.
By the time her thesis was completed in 1963, her second
son Steven was only a nine months old and her husband had left
her. She was a single parent without a job- The way that
her dissertation was written formed at least part of the
theoretical foundation and a way of thinking that is a part of
the SOK. Here is her account of what happened with her
doctoral dissertation:
I decided that the thesis was all wrong, I'd tried to write two theses in one. 1 didnrt want to give up either, but I can't remember now what the other one was. But in order to write the one thesis that I decided should be written, I needed to understand organizational theory- I dropped writing for a year to read organizational theory. I did that on my own. And when I' d done, I: rewrote my thesis very rapidly.' (my emphasis)
For an analysis of the sociological practice of writing 'positionless accountsr, see Dorothy Smith's study of Durkheim in: "Sociological Theory: Methods of Writing Patriarchyf1 (1989) . In: Wallace. Ruth. ed. Feminism and Sociological Theory. London: Sage- P- 44-48.
Smith. D. E. 1994. "A Berkeley Ed~cation.~~ In: Meadow-Orlans, Kathryn P. and Ruth A. Wallace. 1994. Gender and the Academic Experience: Berkeley Women Sociologists . Lincoln. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. P. 50.
The role of organizational theory in the later construction of
the SOK is a central one. From this intensive study came her
interest in what actions came next in a series of events.
smith was interested, in her dissertation, in proving
that although the power behind the organizational structure of
the state mental hospital was nominally in the hands of the
physicians, or the psychiatrists, who were at the top of the
hospital hierarchy, the real organizational power was
generated from the frontline workers who dealt with the mental
patients on a day-to-day basis, Even at this early stage of
her career she was interested in disjuncture, or the
difference between what was present ideologically and
theoretically and what was actually happening:
[In? particular the analysis will attempt to make clear why a professional structure of controls which in theory should counterbalance the potentially irresponsible usage of power at the periphery does not work as it should,'
This doctoral work reflected the conventional methods and ways
of writing that dominated sociology in the late 1950s and
early 60s- Her thesis topic was taken up because it was
fitting, and because her husband, William Reed Smith, also a
doctoral student in sociology at the University of California
at Berkeley, was conducting research in the same mental
institution-' Her thesis supervisor, Erving Goffman, who had
written Asylums in 1962, told her dryly that 'there was
- - --
' Smith, 1963, op. cit., p. 47,
From a personal interview by the author Smith at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto. November 11,
with Dorothy E,
1994.
nothing new to be written about state mental hospitalsr -' If one looks carefully at this early work, some obvious
intellectual origins of her later thinking can be found.
The first twelve years of Dorothy Smith's career were
spent on the analysis of various forms of organization. Her
first two publications based on her doctoral research were
studies of the organization of the state mental institution.
She also published an article on the complexity of medical,
organizations, based loosely on her thesis work in 1966, and
finally, in 1971, she wrote an article on the organizing
qualities of household space, or how the architectural
arrangement of family dwellings organized the behaviour of
individuals, family groups and communities. "Household Space
and Family Organizationm (1971) , like her doctoral thesis,
studies disjuncture or the difference between prevailing
ideological expectations of the particular community regarding
the disciplining of children and 'what actually happensr:
[An] informant reported that on a university housing estate where the children played in a common court surrounded by private apartments, communal norms prohibited using physical punishment. This area, and therefore the behaviour of adults to children in this area, was highly visible- The interior of the apartments, on the other hand, was secluded. My informant reported that he and his wife resolved the problem of discipline this rule created for them by bringing the child inside the apartment before smacking him. The peculiarity of this only came home to him when he discovered accidentally one of his
Smith, 1994, op. cit., p. 50.
94
neighbours doing the same.
The year that Dorothy Smith spent studying organizational
theory independently has provided much of the direction that
her intellectual interests have taken, even to the present- To
understand her method, it is critical to understand how this
came about, that her interest in social organization came even
before her formal adoption of feminist beliefs and the study
of M a n . It came about when she was a part of a way of doing
sociology that was conventional but which she always felt did
not reflect the real world and its actualities, Smith has
never abandoned this early grounding and fascination with
social organization.
At the level of her doctoral research, Dorothy Smith's
thinking on social organization was only beginning to be
formed, and she depended on the classical and contemporary
literature available at the time of writing her dissertation.
Works like Robert Michels Political Parties: A Sociological
Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy
(1915) formed the basis of the organizational principles in
the theoretical portion of Smith's dissertation. Michels
argued that to build a successful political party, the
internal policy should one where power was vested in the hands
of a few people in a dominant class.'' Her analysis of
Smith, D. E. 1971. DHousehold Space and Family Organization. l1 In Davies, E, 1. and K. Herman, eds. 1972. Social Space, Toronto: New Press. P. 85.
IL Smith, D . E , 1963. Vower and the Frontline : Social Controls in a State Mental Hospital." A Doctoral Dissertation Prepared for the University of California at Berkeley. P, 244.
Michelsr theory noted the power of an organization to
inf lueace 'what comes next' :
As Michels formulated "the iron law of oligarchytr it is a "tendencyI1 arising from the fact of organization for the attainment of definite ends, The term lr tendencytt is taken here to mean that given certain specified conditions, certain specific consequences will follow- l2
Also, Peter M. Blau and W, Richard Scott's Formal
Organizations: A Comparative Approach (1962) , was used for
the theory in her doctoral thesisJ3 Her conception of the
term social organization changed over time and within the
context of particular articles. In tr'Kr is Mentally Illtt
(1978)' for instance, social organization was an 'unintended
consequenceJ or an unplanned phenomenon that results from
social relati~ns-'~ Social organization, in the sense which
Smith usually uses it, was comprised of the taken for granted
aspects of social life, a world that is of itself, ordered,
and it is the sociologistrs task to uncover the 'tidinessr
that is inherent in human society.
I' Smith, D. E. 1965b. ttFrontline Organization of a State Mental Ef~spital.~~ Administrative Science Quarterly, 10, 3 , 381-399, P, 396,
1.3 For a more detailed analysis of the emergence and conceptualization of social organization in Dorothy Smith's early work, see Chapter Seven,
Smith. 1990b. op. cit., p . 13.
Direct Experience
In 1968, Dorothy Smith accepted a position at the
University of British Columbia after a brief, uncomfortable
stint (1966-68) at the University of ESSPY, Colchester, where
she taught organizational theory? Changes that came about
as a result of the incorporation of Marxism and feminism into
her thinking, and her immersion into the politics of the
Vancouver Women's Movement were about to make themselves felt
in the development of the SOK- Her early teaching did not
reflect a finished version of the method, as we learn from
James Heap's Foreword to KhowZedge, Experience and R u l i n g
Relations
The above
When I arrived on the campus of the University of British Columbia in 1969 I heard from my fellow students that I ought to take at least one course from Dorothy Smith. I did, Three times- The course was entitled 'Interpretive Procedures,' and it introduced us to Max Weber, Alfred Schutz, Harold Garfinkel, and Dorothy Smith. We came to earth from our flights of abstraction when we worked with texts or what we then called 'accountsr,,, political speeches, paintings, media reports, and research articles. It was in working with these accounts that we were able to discover what we could say, and what it made sense to say, using (and finally comprehending) the terms we had been absorbing: social organization, interpretive procedures, null point, reflexivity, practical ac~omplishment.~~
passage written by James Heap describes an early
formulation of the Social Organization of Knowledge. Smith's
l5 Tape recorded interview by the author with Dorothy E. Smith at OISE/UT, November 11, 1994,
Heap in Campbell, 1995, op. cit., p. ix.
course in Interpretive Procedures, a forerunner of the SOK,
was imagined from its inception as a method:
The assumption made in this course is that actors use systematic procedures for making sense of what happens, what has happened and what others are doing; that it is possible to study these, to develop descriptions, analyses and ultimately and optimistically formal models of how it is done; and that such analyses will have something to say about the properties of form and organization which social action must have if it is to be intelligible.''
The reading list for the Interpretive Procedures class
included work by Herbert Blumer, Harold Garfinkel, Erving
Goffman, Michael Polanyi and Alfred Schutz, Specialized
reading in the area of linguistics and philosophy, including
Polanyi ' s Personal mowledge: Towards a Post-Cri t i c a l
Philosophy (1958) , was further suggested for students who
wanted additional study material-''
The University of British Columbia, however, was a
consematfve bastion within the intellectual community of
Vancouver. The Vancouver Women's Movement and Women's
Liberation began at the more leftist and radical environment
of the newly established Simon Fraser University, when female
leftist-activists formed the Feminine Action League 'to deal
with their exclusion from meaningful participation in the
l7 From the course outline in Interpretive Procedures 512 taught by Dorothy Smith in the Fall of 1970. I am grateful to my supervisor, James Heap, for providing me with a copy.
Is Ibid, p. 2.
struggles on ~ampus~.'~ Their first political act, in June
of 1968, and one that they did not consciously connect to
Women's Liberation, was to occupy the Board Room at Simon
Fraser University. The Board Room was eventually turned into
a child care centre, This was the beginning of a powerful
grass roots movement geared specifically to the advancement of
the status of women, that was to spill over into the entire
Vancouver community, including the more right-wing University
of British Columbia.
In Canada as a whole, the Royal Commission on the Status
of Women had been established on February 16, 1967, and in
April, 1968, a series of public hearings began to be held in
several Canadian cities, The actual Report of the Commission
was published on September 28, 1970-20 Women, and women's
issues were at the forefront of public consciousness, and
there was, at the same time, a widespread ferment of student
and leftist activism in Canadian universities. For Dorothy
Smith, the first stage of her conversion to Marxist-feminism
was the taking up of Marxism, and feminism followed very
quickly thereafter.+* The first fruit of this metamorphosis
in her scholarship was the article, "Women, the Family and
Corporate Capitali~rn~~, published in Women in Canada (1973).
l9 From the Women's Movement Archive Collection (WMAC) . Vancouver Women's Caucus. Item 161, "Women's Caucus - A History and AnalysisI1.
20 Report of the Royal C o d s s i o n on the Status of Women in Canada. 1970. Ottawa: Information Canada. P. ix.
21 Interview by the author with Dorothy E. Smith in Pam Wakewichrs office, Lakehead University, October 18, 1994.
This particular work formed an important linkage in the
development of the S O L It consolidated the concept of social
organization with Dorothy Smith's recent appropriation of
Mancism, and her acceptance of the politics of feminism. This
chapter in Women in Canada (1973) is devoted to working out
Marxist ideas of social organization, including the private
sphere of middle-class and work5ng-class women under the
structure of corporate capitalism, Here, Smith provided a
brief discussion of how sociology had been traditionally
concerned with the construction of abstract categories that
say 'nothing about the social organization of relationsr .=
An examination of Dorothy Smith's earliest work in
sociology establishes just how radical the change was in her
thinking that came about as a consequence of her participation
in the Vancouver Women's Movement, and her acceptance of
feminist beliefs in the early 1970s- This change was one that
she has reiterated and emphasized throughout much of her
One way to provide evidence of this is to examine
the change that occurred in her sociological treatment of
direct experience, Writing an original contribution to a book
called A Sociological Framework for Patient Care (1966) . she called attention to direct experience in the essay "The Role
of Sociology in Medicine? Standard sociological accounts at
22 Smith, D. E. 1975. I1Women, the Family and Corporate Capitali~rn.~~ Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 2 0 , 5 5 - 9 0 . P. 60.
23 This change in Dorothy Smith's scholarship and the impact of the early Women's Movement on her thinking is an experience which Professor Smith has mentioned to me on a number of occasions in the course of personal interviews,
this time diminished and even eschewed the relevance and value
of direct experience and personal accounts, The use of the
first person in sociological writing beyond anything further
than its scant use in acknowledgements, notes and the
conclusions of essays was considered f nappropriate ,
unscientific and a serious intellectual gaffe. Observe her
assessment of personal experience here in an analysis of
complex organizations:
As occupational, roles become parts of more complex structures and as they become more specialized, personal qerience becomes increasingly inadequate as a reliable source of information about social relationships. The complex structures within which the individual operates cannot be grasped by any straightforward rule-of-thumb approach,24
The human subjects that are a part of her sociological account
in this instance have no voice, no names, no gender and no
race - they axe simply 'the patientr, 'the psychiatristr, 'the nursef, and 'the general practitionerr, I have included this
example to exemplify the magnitude of the change that takes
place in her way of doing sociology only a few years later.
The theoretical basis for the SOK had, by 1973, been
established through her appropriation of Marxist concepts, but
the SOK was still missing the vital ingredient of direct
experience, This was the next stage of its formation, one
that I argue has a logical connection
women's experience that took place in
to the affirmation of
the organized women's
24 Smith, D. E. 1966. The Role Medicine." In: Folta, J . R . and E . S .
of Sociology in Beck, eds. A
Sociological ~ramework- for Patient Care. New York: John Wiley. P, 55.
movement in practices l i k e consciousness-raising- The
intellectual groundwork for 'direct experienceR came from the
philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the phenomenological
sociology of Alfred Schutz. Dorothy Smith began reading
Merleau-Ponty w h i l e she was still at the University of
California at Berkeley. in the early 1960s. His essay, "In
Praise of Philosophytt (1963) argued in favour of subjective
experience :
Perception grounds everything it shows us, so to speak, an obsessional relation with being; it is there before us, and yet it touches us from within,2s
Similarly, Alfred Schutz theorized the value of subjectivity,
as he felt that most sociologists produced their work under a
rather 'naive realismr, L e . , he felt that sociology wasn't
grounded philo~ophically.~~ Despite the intellectual basis
and support for the use of 'direct experiencer, 1 argue that
its more meaningful derivation to Dorothy Smith, was one that
was emotional and political, rather than scholarly, and came
from the early women's movement. At the time, it was unlikely
that womenrs direct experience as it had been affirmed in
women's consciousness-raising groups would have been taken
seriously by the larger academic community.
The first mention of 'direct experiencer is contained in
an important series of papers that Smith published in 1974,
25 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1963. In Praise of Philosophy. Translated by John W i l d and James M. Edie. Chicago: Northwestern University Press. P- 16.
26 Grathof f , Richard, ed. 1978. The Theory of Social Action: The Correspondence of Alfred Schutz and Talcott Parsons. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. P. x.
work which consolidated in a critical way the precepts and
praxis of the SOK. IrWomenfs Perspective as a Radical Critique
of Sociology1t (1974a) contained the original citation of
'direct experiencer as a revolutionary procedure for beginning
studies in sociology:
What I: am suggesting is more in the nature of a re-organization which changes the relation of the sociologist to the object of her knowledge and changes also her problematic- This re-organization involves first placing the sociologist where she is actually situated, namely at the beginning of those acts by which she knows or will come to know; and second, making her direct experience of the everyday world the primary ground of her knowledge, 27
One of the key ingredients of the SOK, direct experience, or
lived actuality, was supported in part from the influence of
the widespread practice in the early the women's movement of
consciousness-raising or. as they were nicknamed, C-R
groups. 28
These collectivities were the first sweeping expressions
of feminist activism that emerged in the mid to late 1960s.
One of the earliest in California was a group called
' Sudsof loppenr which formed in San Francisco in 1968 :
In those early meetings we talked a great deal about how we perceived the role of women in our society, our attitudes towards ourselves and other women, our
'' Smith, D. E. 1974a. llWomenrs Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology. Sociological Inquiry, 4, 1, 1-13. P. 11,
Dorothy Smith did participate in the practice of consciousness raising in the Vancouver Women's Movement, and her activities in this regard are documented more extensively in Chapter Eight.
very real problems with men in our private lives and on our jobs and, of course, what we hoped the group could be for us- Many women wanted the group to become a large family where needs could be met that w e r e not being met in their private lives (homes - communes 1 and jobs - 29
Consciousness-raising groups were a well-spring of political
energy, the place where the personal became political, They
were created largely as an antidote to the oppressiveness of
traditional psychotherapy and were characterized as 'intimate
and supportive talk sessf onsr or 'rap groupsr . 30 It was
generally recommended that groups be small, usually no more
than fifteen members, no leader, and organized over no
specific period of time, meeting about once a week. It was
considered crucial at these meetings that women express
themselves in personal, subjective and specific ways. Women
often began their discussions around childhood experience and
moved on to other life experiences. Consciousness-raising
groups were a vital part of the early women's movement in the
United States in the mid-to-late 1960s, and quickly spread to
Canada. At the UBC, The Womenr s Office, a hub of feminist
activism in the university, offered consciousness-raising
groups at noon and in the evenings for students-31
29 Allen, Pamela. 1970. Free Space: A Perspective on the Small Group in Women's Liberation. New York: Times Change Press, PI 11,
30 The first issue of MS Magazine, Volume One, Number One contains an article with a description and recommendations for forming consciousness-raising groups. The sketch here is based on this article,
31 WMAC. University of British Columbia. Womenf s Off ice. Item 152.
Members of the then male-oriented discipline of sociology
would not have endorsed a method which drew from women's
direct experience as it came from gatherings of women intent
on giving authority and meaning to their existence. Male
members of Marxist and radical student groups at the time,
particularly, w e r e known for levelling accusations at members
of the organized women's movement that feminist claims 'lacked
theory' or were 'lacking in Women needed a
language to speak for themselves and there was a necessity for
an 'authoritativer sociological method which attended to their
experience.
The earliest reference to the phrase, the 'social
organization of knowledger appeared in 1974, in the essay "The
Social Construction of a Documentary Realityt1 :
[The] problem might be better described as concerned with "the social organization of knowledgeu rather than its " sociology. It For we take first as a basis for our inquiry that knowledge is socially accomplished. 33
T h i s paper introduced the idea of 'document timer, or an event
that has become stabilized as text and the social organization
of its making has di~appeared.~~ 'Document timer has a
conceptual history of its own and changes as her work in this
area progresses in the 1990s, the era of poststructuralist
32 Smith, D. E. 1977b. Marxism and Feminism: A P l a c e to Begin, A Way to Go, Vancouver: New Star Books - P. 33.
33 Smith, D. E. 1974c. "The Social Construction of a Documentary Reality. " Sociological Inquiry, 44, 4 , 257-268. P. 257.
theory, to become 'textual timer , 35
While this article looked at the practices of working up
a sociological account, and the 'interpretive proceduresr that
were a part of the reading of an account, bringing Schutz'
phenomenology and the ethnomethodology of Cicourel and Pollner
into the picture, her theoretical scope widened even more in
work that was published the same year, ''The Ideological
Practice of Sociologyu (1974c), and its reading of Manc which
emphasized 'the practical activity of actual living
individualsr provided further authority for the 'direct
experiencer ingredient of the SOK, 36
Two books came out of Dorothy Smith's experience at the
University of British Columbia and the Vancouver Women's
Movement : 1) Women Look at psychiatry (1975) , which was an
analysis of the organizing practices of conceptual frameworks
created by male members of the psychiatric profession, which
were oppressive to women; and 2) Marxism and Feminism - A Place to Begin, A W a y to Go (1977) , a defense of Marxism as a
way to understand women's oppression- This latter book,
especially, underscored the importance of direct experience,
but in itself, Smith stressed that this kind of understanding
was not enough:
We talk about the domination of men and how men oppress women, as if the personal experience of oppression could be seen as the general and dominant mode in which the society is organized, And then we talk
Smith,
36 Smith, Do E- 1974b- ''The Sociology, " Catalyst, 8, 39-54,
Ideological P, 42.
Practice of
about a golden age of matriarchy in compensation. It is a means of restoring to us some sense of our power - a power women were supposed to have had some two thousand years ago, who knows when? But we do not see that power cannot exist apart from actual individuals organizing and working concertedly and hence that the power oppressing us is an actual organization of the work and energies of actual people, both women and men,37
By the time Dorothy Smith left the University of British
Columbia in 1977, most of the unstructured recipe for the SOK
had been formulated. Dorothy Smith thought of the method not
as a recipe, but 'a w a y to gof 3a, but I would argue that when
a cook knows what shers doing, a recipe is only 'a way to gor
- she knows the ingredients, but puts them together in her
own way - a little of this, a little of that. The key
ingredients which had been drawn together at this point in
time were social organization, direct experience, the theory
of Karl M a r x , feminism, ethnomethodology, phenomenology and
the site of the document as a principal organizing tool in the
everyday life of human beings. What was now missing was the
concept of the 'text', the practice of 'botanizingr, the
notion of a text-reader conversation, and more importantly,
'the standpoint of womenr as a starting place for sociological
inquiry. The remaining makings of the SOK were imagined and
prepared in Toronto, at the Ontario Institute for Studies in
Education.
" Smith, 1977r OP. cit. P.
38 Smith, Dorothy E. 1997b.
18,
"From the Margins : Womenr s Standpoint as a Method of Inwiry in the social-~ciences.~~ Gender, Technology and Development, 1, 1. P. 133,
107
The fully developed formulation of S m i t h r s SOK method
that examines how knowledge is created, and how it organizes
social life, taught by her in the Fall of 1996, could begin in
the direct experience of the investigator, and the distinct,
subjective, knowledge that he/she has accumulated in the
course of experiencing a lived life. has acquired while being
formally educated, has been a part of a work place or any
other social environment. The subject matter that is decided
upon for study is frequently contingent on this kind of
localized knowledge, and can be connected intimately to the
firsthand interests of the person(& conducting the
investigation. The affirmation of the value, worth, merit,
advantage and importance of individualized and subjective
knowledge (s) could be the starting place for the study of any
field of inquiry. This kind of subjective beginning is
limited, and is likely to change to a broadened analysis in
the course of the research:
Distinctive methods of telling and hearing characterize a telling of experience that intends, is grounded on, and conforms itself to the lived actuality, Again. 1 stress that the primary narrative is merely one mode, and no claim is made for the greater accuracy of accounts made in it ,39
It is possible for the researcher to begin this procedure by
conducting an exercise in self-knowledge, to think carefully
about the kinds of experience that would ultimately prove to
be a useful contribution to a specific sociological
Power: Univers
Smith, D. E. 1990a- The Conceptual Practices of A F e m i n i s t Sociology of Khowledge. Toronto: ity of Toronto Press. P- 157.
problematic, or a part of everyday life that presents itself
as puzzling. The method usually starts with the exercise of
the imagination and as students in this method, we were
immediately compelled to think sociologically.
Students and researchers who used the SOK method often
began with their direct experience of a particular issue, for
instance, Gary Kinsman started his essays with his experience
as a gay activist; Nancy Jackson initiated her analysis of
curriculum reform in her experiences at community colleges in
British Columbia in the mid-1980s and Gerald A. J. de Montigny
grounded his study of professional social work in the
experiences of his own casel~ad.~~ Within the classroom
environment that I recorded at OISE/UT, Dorothy Smith was
attentive to studentst stories and their experiences as
professionals in the working world, as well as their
experiences in intimate relationships and the area of their
personal lives. One explanation of 'direct experiencer, for
instance, came from a student who was talking about the birth
of her first grandchild - how she was present at the birth and
what it meant to her. Dorothy Smith used this studentf$ story
to construct this explanation of how social organization
existed in localized forms.4'
'* Campbell, Marie and Anne Manicom, eds . Knowledge, EXperience and Ruling Relations: S tud ies in the Social Organization of Knowledge. Toronto : University of Toronto Press. See: Kinsman. p. 80-95; Jackson. p. 164-180; and De Montigny, p. 209-220.
From a tape recording of Studies in the Social Organization of Knowledge, September 19, 1996.
Document and T e x t
Through the advocacy of a group of faculty members,
Dorothy Smith secured a professorial position in t h e
Department of Sociology in Education at the Ontario Institute
for Studies in Education in T O K O ~ ~ O , starting in the Fall Term
of 1977.~~ She arrived in Toronto to confront a form of the
women's movement that was far different from the grass roots
movement that she had grown accustomed to in Vancouver, Here,
the women's movement was highly organized and firmly
established politically and culturally, and the Marxist-
feminist community were not interested in the potential
contributions from the periphery that Dorothy Smith had to
offer- She received an indifferent reception from some
members of the women's movement in Toronto when she first
arrived. 43
Representatives of the early Toronto Women's Movement,
for example, were responsible for the organization of the
original meetings of the National Action Committee on the
Status of Women. After the publication of the Report of the
Royal Commission on the Status of Women on September 28, 1970,
a National ad hoc Action Committee on the Status of Women
formed and began to hold meetings in Toronto. The first
meeting, on January 30, 1971, was held on a Saturday morning
at the University Women's Club on St. George Street, near the
Personal communication with James L. Heap, Friday August 23, 1996-
43 Personal interview by the author with Dorothy E. Smith, OISE/UT, November 11, 1994,
University of Toronto. The thirtyfour women in attendance
came from twenty-two elite or middle-class groups such as the
Business and Professional Women's Club, the Canadian
Federation of University Women, the National Council of Women,
the Catholic Women's League and the IODE." The founding
conference, the "Strategy for Change Conventiont1, was held in
Toronto April 7 - 9, 1972. Reporting to NACr s Steering
Committee, the first president related that she 'was appalled
that sixty radical women had been admitted to the conferencer,
expressing particular concern that some were known Trotskyites
and ~omr~tunists,~~ This new environment of was in stark
contrast to the kind of women's movement in which Dorothy
Smith had been involved.
Work became therapy for the shock of such a drastic
change.46 When she arrived at OISE/UT, Dorothy SrrLth took
over a course in The Social Organization of Knowledge from
Professor Ronald Silvers, who had been teaching it from
1972." The SOK, in the interval of the next five years,
44 WMAC. National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Formation - Toronto.
45 Young, Lisa* "Social Movements and Political Parties: A Comparison of the Canadian and American Women's Movements, 1970-1993.11 Paper at the Meetings of the American Political Science Association, New York, Sept. 1-4, 1994. P. 24.
46 Personal Interview by the author with Dorothy E. Smith at OISE/UT, November 11, 1994.
47 From a personal communication with James L. Heap, December 17, 1997- Ronald Silvers used: Young, Michael F., ed. 1971, mowledge and Control : New Directions for the Sociology of Education, as a text for this course. Concerning the introduction of the course in the Social Organization of Knowledge at OISE/UT in 1972, Ronald Silvers writes: Tt was not easy to introduce the course into the Institute curriculum
became further refined and developed through the plethora of
writing that she produced, Between the fall of 1977 and the
end of 1983 she conducted 54 presentations in Canada, the
United States, Mexico, and England and published 18
articles * 4 8 Although the great majority of her lectures were
feminist in their orientation or dealt with womenrs issues,
seven of these lectures explicitly concerned the SOK - often these public lectures formed the basis for her more formal
j ournal publications.
Many of Smith's journal articles produced during this
interim are now considered classics in the sociological canon,
but ones that strengthened the formulation of the SOK were:
It 'Kr is Mentally Ill : The Anatomy of a Factual Accountut
(l978b) 49; "The Intersubjective Structuring of Time" (1979a) ;
"A Sociology for WomenI1 (197913) ; and "On Sociological
Description: A Method from Marxu (1981) . One lecture, "The
at the time as the sociology department was essentially Parsonian and [interested in] Survey Research. Allowances were being made to introduce new areas because 1 and other new faculty had been hired to bring new dimensions to the program. The course was permitted after explaining to administrators that the Social Organization of Knowledge was related to the Sociology of Knowledge and that the older area of study was well known through the works of Karl Mannheim who had taught education at the University of London. In a sense, I was using ideas from the Social Organization of Knowledge to introduce the area of study," (Communication by E-Mail, Tuesday, January 13, 1998)
48 From Dorothy Smithr s curriculum vitae.
Her famous essay, ' K r is Mentally 111: The Anatomy of a Factual Account" (1978) had in fact been written and submitted for publication six or seven years previously. It had been rejected because it was too long, and she refused to shorten it. She had used the essay on several occasions in classes in Interpretive Procedures at the University of British Columbia before it was actually published in 1978.
Active Text - An Analysis of Two Versions of an Eventtr, a
paper presented at the meetings of the International
Sociological Association in Mexico C i t y in 1982 was an
important moment in the history of the S O L It was this study
that provided the initial work on the concept of a text-reader
conversation, produced from ' the readerf s interpretive
practicesf This paper was published later on in a
collection of her essays whose primary theme was the
organizing qualities of the text, a book published in 1990
called Texts, Facts and Femininity: Exploring the Relations
of Ruling (1990b).
The Toronto Women's Movement diversified in the 1980s to
establish, among several other forms, lesbian feminist
organizing. LOOT (Lesbian Organization of Toronto) was formed
in November of 1976 and disbanded in the spring of 198ODs1
The 1980s were characterized by the proliferation of
organizations formed by minority women and women of colour:
The emergent groups of the past decade include the Congress of Black Women (CBW), established nationally in 1980, Innuit Womenf s Association or Pauktuutit (IWA) , created in 1984, DisAbled Women0 s Network (DAWN) in 1985, and the National Organization of Immigrant and Visible
Smith, D. E , 1982b- "The Active Text t= A Textual Analysis of the Social Relations of Public Discoursewtt Unpublished Paper Presented at the World Congress of Sociology, Mexico City, August, 1982. P, 2-
51 ROSS, Becki. 1990, "The House that Jill Built: Lesbian Feminist Organizing in Toronto, 1976-198OWm Feminist Review, 35, 75-91, P. 76.
Minority Women (NOIVMW) , in 1986 ,'' At this phase of the Toronto Women's Movement, The Feminist
Party of Canada was created, and held its first public meeting
on June 10, 1979, at the Ontario Institute for Studies in
Education. Mary OrBrien and Angela Miles were keynote
speakers.53 The expansion that took place in the women's
movement, as well as the renaissance that occurred, was
reflected in the intensified emphasis on women and women's
issues that Dorothy Smith's work took on, and the way that the
SOK matured at the time.
Dorothy Smith's feminist and scholarly activism during
the m i d to late 1980s was centred around issues of mothering,
single parenthood, and to a lesser extent, violence against
women. In 1985, she began work with a friend and former
student, Alison Griffith, on mother's work as it was organized
by the educational system, and several essays on mothering and
single parenthood were the outcome of this affiliati~n.'~
Smith continued writing in the area of Marxism and feminism,
theorizing how women's work in the home as well as the public
" Phillips, Susan D. 1991. "Meaning and Structure in Social Movements: Mapping the Network of National C a n a d i a n Womenf s Organizations, Ir Canadian Journal of Poli tical Science, 2 4 , 4, 755-782. P. 764.
s3 Zaborsky, Dorothy- 1987. Feminist Politics: The Feminist Party of Canada? Womenfs Studies International Forum, 1 0 , 6 , 613-621. P. 614.
54 From Dorothy Smith' s curricvlum vitae. Alison Griffithfs doctoral dissertation was called "Ideology, Education, and Single Parent Families: The Normative Ordering of Families Through Scho~ling~~ (1984) .
sphere w a s organized by 'the relations of rulingr." Dorothy
has also worked and written in the area of violence against
women. In the fall of 1986 she presented a lecture at the
Faculty of Social Work at the Udversity of Toronto called
"Women and Violencen, This field has been taken up by a
student of Smith's w h o studied this issue, Gillian Walker,
who was influenced by several relevant research papers written
by Dorothy Smith, wrote her doctoral thesis on the topic of
violence against women, called "Conceptual Practices and the
Political Process: Family Violence as IdeologyN (1988) .*' Smith's formal work on the SOK during this time included
an essay, llTextually-mediated Social Organizationw published
in 1984 and a public lecture called "The Social Organization
of Knowledgeu in Santiago, Chile in 1986. Dorothy Smith's
work from the mid to late 1980s was characterized by a
strengthening of her feminist ties, more through the work of
her students than th~ough formal connections to members of the
Toronto Women's Movement. She seems to have developed
collegial relationships with many of her students, developing
intellectual work that took on a collaborative dimension with
55 See: Smith, D .E., llWomen, Class and Familyn (1982a) ; "Women, the Family and the Productive ProcessI1 (1983b) ; "The Deep Structure of Gender Antitheses: Another View of Capitalism and Patriarchym (1984~) ; "The Renaissance of Womenv (1984b) ; Women, C l a s s , Family and the State (1985b); IfFeminist Reflections on Political E~onomy~~ (1989b) ; and l~Sociological Theory: Methods of Writing Patriarchyu (1989~).
56 For a list of the places where Dorothy Smith looks at violence against women as a topic for the SOK, see: Walker, Gillian. 1990. NThe Conceptual Politics of Struggle: Wife Battering , the Women' s Movement It, Studies in Political Economy, 33. P. 89.
many of them, This part of the decade, although the women's
movement had been declared over for many years, resulted in a
renaissance for k n o w l e d g e production for Smith in the
bailiwick of ferninism and women's concerns.
The 1990s ushered in a renewed interest, indeed, what
could be described as an obsession with the SOK, the text and
textually-mediated discourse for Smith. This was generated by
a response to an overwhelming interest in the text and
'discourse' via postmodern theory in intellectual circles and
its interdisciplinary seepage into or contamination of the
areas of history and sociology. Several of the critiques
levelled at Dorothy Smith's work came from intellectuals loyal
to a postmodern theoretical orientati~n.~' Historical change
in the evolution of the SOK also occurred in one chapter in
The Conceptual Practices of Power (1990a) . "The Social
Organization of Textual Realityt1, chapter three, reflects a
shift in the way that 'document timer was originally
conceptualized in 1974 - here the analysis is extended and renamed 'textual time'." This chapter was originally
published as 'The Social Construction of a Documentary
Realityt1 (1974b) , so the concept of 'document' changed to
'textual', indicating an apparent poststructuralist reference.
57 See: Clough, Patricia, 1993- "On the Brink of Deconstructing Sociology: Critical Reading of Dorothy Smith's Standpoint Epistemology." The Sociological Quarterly, 34, 1, 169-182.
58 Smith, D. E. 1990a. The Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Khowledge, Toronto : University of Toronto Press. P. 74-75,
116
B o t a n f zing
Another imaginable stage of an investigation into the SOK
was called 'botanizing', or, the performance of a search
similar to archaeological or anthropological fieldwork. It
requfred reaching into the real world for textual or other
types of art i f acts, which may or may not be connected in some
way to the lived experience of the researcher, but at the same
time associated to what Smith has characterized as 'the
relations of rulingr, the bureaucratic practices, government
regulations, and the media, It meant the examination of
various kinds of protocol and ideological restrictions that
constrained and controlled the everyday life of human beings.
Botanizing was the retrieval of sociological 'artifacts' from
a world that is already socially organi~ed.'~ Originally it
was used as an analogy for fieldwork practices in the first
class in the Social Organization of Knowledge class that she
taught at the University of British Columbia and was more
fully developed in her courses at OISE/UT-
The Websterrs Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary defines
'artifact' as 'any object created by man [sic] , especially
with a view to its subsequent user.60 For the SOK, this meant
anything in a textual form, or it may have signified part of a
59 For an explanation of the incorrect assumption that the sociologist must begin inquiry from a conceptual level, because the social world is one of 'wild incoherencer, or what might be understood as the opposite of a 'botanizingr procedure see Dorothy E. Smith's "What it might mean to do a Canadian Sociology: The Everyday World as Problernati~'~ (1975b) . P. 368.
60 See : Webs terr s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (1989). P. 8 5 .
tape recording, video recording, a film or a work of art- It
could have taken the form of an actual event, One of the
students in our class analyzed her own wedding, another
student conducted a study of a racist incident between a group
of students and a professor, Text, in particular, lends
itself very well to this kind of investigation, in the shape
of government documents, qgestionnaires, forms of various
kinds, police summons, advertisements, ordinary subway
transfers, and the unremarkable bits of paper that are the
'taken for grantedr past of the everyday life of human beings.
Text was the framework under which I decided to conduct
my own study for Dorothy Smithr s class. My botanized
'artifactr was the Report of the Official Guardian of Ontario,
which I was required to fill in for my divorce which became
final on July 22, 1981. This was a six page questionnaire
accompanied by a letter from Lloyd W. Perry, the Official
Guardian from the Ministry of the Attorney General of Ontario.
Since 1949, legislation has been in effect in Ontario, that
the Office of the Official Guardian must, in all divorce
petitions regarding children, conduct an investigation into
the fitness of the custodial parentO6' The organizing power
of this particular document had potentially drastic
implications as to 'what came next' in my own lived life, as
well as the lives of my two daughters, Emily and K y n a .
'Botanizing' was frequently employed for studies in the
Social Organization of Knowledge. Illustrations of this
61 Law Reform Commission of Canada. 1975. Studies on Divorce- Ottawa: Information Canada. P. 189,
method are: I) Roxana Ng's use of the text of Prime M i n i s t e r
Trudeaurs speech in the House of Commons on October 8, 1971,
extrapolated from H a n s a r d , regarding the announcement of the
governmentr s policy on multiculturalism; and 2) Himani
Bannerjirs study of the racist discourse extant in the text of
James Millsr The History of B r i t i s h India (3817) ,62
'Botanizing' as well as being part of the work in Smith's
course in The Social Organization of Knowledge, became a way
that the sociologist in trahing, who was eventually going to
be studying social life as a professional, learned to look at
the world as a source of study and analysis. Everyday life,
rather than being conceptualized of as a place of natural
chaos, became an organized place with recognizable formations
that have been taken for granted. 'Botanizing' trained a
student in sociology to look for the extraordinary within the
ordinary.
An expanded version of the essay IrFemininity as
DiscourseIr in Texts, Facts and Femininity (1990b) , and
originally published in 1988, contained an analysis of the
concept of 'botanizing':
When I was at school, as girls we did not learn natural science, But we did learn 'botanyr and 'botanizingr. 'Botanizingf involved going out into the fields and bringing specimens of flowers or leaves for examination and identification, Here an analogous method is used, Instead, however, of specimens, we bring back for examination texts of or about femininity
62 Both of these examples are found in Roxana Ngrs and Himani Bannerjirs essays in Campbell and Manicomrs Knowledge, Experience and Ruling Relations: Studies in the Social O r g d z a t i o n of Knowledge (1995).
that give us access to the social organization of these relations?
The original essay contained many examples of the social
organization of femininity, but there was no inclusion of a
method or procedure, i-e., 'botanizing', as there is in the
revised form of this paper,
Text-reader conversation
Any inquiry employing the method of the SOK is comprised
of a 'text-reader' con~ersation~~, or the actual
thinking/speaking dialogue that takes place between the
researcher and the text/event in order to make sense of 'what
was actually happeningr. The text-reader conversation was the
working out of what the reader was expected to accomplish, or
what the text required in a particular circumstance or
situation (as in a questio~aire or form) in order to
effectuate a successful outcome. Marie L. Campbell, for
example, analyzed how nursing students learn to orient
themselves to authoritative texts in the course of their
63 Smith, D. E. l99Ob. T e x t s , Facts and Femininity: Exploring the Relations of Ruling. London: Routledge. P. 165-166,
64 There are several points at which Dorothy Smith discusses what happens when the reader begins to engage with a particular text, and how the text becomes activated. See: The Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Bowledge (1990a) , Chapter Seven: wIdeological Methods of Reading and Writing Texts: A Scrutiny of Quentin Bell's Account of Virginia Woolfrs Suicide"; and Texts, Facts and F e m i n i n i t y r Exploring the Relations of Ruling (1990b) , The Introduction. P. 5.
training :
Official texts speak in the absence of nurse speakers, a feature of hospital documentation that is essential to contemporary organization and all kinds of medical and administrative activities.65
The text-reader conversation took place in a real location
and was temporally situated. It organised at the same time as
it constrained human social behaviour. It was the human act
of engaging with a particular piece of paper, document, event,
film, work of art, and actually forming a relationship with
it. The conversation could be internal or a process of the
mind, as in thinking a puzzle through, or it could be a
concrete and overt action, such as slashing out the phrase in
a book in a fury. It was a relationship with the text/event.
The union with the text was evocative, and could emote
rational thought, emotion or boredom as the case may have
been. It could have involved other people, drawing others
into the conversation. Reading a traffic ticket, for example,
may invoke anger on the part of the recipient, he or she may
rage to a passer-by about their plight, they may tear it up in
shreds and discard it on the sidewalk, and this would be a
Eorm of text-reader conversation. The traffic ticket is a
organizing and constraining text, in that it informs the
recipient that there is a sanction on parking their car in a
particular place for too long a time.
For me, the text-reader conversation took place in a
working-class draught beer joint in Northern Ontario called
'* Campbell and Manicom, 1995, op. cit., p. 229.
121
the Inntowner Hotel where I was working as a bartender a E t e r I
left my husband, I filled in the form at work, while the bar
was not very busy, and while sitting at a small table, I was
pleased with the idea that I was being paid to do a personal
task at work that should have been done at home at my kitchen
table, because I did not like my boss. The constraining
effect of the form necessitated that I present myself as a
'good motherf, and, as I had fears about the appropriateness
of working in a bar, sought to present myself in the best
possible light so that I would not lose my children.
During my experience of Dorothy Smithf s class in Studies
in the Social Organization of Knowledge, we were given a
concrete assignment about halfway through the term called a
'text-reader conversationr, This part of the method took
place after 'botanizingr, and to me it involved the initial
investigation of the 'text' that was to be studied- As
students, we were encouraged to retrieve artifacts that were
relevant to our daily lives - SSHRC application forms, grant
proposals, grade appeals procedures, and Graduate
Assistantship applications - the mundane, everyday administrative paper work that was a part of our everyday
scholarly life, Entrenched in our conversations with these
texts was the idea that they contained a definite authority,
in that the outcome of what was placed on these forms could
affect our student lives in meaningful ways. There was always
an over-arching regulatory body that was there in the
background, shaping our thoughts and our decisions with regard
to what was written on these pieces
122
of paper. They had a
constraining as well as a prescriptive character, in that they
had to be assembled so that the information contained on them
'made sensef and was a 'good fitf, An accounts of a situation
had to be produced that fitted the reqirements of the text,
and if the real life situation did not conform, then certain
adjustments would have to be made, The conversation that took
place between the student and the text was a process that took
place in a certain time, grounded in the real world - it was a
course of action or work, Activity was organized by the text-
reader conversation.
The notion of a text-reader conversation was, in Dorothy
Smith's earlier work, formulated then solely in terms of
ethnomethodology, and became, in the 1990s, defined to a
greater degree in terms of Foucault's conceptualization of
The conception of discourse here originates with Foucault in whose work it defines an assemblage of 'statements' arising in an ongoing 'conversationr, mediated by texts, among speakers and hearers separated from one another in time and space.66
Her work in the 1990s also introduced the concept of
'encodingr the version of an account. Encoding was primarily
a selection process (the lexicon, the conceptual schema) that
was present in the production of a particular account, and,
sequentially, could occur after the text-reader conversation.
66 Smith, 1990b. op. cit., p. 161.
123
The concept is drawn from ethnometh~dology.~'
Disjuncture
The SOK procedure might include the disclosure of any
disjuncture (s) or distortions that occurred between what
appeared in the textual form and in what existed in a lived
actuality, either the lived life of the researcher or real
experience of the subjects under investigation. George Smith,
for instance, looked at the disjuncture that occurred between
the lived erotic experience that was understood by gay men and
the controlling ordinances of the criminal justice system,
when the practice of homosexuality was illegal in ~anada?
For George Smith, it was feasible to flesh out this kind of
inquiry by reviewing the appropriate literature, He suggested
the idea of reviewing the literature at the end of a research
paper, so that the analysis of findings provided a 'structure
of relevance' for the literature rather than the traditional
mode of placing the literature review at the beginning of a
study. In this way the knowledge that has been accumulated
was employed to organise pertinent literature, rather than the
literature being allowed to organise the data.69 The direct
67 For an explanation of the encoding process, see The Conceptual PracCices of Power: a Feminist Sociology of Knowledge, P, 151-155,
6a Smith in Campbell and Manicom, 1995. op. cit . , p. 81.
69 This idea belongs to George Smith, an AIDS activist, and colleague of Dorothy Smith's who died in 1994. It is taken from his paper, "Political Activist as Ethnographertt (1990), Social Problems, 37, 4. P. 417. Its origin, in the
experience of the researcher could be used to probe the
validity of other knowledge (s) in a field,
Any study in the SOK would necessarily take disjuncture
into consideration- Disjunctures occwzed between a lived
actuality or experience and what was either prescribed by a
document (a form to be filled in, for example) or what was
imposed by a 'pre-determined conceptual frameworkr in the
production of an account or a text," One illustration of
disjuncture that Smith related in her work is the blatant
lying that occurred in American military reports during the
Vietnam War:
Disjuncture between the enforced categories of reporting and their experience was repaired at the periphery by those doing the actual fighting and reporting, Military personnel at the front line had to find ways of acting so that what they did could be described in the terms they had to report in.''
The disjuncture that occurred in my own study in the SOK, the
Report of the Official Guardian of Ontario, filled in as a
requirement of getting custody of my children, concerned the
representation of myself as a 'good motherr. I could not
entirely misrepresent myself (because my ex-husband was
filling in the same form) but several of the unhealthy but
authentic aspects of my job as a bartender, the cocaine
dealers who carried guns, the bar brawls with their attendant
work of Dorothy Smith, comes from her early paper, "Women8 s Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociologyu (1974a) , P . 11.
Smith, 1990ar op. cit., p. 93.
7L Ibid, p- 98.
flying beer bottles, the occasional rape or attempted suicide
that were a regular part of the bar scene, and on one
occasion, an armed robbery, were silenced* What was included
in the form was the fact that my children went to church, had
regular visits with their father and his family, and were
doing well in school, things that would represent 'normalr
life. What I really experienced in the daily course of
bringing up my children and what was produced for the Report
of the Official Guardian was a disjuncture.
What I have formulated in Chapter Three is partly an
account of what I did and what I learned in Dorothy Smith's
classes in The Social Organization of Knowledge in the fall of
1995 and the fall of 1996. It is further based on six years
of attention to her work, all of which I have read. Her
working out of this procedure is of course, more complex than
this analysis. The procedure of the Social Organization of
Knowledge has been devised by Dorothy Smith to preserve the
presence of real human beings and their actual practices, and
the outcomes of those practices, in sociological research.
The SOK differs from the sociology of knowledge, in that its
main focus is on technique and method rather than theory. The
sociology of knowledge is generally concerned with how a
particular knowledge claim is 'contaminatedr by the 'knowerrs
social situationr ? Conversely. the SOK is formulated in
such a way as to preserve the presence of people and their
lived realities in sociological accounts. Rather than
beginning an analysis from a concept, such as gender, 'racerr
deviance, or mental illness, it starts from real experience as
it has been lived by real people and proceeds outward to
examine other individual and group relationships extant in our
world- Materialities rather than concepts are the core of any
investigation of this nature,
As we saw in the previous chapter, traditional and neo-
classical versions of the sociology of knowledge differ from
the procedure of the Social Organization of Knowledge in
significant ways. For Marx and Engelsrr the problematic was
the relation of material conditions with ideas, and Smith
appropriates their conception of sensory or real activity and
relations of domination, i.e,, the 'relations of ruling'. Her
association with Mannheim is perfunctory and critical, and she
took his rendering of 'positionless accountsr as something to
be avoided in the SOK. The sociology of scientific knowledge
(Barnes and Bloorrs Strong Programme) took a realist approach
to the social, with its problematic being one of causality.
Dorothy Smith used this kind of knowledge for exemplary
purposes in her creation of the SOK. She avoided the social
constructionism of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, despite
her interest in phenomenology as well as materialism.
In the previous subsections of this chapter, I have
" Smith, 1974cr p. 257.
127
provided an analysis of the historical evolution of the SOK as
it emerged in Dorothy Smith's early work at the point of her
doctoral dissertation and in her subsequent scholarly journal
publications. I demonstrated how the some of the conceptual
and ontological components of the SOK were created during an
interval of radical social change, when traditional sociology
had lost its ability to accurately represent the realities of
social life and the experience of women. By the 1990s, the
SOK had matured as a method and Smith has in fact been
teaching it at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
for a number of years. It was and still is a well-liked
course, drawing many students to the department, This chapter
has been concerned with the identification, history and
analysis of the various conceptual and procedural components
of the SOK from my own understanding, as one of Dorothy
Smith's students as well as a researcher engaged in
participant observation. This overview of the SOK has
encapsulated the historical patterns of what I found in my
reading of her various publicatiocs and listening to tape-
recordings from her lectures. In other words, I have
'encoded' the SOK, filtering what was important to me as a
student learning this technique, and what Dorothy Smith has
earmarked as meaningful in the course of her teaching.
CHAPTRR FOUR
WOMKNrS EQUALITY AND THE QUAKER ANCESTRY OF DOROTEY SMLTH
This chapter is the story of the feminine leadership and
social conditions which are argued to have given rise to the
belief in women's equality that is manifested in the lives of
the women in this dissertation. It is the starting place for
an analysis of the productive forces which assisted in the
intergenerational reproduction of this belief, in the context
of the skills of seventeenth century women as managers of a
household. This is the historical and social location which
is appointed as the beginning of the way that the Social
Organization of mowledge was shaped and created, starting
some three hundred and fifty years ago in 1652, in the
foundations of the Quaker Movement in England. The Quakers
were one of a number of radical religious groups, among them
Diggers, Ranters, Seekers, Baptists, Millenarians, Brownists
and Independents, that were a part of the English Reformation,
which is situated historically from about 1640 - 1660.' A
century earlier, in 1526, the Bible had been translated by
William Tyndale into the vernacular, or English, and secretly
brought into England. English translations were then illegal,
and an energetic trade for it was establishedO2 The religious
' Bacon, Margaret Hope. 1986 . Mothers of Femin i sm: The S t o r y of Quaker Women in America. S a n Francisco: Harper and Row. P. 6.
Kast-, David Scott. 1997. RmThe Noyse of the New B i b l e b q : Reform and Reaction in Henrician Englandn. In: McEachern, Claire and Debera Shuger, eds. Religion and Cul ture in Renaissance England. New York : Cambridge University Press. P. 48.
sects that emerged in the English Reformation were a
realization of the fears of authorities in the 16th century
who sought to suppress the translation of the Bible thinking
'it was as likely to spark dissent as spur de~otion*,~ Of
these various sects, Quakerism was s inwar with respect to
its espousal of women's equality, allowing women to both
preach and actively enter into the government of the church,'
Dorothy Smith can trace her ancestry directly to Margaret
Fell, later Margaret Fox through her second marriage to George
Fox, the mystic, prophet and spiritual leader of the early
seventeenth century Quaker Movement. Margaret Fell is often
cited as an example of early 'feminismr and the pioneer who
was largely responsible for advancing women's equality in the
Quaker religion. Although there is a lineage for Dorothy
Smith through her family to Margaret Fell, she feels that she
was not immediately influenced by the example of Fell's
leadership (she was a teenager when she was introduced to the
work of George Fox) but Quakerism as a religion, and its
inherent value of women's equality was introduced to her in
her youth, and has continued to retain her respect throughout
her life. The tie to Margaret Fell, then, is only one of a
number of connections to Quakerism that merged later on with
other feminist exemplars which eventually affected her
Ibid, p. 46.
4 Bacon, op. cit., p. 7 .
intellectual work.' This chapter is the 3umping-off place for
the history of a belief system which I reason has likely been
transmitted to succeeding generations of women, f r o m the
mothers to the daughters in Dorothy Smith's family, from the
time of Margaret Fell's leadership. It is meant to be simply
a starting place and should be weighted least in importance in
relation to the succeeding chapters, which are meant to
increase in relevance to Dorothy Smith as the lives of Lucy
and Dorothy Abraham (Dorothy Smithr s mother and grandmother)
are examined, and the life of Dorothy herself is presented in
Chapters Six through Ten.
There is an abundance of fine historical work recovering
the life of Margaret Fell, most notably, Helen G. Crosfield's
Margaret Fox of Swarthmore Hall (1913) "; Isabel Rossr
Margaret Fell: Mother of Quakerism in 1949, and more
recently, Bomelyn Young KunzeR8 Margaret Fell and the Rise of
* Margaret Fell is referred to in Dorothy Smithrs early feminist work, without the mention of her distant relation to her, in "A Peculiar Eclipsing: Womenr s Exclusion from Man' s Culturetr (1978) , Women's Studies International Quarterly, 1, 4, p. 285. Fell is pointed out as an example of a 'repressed political and spiritual intelligentsiar extant in Europe from the time of the translation of the Bible onwards,
Unavailable in Robarts and the Society of Friends libraries in Toronto.
Isabel Ross has a fascinating connection to Dorothy E. Smith. A practising Quaker, her maiden name was Abraham, and she was a cousin to Dorothy Foster Abraham, Dorothy Smith's mother, and very active in the militant Suffragette Movement around Birkenhead and Liverpool, from 1908 - 1915. She was also a founder member of the Liverpool Student Suffrage Organization.
Of the two historical accounts, I prefer Isabel Rossr treatment of the way that Quaker women conducted their day-to- day activities. Her scholarship is meticulous in this
Quakerism published in 1994 as an extension of her doctoral
dissertation work- In this chapter 1 have three objectives:
I) to give an introduction to Margaret Fell and her early
activism around women's equality, by focusing on aspects of
her work in the public sphere as well as the household
labouring skills9and the everyday life of Quaker women; and
2) to provide evidence that women imparted their knowledge and
skills to their daughters, particularly in the case of
Margaret Fell and her daughters, thereby exerting considerable
power and influence over the way succeeding generations of
women lived and thought; and 3) to establish the nature of
the connection and the influence of Margaret Fell, Quakerism,
and the value of women's equality to the life and thinking of
Dorothy Smith.
respect. On the other hand, when I visited Swarthmoor Hall in the course of my research, the curator of the hall, Steve Deeming, a practising Quaker, preferred Bonnelyn Kunze' book, arguing that her status as an academic made her account less 'biasedr, and that previous historical work on the life of Margaret Fell was tainted because of the Quaker authorship of the historians,
Miranda Chaytorrs study of narratives of rape in the seventeenth century notes how women often included their ordinary, everyday labour in their recounting of a rape as a way of affirming their honour and dignLty. Their stories of how the rape occurred would refer to 'some useful activity - bringing home the cows for milking, fetching ale from the alehouse, baking, knitting, peat-cutting, taking hay to the calves in the barnr - See: Chaytor, Miranda, 1995. "Husband(ry): Narratives of Rape in the Seventeenth CenturyN, Gender and History, 7, 3, 378-407- P. 379.
WIedTing in the Things o f Godaf0
Margaret Fell was born Margaret Askew in 1614 in a large
house called ~arsh- range^ in what, until the recent
reorganization of local government, was the kusness district
of Lancashire (now part of Cumbria) - Today, f t is privately
owned and located a little North of Ulverston, near Morecambe
~ a y . ~ At the age of seventeen, Margaret Askew married Thomas
Fell of Swarthmore*, a lawyer who had been trained at Gray's
Inn in London and was about 16 years her senior, Upon the
event of her marriage she moved to Swarthmore Hall14 in
Fell, 1710, op. cit. p. 331. This title is taken from the introduction to Women ' s Speaking Justified, Proved and Allowed by Scriptures, a pamphlet written by Margaret Fell in 1666 to support women's right to preach, where she stated that women were 'condemned for medling in the things of Godr,
I' Kunze, 1992, op. cit. p. 2 7 . Bonnelyn Kunze provides us with a brief description of Marsh-Grange: 'a rather spacious stone manor house with a front courtyard, which today is surrounded by a high stone wall with a large iron gate at the entrance. It overlooks the ocean and Duddon Sands to the North and Northwest and the rolling Furness fells to the Southeastr .
l2 These historical details are from: Fell, Margaret. 1710. A Brief Collection of the Remarkable Passages and occurrences Relating to the birth, Education, Li fe , Conversion, Travels, Services, and Deep Sufferings of that Ancient, Eininent, and F a i t h f u l Servant of the Lord, Margaret F e l l ; but by her Second Marriage, Margaret F o x , London: J. Sowle .
I have come across three spellings of 'Swarthmoor Hallr in the course of my research: 1) the 17th century spelling 'Swarthmorer; 2) the spelling which was used principally around the t a of the 19th and 20th centuries, 'Swarthmourr; and 3) the form used in contemporary settings, which is 'Swarthmoorr. My work will uses all three spellings, reflecting their historical contexts,
l4 Swarthmoor Hall is located about a mile South of the town of Ulverston, on Morecambe Bay on the Northeastern coast of England. It is now owned by the Society of Friends (Quakers), the property of the London Yearly Meeting. At the
Lancashire, which is now called the District of Cumbria.
During her marriage to Judge Fell, she had nine children,
eight of whom survived (one died in infancy) - seven daughters and one son. Her children, in order of their birth are:
Margaret (c. 1633-1706) ; Bridget (c. 1635-1663) ; Isabel
(c. 1637-1704) ; George (~1639-1670) ; Sarah (1642-1714) ;
(1647-1719) ; Susanna (1650-?) ; and Rachel, the youngest,
(1653 -1732) , lS She was converted to Quakerism sometime after
midsummer in 165216 when George Fox first visited Swarthmore:
T h e n in the Year 1652. it pleasrd the Lord in his Infinite Mercy and Goodness to send George Fox into our Country, who declared the Eternal Truth, as it is in Jesus; and by the Word and Power of the Eternal God, turn'd m a n y from Darkness unto Light, and from the Power of Satan unto God; And when I and my Children, and a great part of our servants w e r e so convincrd and converted unto God, at w h i c h t i m e m y Husband was not at Home, being gone to London. l7
Margaret Fell's relationship to her daughters remained close
throughout her life, and even w h e n they w e r e separated she
wrote an abundance of letters to them, especially in her later
t i m e I visited it, October 3, 1997, the hall was cared for by a resident Warden, a Quaker n a m e d Steve Deeming. During its history since 1759, it has undergone three major renovations. It was furnished with seventeenth century antiques, chosen by the notable expert in this area, Roger Warner-
's Speizman, Milton D . and Jane C - Kronick, transcribers. 1975. "A Seventeenth Century Quaker Woman's Declarationw. Signs: Journal of Women and Culture in Society, 1, 1, 231- 245. P - 233,
l6 Shannan, Cecil W, "George Fox and His Family 11". Quaker History, 75, 1, 1-11. P. 3.
l7 Fell, Margaret, 1710, op, cit., p. 2.
years." The anguish that did occur in her relationships with
her children was not as a result of disputes with her
daughters, but rather, an estrangement that occurred between
Margaret and her only son George, who was openly hostile to
Quakerism, lived a dissolute life in London in the late 1650s,
and actively oppressed members of his own family, When
Margaret Fell's estate was taken away from her as a result of
religious persecution, he applied to the King for possession
of her lands, and tried at one point to have her imprisoned."
Evidence of Margaret Fell's work for women's equality as
it was realised in the public sphere can be pinpointed by
three actions on her part: I) her presentation of a petition
on behalf of Quaker women to the Rump Parliament in 1659; 2)
the establishment of separate Women's Meetings with George Fox
in the Quaker sect as early as 1671; and 3 ) the writing of
Women's Speaking J u s t i f i e d , Proved, and Allowed of by the
Scr ip tures in 1666. The first of many public deeds on the
part of Margaret Fell that helped to solidify her work on
behalf of women in the seventeenth century was the formation
of a petition which was taken to the Rump Parliament,
Persecution of the early Quakers was acute, and many of them
w e r e tortured and imprisoned. One of the acts of civil
disobedience practised by Quakers was the non-payment of
tithes to the Church of England, and the suppression of this
became so terrible that a first petition of 15,000 signatures
l8 Ross, op-cit., p. 334,
l9 Ross, op. ci t . , p. 179, 189, 220.
13 5
was given to parliament in June, 1659. A month later, as a
result of the work of Margaret Fell, a further entreaty was
made to the Rump Parliament on behalf of 7,000 Quaker women,
who signed an additional petition. Fell and her daughtersr
signatures headed the list, her youngest child, Rachel, being
only six years of age at the time,20
One of the first Quaker Meetings was organized by George
Fox at Cockermouth in 1653, who related this event in his
Journal, saying "when I came in the house and the pulpit was
so full of people that I: had much ado to get inr .21 Fox
started to institute local Quaker Meetings in 1656, when
conversions to the sect multiplied and the 'Truth began
mightily to The institution and establishment of
separate Meetings for women in the Quaker sect likely took
place through the work of Quaker women in London, in the late
1650s. However, the actual origin of the two London Women's
Meetings, the Two Weeks Women's Meeting and the Box Meeting
are unknown and is a point that is a subject of debate and
conjecture by historians.23 The Box Meeting, which still
holds meetings in London, was given its name because of the
Quaker women's custom of collecting money for the poor in a
box- Its membership was entirely female and the organization
20Ross, op. cit., p. 4 2 ,
21 Penney, Norman, ed. 1924. The Journal of George Fox. London: J. M. Dent. P. 83,
23 Kunze, Bonnelyn. 1994. M - g a r e t Fell and the Rise of Quakerism. London: Macmillan Press. P. 145-146,
was not answerable to any other group within the Quaker
religious order. It is thought that the Two Weeksr Women's
Meeting was established after the Box Meeting and its mandate
consisted of the visitation of inmates and the sick; care of
the poor; negotiating disputes among Friends and seeing to the
moral dilemmas of female members In 1671 George Fox
instituted Women's Monthly and Quarterly Meetings so that they
met at the same time as the men's, but they had different
objectives and tasks for which they were responsible.
In April of 1671. Margaret was released from a stay in
Lancaster prison, and in October, the first Swarthmore Monthly
Women's Meeting was held at the Hall. All of her daughters
w e r e regularly present at these meetings and Sarah Fell was
the first clerk. To get to the Quarterly Meeting meant a
dangerous journey for Margaret. and the hiring of a guide for
crossing the sands.25 Margaret Fell attended these meetings
until the age of 84, four years before she died. The women at
the early meetings at Swarthmore took on the duties nursing
the sick, acting as midwives, and caring for the poor women of
their own membership. Sarah Fell's account book often
25 The sandsr refers to the sea shore near Grange-Over- Sands, near Ulverston, now a tourist attraction. The sands along the sea shore at this location are extremely dangerous, made up of shifting river channels and quick sands which change with the tides. It takes an expert to navigate these very treacherous channels. They are even more unsafe in the winter. and when it is raining and misty, as the guide markings provided by the surrounding hills become obscured. Today, there is only one man who is knowledgeable enough to guide people over the sands, Sedgewick Robinson of Barrow-fn- Furness . of Church
The sands can be seen from the lighthouse at the end Walk in Ulverston.
mentions business tha t took place regarding Women's Meetings,
from entries for her own costs (six pence) noted on March 7.
1675 - 'in expence of m y selfe at forge w h e n I w e n t to a
wornans Meettinge at Hawxheader r26 and the payment of one
shilling and six pence to 'Rich: ffell for a booke for the
weomens Meettinge' .27 Charitable work on behalf of women and
children who were members was plentiful. In November, 1674,
the women's meeting provided 'for an iron pot to Christopher
Woodbine out of women's Meettinge Stocke the pot being for
Jane Colton which is being lent her as long as friends see
fitr2' and in 1676, tuppence to 'Doro: Becke & Doro: Saterthwt
of Hawxheade Meettinge, to bee given t o George Braithwts wife
of feild heade of sd Meettinge being very poore, to buy some
bedclose with'.2g Margaret Fell and her daughters helped with
the humblest needs of women members who w e r e less well off
than themselves, as well as the more dramatic occurrences of
members, such as trips t o London, and the birth of children,
Sarah Fell continued t o be the clerk for the Swarthmore
Meeting until December of 1680, and she wrote a set of
instructions to assist her sisters in executing the job, j u s t
before she was t o be married.
26 Penney, Norman, ed. 1920. of Sarah Fell of Swarthmoor Hall. University Press. P. 249,
27 Ibid, p. 68.
2' Ibid, p* 155.
29 Ibid, p . 403,
30 Ross, op. cit., p. 298.
The Household Account Book Cambridge: Cambridge
Of all of Margaret Fell's writing, Women's Speaking
J u s t i f i e d , Proved and Allowed of by the Scriptures, written in
1666, is the most well known and is the hallmark of her
feminist theology. According to a study of female writers in
the seventeenth century, women Quakers composed a total of 171
texts between the years of 1641-1700, and Margaret Fell was
responsible for 22 works or 13% of thLs amount -31 Fell wrote
Women's Speaking while incarcerated in Lancaster Castle in
1666. It is a sophisticated argument based on Biblical
references to support women's right to speak and to preach the
word of God, and her analysis is a precursor to the work of
contemporary feminist biblical scholars. 32 The justification
for the silencing of women within the organized Church is
usually supported by Pauline theology: 1) from The First
Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Timothy, Verses 11 and 12:
"Let t h e woman learn in silence with all subjectionff and " B u t
I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over a
man, but to be in silencelI; and 2) The First Epistle of Paul
t he Apostle to the Corinthians, Chapter 14, Verse 34: "Let
your women keep silent in the churches for it is not permitted
unto them to speakff ; and Verse 35: "And if they will learn
anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a
shame for women to speak in the churchw.
Margaret Fell attempted to counter the literal meaning of
3' Kunze, op. cit., p. 131.
32 Thickson, Margaret Olofson. 1995. "Writing the Spirit: Margaret Fellrs Feminist Critique of Pauline Theologyf* . Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 63, 2, 269-279. P. 269.
these statements made by St. Paul with an interpretation and
reasoning as to the reality of his intended meaning in writing
the letter. She suggested that these statements forbidding
women to speak had been taken out of context, and that readers
of the Bible should read to the end of the passage ('Let the
Reader seriously peruse that Chapterr ) 33 , before determining
the purpose of the words, Fell argued t h a t S t . Paul was
talking about the confusion that took place in a church when a
difficult passage or lesson was being taught, and that men, as
well as women, are implicated. Explaining the bewilderment
that took place when something was misunderstood, when a lot
of people would be talking at once, Fell reasoned: Where it
doth plainly , that the Women, as well as some others that
were among them, were in Confu~ion."~~ She counselled that
people 'not be Children in understanding', but to read the
whole Bible, taking that as the framework for the intended
message of a single verse.
Everyday L i f e in the F e l l Household
A woman who might have become a member of the Quaker
Movement in Margaret Fell's time came from a variety of
stations in English life. The seventeenth century innovator
in demography, Geoffrey King, calculated in 1688 that the
population of England was about five and a half million. Half
33 Fell, op- cit., p- 337-
34 Ibid, p. 338.
of this amount were thought to be labourers, servants,
cottagers, and soldiers with the poor and criminals making up
the rest. Another million and a quarter were estimated to be
freeholders and farmers, while 250,000 were artisans,
tradespeople and shopkeepers. The remaining 200,000 made up
the small numbers of professionals (lawyers and clergymen), as
well as the merchant class and the aristocracy. Most social
groups in seventeenth century England, a pre-industrial
society, were households, or 'networkCs] of small family
businessesr35 , rarely containing more than a dozen or so
members- The activities of a household might be centred
around a particular skill or craft, but people were not
restricted to a single kind of work and their endeavours might
reach as far as trading with other communities and into civic
and religious work. Fell's class in English society is
characterized as 'farmers of the lower-middling gentry
statusr, although because of her relation to the radical
Quaker religion, she differed from other members of the
English gentry, 36
The expectations that existed for an English housewife in
the seventeenth century were very rigorous indeed, and women's
labour and women themselves were thought to be the property of
their male next-of-kin: fathers, brothers and husbands,37 For
35 Shaman, Cecil W. "George Fox and His Family 1". Quaker History, 74, 2, 1019. P. 2,
cit . , 37 Chaytor, Miranda. 1995. "Husband (ry) : Narratives of
Rape in the Seventeenth Centurytt . Gender and History, 7 , 3, 378-407. P, 379.
example, Margaret Askew's dowry when she married Thomas Fell
was Marsh-Grange and its estate." I have used two original
sources for obtaining a sense of women's everyday life in the
early 17th century and within the Quaker Movement. The first
is Country Contentments, or the B g Z i s h Huswife, containing
the inward and ou tward vertues which ought to be in a complete
woman, published in 1623 by Gervase ~arkharn-~' This book is
one of a number of ancient recipe books held in the Fawcett
Libraryr s collection in London. The second source is The
Household Account Book of Sarah Fell of Swarthmoor Hall4=,
compiled by Norman Penney in 1920 . Gervase Markhamr s C o u n t r y
Contentments is an ancient book of advice and recipes much
like contemporary homemaker magazines, charming in its
39 Markham, Gervase . 1623. Country Contentments, or the English Huswife , containing the inward and outward vertues which ought to be in a complete woman. As her skill in Physicke, Surgerie, -traction of Oyles, Banqueting-s tuffe, Ordering of G r e a t Feasts, Preserving of all sorts of Wines, Concei ted Secrets, Distillations, Perfumes, ordering of Wooll, Hempe, Flax, making Cloth, Dying, the Knowledge of D a y r i e s , office of Malting, Oats, their excellent uses in a Family, Brewing, Baking and all other things belonging to a household. A Scarce Edition- Only three copies recorded in S-T.C. Printed at London by I. B. for R. Jackson and are to be sold at his shop neere Fleet Street Conduit, The volume that I worked with was a scarce edition, one of three that survive. The copy I used was housed in the Fawcett Library at London Guildhall University in London, England.
This book is one of a number of the Fawcett Library's 'treasuresr which document household labour in the seventeenth century and written for women who were not in the servant class. It was dedicated to the 'Right Honorable and most excellent of all Ladies, Frances, Countess Dowager of Exeter.' It was intended for women who were members of large households, similar to that of Margaret FeLl.
The copy of this book that 1 worked from was the Swarthmoor Hall Library in Ulverston, Cumbria.
housed in
prescriptive character, Sarah Fell's account book, w h i c h
covers only five years, from September 1673 - August 1678, is the only remaining record of daily life at Swarthmoor Hall,
Using the above mentioned primary sources as well as secondary
ones, a reasonably good profile of daily life for the female
members of Margaret Fell's household can be reconstructed-
Genrase Markham's Count ry Contentments began by
cautioning that women must be 'above all things to be of an
upright and sincere religi~n'.~ In all probability this did
not mean the Quaker religion, as this was a radical sect and
was outlawed in England until The Toleration Act of 1689.~~
An ordinary woman in a seventeenth century household was
expected to realise a high degree of spiritual virtue and:
next unto this sanctity and holinesse of life it is meete that our English Huswife be a woman of great modesty and temperance as well inwardly as outwardly; inwardly as in her behaviour and cariage towards her husband, wherein she shall shunne all violence oC rage, passion and humour,44
A seventeenth century English housewife was encouraged to wear
ordinary clothes that were durable and well-made, 'altogether
without toyish garnishesr, and were told to avoid 'the vanity
of new and fantastique fashions. '45 Besides modesty in their
outward dress, women were expected to acquire a large body of
42 Markham, op . cit . , p - 2. 43 Mack, Phyllis. Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in
Seven teenth Century England. Berkeley: University of California Press. P. 266,
Markham, 1623, op. cit. , p . 3 .
45 Ibid.
knowledge, including the skills of how to grow flax, to order,
oil, spin and dye wool (mixing colours) for new clothing, and
to grow hempe." Moreover, a housewife was required to keep
clothes clean, 'kept from filth of sweat or verminer ,47
Weaving was usually performed by a male artisan in the
seventeenth century, consequently the housewife's task was to
deliver it to the weaver, after the yarns were set lengthwise
on a loom, or, wnen the cloth was warped. H e r responsibility
was to oversee the weaver and other craftsmen to make sure
that they were performing their jobs properly:
that is to say the Weaver weave it close, strong and true, that the Walker or Fuller, mill it carefully, and looking well to his scowering-earth, for feare of beating holes into the cloth; and that the Clothworker, or Shereman burle, and dresse it sufficiently, neither cutting the wool1 to unreasonably high, whereby the cloth may weare rough, nor too low, lest it appeare thread bare ere it come out of the hands of the tailor.48
Clothing held a special status for seventeenth century women,
even more so than household articles, Women often included
ordinary items of their wardrobe in death bed bequests. even
such small items as aprons. stockings or petticoats, which
were given to their daughters, sisters and servants. There
was quite often an emotional attachment that was connected to
specific pieces of ~lothing.'~ This convention was practised
46 Ibid, p. 154.
" Markham, op. c i t . , p, 154. Ibid, p. 161.
49 Chayter, op. cit., p. 406.
144
by Quaker women, for example, Old Jane Woodell, who was a
member of the Swarthmore Women's Meeting, was given money for
a petticoat, and when she died a year later, the petticoat
went to Jane Fisher, another member.s0
A housewife was counted upon to be a good cook, but
cooking included many other skills, such as a knowledge of
brewing wine and beer (malting), 'the excellence of Oatesr,
making cheese and butter, as well as the competence needed for
ordinary day-to -day baking- Country Contentments contains
recipes for various dishes that probably made up an assortment
of ordinary meals that women in a household put together for
their families. One of these was a recipe 'to make the best
March-Panef , probably a precursor of Marzipan, which Dorothy
Smith used to make in her mother's kitchen at Sowber ~ate'l at
Christmas time as a young
To make the best March-Pane, take the best Iordan almonds and blanch them i n warm water, then put them in a stone mortor, and with a fine wooden pestell beate them to pappe, then take the finest refined sugar well searst, and water as will mingle the flower into a stiff paste, and a good season of Salt, and to knead it, and role out the cake-thin and bake t h e m on papers. 53
Chicken was also a commonplace meal for women to cook in the
Ross. op. cit . p. 292.
51 Sowber Gate was the country estate and farm located about four miles outside of Northallerton, North Yorkshire, where Dorothy Smith lived in her youth. It was purchased from a Mr. Rider in 1928, and w h e n the Place family moved in. they renovated the old buildings considerably.
52 Unstructured interview by the author during lunch with Dorothy E. Smith in the OISE/UT cafeteria, August 21. 1997.
53 Markham, 1623, op. cit., p. 118.
seventeenth century, as it is today. Despite the present
interminable cautions to adhere to fat free diets lest we clog
our arteries, this ancient recipe seems far more appealing:
To bake a chicken pie, after you have trust your chickens, broken their legges and breast bones, and raysed your crust of the best paste, you shall lay them in the coffin close together with their bodies full of butter: Then lay upon them, and underneath them, currants, great raysins, pruens , cinamon, sager, whole mace and salt: then cover all with a great store of butter, and so bake it; after poure into it the same liquor you did in your manow bone Pie with the yelkes of two or three egges amongst it, and so serve it fortheS4
Besides the skills of cooking and making clothing, women
in Margaret Fell's time were relied upon to heal the sick, to
have 'skill in Physicke Candl Surgerier and had to know how to
cure ordinary sicknesses such as fevers and hangovers, as w e l l
as more serious ailments such as consumption, Here is a
seventeenth century remedy for the common cold:
First then for the quotidian fever (whose fits alwaies last about twelve hours) you shall take a new laid egge and opening up the crown you shall put out the white, then fill up the shell with very good Aquavite [brandy or whisky], and stirre it and the yoke very well together, and then as soon as you feel your cold fit to come upon you, suppe up the egge and either labour till you sweat, or else laying great store of clothes upon you, put yourself in a sweat in your bed; and thus doe whilst your fits continue, and for your drinke let it be only coole posset ale.=*
Taking up the themes of 1) the provision of sturdy clothing
for their families; 2) a multitude of culinary skills; and
Ibid, p, 98.
55 Ibid, p- 5.
3) caring for the sick, that were the principles set forth in
Country Contentments necessary to achieve the status of a good
English housewife, we can further apply these standards to the
evidence in the household account book of Sarah Fell.
Margaret Fell did not advocate women's wearing of plain
Quaker grey, a practice which was taken up by succeeding
generations of Quaker women. Sarah Fell's meticulous accounts
indicate that clothing, though not considered an extravagance,
was given a lot of attention by her mother and sisters and was
consistent with their social class, She recorded the purchase
of shoes, ribbons, calico aprons, garters, gloves, shoes,
petticoats, and handkerchiefs . These articles were purchased,
but wool cloth was produced from sheep kept on the Swarthmore
estate, Finer materials were brought in from merchants in
London and larger cities. One incident that is almost always
related in accounts of Margaret Fell and her attention to
clothing is a gift of f3 sent to her second husband, George
Fox during his travels. Instead of spending the money on
himself, he used it to buy her a gift of 'spanesh black cloth'
which she subsequently had made into a gown.56
Entries which referred to the purchase of 'spinells or
whorles' (spindles or whorls) meant that servants performed
the task of spinning flax.57 There is a record of a payment
of 3d. to Agnes 'for washing rinshing, and hekleing some
56 K u n z e , op. cit,, p. 69.
57 ROSS, op. cit. , p. 260-261.
147
hempet over a period of four days Although they were
probably capable, it is unlikely that Margaret Fell and her
daughters did all their own spinning and weaving, but these
humbler tasks were assigned to servants employed by the
household. Matthew Fell was the tailor for the family, making
both men8 s and womenr s clothing-59 It was estimated that the
Fell estate had a staff of twelve servants, six women and six
men, and others were hired on a day-to-day basis as needed?'
The vegetables prepared in the Swarthmore kitchen were
exclusively grown on the farm lands belonging to the estate,
as was a large part of the poultry, beef and mutton, Special
foods were sometimes purchased from other cities, such as
salmon, or Irish beef? Sarah's accounts recorded paying
Gawin Stevenson one shilling for bringing in a box of oranges
f r o m Lancaster and a 'Sage cheeser; and paying two shillings
for some brown sugar that came from on don.^^ A staple food
that was prepared on a daily basis was made from oates that
grew on the Fell farm, an oatcake called clap-bread:
This clap-bread is flattened by clapping the hand on it on a girdle or griddle and cooked over the open fire. It has been eaten from time immemorial till the present day.63
The account book also mentioned many payments for vegetable
58 P e m e y , op - ci t , , p, 455.
59 Ross, op. cit., p. 261.
Kunze, op. cit., p- 72.
62 Penney, op- cit., p - 25; p. 261.
63 ROSS, op. cit., p , 258.
148
seeds - carrots, parsnips, onions, turnips, radishes and various herbs. Margaret Fell regularly sold her produce to
markets in Ulverston, and there were notations for papents
received for cabbages, butter, eggs, peas, 'oatesr and
potatoes. For example, there is an insertion for 'pease of
Mothers sold at rnarkettf for eleven shillings and four
pence. 64 Margaret Fell and her daughters delegated the
humbler tasks of weeding and gardening to servants, S a r a h r s
accounts note that Margery Dodgson was paid six: shillings and
6d. for ten weeks of outside work - 'weeding come, washing,
rinshing, weeding ye garden, workeing hay, and other worker . 65
Cooking pots were mended by a tinker, who was paid one
shilling and nine pence for this task on October 6, 1673.66
For the ordinary sicknesses that occurred in the Fell
Household Sarah's entries for medicinal herbs are one way of
determining how the family treated various illnesses. There
are two notations, for example, for 'oyle of almondsr 67 for
Brother and Sister Lower (Mary Fell and her husband), brought
from Lancaster for medicinal purposes costing 6d. and 2d?
A composite of ale and saffron was used as a remedy for
64 Penney, op. cit., p. 160.
65 Ibid, p. 284.
'" Ibid. 67 Oil of almond is abundant in protein and is good for
all skin types. It is used for relief of itching, soreness, dryness and inflammation. In: Worwood, Valerie Ann, 1990. The Fragrant Pharmacy: A Complete Guide to Aromatherapy and Essential Oils. Toronto : Bantam Books, P . 18 .
68 Ibid, p. 1; p- 261.
jaundice, Other herbal and medicinal items that were listed
by Sarah include:
'Eelets and fennigreeke seeds for Pegg Gowthrs kneer, 'Burgandy pitch an& frensh flyes for Edmond Adlington when he was here not wellr , 'diascordum , liquorice and meseeds for little Margery Lower, Bro, Lowerrs Acct.'. '40 leeches to blood with for sister Rachelr, 'mithridate [a confection believed to contain an antidote to every poison] for Willy Yeamans "when he had a coldr. white wine 'for physicke', brandy, and 'ale for sisters Susannah and Rachel for a diet drinkr , 69
Besides the care of the sick, Margaret Fell and her daughters
often cared for the children who were left behind when a
Quaker husband and wife travelled in order to carry the
message of the society. This was the case for the children of
John Stubbs, a Quaker from Carlisle. when he travelled to
perform missionary work with his wife in London?
This recovery of everyday life as it might have been
experienced by Margaret Fell. her daughters and ordinary women
that lived and worked on the Swarthmore estate has considered
the common human needs regarding the production of clothing.
food and caring for the sick, Tasks associated with these
things were women's responsibility arid their performance gave
meaning, dignity and honour to womenrs lives. The everyday
execution of these simple tasks and the skills needed to
perform them were a productive force in the competence and
strength necessary for the work that Quaker women eventually
69 ROSS, op. cit.. p - 278-279.
70 Ibid, p, 61.
accomplished in the public sphere- Here, 1 initiate the
argument that it was the commonplace skills that Margaret
Fell, her daughters, and other Quaker women acquired in the
home, and the esteem they attached to their daily
accomplishment, that was a source of the self-assurance that
women needed in order to enter into business life, preaching,
church government, civil disobedience and political work on
behalf of women, This argument is interpretive, as well as
speculative, as there is no way of determining, from the
religious writings of Margaret Fell, for example, that her
self-confidence was strengthened in this manner. Some
evidence of the meticulous care that went into the Swarthmore
household by its female members is contained in the account
book of Sarah Fell. More likely, Margaret Fell would have
asserted that she received her strength from God to work on
behalf of women.
Most seventeenth centuq women would have acquired these
skills as a matter of course in their development as women as
part of a household and not all of them became activists to
the extent that Margaxet Fell and her daughters did, The Fell
family's participation was likely further encouraged by their
class position and the fact that they were literate, as well
as being skilled managers of a household. It was this kind of
mastery and resourcefulness connected to domestic labour
required for the management of a farming household of the
'middling-gentry' that was reproduced by the teaching imparted
from mothers to daughters and bequeathed to succeeding
generations of women in Dorothy Smith's family. It was a
151
productive force through which a process of intergenerational
teaching, example and influence ultimately matured as the
concept of 'feminism' and a belief in the equality of women
when connected to women's work in the militant Suffragette
Movement, In the women's movement in the early 1970s in
Vancouver, this inventiveness which had its origin in the
household labour of previous generations of women became a
force in the political activism of Dorothy Smith, Through
historical evidence which is realized in a materialist theory
involving the reproduction of the skills involved in household
labour, the social origins of the SOK method can be linked to
the preceding everyday domestic practices of the exceptional
women in Dorothy Smith's family history. A concept such as
women's equality did not arrive in the world spontaneously
but would logically have its origin in the practices of real
women, such as Margaret Fell and her daughters, and through
their practice of this value and belief, it was reproduced and
then taken up by Dorothy Smith in her sociological work.
The Quaker: Roots of Dorothy E. smith
Dorothy Smith's mother was brought up in a non-conformist
and eclectic family whose members embraced a variety of
religious influences and beliefs, but had no particular
allegiance to any one sect. In her immediate family, however,
Dorothy and her brother's were brought up as Anglicans,
although they did not attend church on a regular basis. Her
father, Tom Place, as a child, had been befriended a local
152
vicar in the Church of England 'a good man named M k - B~nd~.~'
For this reason, given that he came from a poor working class
background and had to leave school at the age of 14, he
obtained a much wider education, including religious
instruction, than would have normally been available to him.
Subsequently, as a young man, he read and became interested in
Theosophy (forms of religious thought w h e r e a claim is made to
mystical insight) and the works of Annie Besant. As an adult,
Tom Place took no further interest in religious matters,
except where it might have affected his business interests.72
Dorothy Smith's mother sent the children to Church of England
boarding schools, which was likely prompted by social reasons
rather than religious ones. She refused to have the children
baptised at the 'properf age. She delayed Dorothy's baptism
until after the parliamentary revision of the 1662 Book of
Common Prayer, not ratified until 1928, because of a statement
in the service which deemed that anyone who died without the
Sacrament of Baptism would inevitably go to hell. Dorothy
Smith was eventually baptised by an Anglican priest who agreed
71 This information comes from two sources : 1) An unpublished paper written by Ullin T. P l a c e called: llFrom Mystical Experience to Biological Consciousness: A Pilgrimrs Progress?" presented at a Conference on Mystical Experience at the Institute for Psychiatry in London on November 2, 1996; and 2) the Diary of Thomas Place, Dorothy Smithr s father, which he began to keep at the age of sixteen in 1888, at Langton-On-Swale, Northallerton, North Yorkshire, England. Mr. Bond, the vicar mentioned in his diary, lived only a few houses away from his family home.
'' E-Mail communication with Ullin T. Place, September 29, 1998.
property, The home had been out of the possession of the Fell
family since 1759 (sold because of pressing financial matters
by John Abraham) and had, through deterioration and neglect
become half of its original size* Emma Clarke Abraham was not
allowed to make any important structural changes to the estate
without consulting the Quakers of the London Yearly Meeting,
and was to provide access to visiting Quakers who were
interested in viewing the all.^^
The purchase of Swarthmour Hal1 was complicated and
required some detailed and 'protracted negotiationsr between
t h e London Society of Friends and Emma Clarke Abraham, as she
had 'entertained views guita different from those who
contributed to t he purchase fund in the interest of
friends' . 76 The Hall and property were purchased f o r a sum
of f5,250, half of which was given to Emma A b r a h a m by Friends.
The option to buy the property obtained by the London Society
of Friends could only be realized after the death of Emma
Clarke Abraham and her nephew, E. Mitf ord A b r a h a m . Several
legal restrictions and conditions regarding the ownership of
t h e property were put in place by the Quakers:
[That] the property is not to be used for any other purpose than as a private dwelling house, farm or like agricultural use, and that no t rade or business is to be carried on thereon, and the sale of intoxicating liquors is not to be allowed on the property, but the owner or occupying tenant may receive lodgers, boarders or paying guests of a
75 Quaker H i s t o r y , Bul le t in of the Friendsr HistoricaZ Society of Philadelphia, 4 , 1, 1912, 147-9. P. 148,
76 Quaker H i s t o r y , B u l l e t i n of the Friendsr ~ i s t o r i c a l Society of Philadelphia, 5 , 1, 1913, 20-21- P. 2 0 .
respectable class; that reasonable facilities, free of charge, are to be given for the Friends and the public, to go over and view the property for its historical interest. 77
A certain amount of resentment and tension between the two
parties is implicated in the account of the sale of the Hall,
as it was noted that 'there will be almost universal regret
that at present only a deferred ownership for Friends is
practicabler? The blame for the difficulties in arbitrating
the purchase seemed to have been conferred on Emma Clarke
Abraham by the Society of Friends, as they end the description
of the transaction by stating 'one can but wish that she had
been willing to allow them [Friends] to fulfil their unselfish
desire8 .79
Emma C . Abraham, a talented wood-carver, carefully restored the Hall, carving the wood panelling in the Great
Hall herself. She also removed two posts from a huge four-
poster bed belonging to Judge Fell, the only piece of original
furniture remaining in the Hall, and re-incorporated them in
the carving of a fireplace in the parlour, She used this wood
to carve two extraordinary PhoeniciseO which, despite their
status as a mythical symbol, are still prominently displayed
- - -
77 Ibid, p . 21.
Ibid,
79 Ibid,
The plural of phoenix, the bird fabled to live for five or six hundred years in the Arabian wilderness, capable of burning itself on a funeral pyre and rising from the ashes in a youthful state. It is often used as an symbol of irnmortality.
in the Great Hall- Swarthmour Hall ownership reverted to the
London Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends in 1954, after
the death of E. Mitford Abraham of Vancouver, Emma Abraham's
nephew. sL
In the summer of 1933, at the age of seven, Dorothy Smith
visited Swarthmour Hall with her mother and brothers. There
is a family photograph which depicts Dorothy and her brothers,
Ullin, David and Milner standing in front of the Hall with
Emma C l a r k e Abraham. The picture of Dorothy and her brothers
was published in the Quaker publication The Friend, on ~ u & s t
24, 1934, a year after their visit, and on the occasion of the
death of Emma Clarke Abraham, with the caption "Ernma C.
Abraham with great nephews and a great niece at the door of
Swarthmour Hall, a snapshot taken last summer.I1
Dorothy's mother was not brought up in the Quaker faith,
as one of her ancestors (unidentified) had been excluded from
the Society of Friends for marrying outside of the sect.
However, the younger Dorothy was aware of her Quaker
background at a young age, Her active interest in Quakerism
as a religion began as a young teenager and was largely
influenced by her brother's interest in theology. Ullin
Thomas Place, Dorothy's older brother by only a year,
discovered mysticism at the age of 15. Quite by accident at
school, he was introduced to a book called Mysticism (1911) by
Evelyn Underhill, which intrigued him by its presentation of
From a pamphlet written by Elfida Vipont Foulds called Swarthmoor Hall, first published in 1979 by the Quaker Home Senice, Friends House, Euston Road, London.
157
religion as a mode of transforming, psychologically, the human
personality and a way of finding 'the inner strength needed to
withstand all the pain and suffering that my father had led me
to expect in the worldr ?2 He further read a treatise on the
subject by Dean W- R. Inge called Protestantism (1927) , which
contained a chapter on Quaker mysticism- Inge argued that
this sect practised a completely unsullied form of Protestant
mysticism. It was this text that led Ullin to read George
Foxrs JournaZ. As a consequence, Ullin adopted a position of
non-violence, which was a part of the Quaker doctrine- He
later registered with the British military as a conscientious
objector, working with the Friendsr Ambulance Unit as an
orderly and porter in hospitals in England, as well as driving
milk lorries around the Hertfordshire countryside during World
War I1 .e3
On summer vacations, Ullin and Dorothy stayed at Woodhall
in Wensleydale in North Yorkshire where their mother had owned
and worked a farm, and where the family rented half of a large
farmhouse It was here that Dorothy began reading George
Fox's Journal and attended Quaker meetings with her brother
Ullin. In his Journal, George Fox related his first visit to
Wensleydale:
In my way up to Wensleydale I came to a great house, where was a schoolmaster; and they got
Place, cit ,
83 E-Mail communication with Ullin T. Place, September 29, 1998.
me into the house. I asked them questions about their religion and worship; and afterwards I declared the truth to them, They had me in a parlour, and locked me in, pretending that I: was a young man that was distracted, and had run away from my relations: and they would keep me till they could send to them, But I soon convinced them of their mistake, and they let me forth, and would have had me to stay; but 1 was not to stay there. Then having exhorted them to repentance, and directed them to the light of Christ Jesus, that through it they might come unto Him and be saved, I passed from them, and came in the night to a little ale-house on a common, where-there was a company of rude fellows drinking. Because I would not drink with them, they got up their clubs and were striking at me in a rage; but I reproved them, and brought them to be somewhat cooler; and then I walked out of the house upon the common in the night. After some time one of these drunken fellows came out, and would have come up close to me, pretending to whisper to me; but I perceived he had a knife, and therefore 1 kept off him, and bid him repent, and fear God. So the Lord by His power preserved me from this wicked man; and he went into the house again- The next morning I went on through other Dales warning and exhorting people everywhere as I passed, to repent and turn to the Lord: and several were convinced.
This and other portions of Fox's Journal read much like an
adventure story, and it is small wonder that it captured
Dorothy and Ullinfs interest so completely, They went
together to meetings in both Carperby and Bainbridge in the
Wensleydale district, George Fox, through his Journal, is
known to have visited Bainbridge on June 3, 1652, a few weeks
before Margaret Fell experienced her con~ersion.~~ Richard
Pemey, Norman, ed. 1924. The Journal of George Fox. London: J. M. D e n t , PI 60-61.
86 Hall, David S - 1989. Richard Robinson of Countersett, 1623 -1693 and the Quakers of Wensleydale. York, England: William Sessions, P, xiv-
Robinson became the first person to be converted to Quakerism
in Wensleydale, and travelled widely in the West Yorkshire
Riding to bring the gospel of the 'Inner Lightf to as many of
his neighbours who would listen, Richard Robinson had
previously bought the Manor of Bainbridge in 1628, the largest
land holding in the area.87 The Bainbridge Meeting House that
Dorothy and Ullin attended was built beside the Burial Ground
at Holme Bray in 1836 when the Quakers at the time were
prosperous enough to consider a new building, their old one
having become inadequate- It was thought to be a great
improvement on the former structure, as it had 'a flight of
wide stone steps, with a beautifully turned baluster, is
tiered to give its occupants a good view of the Meeting/*
The fact that it was George Fox's Journal that Dorothy
Smith read first is significant, as it is Fox's influence and
encouragement that inspired Margaret Fell and her daughters to
adopt the principle of women's equality and to work actively
towards the improvement of women's status in the Quaker sect.
George Fox is known, through his Journal, to have pronounced
his belief in the equality of women as early as 1648. This
took place in Leicester, at a meeting with Presbyterians,
Independents and Baptists in attendance:
At last one woman asked a question out of Peter what that birth was, viz., a being "born again of incorruptible seed, by the word of God, that liveth and abideth forever. " And the priest said to her, Ir I will permit not a woman to speak in the
Ibfd, p , 4 -
Ibid, p , 60-61.
churchw; though he had before given liberty f o r any to speak. Whereupon I was wrapped up, as in a rapture, in the Lord's power; and I stepped up in a place and asked the priest, "Dost thou call this place a church?" For the woman asking a question. he ought to have answered it. having given liberty fo r any to speak. But, instead of answering me, he asked me what a church was? I told him the Church was the pillar and the ground of Truth, made up of living stones, living members, a spiritual household, which Christ was the head of: but was he not the head of a mixed multitude, or of an old house made up of lime, stones and wood, This set them all on fire- The priest came down out of his pulpit and others out of their pews, and the dispute there was marred, 89
Fox's Journal is full of references to Swarthmore Hall and to
his relationship with M a r g a r e t Fell and her daughters. His
first meeting with her is well documented. About two weeks
after he met Margaret at Swarthmore in 1652. he went to Walney
Island where he was cruelly attacked by the citizens of the
town- Margaret Fell sent a horse to fetch him "but so sore
was I with bruises, I was not able bear the shaking of the
horse without much painr, and her husband, Judge Fell, saw to
it that he was not arrested by the Walney villagers. Dorothy
Smith would have clearly acquired some secondary knowledge of
Fell's life and work through George Fox' Journal. Likely this
awareness was accompanied by a less than complete
understanding of the implications of Fell's example, given her
young age.
Another episode in Dorothy Smith's life involving the
presence of Quakerism takes place in Birmingham, from the age
P e ~ e y , Norman, ed. 1924. The Journal of George F o x . London: J, M. Dent* P. 14-15.
of seventeen to the age of nineteen, after she left boarding
school, She enrolled in Woodbrooke College, a Quaker College
in Birmingham, taking a two year Social Studies Diploma.go At
Woodbrooke, Dorothy was in residence with a fellow student by
the name of Anne Clarksonsl and they became good friends while
in residence there,92 Dorothy and Anne took courses in
'Social Studiesr at the Ufiversity of Birmingham and did not
take the courses offered in Quaker doctrine at Woodbrooke,
The Society of Friends had a long history of concern for the
underprivileged in society, and since the number of students
from abroad studying Quakerism was much reduced during the
War, the College took in a number of University of Birmingham
Social Studies Diploma Students who could reside at the
college for a reasonable fee, Dorothy's brother, Ullin Place,
already mentioned above, had been granted exemption from
active military service on the grounds of conscience, a
practice usually taken up by members of the Quaker faith, For
the last three months of 1944, while awaiting transfer to do
relief work in the recently liberated areas of Northwest
Europe, he was stationed in Birmingham in premises just around
Itsocial Studiestt in North America would be understood as Social Work" .
This is a reference to Anne Canham, whose maiden name was Clarkson, As this was a period when she went under the name of 'Clarksonr, I will refer to her by using her maiden name,
92 I am grateful to Anne Canham, Carlisle, England, Dorothy Smithf s friend, for providing me with a profile of Woodbrooke College and the content of the Social Studies Diploma. A detailed account of Dorothy Smith's life at Woodbrooke can be found in Chapter Six, ItDorothy E. Smithrs Formative Years, 1926 - 1955,
the comer from Woodbkrooke- U11h and a group from the
Friends ' Ambulance Unit, 'knocked around' with Dorothy and
Anne for the duration of their brief stay near the Woodbrooke
residence , 93
Woodbrooke is one of a number of colleges dispersed
around the Selly Oak area of B i d n g h a m and is owned and run
by the Society of Friends, the Quakers- It is recognised
internationally as a seat of Quaker learning, and courses of
different lengths are given there on all aspects of Quakerism-
Woodbrooke had established permanent courses on Bible Study,
as well as Church and Quaker History during the First World
It also offered fellowships to Friends who wanted to
write a book or study some aspect of Quakerism in depth. The
Quakers also have a tradition of historical scholarship and
much of their this kind of work is accomplished at Woodbrooke,
The College was founded in 1903 by Quaker entrepreneurs such
as J- Wilhelm Rowntree and his wife Isabella, who were the
first wardens; George and Elizabeth Cadbury , who provided the
grounds; and Rufus Jones, a professor who had trained at
Harvard and lectured at the first summer school.95 The
presence of Quakerism through her mother's ancestry was likely
one that for Dorothy was taken for granted, given her youth,
93 E-Mail cormunication with Ullin T. Place, September 29, 1998.
94 Elkington, Anna Griscom. 1954. "A Review of Woodbrooke, 1903 -1953, edited by Robert Davis" . Quaker History, 43, 1, p - 49.
95 Allott, Stephen. 1994. John W i l h e l m Rowntree, 1868- 1905, and the Beginnings of Modern Quakerism. York, England: Sessions Book Trust. P. 78-85.
and during her attendance at Woodbrooke, she most likely took
little notice of the proximity of the Quaker religion.
Dorothy Smith continues to respect the Quaker way of life
to the present day, honouring what she terms their 'honestyr
in their way of dealing with religious and life matters.
During recent years she has attended Quaker Meetings on an
intermittent basis at Amherst, Massachusetts, in Toronto and
Vancouver, She admires the simplicity of their Meetings and
finds the idea of 'friendship' to be one that is admirable as
well as comforting during times of her life that have been
difficult and stressfuLg6 The Quaker influence in her life
has been positive and an influential one for the Social
Organization of Knowledge, chiefly with respect to the value
Dorothy Smith places in the belief of women's equality which
is also contained in the origins of the Quaker doctrine.
The objective of this chapter was to create a starting
point for some of the possible and deductive social origins of
the Social Organization of mowledge and to connect Dorothy
Smith t o the influence of women's equality as it was
incorporated in her direct ancestry and in the Quaker
doctrine. In introducing Margaret Fell and the early Quaker
Movement, I have focused on the everyday concerns of women in
the seventeenth century, arguing that it was the honour and
self esteem gained by the execution of these ordinary and
unassuming tasks in the domestic sphere that became a
productive force in the reproduction of women's equality and
96 Personal communication with Dorothy E. Smith during lunch, December 8, 1997.
gave women the strength and the organizational skill to engage
in radical political activism for women's equality that was
eventually accomplished in the public domain. The skills
which women developed in a seventeenth century household are
argued to be the inchoate productive forces in the creation of
the Social Organization of Knowledge, skills which were richly
described in Gervase Markham' s Country Contentments . This
argument is consistent with the idea that, the SOK can begin in
direct experience and the examination of the real activities
of human beings and local settings in the world- Although not
named at this time as 'feminismr, the 'honourr that
seventeenth century Quaker women associated with their labour
was almost certainly passed down to their daughters, as
evidenced by the remarkable example of Margaret Fell,
mWONT TO SPEAK PLAIN AND TO PURPOSE'^: LUCY ELtISON AND DOROTHY POSTER ABRAHAM
Thus far the "few laced genestt studied here have been
Dorothy Smith's remote ancestors, Margaret Fell and her
daughters. Moving forward now some two hundred and fifty
years, this chapter changes to an historical analysis of a
different form of women's activism, the militant suffrage work
of Dorothyr s maternal grandmother, Lucy Ellison Abraham (Mrs.
Alfred Clay Abraham, n5e Golding) and her mother, Dorothy
Foster Place (nde Abraham). It was noted in the previous
chapter that during the early Quaker Movement women attached a
sense of honour to the skills required for the work they
accomplished within a household, and their labour was
characterized as a productive force in the reproduction of a
belief in women's equality. Women's self respect at the turn
of the twentieth century was still intimately connected to
domestic work, and diverged along class lines. The Diaries of
Hannah C u l l w i c k : Victorian Maidservant (1984), edited by Liz
Stanley, records Cullwick's obsession with housework and her
pride gained through long hours of drudgery and work as a
domestic servant from the 1850s to the 1870s.~ Conversely,
From a line in Shakespeare's play, @lMuch Ado About Nothingtt, Act 2, Scene 3 - This phrase was used to describe Lucy Ellison Abraham (Mrs. Alfred Clay Abraham, nee Golding) in an article about her in the Birkenhead News called "A Woman Pioneer. l1
Stanley, Liz, ed. 1984. The Diaries of H a n n a h C u l l w i c k : Victorian Maidservant. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, P. 47.
middle-class women increasingly relied on the hiring of
working-class women such as Hannah C u l l w i c k to do their
household chores, and liked to think 'that their housekeeping
takes them perhaps an hour, perhaps half an hour, in the
morning, and no more' -' Lucy Ellison Abraham was middle-class,
and the wife of a Liverpool Chemist, whose husband's
prosperity allowed her the means to afford dances in her own
home, tennis parties, summer holidays, as well as governesses
and a boarding school education for her children. Dorothy
Foster Abraham does not fit into either of the above
categories and in her own way rebelled against the middle-
class norms valued by her mother. She abandoned a career in
Analytical Chemistry that her parents badly wanted for her,
and studied horticulture instead, eventually managing her own
farm in Wensleydale, North Yorkshire, remaining independent
and unmarried until her late thirties/
My focus in this chapter will be on the contradictions
that abound in the militant enterprise of the Women's Social
and Political Union (WSPU). On the one hand, the Suffragettes
were women who in part of their lives carried on in ways that
were considered genteel and refined, holding meetings in their
parlours called At Homes, where they senred refreshments and
talked-up suffrage politics to their guests. Similarly, their
fund-raising initiatives frequently meant that they drew on
Rosen, Andrew. 1974. Rise Up, Women! The M i l i t a n t Campaign of the Women's Social and Political Union, 1903-1914. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, P, 2,
From the Autobiographical Notes of Dorothy Foster Abraham, 1886-1976. Unpublished.
their domestic skills as women, cooking for events like candy
and bake sales, and sewing for 'stalls' at suffrage fairs. On
the other hand, they secretively burned and blew up buildings,
including large estates and churches, destroyed valuable art
works, ruined golfing greens and vandalised mail boxes, Their
guerilla-like practices were accompanied by a strict principle
of destroying only unoccupied public and private buildings and
contrasted sharply with the lengths that they would go to in
order to preserve all forms of life:
Four doves - three grown ones and a baby were housed in a little wired-in enclosure attached to the South side of the house, Before setting fire to the building the Suffragettes cut the wiring so that the birds could escape ,'
In this chapter, I highlight how the proficiency required in
the execution of domestic skills was employed politically to
advance the subversive aspects of the cause. Domestic skills,
when applied to the Suffragette agenda served to legitimate a
militant ideology that was often on 'thin icer in most sectors
of British society.
My objective in this chapter is to provide an historical
analysis of the productive forces that were involved in the
reproduction of one prototype of feminist consciousness, which
provided Dorothy Smith with a further example in her past from
which to choose her own identity as a feminist sociologist.
It will focus on a material analysis of domestic labour, the
WSPU propaganda machinery, and the economic organisation of
The Suffragette, March 28, 1913- P. 385. The incident that this quotation refers to is the burning of a mansion in Egham, Surrey. Damage was estimated at E4,000.
168
the Union. The structure of this chapter will be comprised of
three layers, as the Abrahams were involved in the WSPU at
three separate but interdependent levels : I) in London,
England; 2) in Liverpool; and 3) the s m a l l community of
Birkenhead, I begin with the London Chapter of the WSPU and
look at the ways in which these members mobilised available
resources, including domestic labour- Next, I produce an
account of WSPU activism as it evolved in the Liverpool and
Birkenhead area, the hub of the political work of Lucy and
Dorothy Abraham. Lastly, I examine the specific suffrage work
of the Abrahams, their individual activities in Birkenhead,
Liverpool as well as in London.
The Women's Social and P o l i t i c a l Union, 1903-1915
What ' s this I hear? That you, Princess, Have joined the W. S. P. U.? I can't believe you'd thus transgress, I have too much respect for
The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was the
most dissident example of an excess of fifty women's suffrage
societies7 in Great Britain at the turn of the twentieth
century, most of which sought to attain the vote for women
through constitutional and non-violent means. The WSPU was
the exception, and ultimately initiated a comprehensive arson
" The refrain from a poem called "The Ballad of True Womanhoodtf by Kenneth Richmond, In: Votes for Women, September 23, 1910. P. 829.
7 Cowman, eista, n-d. "Crossing the Great Divide: Interorganizational Suffrage Relationships on the Merseyside, 1895-1914.Ir Unpublished. University of York, England.
campaign throughout England at the end of January in 1913
Manchester, because of its textile factories that in the late
nineteenth century employed some 289,000 women, has been
characterized by Eva Gore Booth as 'the natural home of the
women's movementr - 9 In Manchester at the time, Emmeline
Pankhurst was a member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP)
and her daughter Cristabel had gained political experience
working for the North of England Society for Women's Suffrage
(NESWS) . On October 10, 1903, Emmeline Pankhurst invited a
group of women who supported the working-class ILP to her home
at 62 Nelson Street, Manchester, and they organised the
Women's Social and Political Union," By March 1, 1906, the
organisation had moved to London and formed the London Central
Committee, and in September of the same year, had rented
office space on the lower Eloor of Clement's ~nn.~'
Militant exploits were only a part of a multi-faceted
culture which grew up around the organisation. The moderate
aspects of the membersr suffrage work included fairs,
pageantry, fashion, and plays based on the fight for the vote.
These cultural venues served a tri-pronged purpose in that
they created spaces for women to socialize, to fund-raise, and
were the sites used to reproduce WSPU propaganda,
fashion was one of a number of strategies employed
The use of
by the WSPU
R o s ~ ~ , 1974, op. cit., p. 189.
Ibid, p . 25.
Ibid, p- 25-30.
Ibid, p. 71.
and the Paakhurst family who encouraged members to adhere to a
feminine ideal which would give legitimacy to their militant
policies, Militancy as a political tactic threatened an image
of femininity, and the WSPU needed drama and panoply to hold
the m e d i a and the public's attention. Women who sold the
newspapers (both the Abraham women sold the newspaper, Votes
for Women) were encouraged to wear their best attire and to
spend sometimes more than they could afford on clothing. In
addition, fashion advertisements were a vital source of
revenue for both Votes for Women and The Suffragette?
Women's intimate fashion advertisements, a clear emblem of
femininity, were plentiful in both newspapers, An example of
these stylish undergarments was the W-B, Eesiklip CorsetL3,
sold at The Regal Corset Parlour, 137 Kensington High Street,
and there were many ads like the one for Torset Weekw,
featured at the Peter Robin's Department Store, Regent Street,
commencing February 17, 1913 . Mobilisation of available resources meant the careful
management of the WSPU newspapers, Votes for Women and The
Suffragette were prime money-makers and the ordinary rank and
file members were constantly encouraged in local reports to
Votes for Women and The Suffragette were the two official newspapers of the W.S.P.U. Votes for Women was the first, edited by Mr. and Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence. After the split occurred in the society in October, 1912, Cristabel Padchurst took over the job of editor. The name of the paper then changed to The Suffragette. The first issue was published on October 18, 1912.
l3 Ibid, November 17, 1911. P, 106
I4 The Suffragette, February 14, 1913. P. 282.
contribute to the cause by selling the papers, Both papers
w e r e full of blurbs for household cleaning products such as
Flako Soap, Fels-Naptha, Chivers Carpet Soap and Zog Silver
Cleaner, one way that the WSPU leaders capitalised on the
routine household work of subscribers to support their
militant pro j ects , The Suffragette, which became the official
WSPU journal after the split with the P e t h i c k - L a n c e s on the
issue of militancy, experienced serious problems from the
beginning. Lincoln's Inn, the new WSPU headquarters, was
raided by the police on April 30, 1913 and the women began to
print the paper themselves, as the regular printer had 'lost
his nervef . l5 By July, 1914 the British Government made
serious efforts to shut down The Suffragette and it became 'a
ghost of its former self, carrying perhaps one-third of the
advertising lineage it had carried a year earlierf?
One of a series of increasingly grandiose fund-raising
campaigns organized by the WSPU was the f20,000 Fund which had
gathered the sum of f 16,650 by September of 1908 .I7 This was
soon followed by the f50,000 Fund in 1909 and by the end of
August o£ that year donations had reached f45,868, Gifts w e r e
of ten made up of anonymous donations from groups like "The
Goudhurst ~aloonatics~,~~ In 1914, near the end of the
militant campaign, the WSPU began work on the f250,000 Fund,
Rosen, 1974, p. 193-194.
l6 Ibid, p. 241.
l7 Votes f o r Women, September 3, 1908. P. 431.
Ibid, August
its most pretentious project- The Suffragette reported in its
May 8, 1914 edition that they had accumulated El68,053,
despite the fact that the police had seized the contributions
from March 26 - April 29, 1914." In July of the same year,
the Union started The Great Protest Fund, where they
proclaimed 'new and generous giftsr, including one of 'f500
from a ~ouse' 20 This fund was inaugurated to protest prison
torture, and two weeks after it was announced, the
organization had collected €15.350. a fact which they
broadcasted in The Suffragette as a clear message to the
Liberal government that they could not be ~topped.~'
Women in the Union routinely exploited their membersr
domestic skills to raise money for the militant cause. Often
the London organisers would produce a huge centralised event,
organised months in advance that the district committees were
persuaded to support. One such happening was a Christmas Fair
and Fste that was held in London from December 4 - 9, 1911.
Local WSPU Committees were responsible for organising various
'stallsr, which sold a wide assortment of merchandise,
frequently hand-made by the women who contributed. The
Christmas Fair and Fete was held at the Portman Rooms, Baker
Street and hundreds of women volunteers participated from all
l9 The Suffragette, May 8, 1914. P. 92.
20 The Suffragette, July 3, 1914. P. 197. A reference to any WSPU prisoner who was forced to return to prison once she had recovered sufficiently from the effects of hunger- striking. a law nick-named the 'Cat and Mouse Actr. passed by the Liberal government in May, 1914.
21 Ibid, July 24, 1914. P. 262.
over England, The fair organisers even received two hats to
sell from Messrs- Swan and Edgar, who had had their windows
broken two weeks previously, saying they 'bore the WSPU no
i l l - ~ i l l ~ * ~ Another event, but one held in the summer, was
the Suffragette Flower Fair and Festival on June 3 - 13, 1913 in the Empress Rooms, Kensington. The instructions for the
fair decorations set out by the Festival Secretary underscored
the attention to detail and fashion consciousness:
T h e appearance of the Empress rooms during the Summer Fair and Festival must not fall below the high standard of artistic beauty set by the WSPU in the past. The decorations will be entirely of flowers; these must be ready in great profusion, and the names of volunteers for making them are therefore wanted immediately. The uniform of the stall-holders and helpers will consist of flowered muslin dresses and picture-hats, and the waitresses will wear, instead of hats, white mob caps and flowers. For this part of the work, too, and amty of volunteers is needed. 23
The WSPU leadership lost no opportunity to make money for the
cause, and they were experts in fund-raising, financial
planning and the summoning of available resources, which
included reliance upon the ordinary domestic talents of
thousands of unpaid women.
As well as proficiency in money matters, the WSPU also
created a huge propaganda machine with its own ideology. One
of the direct ways that the WSPU communicated this message to
potential members was through the use of theatre - plays which
not only contained a militant suffrage credo, but were able,
22 Ibid, December 1, 1911- P, 139,
23 The Suffragette, April 25, 1913. P. 473.
174
through their performance, to raise money for the society.
The constitution of the Actressesr Franchise League (AFL),
wholly supported the idea of a suffrage propaganda:
(1) To convince members of the theatrical profession of the necessity of extending the Franchise to women,
(2) To work for womenr s enfranchisement by educational methods,
1. Propaganda meetings. 2. Sale of Literature, 3 , Propaganda plays, 4, Lectures - 24
The formation of the AFL was encouraged by several performers
who had ties to the WSPU, among them the actresses Sime Seruya
and Winifred Mayo. Since the AFL adopted a policy of
'neutralityr it gave the members a wide selection when it came
to offering their services as performers, a choice which often
included the radical WSPU.'' Cecily Hamilton, a suffrage
playwright who wrote "The Pageant of Great WomenN and "How We
Won the V o t e t 1 , was one of the initial members of the WSPU.
Both of her plays were performed on several occasions in
Liverpool.
Militant suffrage 'newspeakr developed by the WSPU went
through several distinct phases during the course of their
activism from 1905 - 1915. At first, founding members
espoused a loyalty to working-class values. Even after the
move to London, Annie Kenney began by forming associations
with poor women from the East End. Nonetheless, at the first
24 Quoted in: Stowell, Sheila. 1992. A Stage of T h e i r Own: F e m i n i s t Playwights of the Suffrage Era. Ann Arbor: U n i v e r s i t y of Michigan Press. P. 41-42.
** Ibid, p* 131.
rally held at Caxton Hall in the East End of London, all
social classes were represented and it was likely at this
meeting that the WSPU hierarchy made their initial contacts
with affluent women-2h Gradually the WSPU leadership eschewed
its working class roots and formed connections to the
wealthier classes in London society. This began during the
fund-raising project called the f20,000 Fund in 1908 mentioned
above, when Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence 'openly courted the richr."
At the height of its influence, the Union fostered its
ideology through extraordinary pageantry and ceremony. The
Great Procession, which took place in London on June 17, 1911,
included suffrage supporters from all over the world. As
activists, the WSPU wished to emphasise Britain's imperial
status2', as well as women's solidarity, so they invited women
from a number of Britain's colonies. A map of the procession
published in Votes for Women depicts both an Empire Pageant
and the Imperial Contingent. The Imperial Contingent was
organised by Miss Dennatt at the WSPU's headquarters at
Clement's Inn and delegates from South Africa, India, the East
and West African colonies marched together in the procession.
Mrs. Pankhurst spoke on each occasion of the organisational
meetings for this contingent, indicating the willingness of
26 Rosen, 1974, op. cit. p. 60.
27 Ibid, p - 86.
Burton, Antoinette. 1991. "The Feminist Quest for Identity: British Imperial Suf f ragism and l@Global Siste~hood'~, 1900-1915. Journal of Women's H i s t o r y . 3.2. 46- 81. P, 66,
the WSPU leaders to support imperialist-feminist beliefs-29
The split that occurred between the Pethick-Lawrences and
Cristabel and Emmeline Pankhurst in October, 1912 was a
celebrated example of the dictatorial. ideological principles
upon which the organisation was managed. M r . and Mrs.
Pethick-Lawrence arrived back in England from a trip to Canada
to find that the offices at Clement's Inn had been 're-
possessed by the l a n d l ~ r d ~ . ~ ~ The Pethick-Lawrences had
objected to Cristabelrs increasingly militant ideology. After
their departure, the policy of the WSPU consisted of an
escalated aggressiveness enacted by an extensive arson
campaign which was controlled by Cristabel, who had been
forced to flee the country and was living in Paris. Following
the breach in the society, the strategy was one of all-out war
against the British government, which continued all through
1913 to the beginning of the World War I in August, 1914.
At the outbreak of war the internal policy of the Union
took an absurd turn, when the Pankhursts adopted a stance of
extreme patriotism. The Suffragette published a preposterous
patriotic speech given by Mrs. Pankhurst at the Sun Hall in
Liverpool in April, 1915, an example of one of the many sudden
changes in policy in the Union's history.31 Given that the
militant strategy on the part of the WSPU authority would have
been inappropriate in wartime, they executed a complete about
29 Votes for Women, June 9, 1911. P. 597.
30 Rosen, 1974, op. cit., p. 173.
31 The Suffragette, April 23, 1915. P. 25.
177
face. Instead, they organised a War Service Meeting at the
London Palladium for June 3, 1915 advertising The Suffragette
as 'the best patriotic war paperr .32 As a gesture of
reconciliation to the Liberal government, the Union arranged a
War Service Procession which took place on July 17 of the same
year. A deputation of women, proclaiming the right to work
for the war effort, was received by M r , Lloyd ~eorge .33
Diminished in financial resources and the support of the
political will, the WSPU was forced to vacate its luxurious
quarters at Lincoln's Inn House, and in September, 1915, it
was announced they were 'removing to the West Endr * 3 4 WSPU
leaders began to devote their energies to recruiting women for
the war munitions industry and in October. 1915, they renamed
The Suffragette. calling it Britannia.3s
Number Eleven Renahaw street3': The WSPU in Liverpool
In the above introduction to the WSPU organization, I
have focussed on two of its aspects: I) The economic
resources which allowed the production of WSPU activism, in
the exploitation of the ordinary domestic skills of women as
they were mobilized by the WSPU in the course of their fund-
32 Ibid. June 4, 1915. P. 128.
33 Ibid, July 9, 1915. P. 197.
34 Ibid, September 17. 1915. P. 331.
36 The WSPU headquarters in Liverpool, April 14, 1911 - January 11, 1913.
raising, membership, and propaganda initiatives and 2 ) the
several phases of the WSPU propaganda machine, and their use
of various ideologies to legitimate their militant tactics*
The following local history of Suffragette activism in the
Liverpool and Birkenhead area will continue this type of
analysis. As the historical account of militant suffrage
activism converges on the local setting of Liverpool and the
small community of Birkenhead, the relevance of this kind of
focus becomes clear, in that the London WSPU membership
depended on the local chapters to support the more sensational
aspects of the cause, Smaller communities did not have
immediate access to the machinery of government as did the
WSPU in London, so their backing for the cause often meant the
humbler tasks of selling newspapers, managing the local
office, organising jumble sales, At Homes, as well as the
popular open air meetings. All local WSPU members eventually
became involved in the militant campaign, however, so the
notion that activism in a subordinate district meant complete
consignment to the lacklustre aspects of suffrage work was far
from the case.
Two contemporary feminist historians have concentrated on
Suffragette activism in the Liverpool area. One is Marij Von
Helmond who has written Votes for Women: E v e n t s on the
Merseyside, 1870-1928 (1992) . Her account refers to the
prison letters of Dr. Alice Ker, who was a local resident of
Birkenhead, and a constitutional suffragist who converted to
the WSPU in 1909. As Dr. Ker was an intimate friend of Lucy
and Dorothy Abraham, Dorothy Smithr s mother
17 9
and grandmother,
her letters contain references to them- However, Von
Helmondrs record contains an inaccuracy in regard to Dorothy
Foster Abrahamr s arrest and imprisonment, 37 Another
representation of Liverpool S u f f r a g e history which 1 have
drawn from is the work of Krista Cowman, a feminist historian
at the University of York, whose writing in this area
includes, "The Stone-Throwing has Been Forced Upon Us: The
Function of Militancy within the Liverpool W,S.P.U., 1906-
1914 - If (19 95) . The secondary sources for women' s Suffrage history in Liverpool and Birkenhead are limited, and I: have
relied heavily on primary sources, the two WSPU papers, Votes
for Women and The Suffragette, Votes for Women, which
commenced publication in October of 1907, contained a regular
weekly feature called "The Campaign Throughout the Countryv
near the end of the paper, which made the study of local WSPU
offices in Liverpool and Birkenhead a straightforward task.
The WSPU was formed in Liverpool in 1905 by Alice
~orrisey." A member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP),
she had openly criticized the electoral policy of the
Liverpool Womenr s Suffrage Society (LWSS) . 3S Alice Morrisey
37 Von Helmond states that Dorothy Foster Abraham 'took part in a window smashing raid in London in March, 1912. Refusing to pay a fine, she was sentenced to a month's imprisonment in Hollowayr (Von Helmond, 1992, 105) . This is incorrect. Dorothy Foster Abraham spent 17 days in Holloway on a remand. When she went to trial, it was found that there was no evidence against her and she was released-
38 Cowman, Krista. Letter. January, 1998.
39 Cowman, Krista. 'The Stone-throwing Has Been Forced Upon Usr: The Function of Militancy Within the Liverpool W.S.P.U, 190644.' Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire. Volume 145. P. 176,
was also upset with the exclusion of working-class women from
the organisation, The WSPU in Liverpool was one of the
earliest branches to form after Manchester and pre-dated the
London division,40 At first, the WSPU used tactics for
gaining membership which targeted working-class women:
The Union began its local campaign with a series of street-corner and factory-gate meetings which mirrored the tactics of the local socialist movement. Many of the venues selected. such as Wellington Column and Islington Square, were already well used for socialist meetings. Factory-gate meetings were also initiated, concentrating on factories with a large female workforce such as Copes ' tobacco and Crawford' s biscuits. *l
The first act of disruption of a meeting by the Liverpool
Branch took place in January 9, 1906. in the Sun Hall. where
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the then Prime Minister, was
speaking to five thousand Liberal supporters. The Liverpool
WSPU message and question to the leaders was class-oriented,
saying, WILL THg LIBERAL GOVERNMENT GIVE WORKING WOMEN THE
VOTE?I1 None of the women were detained by the police.
although one of the demonstrators cuffed the man who tried to
take away her banner." This event received an unfavourable
account in the ~iverpool Daily Post, but by 1908 the Union was
beginning to receive more favourable press editorials. at
least the Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury reported that 'no
one can say that the Suffragettes have not been wise in their
40 Cowman, Krista. E-Mail Message, February 2, 1998.
41 Cowman, 1995. op. cit., p. 177.
Ibid, p. 178.
generationr - * Organisers and office headquarters for the WSPU in
Liverpool changed several times from 1906 to the beginning of
the First World War, indicating the practical difficulties
experienced in the course of suffrage work- In May, 1909, the
first paid organiser who arrived from London was Mary
Phillips. 44 She had been incarcerated in Holloway prison,
likely part of a large arrest of 25 women that took place in
London on June, 1908. 45 M a l y Phillips was released from
Holloway on Friday, September 18, 1908 She had visited
Liverpool previously with Ada Flatman, in December of 1908 to
organise the demonstration at the Sun Hall, where Mr. Lloyd
George was speaking. At this particular meeting, Lloyd George
had become so terrified of Suffragette protest that he refused
to speak unless women were not allowed. Hundreds of tickets
had already been issued to women, consequently, even the wives
of Liberal stewards had to have their money refunded." M a r y
Phillips attained notoriety through an adventurous protest
which the Liverpool Echo called "Daring Suffragist Interviewed
- Miss Phillips 'Recitalr Under an Organ - A Weird
Experience1'. She hid under the hall organ from about 8
o'clock the previous evening. The keynote speakers were Mr.
43 Votes for Women, May 28, 1908. Table of Contents.
" Cowman, 1995, op. cit., p. 179.
45 Rosen, 1974, op. cit., p. 107.
46 Ibid, September 3, 1908. P. 431.
47 Ibid, December 24, 1908. P. 214,
182
Birrell and Lord Crewe, who were to receive honorary degrees
from Liverpool University- As Mr. Birrell rose to accept,
Mary Phillips conducted an 'a loud and @te long discourse on
votes for womenr . 48
Mary Phillips was succeeded a few months later by Miss
Ada Flatman, and the WSPU established their first office, shop
and meeting place at 28 Berry Street Liverpool in September,
1909.~' Here is a characteristic report from Liverpool and
Cheshire District in 1910:
November 4, 1910 Miss Flatman again thanks "Two Sistersff for their generous donation of five pounds and hopes they will send in their present address- They will be glad to know that these gifts always come when funds are especially low and money urgently needed, Will others not follow this example and send donations for the Blouse stall?"
When Miss Flatman was the paid organiser in 1910, sewing
meetings were held in the office on Tuesday and Friday
evenings.'' In February, 1911, the organiser changed briefly
to Mrs. Alice Morrisey who took on the position pro tem, and
the third organiser, Miss Alice Davies, was welcomed a few
weeks later by an At Home at the shop on Friday March 3-'* A
few weeks later the office moved to I1 Renshaw Street, which
48 Pankhurst , Dame Cristabel . 1959 - Unshackled: The Story of How We Won the Vote, Edited by Lord Pethick- Lawrence. London: Hutchinson. P. 127.
Ibid, November 4, 1910. P. 77.
Ibid, October 21, 1910. P. 45.
52 Votes for Women, March 3, 1911, P, 362.
w a s celebrated by another A t Home at which Lucy Ellison
Abraham was the speaker .53 Mrs. Abraham and Miss Martin took
over the position of organiser for the Liverpool and District
Branch for several months in starting in May, 1912, while Miss
Davies was in prison. She was sentenced with Dr- Alice Ker to
three months imprisonment on a charge of breaking windows to
the value of €42, in the huge glass-breaking campaign that was
organised by the WSPU in London in March, 1912,'~
The Union organiser changed once again in September of
1912, when Miss Helen ~ollie~' took over for Miss Davies- She
instituted a legal defense fund for Liverpool members who were
arrested. Helen Jollie was credited with breathing new life
into the flagging spirits of WSPU members and instigating a
renewed interest in militant activism in LiverpooLS6 In
January of 1913 the WSPU office and shop relocated again to
Canning-Chambers, 2, South John Street. This was celebrated
with an American Tea, and the new offices, as well as being a
meeting place, became a tearoom, opening daily from 12 pm to
6pm. A final shift in office space took place in September
of 1913 to 8A, Lord Street where it likely remained to the
onset of the Great War in 1914.58
53 Ibid, April 14, 1911. P. 466.
54 Ibid, April 5 , 1912. P. 432.
55 Ibid, September 27, 1912. P- 838,
C~~l~lil~l~ 1995, OP. cit., P. 186.
57 The Suffragette, January 12, 1913. Pp, 194-5.
Ibid, September 19, 1913. P. 855 .
184
The earliest series of arrests in Liverpool took place on
August 20, 1909 when Mr. Haldane, a Liberal Cabinet Minister,
spoke at the Sun Hall- The WSPU rented a building that
adjoined the Hall, and during the course of his address hurled
'bricks and stones through the window of the Sun Hall with a
dexterity which was nothing short of marvellous8:
The police made a rush down Romer Road to the first entrance leading up to the hall, Here they found window panes falling before the unerring shots of the attack. They were unable to discover whence the shots came, but having detected the women's hiding place, they commandeered a passing window cleaner to fetch them down. His ladder, however, was too short, and the acting-sergeant sent for the fire escape?
Seven women were arrested and driven away in a Black Maria to
t he central w ride well". They broke the windows of the Black
Maria during the ride and also the windows of their cells at
t h e Bridewell. While waiting for trial, they hunger-struck,
and were released after six days?
The next incident occurred in December, 1909, when two
working-class women, Leslie Hall and Selina Martin threw a
stone ginger beer bottle at Sir Archibald William's car, from
which Mr. Asquith had just alighted, during his election
campaign visit to LiverpooLG2 No harm came to M r . Asquith
but the two women were arrested for disorderly conduct.
59 Votes f o r W o m e n , August 27, 1909. P. 1110.
A house of correction for the confinement of vagrants and disorderly persons, named after a former prison in London at St. Bride's Well.
6L Votes for Women, September 3, 1909. P. 1128.
During the interim in Walton Gaol for remand, when they were
supposed to be presumed innocent, the two prisoners were so
badly treated that it caused an uproar in the British press.
A leaflet with an account of their prison experiences was
circulated during the election campaign, costing the Liberal
government i~umerable votes.=
Leslie Hall was released from prison two days early on
January 24, 1 9 1 0 ~ ~ and Selina Martin was not released until
February 3, after being forcibly fed twice a day for a period
of 3 7 days. Here is an excerpt from her account of her prison
experience at Walton published in Votes for Women:
[Several] wardesses entered my cell and commanded me to go with them to the doctor's room, I refused, and I was dragged to the foot of the stairs with my hands handcuffed behind- Then I was carried face downwards by the arms and legs to the doctor's room, Mter a violent struggle, I was forced into a chair, the handcuffs removed, and my arms held by women whilst the doctor forcibly fed me by that obnoxious instrument - the stomach tube, Much unnecessary force was used by the junior assistant medical officer in applying the gag. The operation finished I walked from the room handcuffed to the top of the stairs, but refused to return to the punishment cell. Two wardesses caught me by the shoulders and dragged me down the steps, another kicking me from behind. As I reached the bottom step the wardesses relaxed their hold, and I fell on my head. I was picked up and carried to the cell- Utterly worn out, I threw myself on the cell floor, Subsequently I was put into bed, 6S
The maltreatment of Leslie Hall and Selina Martin inspired a
63 Votes for Women, February 11, 1910. P. 309.
Ibid, January 28, 1910. P. 283.
65 Ibid, February 11, 1910. P. 309.
186
poster created by a Liverpool supporter for the national
election campaign which was used by the WSPU, It portrayed a
woman lying hand-cuf fed on the stone floor of Walton Gaol, and
the wardess walking away, with the caption, "This is the Way
that Political Prisoners are Treated by a Liberal
Government" .66 Miss Flatman and the WSPU members in Liverpool
organised a protest in support of the prisoners on January 14,
where more arrests took place outside the prison,
It was noted above that the militant campaign escalated
sharply from October of 1912 onwards and by December the WSPU
had instigated a nation-wide war on the government, with
tactics ranging from attacks on pillar-boxes to false fire
alarms being sent in to local of fire stations all over
England.67 At the beginning of 1913, these strategies
advanced to open guerilla warfare. One of the first acts of
sabotage on Merseyside was committed by Margaret Kerr, a young
student at the University of Liverpool, in November, 1912.
Originally from Birkenhead, she held a scholarship of E30.00
from the town. Miss Kerr set fire to the contents of a
pillar-box and was sentenced to three months imprisonment.
Reflecting the grave persecution suffered by the militant
Suffragettes, the account of her arrest recorded that she
received the same sentence as a man who had recently killed
his lover by shooting her three timesW6' Militancy in
66 Ibid, January 10, 1910. P, 265-
6 7 ~ h e Suffragette, December 20, 1912. P. 148.
68 Ibid, November 29, 1912. P. 95,
187
Liverpool intensified by the end of July, 1913, when the local
organiser, Miss Helen Jollie, refused to make an agreement
with the police to refrain from protest during a Royal visit
to Liverpool- As the WSPU headquarters was located on the
parade route of the King, the police boarded up the windows of
the office- Denouncing what she called an illegal action,
Miss Jollie smashed the two windows nearest the WSPU office
with a poker. When she refused to pay f4 19s. in recompense,
she was sentenced to 14 days in prison.69
During the fall of 1913, Liverpool residents began to
experience the firestorm of Suffragette militancy that was
being felt by the rest of England, On August 29, an attempt
to set fire to the Greenbank Lane public school was
interrupted by the caretaker, and he discovered afterwards
that a staircase had been doused with paraffin oiL7' There
was a failed attempt to fire the Allerton Priory, an
unoccupied residence located between Garston and Woolton- The
WSPU protesters, who often left a 'calling-cardr at this kind
of event, left a prisonerr s temporary discharge paper for ill-
health, with a note saying "Repeal the Cat-and-Mouse
More sabotage of pillar-boxes followed and at the end of the
month the Suffragettes did considerable damage to one of the
greens of the Bowling Club Golf Links near Liverp~ol.'~
69 Ibid, July 25, 1913. P. 705.
70 Ibid, September 5, 1913 . P . 8 17,
Ibid, September 26, 1913. P. 868.
72 Ibid, October 31, 1913. Pp. 50, 58.
188
By the end of the year, Liverpool WSPU resistance reached
staggering proportions, A bomb, about 12 inches by 6 inches
was found at the Palm House, Sefton Park with a partially
burnt fuse and the f12,000 building was seriously endangered.
At the same time the Priory at Sandown Park, an unoccupied,
old-fashioned house in Liverpool was set ablaze.73 Further,
the Liverpool Exhibition building on Edge Lane which had been
closed down for several months was totally destroyed by fire,
and serious damage was done to St. Anne's, Aigburth, one of
Liverpool's most important churches.74 WSPU terrorism on the
Merseyside during 1913 often seemed to be thwarted or
interrupted. but the arson campaign in Liverpool was carried
out without an arrest, an indication of the skill of members
in the practice of sabotage-75
A study of the accounts of the ruin of private property
that took place and were attributed to the work of the
militant Suffragettes reveals the use of ordinary materials
found in the household. These materials, often found at the
sites of sabotage, would be a part of the everyday life of
women in the period and therefore easily accessible as tools
of destruction. Burlap sacks saturated in paraffin oil,
firewood, newspapers, straw, shavings, fire-lighters, matches,
match boxes, candles, bottles containing turpentine, and
cotton and wool pads saturated with alcohol were common items
73 Ibid. November 21, 1913. Pp. 128-9.
74 Ibid, December 12, 1913, pp. 206-7; and December 19, 1913, p. 222.
75 Cowman, 1995, op. tit., p. 190.
recovered from the scenes of attack- Explosions were often
executed by lighting gallon containers of paraffin, although
in a few cases canisters containing gun-powder were recovered,
The hatchet and the butcher's cleaver became common
instruments of protest, as in the incident regarding the
Rokeby Venus by Valasquez that was hacked seven times with a
small axe by Mary Richardson in the National Gallery in March,
1914.'~ Most of the material means of militant protest in the
WSPU arson campaign came from the domestic sphere and involved
the use of simple substances or items which could be bought in
any dry goods store, evidence that the women who torched
houses and blew up empty buildings did not rely on the
expertise of experienced terrorists, but on their own cunning
and the familiar elements of their own environment,
Antithetical to these breathtaking exploits of the
Liverpool Suffragettes were the ordinary, routine activities
of members who assisted in the management of local WSPU
headquarters. These donations of time and labour on the part
of Liverpool members were more characteristic of ordinary
church work than what would be expected in a radical political
organisation- Both artistic, organisational and domestic
talents of the members were regularly called into use for the
benefit of the suffrage cause, Often, these common tasks were
performed by working-class women who were a more visible
presence in the Liverpool membership than in London,
Evidence provided by the above mentioned example of
'' Ibid, March 13, 1914 - P. 491.
190
Selina Martin and Leslie Hall, both working-class women, was
evidence that the 'WSPU on Merseyside was a cross-class
organisation8 ,17 Early recruiting on the part of the
Liverpool Udon included efforts to attract impoverished
women, as this report of an early protest meeting in December,
1909 attests :
Another successful meeting was held at Nelson Hall, Mill Street, one of the poorest parts of Liverpool, The admission charged was one penny, and the hall was filled with poor women, many with babies in their arms, and working men, All listened eagerly and asked for another meeting?
Both working-class and middle-class women had constraints
which made their participation in public activism difficult.
Liddington and Norris document how the housework that was a
part of the daily life of Lancashire working-class women was
overwhelming, so that participation in suffrage politics meant
a remarkable struggle on their part? The restrictions to
activism in the public sphere for middle-class women was
different, however, centring more on what was perceived as
socially acceptable behaviour, W e n though there was likely
more time fox middle-class women to take up the pursuits
involved in work for the WSPU, 'any public activity could be
viewed as militant' . *O
77 Ibid, p. 178.
'' Votes for Women, December 10, 1909. P. 172,
79 Liddington, Jill and Jill Norris, 1978. One Hand Tied Behind Us: T h e Rise of the WOmenrs Suffrage Movement - London: Virago, P. 30.
Cowman, 1995, op. ci t . , p . 178 -
Routine activities of the Liverpool Suffragettes centred
around the local WSPU clubroom. The office was the centre for
WSPU non-militant industry, and eventually became a tearoom
and a rehearsal space for various pageants. It was also a
shop kept by volunteers where newspapers and WSPU supplies,
such as pamphlets, Christmas cards, and novelties such as
china ornaments and badges of either tin or enamel were
sold.8L Under the auspices of Miss Helen Jollie, the office
developed into a site for private speaking lessons and she
started a Debating Club at the beginning of October, 1912,
which met the first Tuesday of every month.82 She also
started a library in the office which opened in February, 1913
and she held a weekly sewing meeting there which met on
Wednesday evenings from 6-9 p.m. The WSPU clubroom was the
starting place for a weekly poster-parade which left the
office at 12:30 every Saturday afternoon, which advertised
protests , events, meetings and the newspaper, The Suffragette . On special occasions lantern poster-parades were held in the
evening. 83
A large part of WSPU Suffragette activism in the district
offices like Liverpool consisted of fund-raising. The women
who sold newspapers, in particular, earned the bread-and-
butter income of the local office- The weekly reports from
Liverpool and District are full of encouragement to women to
Ibid, p. 180.
82 Ibid, October 4, 1912. P, 855,
83 The Suffragette, February 14, 1913, P. 282.
192
take up various 'pitchesr, and t o chalk the sidewalks in order
t o advertise the various pol i t ica l issues exantined by the
paper, The paid organisers took it upon themselves to invite
members t o sell door-to-door, to sell the paper i n the
streets, i n theatres, at meetings, at the railway s ta t ion , to
increase sales, praising members when the sales of the paper
were good and giving admonishment when sales w e r e poor. H e r e
is one such remark regarding the sa le of Votes for Women:
January 6& 1911. A recruit to paper sel l ing declares she only wishes she had taken the plunge and begun long ago, as she finds it such interesting work, A number of copies were sold on New Y e a r ' s Eve to the crowds of people waiting for the Pantomimes t o openOe4
Paper sales seemed t o increase steadily, and Votes for Women
noted that i n December, 1910 , about 40 copies w e r e sold at the
Birkenhead electiona5, whereas by November 1912, M i s s J o l l i e
was asking that more paper se l l e r s w e r e needed to raise the
weekly number t o 400? She seemed concerned that sa les were
waning, however, by September of 1913, when she appealed for
sales to be increased, and expressed regret tha t one of the
best paper-sellers, M r s - Hall, was moving t o New York, New
paper-sellers w e r e now being welcomed by name, which implied
that sales of the paper were beginning t o slacken.a7
The organisers i n Liverpool took up the smallest
Votes for Wome~l , January 6, 1911. P. 233.
85 Ibid, December 16, 1910, P. 189.
a6 The Suffragette, November 1, 1912. P. 42.
87 Ibid, September 19, 1913, P. 855.
19 3
occasions to make money for the local club room^ Collections
were taken at meetings, entrance fees were charged for
lectures and pageants, and members were required to sell
tickets for many of their organised events. On the occasion
of Mrs. Pankhurstfs visit to Liverpool in February 1912, the
members performed "The Pageant of Great Womenw written by Miss
Cecily Hamilton, at the Philharmonic Hall, and the push was on
for members to sell tickets ." Further, tickets for 'rHow the
Vote was Wonvr, also a play written by Cecily Hamilton, was
performed in Liverpool on M a y 4, 1912, cost Is * and reserved
seats could be had for 2sOa9 When the Debating Society was
started, an entrance fee of 2s. 6d. was charged and private
speaking lessons were given for the cost of ls." M e m b e r s had
to pay a membership fee of 6d. for the off ice fund, which was
due at the beginning of every month, or could be paid
quarterly. The organiserrs reports often contained reminders
for women to pay their m o n t h l y feesO9'
Support for the cause could be a simple as Mrs. Elsie
Drinkwater's contribution of a case of apples to be sold at
the office for funds for the Northern Exhibition in 1910.92
Further, WSPU m e m b e r s in Liverpool were encouraged to give
individual donations for travelling expenses of women who
Votes f o r Women, January 26, 1912. P. 270.
Ibid, April 19, 1912. P. 463.
Ibid, October 4, 1912. P, 855,
The Suffragette, November 12, 1912, P. 42.
92 Votes for Women, October 21, 1910, P, 45.
194
wished to go t o London f o r demonstrations, as in the large
glass-smashing campaign on March 1, 1912,~~ Artistic ability
was also exploited - a ladies choir was organised by Miss Wizzell for the Sun H a l l demonstration in October, 191L9'
Miss Palethorpe offered her talents as an art i s t t o the cause
from time to time, and in January of 1913 she advertised that
lightning sketches could be purchased at the Office for 3s,,
6d- each or 5s. for a coloured portrait,'' Towards the end of
WSPU presence in Liverpoo1 however, money-raising efforts had
reached the stage where they could be interpreted as verging
on stinginess, a further indication that WSPU influence as an
organisation was beginning to decline. Calls for volunteers
to do street-collecting in February, 1913, and the institution
of a charge for use of the off ice telephone in March could
have been evidence of this trend-g6
Much of the fund-raising techniques of the WSPU required
the exploitation of the household skills of women members who
often willingly contributed their talents in this area to
further the cause. T h i s was certainly true in the Liverpool
and District organisation, who depended a considerably on this
type of unpaid support. The informal meetings called At Homes
required a great deal of preparation on the part of the women
93 Ibid, F e b ~ a ~ 16, 1912, p. 314; February 23, 1912, p. 330,
94 Ibid, December 8, 1911, P, 165.
9s The Suffragette, January 10, 1913. Pp. 194-5.
'' Ibid, February 14, 1913, p. 282; March 21, 1913, p. 374.
who organised them, as well as their resources, for it was
expected that tea and refreshments be served at these
gatherings, Miss Hoyrs At Home in December of 1910 was held
up as a model for others to follow:
On December 3 Miss Hoy, H i g h b u r y , Torrington Road, Liscard, gave an evening At Home at which she had on sale all the goods made by herself and friends for the Northern Exhibition- Five pounds worth of goods were sold. She still has nearly f 2 0 worth to hand over for the exhibition. Will others in her district who have not already contributed goods send them in to her at the above address? It would be encouraging if other members would follow her energetic example, 97
Sometimes admission was charged to the At Homes, such as the
occasion when Miss Davies was welcomed as the new organiser,
w h e n the entrance fee was 6d." Social functions called an
'American Tear became popular occasions, especially in the
later stages of WSPU activity in Liverpool. At the American
Tea held by Mrs. Martin in January of 1913, for example, f3
was made. Guests were often encouraged to bring edibles or
flowers to these events-99
The Liverpool Office frequently held meetings in the
Office aimed at fund-raising, which required women's talents
acquired from work in the home. Donations for candy and cake
sales, chrysanthemums sold at the Office by Miss craigLoo,
Mrs. Lyonrs home-made marmalade, Miss C, Greeves doll which
97 Votes for Woman, December 16, 1910. P. 189.
Ibid, March 3, 1911. P. 362,
99 The Suffragette, January 10, 1913. Pp. 194-5.
loo Ibid, October 10, 1913, P. 9 1 5 .
19 6
was raffled off are all small ilhstrations of domestic skills
that were put to use for the cause,'OX Liverpool and
Cheshire District organised a stall for the London Christmas
Fair and Fgte held in December. 1911 and gifts were requested
from the Liverpool members.lo2 The ordinary as well as the
unusual talents of every women member of the WSPU was drawn
upon to sustain a militant crusade aimed at advancing the
social and political status of women through the right to
vote, If the WSPU had depended solely the few women with
organisational and leadership ~xperience, like the Pankhurst
family, they would not have been as effective was they were.
A Mother and Daughter in the W-'s W a r
This section is an analysis of the political activism of
Lucy Ellison Abraham (Mrs. Alfred Clay Abraham) and Dorothy
Foster Place (nee Abraham), Dorothy Smith's grandmother and
mother, respectively, It chronicles their work of behalf of
WSPU militant policies, which I reason became a productive
force in the later creation of Dorothy Smith's feminist
intellectual work and the Social Organization of Knowledge. I
demonstrate how Dorothy Smith's pride in her mother's militant
past103 was likely realised as the adoption of a set of
beliefs in women's equality which she took up with mature
Ibid, March 21, 1913, P- 374.
lo2 Votes far Women, October 6, 1911, P o 14.
lo' Interview by Wakewich' s off ice at
the author with Dorothy E- Smith in Pam Lakehead University, October 18, 19%.
conviction at the time of the Vancouver Women's Movement, from
1968-1977, I have organisedthis segment in a similar manner
as those above, dealing with both: I) the militant activities
of Dorothy Foster Abraham in London; and 2) the Abrahamsr
everyday work as members of the Birkenhead and Liverpool WSPU,
Lucy Ellison Abrahamlo4 lived, as a young married women,
on Lancaster Avenue in Liverpool, but when Dorothy Foster
Abraham was two years of age they moved to a house in New
Brighton called Stanley Rock Mrs, Abraham began her activism
as a member of the British Women's Temperance Association
(BWTA). At New Brighton, a replica of the Eiffel Tower had
been built, and the BWTA ran a coffee Kiosk on the grounds for
men, Lucy Ellison Abraham was of the belief that her
daughters should have the same chance at an education as her
sons so t h a t when the children were very young, they had a
succession of governesses to give them primary instruction,
and all the children were given a boarding school education.
Her sons went to Giggleswick and t h e daughters to Skipton.
Before joining the WSPU, Mrs. Abraham had supported
constitutional means to achieve women's suffrage, but after
attending a meeting in Liverpool where she says that Sylvia
Pankhurst was severely thrown about, she at once converted to
militancy,
The first record of Lucy Ellison Abrahamf s active
membership in the WSPU appears in Votes for Women, October 7,
The biographical details recorded here are from The Autobiographical N o t e s of D o r o t h y Foster Abraham, 18864976, Unpublished.
1910- There was the mention of a visit by Mts, Pankhurst to
New Brighton, and Mrs. Abraham and Miss Flatman held a meeting
at Grange Road, irke en head?^ The following week, Mrs.
Abraham chaired a meeting at the Birkenhead Y-M,C.A, Hall,
where Miss Flatman and M r s . Pankhurst spoke, In this report
she is commended for her work:
Mrs. Abraham, with her usual thoroughness is making good headway with the advertisements for the programme and making the exhibition [likely the Northern Exhibition] well known among the business houses in ~iverpool.'~~
Lucy Ellison Abraham's active participation in the Birkenhead
and Liverpool WSPU is limited to local organising, office
work, and other non-militant undertakings, but she did not
hesitate to support militant activism as a benefactress and
the support of the younger, unmarried women who usually went
to prison- She often offered her home as a site for drawing
room meetings and At Homes. At the end of October, 1910, she
held a drawing room meeting with 40 women attending, where
Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst was the guest speaker. Women promised
to hold other WSPU meetings in their homes ,Io7
At the beginning of February, 1911, Mrs. Abraham agreed
to become the Secretary for the Birkenhead Branch of the WSPU,
which had its office in her home at 2, Kingsmead R o a d , South,
Birkenhead. She immediately began to write reports for the
Birkenhead Chapter of the WSPU in Votes for Women which were
lo5 Votes for Women, October 7, 1910. P. 12,
Ibid, October 14, 1910. P. 49.
"' Ibid, October 28, 1910. Pp. 60-61.
199
separate from the Liverpool and Cheshire ~ranch-'O' At one
of the first meetings at Kingsmead Road, at the end of March,
1911, Mrs. Mahood spoke on "The Moral Effect of the Struggle
for the Votetr During the summer months, however, Mrs.
Abraham often reports on the open-air meetings in Birkenhead,
which were very well-received,
~n important early protest for women working for suffrage
in Liverpool and the rest of England was the avoidance of the
Census, As women were not \personsr under the law, it was
felt that if women universally avoided the Census, they would
make their presence known, During the first week of April,
1911, the home of Dr- Alice K e r at 6, James Street was engaged
for the purpose of the Census Protest, Called "Lady DodgersM
by the Birkenhead News, fifty-seven women gathered on Sunday
evening of April 2, 1911 and stayed for 24 hours while the
Census was being taken, writing across the Census form that
there were no 'personsr living in the house, just some women.
Dr. Ker's diary records that Dorothy Foster Abraham had a meal
with her friends about 3:00 p.m. on Monday, April 3, and left
for home about 5 : 30. 'lo ~ r s , Abraham, in her position as
Honorary Secretary, encouraged the Census Protest in her
reports. She spoke at the Liverpool Meeting at 11, Renshaw
Street the following week, where WSPU members relished the
lo8 Ibid, February 3, 1911, PI 297,
log Ibid, March 24, 1911- P, 412,
Von Helmond, Marfj- 1992- Votes for Women: Events on the Merseyside, Liverpool: National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, P. 44-45.
telling of their droll experiences on Census night."'
Lucy Ellison Abraham was also quick to give sharp
encouragement to the paper-sellers and the women who did the
chalking for the advertisement of meetings. Her reputation as
a 'plain-speaker' most likely came partly from reports that
she wrote like this one:
The 'rVotes't Secretary draws the attention of members to the fact that owing to their slackness the sale of the paper has not increased, Paper sellers are badly needed for the s i x pitches, and members are either take a pitch or get new subscribers privately - I*
Mrs. Abraham sold the papers herself. standing in the gutter
in Church Street, Birkenhead, to do the work, as the law
required that no one was allowed to stand on the sidewalks or
the city pavements to sell anything. Dorothy Foster Abraham
sold Votes for Women as well, usually working at the Pier Head
in Liverpool on Saturday mornings, 113
As well as taking part in the ordinary work for the WSPU
Office in Birkenhead, Mrs. Abraham was an astute and energetic
political organiser. Women at the time were allowed to vote
in municipal elections, so she encouraged WSPU members to
canvass municipal voters to see that they voted for municipal
candidates who were friendly to the cause of women's suffrage.
She organised a meeting on this issue Friday, October 27, 1911
at the hall of the Oxton Conservative Club. inviting Miss Vida
'I2 Ibid. July 7, 1911. P. 666-
'I3 The Autobiographical Notes of Dorothy F o s t e r Abraham, 1886-1976. Unpublished, P. 14.
Goldstein, Professor Benjamin Moore, and Miss Alice Davies to
speak. H e r reports for October stress the importance of this
meeting and the urgent need for members to take part in the
municipal The content and purpose of her
meetings were almost always political and related directly to
the 'causer - she held a Protest Meeting in ea r ly November,
1911 with regard to Mrs. Hall's tax resistance in
Waterloo,
The Birkenhead Branch maintained close relations with the
Liverpool Office of the WSPU, as it was located directly
across the channel from Liverpool and could be reached by
ferry. Mrs. Abraham participated enthusiastically in the
ceremonies of both branches of the organisation, When Miss
Woodlock returned from a three week prison term in Holloway in
December, 1911. she attended the meeting of welcome in
Liverpool and presented her with a gold bracelet and the
prison brooch. "6 This was a badge of honour given by the
WSPU to women who had gone to prison for the cause. Designed
by SyLiva Pankhurst, it had silver bars and chains and a broad
arrow (Holloway prison clothes were covered in large arrows
pointing downwards) in the WSPU colours, purple, white and
green . In addition, when Cecily Hamiltonr s play, "The
Pageant of Great Women" was organised for performance in the
'I4 Votes for Women, October 13, 1911, p. 29; October 20, 1911, p- 46; October 27, 1911, p. 62.
Ibid, November 3, 1911. P. 78.
L16 Ibid, December 29, 1911. P. 215.
11' Pankhurst, 1959, op. cit., p. 124.
Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool, Mrs. Abraham encouraged the
Birkenhead members to participate. 'Is
At the beginning of March, 1912, Lucy Ellison and Dorothy
Foster Abraham entered into the militant activities of the
WSPU in earnest, The WSPU leaders in London had organised a
huge protest which was publicly announced to be taking place
on March 4, 1912, but was, in actuality, planned in secret to
occur on March 1, On this day, Mrs. Pankhurst and several
other members drove in a taxi to No. 10 Downing Street and
hurled four stones through the windows of the Prime Ministerrs
house- Of course, they were immediately arrested. This is
Mrs , PankhurstJs account of the March 1, 1912 protest:
At intervals of fifteen minutes relays of women who had volunteered for the demonstration did their work, The first smashing of glass occurred in the Haymarket and Picadilly, and greatly startled both pedestrians and the police, A large number of women w e r e arrested, and everybody thought that this had ended the affair, But before the excited populace and the frustrated shop ownersr first exclamation had died down, before the police had reached the station with their prisoners, the ominous crashing and splintering of plate glass began again, this time along both sides of Regent Street and the Strand. A furious rush of police and people t o w a r d the second scene of action ensued. While their attention was being taken up with occurrences in this quarter, the third relay of women began breaking windows in Oxford Circus and Bond Street.L1s
The Liverpool WSPU widely advertised that the protest was to
take place on March 4, and as several Liverpool and area
'I8 Ibid, January 12, 1912. P. 241.
lL9 Pankhurst, Emmeline, 119141 . 1985. My Own Story. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, P. 216-217.
members were travelling to London to participate in the
'counterfeitf protest, Lucy Abraham remained behind to manage
the WSPU Office in Liverpool. When the Liverpool Organiser.
Miss Davies. was arrested in the glass-smashing protest in
London, Mrs. Abraham continued to work in the Liverpool Office
until she returned from prison, 120
Well over two hundred Suffragettes were arrested during
the course of this demonstration, among them Dorothy Foster
Abraham and several of her fellow members from the Liverpool
and Birkenhead Branches of the WSPU,"' Miss Abraham had
been a participant in the third wave of glass-breaking
mentioned above in Mrs. Pankhurstrs sketch. The following
excerpt from her autobiographical notes is her description of
the Thespian events leading up to and during that day:
Due to my studying in the university, I had not been able to do any militant action, but then it was hoped that if we had a very large 'smashingf campaign in London, that we would so fill the prisons that the government wouldn't be able to cope with things for this reason. I joined a party of 13 who went up to London from Liverpool for this purpose. We arrived in London on a Sunday evening and had to travel more or less separately to some house and my friend Mrs. Frimston and myself went there together. There we got our instructions, We were told that we from Liverpool had to do what we could between Harrods and Hanrey Nichols. We had to take our position very early in the morning and just about opening time we had to watch when the crowd appeared to run towards Harrods. Our head from Liverpool, Miss Davies, was to start, and the moment we saw the crowd running, we were to join in, We were also warned that plate glass was very hard to
120 Ibid, March 1, 1912, P. 346.
IZf Ibid, March 8, 1912. P. 363.
204
smash and therefore we must provide ourselves with suitable instruments, My friend M r s , Frimston [hadl been staying with me- and my sister Agnes down in Purley, She borrowed my sister's coal hammer but I had nothdng suitable so we stopped in a shop in Purley and there I bought a Boy Scout's hatchet, We were reasonably nicely dressed and we carried our instruments in our bags and took up our position halfway between Karrods and Harvey Nichols, The moment we saw the crowds rushing at Harrods my friend struck at a window and I then struck at an adjoining window and thinking that it seemed silly just standing there I struck yet again, A third friend from Liverpool who had had some accident and [whosel arm [was] in a sling, but really wanted to be in on the job had thrown a stone at the same time but had achieved nothing. IAl man cleaning windows at an ABC next door quickly got down and seized my hatchet and actually threatened me with it, [We] were all three arrested and taken together t o a nearby Police Station, [There] we were put on a charge of conspiracy, but as my friend Mrs. Frimston struck f i r s t nobody really saw her and so she was discharged and Miss Palethorpe and myself were left in this conspiracy charge and the amount being over f 5.0 0, we then had to go to the quarter session and this meant our spending a very sad and miserable day in our cells in this police ~tati0a.l~~
A comprehensive roll of those arrested in the course of the
demonstration was published in Votes for Women and Dorothy
Foster Abraham heads up an alphabetical list of some 229 women
put in prison for their participation in this protest. The
names of women arrested were recorded with the caveat that
'this list is as full as possible, but owimg t o the number of
arrests and the difficulty of obtaining accurate information
we cannot guarantee its correctness ' . u3 Dorothy Abraham is
I** The Autobiographical N o t e s of Dorothy Foster Abraham, 1886-1976. Unpublished, P p . 14-15,
Votes for Women, March 8, 1912, P. 363.
categorized as having been remanded before being committed for
trial, which is an accurate account.
On the late afternoon of Monday, March 4, 1912, the
prisoners from the Liverpool and District were brought before
Mr. Francis at Westminster charged with breaking windows in
Knightsbridge and Brompton Road. Miss Mary Cox Palethorpe,
Ethel Martin, and Dorothy Foster Abraham were accused of
breaking windows at premises of the Aerated Bread Company and
Charles Stuart. on Brompton Road. The account of the court
proceedings in Votes for Women related that a m a n (most likely
the window cleaner mentioned in her autobiographical account)
grabbed Dorothy Abraham, wrenched the Boy Scout's hatchet from
her hand and gave it to a policeman. She threatened to charge
him with assault if he did not release her [laughter was heard
in the court], and he accused her of threatening him with the
instrument, a fact which Miss Abraham denied, Mrs. Martin was
discharged and Miss Palethorpe and Dorothy Abraham were
remanded for eight days, 12' At Westminster Court on March
12, Miss Mary Palethorpe, Miss Abraham, Dr. Alice Ker and Miss
Alice Davies (the Liverpool WSPU Organher) were all committed
for trial, 125
At this point, a Black Maria arrived at the prison where
they were staying and took the group to Holloway to await
trial. Dorothy Abraham's stay in Holloway seems to have been
more comfortable than some of the prison experiences of
124 Ibid, March 8, 1912. P, 362.
Ibid, March 15, 1912. P. 382,
206
Suffragettes, and she seems to have made the most of her
so j ourn there, Votes for Women made the announcement that
a motor car from the WSPU would be sent to Holloway every
morning at 10 :30 sharp and anyone wishing to send parcels or
hampers to the prisoners could make arrangements through
Clement ' s Inn. lZ7 Dorothy Abraham mentions the kindness
extended to the prisoners by Mr. Pethick-Lawrence:
M r , Pethick-Lawrence kindly came and gave us advice and helped in other ways - 1 think he brought us sandwiches. By that time and possibly due to the numbers we were not put into prison clothes, but simply taka more or less straightaway to our cells. I didn't suffer much from this, The only thing that I can remember very decidedly was that the pillow was very hard and that I suffered from, but otherwise I was reasonably comfortable- 1 had been warned to say that I was a vegetarian, but the food 1 got did not upset me at all- As things settled down and we went out for exercises in the prison yard we were able to talk to other friends, Mrs. Pankhurst was there and Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence and many others of course- My sister Agnes came to see me and 1 greatly appreciated her coming. They brought me things to sew, I actually made myself a dress while 1 was in prison, After a time the authorities wanted us to attend chapel and it was frightfully amusing the first time this happened because some of the more enterprising Suffragettes dressed themselves up in Eastern garb with Yashmaks [the veil worn by Muslim women] and the prison authorities decided this was disturbing to the other prisoners and that we should have a separate chapel for the Suffragettes. I myself did not attend, and the wardesses were very kind to me and let me wander about outside my cell during chapel time. One of them actually called me Miss
12' The Autobiographical Notes of Dorothy Foster Abraham, 1886-1976. Unpublished. Pp. 15-16,
12' Votes for Women, March 8, 1912. PI 363,
Dolly, so I felt quite at home,f2B
After three more weeks in Holloway Prison, Miss Palethorpe and
Miss Abraham's cases were heard at the Newington Sessions on
March 27, 1912. They were both charged with damage to the
extent of E65-00- M r s . Abraham, in the meantime, had engaged
a lawyer for Dorothy and had travelled to London to visit her
in prison, As there was no evidence forthcoming to convict
Miss Abraham, she was acquitted, and she was then called as a
witness for Miss Palethorpe- Mary Palethorpe was the
Liverpool member who participated in the glass smashing
protest in spite of a broken arm, and had rather ineffectively
flung a stone at a plate glass window, She was accused in the
court room of being in possession of a hammer, but when called
as a witness Miss Palethorpe recounted:
that she never had a hammer, Her hand had been injured and she had never touched the window in question nor had she broken any window, The Chairman pointed out to the jury that whatever the fault of the defendants might be, they had not been in the habit of saying what was untrue, and that possibly there might be a mistake on the part of witnesses. Mrs. [sic] Palethorpe was then discharged. 129
When acting as a witness for Miss Palethorpe, Dorothy Abraham
had already been acquitted and had related the truth on the
witness stand about her window-breaking episode with the Boy
Scoutsr hatchet- She knew that the hammer in question had
come out of her sister's coal cellar and had in reality been
las The Autobiographical Notes of Dorothy Foster Abraham, 1886-1976- Unpublished. Pp, 15-16.
129 Votes for Women, A p r i l 5, 1912. P, 432,
used by Mrs. Frimston. The fact that she was actually
acquitted left her dumb-founded, because there had been an
eye-witness to the event, the window cleaner who was working
at the time, Dorothy Abraham speculated that it was because
of her last name, which the window-cleaner had mistakenly
taken as being of Jewish origin- She postulated that the
window-cleaner was most likely Jewish himself, and refused to
be a witness against a 'fellow religioni~t~.~~ Returning to
Liverpool, the prisoners were welcomed with a special meeting
at 11, Renshaw Street on April 16, 1912.UL
Mrs. Lucy Abraham had taken the temporary position of
Honourable Secretary for the Liverpool Office in the absence
of Miss Davies. She occupied herself with the organisation of
various events, like the American Tea held on June 8, where
Dr. K e r and Dorothy Foster Abraham were to be speakers. 132
Mrs. Abraham arranged an open-air Suffrage Demonstration and
Protest Meeting to be held on the Plateau in front of St,
George's Hall, Liverpool the following week, Even at this
later stage of WSPU work, Mrs. Abraham seems to have made an
effort to maintain the connection to the Independent Labour
Party, as this particular meeting was supported by the ILP. A
resolution for a Government measure on women's suffrage on the
same terms as men, and that Suffragettes be treated as
13' The Autobiographical Notes of Dorothy F o s t e r Abraham, 1886-1976. Unpublished, P. 16,
13' Votes for Women, April 12, 1912. P. 447.
13' Ibid, June 7 , 1912. P. 591.
political prisoners, was passed, with six opposed.u3 An
indefatigable worker, she organised a garden party to welcome
Miss Davies and her fellow prisoners in Holloway (including
her daughter Dorothy) to be held at Rice House, Newball Lane,
Clubmoor, on June 22 . After Dorothy Abrahamr s return from prison, mention of
the Abraham in The Suffragette subsided until July, 1913.
Mrs. Abraham is no longer listed as the WSPU organiser, as The
Suffragette was not as rigorous as it had once been in its
recording of local events- Dorothy Abraham is noted to have
contributed the generous donation of f1.00 to the Liverpool
Office in ~ecember.'~~ Mrs, Abraham gave Is. to the €250,000
Fund in London as late as May, 1914, which is the final
recorded evidence of her involvement in the Birkenhead Branch
of the WSPU.136
Dorothy Foster Abraham's episode in prison had a lasting
effect on her life, and had a serious impact on her scholarly
experience :
While I was in Holloway I should have been taking my Institute of Chemistry Exam, but my father had to write and say that I would be unable to take it and would hope to take it later - which I did, but regret to say I failed. I don't like to suggest that-they failed me on account of my militancy, but I must honestly say I thinkthis was the case. The exam was a purely practical one - you had to analyze certain substances given me for
- -
U3 Ibid, June 21, 1912, P. 627.
r34 Ibid, June 14, 1912. P- 607.
13' Ibid, December 12, 1913. P. 213.
136 Ibid, May 8, 1914. P. 9 2 ,
2 10
the exam and I compared notes afterwards with my friends who were taking the exams at the same time and we all had the same result, 1 also had a viva voce exam on the question of doses of drugs which I also know that 1 answered correctly- The Institute of Chemistry was a comparatively small body and one of my Professors at Kingsr was on the examining body and 1 found out later he was violently opposed to [women's] suffrage. 1 happened a few years later to meet him in the Strand and spoke to him and he immediately said very angrily, "but you were a militant Suffragettem, so I thought my suspicions were probably well-founded?'
Fortunately, Analytical Chemistry was not the career that she
wanted to pursue, and she went on to study in horticultural
college and manage her own farm, an occupation which she
genuinely loved. After the rebelliousness of her Suffragette
experience, Dorothy Foster Abraham continued her independent
inclination when she came across a brochure for Studley
Agricultural at a friend's house and without
discussing it with her parents, applied and was accepted. She
even went so far as to pay her tuition fees without telling
them, as she knew they would be very upset about this
decision.
When Dorothy finally told her parents, they offered to
pay her fees so that she wouldn't have to go, but she insisted
that she was going to try it for at least one term. She found
' 37 The Autobiographical N o t e s of D o r o t h y Foster Abraham, 1886-1976. Unpublished. P- 17,
13' Studley Agricultural College is the name referred to in Dorothy Foster Abraham's autobiographical notes. It was and still is an horticultural college- Agriculture at the time was considered an exclusively male preserve, so no agricultural college would accept her. An horticultural college was the next best thing (&Mail communication with Ullin T. Place, September 18, 1998).
she loved farming work. Her first position was obtained in
West Witton in Wensleydale with her brother Fenwick, who had a
farm under Lord Bolton called Low Wanless, Here she worked
very hard, seeing to milking and feeding the cows and the
birth of calves. Among the skills which Dorothy Abraham came
to master was the art of making Wensleydale cheese, which
after six months of aging fre~ently becomes blue and was/is
considered one of Yorkshirefs most prized dairy products.
When Fenwick married, she took over the supervision of a
farm owned by Mrs. Ashton-Cross, which until then had been
poorly nzn by an incompetent cowman and coachman, who were
both ' furious at the job being taken over by a worttan' . *' These men failed in their efforts to obstruct the progress of
her work:
[Nlone of the cows had been served, but when they came in season, I had to lead them along a roadto the Guiness' herd where they had a pedigree bull. It was two miles and you can just imagine m y leading a cow this distance- I was quite certain that while the cows had been constantly been going to be served under the cowman who had left, [and] 1 imagine the reason they weren't being calved was that he and the man in charge of the Guiness herd shared the fee, so I was determined to see that this cow was served- Well you can imagine in those days it wasn't considered very proper for a girl to be in on such things, but I was determined so I stood and watched it, to their great horror - never mind - it had to be done and I did it."'
The labour that Dorothy Abraham did on various farms where she
13' The Autobiographical Notes of Dorothy Foster Abraham. 1888 - 1976. Unpublished, P. 21.
Ibid, p. 24.
served her apprenticeship often meant performing tasks that
were considered the domain of men, such as the mucking out of
barns and loading hay- Eventually, she persuaded her father
to buy her a small farm in Wensleydale called Woodhall,
Starting with nothing, she first renovated the farmhouse with
old furniture which she restored, and ultimately bought cows
for the farm and a pig with a litter. She especially enjoyed
looking after the pigs.
Lucy and Dorothy Abraham seem to have avoided the Union
after the bizarre patriotic turn taken by the Pankhurst
leadership in London, and doubtlessly their participation in
WSPU affairs waned at the onset of the Great War. When a
restricted access to the franchise was granted to women in
1918, Lucy Ellison Abraham devoted her time to organizing the
newly organized Birkenhead and District Women's Citizen's
Association, which replaced the Birkenhead Women's Local
Government Association. She held this office until 1927, when
'she felt it was time the work was in other handsf .141
Conclusion
This chapter was an analysis of how the hope of women's
equality was materially reproduced as an intergenerational
social value through the women in Dorothy Smith's family,
assisted by the productive force of their varying experiences
of domestic labour. Chapter Five has related further evidence
141 IrA Woman Pioneer. l1 Birkenhead News, Saturday, October 8, 1927, p, 7.
of the work of Dorothy Smith's feminist foremothers which 1
argue provided some of the logic for Dorothy E. Smith's
eventual adoption of feminist beliefs in the Vancouver Women's
Movement from 1968 - 1977, Lucy Ellison Abraham and Dorothy
Foster Abraham abandoned the pacifist example of Quaker women
of Margaret Fell's time and took up a militant activism- Lucy
adopted this political stance after witnessing the abuse of
Sylvia Pankhurst, and Dorothy Foster Abraham voluntarily
followed her mother's leadership. The militant Suffragette
activism of Lucy Ellison and Dorothy Foster Abraham, and their
participation in WSPU endeavours in Birkenhead, Liverpool and
London assisted in the development of the organizational
practices which expedited the reproduction of feminism for a
future generation of women- Their work for women's suffrage
provided another example in Dorothy Smith's past to support
her choice of an identity as a feminist sociologist, work from
a previous generation of women which contributed to the
historical development of the Social Organization of
mowledge.
CHAPTER SIX
DOROTHY SMITH'S FORMATIVE YEARS, 1926 - 1955
Introduction
This chapter will document logical possibilities for the
origins of Dorothy E- Smith's social consciousness; the
influences, material conditions and productive forces that made
up the substance of the unformed Social Organization of
Knowledge, These elements are to be found in three separate
intervals of her formative years in England: 1) her childhood
and education to age sixteen; 2) her residence at Woodbrooke, the
Quaker college in Selly Oak, from 1944 - 1946; and 3) her
introduction to sociology at the London School of Economics from
1952 - 1955- Dorothy Smith's conception of the 'botanizingr
ingredient of the SOK method described in Chapter Three, can be
found in the kind of primary and boarding school education she
received as a young student in England. Her encounter with
'social studiesr (social work, as it is known in North America)
at Woodbrooke College, although it was a profession that she
never considered a commitment to, gave her experience with social
life which she had not previously encountered. Her developmental
years in England culminated in three years of study at the London
School of Economics, where she was introduced to sociology,
social anthropology and a uniquely Popperian interpretation of
Karl Marxrs work. Through an examination of these three stages
of her progress it is possible to trace the historical
development of the thinking that went into the creation of the
Social Organization of mowledge at its most rudimentary level.
Further, by pursuing an analysis of the material
conditions of English women's lives after they achieved the vote,
forces which circumscribed the evolution of Dorothy Smith's
elementary education, her residence at Woodbrooke and at LSE, it
is possible to track the gradual erosion of feminist principles
in British social life, so that they became undeniably quiescent
by the time she began to attend the London School of Economics.
Feminist activism did not cease completely in England after the
attainment of the vote, but changed to encompass more specific
issues meant to ameliorate the status of British women. At the
onset of the Second World W a r , women's labour, both domestic and
in the public sector is transformed again. This chapter will be
accompanied by an historical sociology of the political work of
British women and its relation to domestic labour as it matured
during these three chapters of Dorothy Smith's life.
The chapter is organized as follows: 1) an introduction
to Dorothy Smith's family life and the geographical environment
of her childhood; 2 ) her experience at Harrogate College and her
transfer to the Birklands School where she remained from 1937 -
1943; 3) the years 1944 - 1946, at Woodbrooke College; and 4) her
university life at LSE. As a final section, I include an
analysis of the temporally relevant material conditions of
women's lives and the developing state of feminist consciousness
in England.
Tha Place Family L i f e in the North R i d i n g of Yorkshircr
"Northallerton, in Yorkshire, doth excel All England, nay all Europe for strong ale-'
T h e Yorkshire Ridings were usually characterized in terms
of an ideology of regional stereotypes which separated it from
the South of England, notions which were set in place in the
nineteenth century by novels like Elizabeth Cleghom Gaskellrs
classic North and South (1855) . This book was a narrative
concerning the heroine's chauvinist attitudes to the South.
The N o r t h of England was presented as an industrial wasteland,
where smoke, machinery and pollution were the norm:
I only know it is impossible to keep the muslin blinds clean here above a week altogether; and at Helstone we have them up for a month or more and they have not looked dirty at the end of that timeO2
In contrast, a credo of regional pride is contained in much of
Yorkshirers literary tradition and depicts its people as
'hearty, shrewd, vigorous, manly, practical, matter-of-fact,
unimaginative, progressive, and perhaps above all,
inde~endent'.~ Moreover, Yorkshire people are reputed to have
a highly refined wit. As one story goes, when a little
A quotation from "Poem in Praise of Yorkshire Alef1 written by Giles Morrington, a local Northallerton poet in 1697 found in His tory, Topography and Directory of North Yorkshire (1890) . Preston: T. Bulmer. P. 525.
Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn. 1855. North and South. London: Chapman and Hall. P. 123,
Dellheim, C. 1986. It Imagining England: Victorian Views of the Northm. Northern History, 22, 216-230. P. 220.
Yorkshire girl was asked: T f 1 knitted twelve stitches in a
minute, how many stitches would I have on my needle at the end
of five m i n ~ t c s ? ~ ~ , she replied "Ya wadnrt a'e neean, coz ya
desanrt knit stitches; yarre nut gahin ti catch me i' that
waay . Dorothy Edith Smith (nee Place) was born in substantial
two storey detached house named Ullingswick in Grammar School
Lane, Northallerton, on July 6, 1926, Northallerton is
located in a rich agricultural district on the East Coast main
line of what was then the London and North Eastern ~ailwaf,
and at the formation of county councils in 1888, it became the
administrative centre of the North Riding of ~orkshire-6 The
Place children, during the war years, stayed at a farmhouse
owned by the Rawsr family. They rented half of the farmhouse,
and the four children stayed there on their own. The Rawsr
farm was in Wensleydale, which is surrounded by the mountains
called the P e n n i n e Chain, divided into Eastern and Western
ranges whose geological formations morphologically and
geologically remarkably uniform in their length. They are
affectionately nick-named 'the Backbone of Englandr, and are a
group of hills and dales that are considered 'the wildest and
Fairfax-Bhkeborough, J. [I8981 1973. W i t , Character, Folklore and Customs of the North Riding of Y o r k s h i r e . East Yardsley, Wakefield, Yorkshire: EP Publishing. P* 16.
History, Topography and Directory of N o r t h Yorkshire (1890). P, 525,
6 Hey, David, 1986. Yorkshire from AD 1000. London: Longman. P. 245.
most romantic scenery' in the whole country:
These Western hills are composed chiefly of hard millstone grit and Yortedale rocks, though which breaks, in Wensleydale and other places, the carboniferous limestone, forming bold and picturesque scars, This latter supports a sweet herbage, short it may be i n the higher parts of the hills, but affording a marked contrast to the brown heath of the gritstone moors,-, The scenery in these western moors is often wild and weird, but the deep narrow valleys of the Tees, Swale and Ure, with their numerous rills and waterfalls, present scenes full of picturesque and varied beauty scarcely surpassed by any i n the North of
This mountain chain was an important setting in Dorothy
Smith's youth, in that she spent many happy hours with her
brothers exploring old mines and limestone caves in the hills
around Wensleydale, and their beauty and mystery was subject
matter in many of the books which comprised her childhood
reading material.
The Pennines close to Wensleydale form the backdrop to
Charles Kingsleyf s The W a t e r - B a b i e s (1863 ) , a childrenr s book
that was in the Place library, a Victorian fairy tale about a
chimney sweep named Tom who was exploited by his cruel master
Grimes, stolen by fa i r ies and transformed into a Water-Baby.
During his escape to the woods he passed through a place
w h e r e :
the bottom of the valley was just one field broad, and on the other side ran the stream; and above it, gray crag, gray
' History, Topography and Directory of N o r t h ~orkshire (1890). P. 83,
down, gray stair, gray moor walled up to heaven, A quiet, silent, rich, happy place; a narrow crack cut deep into the earth; so deep, and so out of the way, that the bad bogies can hardly find it out, The name of the place is Vendale; and if you want to see it for yourself, you must go up into the high Craven, and search from Bolland Forest north by Ingleborough, to Nine Standards and Cross Fell,
J. R . Tolkienr s The H o b b i t, or There and Back Again was also a
favourite, and Dorothy introduced copies of it to her brothers
at the farm in Wensleydale when it was first published in
1937, long before it became popularized in the 1970s . The
source of its imaginative description is unmistakable :
But Bard and some of the nimblest men and elves climbed to the height of the Eastern shoulder to gain a view to the North. Soon they could see the lands before the Mountain's feet black with a hurrying multitude, Ere long the vanguard swirled around the spur's end and came rushing into Dale, These were the swiftest wolf- riders, and already their cries and howls rent the air afar. As Gandalf had hoped, the goblin army had gathered behind the resisted vanguard, and poured now in a rage into the valley, driving wildly up between the arms of the Mountain, seeking f o r the foe,1°
The hillsides of this area are scattered
geological formations known as limestone
Kingsley, Charles. El8631 1976, New York: Garland. P. 55-56.
Cafe
Back
with greyish
pavements, which are
The Wa ter-babies .
Interview by the author with Milner Place in Abraham's Bar, Huddersf ield, September 27, 1997,
lo Tolkien, J- R- El9371 1966. The H o b b i t , or There and Again. London: George Allen and Unwin. P. 294,
slippery, dangerous places whose surface of dint blocks are
uneven, and are separated by deep channels known as grykes*
The dint blocks are covered with smaller channels called
runnels which have been formed by the continuous running of
acidic rainwater as it flows towards the grykes. The deep
grykes, or channels between the dint blocks, make walking on
the pavements hazardous-LL Empty mines shafts, caves, and
water falls like 'Catr s Leapf in Wensleydale, made for
adventurous childhood outings for Dorothy and her brothers,
and they were given the freedom to roam these romantic places
at will by their parents,
It was at Woodhall in Wensleydale that Dorothy Foster
Abraham met. Tom Place, her future husband and Dorothy Smith's
father, Dorothy Abraham's father had contacted Tom Place in
regard to some trees that needed cutting at Woodhall and after
that Tom would come f r o m time to time and ask if he could fish
on her land, when he stayed with friends at a hotel called the
Wheatsheaf in nearby Carperby, Tom Place was a remarkable
man. Milner described his father's quietness, strength and a
gentleness that earned him the nickname of 'gentleman Tomr . lZ
Born the January 16, 1872 at Langton-on-Swale near
'I From a student's assignment called a "Limestone Pavement S t u d y r r which I found discarded and dripping wet while walking with Ullin Place in the hills around Wensleydale. There were a group of school children in the hills just outside of Bainbridge who were there studying limestone pavements while on a field trip.
IZ Interview by the author with Milner Place in Abraham' s Cafe Bar, Huddersfield, September 27, 1997.
~orthallerton,~ he was the son of a timber merchant, a trade
which he eventually learned himself, He had four brothers and
two sisters, and one sister, Emma, who died a year after he
was born, His strong working-class roots meant that he could
speak the Yorkshire dialectx4, referred to in the example of
North Riding wit above. His diary, which he began to keep at
the age of sixteen, is a chronicle of felling trees with his
father, his early interest in fly fishing which became a life-
long passion, and his church activities" encouraged by a
friendship with the local vicar, M r , Bond. With his father,
he did varying kinds of carpentry work, making barrows, shafts
for a new cart, board standings for a cow byre. and putting
down new joists in the schoolhouse parlour floor. One entry
in his diary records the trips he and his father made to
Northallerton to pick up the coffin tires (a steel band which
holds together the slats of a coffin) to build the coffins for
an elderly couple, Christopher and Hannah Pattison, who died
with in a few days of each other:
l3 The biographical details regarding Tom Placers early life come from his three small diaries, kindly loaned to me by Milner Place, Dorothy Smith's youngest brother.
I4 Interview with Dorothy E. Smith in the cafeteria at OISE/UT. January 9, 1997. Tom Place had a gifted ear for languages, and as a consequence of his wide travels in England and Scotland, learned to recognize local dialects with exceptional accuracy.
" His entries for church work include mention of painting a money box, memorizing a part for a dialogue called "Gold and Tinseltr, and buying a hymn book for presentation to the choir leader Mr. Dawson.
February 4, 1888, Went with father to Northallerton in trap for coffin tire for Hannah Pattison coffin came back with the tire, Father and Earnest [his brother Ernest] went on with the trap to T h i m i l b y [Thimbleby] and bought a lot of larches, February 5 , 1888. Old Christopher Pattison died this morning at 2 o'clock aged 83 years, February 6, 1888. Went to Northallerton with father for coffin tire for Christopher Pattison's coffin, Father went to Darlington, got back at 2 orclock helped T. Tare finish coffin, February 7, 1888. Morning cleaning benches and straightening shop afternoon at the funeral of Christopher and Hannah Pattison, Christopher aged 83 years, Hannah aged 87 years,
His first entry in the diaries reads 'The River Swale runs a
bit off the village where there is some good fishingr.
indicating the priority he placed on this activity. The
Swale, a river whose source is high in the Pennines in Upper
Swaledale and covers a distance of seventy miles to the Vale
of York, was a few moments walk f r o m his family home. l6
Eventually he acquired the reputation of knowing the local
reaches of the Swale better than anyone in the Northallerton
district, l7
During their twenties, Tom Place and his brothers worked
in separate areas of their father's timber business, Tom
looked after the work of valuing and negotiating the purchase
of standing timber, Ernest was responsible for felling the
l6 Morris, David. 1994. The Swale: mstoxy of the Holy River of St, Paulinus, York, Eng. : William Sessions, P . 4,
The Darlington and Stockton Times. July 3 , 1948.
wood and Herbert sold the finished product. In 'the works', a
the part of the enterprise located on High Street in
Northallerton, called T- Place and Sons, John Place saw to the
carcassing, milling and joinery in the yard? The timber
yard had an engine house with a steam engine which drove the
saws located all over the yard and there was a boiler house as
well as a blacksmith shop, which was a favoured visiting spot
for the Place children? Through his contacts in buying
standing timber for the lumber business, Tom Place became a
land speculator in the 1920s, and he began to purchase and
resell large estates all over England and Scotland. Stately
family properties became widely available on the real estate
market due to the legislation introduced by Lloyd George in
1911, which required the payment of death duties, and after
the First World War, many families in the British nobility
found it impossible to maintain the expense of huge manor
houses. 20
Dorothy Foster Abraham and Thomas Place married in 1923
at Bidston in Cheshire, and lived initially with Tom's
parents, then in the first Ullingswick in Racehorse Lane,
lB E-Mail comunication with Ullin T. Place, September 18, 1998.
Interview by the author with Milner Place in Abraham's Cafe Bar, Huddersf ield, September 27, 1997.
'O Place, Ullin T. 1996. "From Mystical Experience to Biological Consciousness: A Pilgrim's Progress?lW Unpublished paper read at a conference on Mystical Experience at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, November 2, 1996. P, 6,
moved next to the house (also Ullingswick) in Grammar School
Lane, and in 1930 purchased a country house four miles outside
of Northallerton called Sowber Gate, The gates to the house
were bought by Tom Place from the Stanwick Park estate in
Alborough St. John in 1921, which was broken up to pay death
dutiesO2' These gates are thick, two-sided and beautifully
crafted wrought iron work, about five feet high. The home was
large enough to require the senrices of a number of servants,
including a nanny, a governess and a nursery-maid to care for
the four Place children, Ullin, Dorothy, David and MilnerOz2
Tom Place conducted his business from the country home, so a
secretary and an accountant worked there as well, At the edge
of the property, there was a Chauffeur's house, where Harris,
who drove the family's Rolls Royce, lived with a second
chauff e m .
Tom Place8 multifarious business concerns and his love of
fly-fishing meant that he was almost continuously travelling.
Normally he did not take the family with him on business
trips, but fishing trips were a different matter. Either the
whole family went along, or the two youngest children, David
and M i h e r , would stay behind. These were usually trips to
the Swale at Langton by car, to the Tees at Bamard Castle or
to the Ure at Aysgarth. Trips by car, for the young Dorothy,
21 Waterston, Edward and Peter Meadows, 1990. Lost Homes of York and the North Riding. Thornton-Le-Clay, York: Jill Raines, P. 44-46,
'' Place, 1996, op. cit., p. 6.
were an ordeal, as she suffered continually from travel
sickness. On one unique occasion the children were allowed to
visit an estate for a time before it was sold. This occurred
when Tom Place purchased the Ardoss Castle Estate in Scotland
from M r , Dyson Perrins (Lee & Perrins Worcester Sauce) - The
lands had a castle, a 19th century Scottish Baronial structure
imitating the architecture of Balmoral- The sale included all
the estate furnishings and the children w e r e allowed to choose
anything they liked for themselves,23
At home, family life was organized around Tom Placef
business, which was, for the most part, constantly changing:
Father and Mother would get up quite late and get the papers in the morning not coming down until ten-ish and unless my father had a specific engagement. Most of his engagements were with the County Council.24 Either he would go on visits to estates by car or by train, or he had regular [trips] to London where he stayed at Brown's Hotel in the West End. His business activities were fairly irregular, except every morning he would go regularly into the office and dictate letters which then Jack Olfield would then type out and send off -25
23 E-Mail communication with Ullin T. Place, September 18, 1998.
Tom Place was very involved in the Northallerton District community, Among his many public appointments, he was an Alderman in the North Riding County Council, a member of the Tees Fishery Board, a magistrate and a chairman of the Northallerton Bench, and the chairman of the Board of Governors of the Northallerton Grammar School. He also helped to start Kirkby Fleetham and District Angling Club.
25 Interview of the author with Ullin T. Place at Willow Tree Cottage, Boltby, Thirsk, England. September 30, 1997.
On the trips to London, the younger Dorothy sometimes
accompanied him to the station and they had a standing order
for their preferred reading material at the station book
store, She would collect copies of comic books like Beano and
Tom Place would pick up his copy of The ~imes .26
The Place children spent a great deal of time with their
nanny and their governess, These women became significant
people in the children's lives and they often developed strong
attachments to them, and the occasion of their lezving the
household could be very distressing, The younger Dorothy's
governess, Eileen Ward, was responsible for her elementary
education and her introduction to botany- As a subject for
study, botany had long been considered an appropriate area for
young middle-class girls in England, and it was likely that
Eileen Ward had been educated in the same way, and was merely
reproducing what she herself had been taught. Ullin described
the nature of their elementary education and the relative
separateness of the children's lives from the rest of the
household:
Generally speaking we lived fairly separate lives from our parents up in the nursery wing - Most of our meals were in the nursery and of course we w e n t to have our lessons in the schoolroom, We were looked after by and taken for walks by Nanny Thomas and Eileen Ward. One ritual was that we had a rest in the afternoon after lunch and we were allowed to take a
26 Interview of the author with Dorothy E. Smith in the Cafeteria at OISE/UT. January 9, 1997.
book to read and of course DofZ7 very quickly outstripped me in terms of the amount that she read - she read very voraciously- It was a household in which there were an awful lot of books around, There were regular walks with Nanny Thomas down to Newby-Wiske [the nearest. village about a mile away] and Eileen Ward would instruct us in the names of the various plants as the seasons changed, flowers in the spring and berries in the autumn so it was partly used as botanical instruction. 28
Learning botany, originally identified as a fitting exercise
in the education of girls by Rousseau, was strongly associated
with fieldwork or taking trips into natural surroundings. The
practice of going 'forth into the garden or fieldsr was first
advocated by a Cambridge Professor, Thomas Martyn, in the late
eighteenth century. This notion gradually attained wide
popularity in England, lingering for generations in the
ideology of English pedagogy, especially for young women.29
Nanny Thomas was a constructive force in the development
of the children's powers of imagination. The regular walks
that Dorothy and her brothers took were often taken up as
make-believe trips to the railway station to meet an imaginary
couple named Uncle Obadiah and Auntie Martha Anne. A local
27 Dorothy E. Smith's childhood nickname given to her by her brother Ullin who could not pronounce Dorothy, and one that is still used for her by members of her family.
'' Interview of the author with Ullin Place, September 30, 1997.
29 Schiebinger, Londa. 1989, The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modem Science, Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, P- 241-244.
farm labourer with huge whiskers, who regularly passed by
their windows, but whose real name they never hew, was named
Jimmy McIlwain, presumably after a bog Irish comical character
from the music halls of Nanny Thomasr youth. The children
were frequently left to play by themselves in a huge garden
surrounded by high hedges:
We used to play in the garden on our own and there was a bell which was rung to tell us to come in to meals, We would get up to all sorts of things in the garden - one of the things was my father used to chain-smoke and the cigarettes came in tin boxes of a hundred. We used to use the tins for coffins to bury birds- Then you would dig them up several months later and say a burial service over them,30
Despite the clear privilege that Dorothy Smith experienced as
a child growing up in the North Yorkshire countryside, she
feels that her elementary education was a makeshift operation,
and like Virginia Woolf, she was not adequately educated. She
never learned the alphabet by rote, for example, as is the
case with most children, in spite of the benefit of Eileen
Ward's hand-crafted alphabet cards. When she was six, she
learned to read very rapidly, reading books beyond her age
level, and for a short time, she went to a local kindergarten
where she learned to do sums. Upon catching her day-dreaming
on one occasion, the teacher evidently remarked dryly, 'Oh
Dorothy, there goes little fairy accuracy flying out of the
30 Interview of Willowtree Cottage, 1997,
the author with Boltby, Thirsk,
Ullin T. Place at England, September 30,
windowr , 3L
These formative years in Dorothy Smithr s childhood could
be identified as an influential phase of intellectual growth
even though her education was apparently a sparse one in the
formal sense, in that there were plentiful reading materials
available in the Place household, and her companions, Nanny
Thomas and Eileen Ward, provided her with a rudimentary
education, as well as permitting the use of make-believe
through the activities of imaginary characters. H e r isolation
from local rural life and Northallerton, her dependence on her
brothers, particularly Ullin, as well as the exclusive
attention provided by her governess, Eileen Ward, produced a
promising environment for the development of her young mind.
Boarding School, 1935 - 1943.
It was a matter of great consequence to Tom Place that
his children receive a boarding school education. Ullin Place
identifies one of his father's primary objectives as sending
his children to public schools.32 At the time when Dorothy
and Ullin were being educated, as well as in the contemporary
British educational system, a public school was a class of
well -established fee-paying secondary schools, to which any
31 Interview of the author with Dorothy E. Smith in the Cafeteria at OISE/UT, January 9, 1997-
Place,
one who could afford to pay the cost was eligible to attend,
and required passing a lrCommon Entrancem py;~mination, They
were not public in the sense that is understood in North
~merica.~~ They were different than grammar schools, which
were run by the state, All three boys in the Place family
went to a boys preparatory school on the outskirts of London
called Elstree, Ullin Place and his youngest brother Milner
were given an elite education, attending Rugby from the age of
eight, one of the group of Clarendon ~chools", a boy's public
school in the Midlands near Coventry and Birmingham. David
went to another public school called Stowe. Similarly, when
Dorothy turned eight years of age she was sent to Oakdale, the
name then given to the preparatory division of Harrogate
College in Harrogate, North Yorkshire- For Dorothy, as well
as her brothers, leaving home for boarding school for the
first time was a traumatic experience.
In her first year away from home, Dorothy did not really
like anything about the boarding school experience, was
extremely unhappy there, and suffered several episodes of
illness which meant that she was put into the school
33 Benthall, Jonathan. 1991. If Invisible Wounds : Corporal Punishment in British Schools as -a Form of Ritualu. Child Abuse and Neglect, 15, 377-388. P. 378.
34 Rubinstein, W- D. 1986. Education and the Social Origin of British Elites, 1880-1970" - Past and Present, 112, 163-207, P. 166. The "Clarendon Schoolsgr are Harrow, Eton, Rugby, Winchester, St. Paul's, Merchant Taylor's, Charterhouse and Shrewsbury. Attendance at one of these schools is usually taken as evidence of a family's high social status and affluence.
sanatorium, In the infirmary she was given two things on a
daily basis which she hated - milk and melons- Not knowing
how to tell the nurses she detested these things, she poured
the milk and the melons into a planter which was just outside
her window. To offset her homesickness, she asked her mother
for a toy dog, and was disgusted when she was sent a dog that
doubled as a pyjama case, because it wasn't 'a real toy dog,
just a pyjama case masquerading as a dog'." The boarding
school had a connection to a riding school, riding being an
activity which Dorothy loved- One stormy-looking afternoon,
when she was scheduled to go riding she knelt down in the long
hallway leading to the stables praying that it wouldn't rain,
and was teased mercilessly about it afterwards by the other
girls- Later on, it was discovered that Dorothy was allergic
to horses as well as to cats? She had difficulty with the
activities required for being a good Brownie at Harrogate, had
a hard time 'keeping her nails Eventually she
became so ill with gastric distress that her mother brought
her home and she remained there for the next year.
35 Interview by the author with Dorothy E. Smith in the cafeteria at OISE/UT, January 9, 1997. She used this incident in a speech she gave at the University of Minnesota, On first evening of the conference, there was a roast, where speakers were required to tell funny stories about themselves. She told the story of the toy dog, saying drolly that the incident had a 'deep effect on her epistemological problems in sociologyr.
36 From an interview by the author with Milner Place, Abraham's Cafe Bar, Huddersfield, September 27, 1997-
37 Ibid.
The second time she was sent to the BirHands School,
located at St. =ban's in Hertfordshire near the outskirts of
London. It was a more successful venture, and Dorothy stayed
at this school until the age of seventeen, This was a
smaller, lesser known school, which entailed a five hour trip
to London. She and her mother would spend the night in London
and travel to St. Albanrs in a chauffeur driven car. After
two years at Birklands, the war broke out at the beginning of
September, 193 9, and Tom Place, concerned with the likelihood
of air raids in London, brought Dorothy and her two younger
brothers David and Milner home, as they were also at school in
the London area, All three children w e r e sent to live in what
they called 'the ~ungalow~" at Woodhall in Wensleydale and
they then travelled to Askrigg to attend Yorebridge Grammar
School. As soon as the Birklands School made the decision to
evacuate to the country, Dorothy was allowed to return. At
first it was located in the Mendip Hills in Somerset, and
later settled in the village/market town of Tenbury Wells in
Worchestershire close to the Welsh border.3g There were very
few students at Birklands, about twenty-eight.
Evacuation4" of whole schools from London was a serious
38 This structure was called 'the Bungalowr because it was then the only bungalow in Woodhall.
3 9 E-Mail message from Ullin T. Place, May 6, 1997.
40 Dorothy Foster Place was involved in the World War I1 official evacuation scheme, and responsible for deciding which evacuee children were placed in Newby-Wiske and the surrounding countryside. She arranged for a family of four
disruption of the British educational system, All evacuation
tactics were organized along class lines. First, there was
the official government evacuation scheme of working class
children from large urban areas who were sent to live in rural
areas all over England, Secondly, private arrangements were
made whereby boarding schools senring a middle-class clientele
moved from urban areas to unoccupied country houses in rural
areas." The official scheme was a system which collapsed
within weeks, as the British educational administration failed
to adequately assemble data as to where the children came
from, to what category of school they belonged, the numbers in
which they would arrive. and the places they were assigned."
Most of these experiences were negative, but the evacuation of
senior girls Sacred Heart Convent school from Newcastle-upon-
Tyne to the countryside in the Lake District proved
advantageous, as their ordeal turned out to be like a
traditional boarding school curriculum:
[Any] drawbacks caused by cramped classrooms, movement between sites, and the shift system were counterbalanced by the opportunities presented for field study. The local countryside provided
children, the Murdochs from Gateshead, to be accommodated at Sowber Gate. (E-Mail communication with Ullin T. Place, September 18, 1998) .
Ibid.
42 Preston, A, M, 1989, The evacuation of schoolchildren from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 1939-1942: An Assessment of the Factors which Influenced the Nature of Educational Provision in Newcastle and its Reception Areasm. H i s t T o r y of Education, 18, 3, 231-241, P, 231.
ample material for biology and geography lessons and the two staff responsible for those subjects took parties of girls out after official classroom hours for field studies which were a novelty and, as one former pupil summed up 'education without tears . 43
The practice of field trips came from a customary boarding
school approach to learning, and Dorothy's evacuation to
Tenbury Wells provided great potential for this kind of
exercise. It was during this interval that what Dorothy
eventually called 'botanizingr in the SOK, was experienced as
part of the Birklands School curriculum, then named as
exercises in 'walking geogra~hy"~. The school had an unusual
headmistress, who had gone to Cambridge and had what was
called a 'double first' in Mathematics and Geography.
According to Dorothy, this teacher was in some ways
influential in her life, not as a mathematics teacher, as none
of the girls were studying maths, but as a good geographer.
She could read maps, and the girls learned to read contour
maps of the terrain around the school. A French teacher
arrived when she was about 14 or 15, so she learned French.
Nonetheless the experience of boarding school during the
war was one that Dorothy felt she must endure. She suffered
from the experience of standing on railway platforms sometimes
for several hours in the cold, waiting for trains that were
Ibid,
44 Interview by the author with Dorothy E, Smith in the cafeteria at OISE/UT, January 9, 1997,
frequently late. She felt that at the time you were reduced
to enduring things, that enduring was part of an ethos and you
didn't complain. She eventually got accustomed to being at
boarding school, but never looked forward to going back there
after a vacation. On one occasion, shortly after Christmas
when she was due to go school, she went to the lengths of
washing her hair and going out into the freezing cold. She
reasoned that she w o u l d get sick if she went out with wet hair
and wouldn't have to return, so she ran around the garden with
her hair frozen together in clumps, but the effort failed to
produce the desired illness - 45
The headmistress of Birklands had a feminist approach to
education and felt that physical development for young women
should be a priority. Likely the emphasis placed on games at
Birklands was part of a wider movement in Britain originally
influenced by Isadora Duncan, based on womenrs fitness, that
began in 1930 in London, called The Women's League of Health
and Beauty, a business owned by Mollie Bagot When
the war first started and the school was located temporarily
in Somerset, the gym mistress would make the students run
every morning, a practice which the girls found decidedly
unpleasant. Gymnastics were compulsory three times a week,
45 Interview by the author with Dorothy E. Smith in the OISE/UT cafeteria, January 9, 1997.
Mathews, Jill Julius. 1990. "They Had Such a Lot of Fun: The Women's L e a g u e of Health and B e a u t y Between the Wars." History Workshop Journal, 30, 22-54, p. 23.
and in the winter lacrosse was offered. The summer activity
was tennis, played on grass courts. Dorothyr$ peer group at
the Birklands School was at least a year older than she was,
because her mother had persuaded the school authorities to
take her at a younger age, so she sometimes felt inadequate at
sports, although she was a fairly good lacrosse player* There
was nothing 'niminy-pimin~"~ about the way that the girls
were taught physical education, and the school offered a tough
curriculum with an emphasis given to exercise,
The Birklands teachers minimized the religious aspect of
the girlsr education. a quality that was likely welcomed by
Dorothy and her mother, who were both agnostics. The younger
Dorothy refused to take confirmation lessons for this reason.
Her peers looked at her as odd because she excelled at school
work, and consequently her relationships with her teachers
tended to be close. The field of study that she concentrated
on was literature. and towards the end of her secondary school
career, she had read vast numbers of books and written many
assigned essays. Her classes often consisted of her and the
teacher at the end of her stay at Birklands, so she worked
primarily on writing her own papers. Writing essays was a
part of the requirements from the beginning, a very useful
skill, which of course bode well for her future scholarly
career. There was a minimal prefect system which the girls
attained once they reached a certain age, so when she was
Dorothy E. Smith's terminology.
237
older, Dorothy took on some of the policing aspects of the
school as far as the younger girls were concerned. C o n t r a r y
to the reputation held by British boarding schools at the
time, there was no corporal punishment, a practice which her
mother would not have tolerated-
The girls at the Birklands school were all young women of
a similar class to Dorothy who were going through a process of
learning a middle-class mode of articulation, or vocal
expression in an accent whose origin was in the Southern
England. To be upwardly mobile in England, which was largely
the purpose of acquiring a boarding school education, was to
learn a language, way of speaking and the manners of a
national middle class. Growing up in a regional area, local
dialects were assimilated, so when Dorothy went away to school
she had already learned to express herself in both a middle-
class manner as well as in the vernacular that belonged to
N o r t h Yorkshire. It was critical that as a member of a
national middle-class that you not speak with a provincial
dialect. To provoke their mother, Dorothy and her brothers
would use the thick Yorkshire accent in the dining r o o m , but
it was a practice which was strongly discouraged. The girls
at the Birklands school were taught to anticipate nothing more
than the expectation that they would marry and become capable
housewives and mothers, and none of them went to university.48
48 Interview by the author with Dorothy E. Smith, in the OISE/UT cafeteria. January 9, 1997.
238
In summarizing this section, the Birklands School, as a
preparation for a rigorous university education at LSE, gave
Dorothy a number of areas of expertise which in all
probability assisted her in later years as an undergraduate
and graduate student. The school was small, where individual
attention was the norm, and she was given every opportunity
for independent study, reading and the sharpening of essay
writing skills, The prewar evacuation of entire schools to
countryside locations meant the creation of unexpected
benefits for boarding school students, in that possibilities
for various kinds of field study presented themselves- This
included the practice of botanizing, taken up originally as
exercises in 'walking geographyr, which became part of the
conceptual repertoire of the SOK, and a principal step in its
procedure.
Woodbrooke College, 1944 - 1946.
Woodbrooke College, one of the Selly Oak Colleges at the
University of Birmingham, was introduced in Chapter Four in
the examination of Dorothy Smith's Quaker ancestry and was
characterized as part of the Quaker surroundings in her life
with its intrinsic value of equality for women. Dorothy
enrolled in the University of Birmingham two year Social
Studies Diploma course in the fall term of 1944 at the age of
eighteen. The spacious grounds of the college and the stately
mansion which eventually became the first of the colleges near
the village of Selly Oak was originally the home of Elizabeth
and George Cadbury, where they lived from 1881 until 1894.~
The Cadburys donated the house and grounds to the college when
it was established in 1903. Concerned about 'the spiritual
torpor that had overcome Quakerismr, George C a d b u r y formed a
Settlement at Woodbrooke in the hope that it would imbue new
life into the dwindling movement. Its program of Summer
Schools, founded by John Wilhelm R o w n t r e e , was 'the seed of
which Woodbrooke was the From the start one of the
college's most important objectives was to provide a place for
the advancement of social science:
The proximity of Birmingham was an important gain from the-point of view of extending knowledge in regard to social service. All the gravest problems of society were at the gates of the settlement and a multitude of experiments in social amelioration could be studied on a large scale,51
It was instituted as a centre for Quaker religious study.
adult education, international affairs, as well as
sociological studies-52 Woodbrooke became an unorthodox
49 Scott, Richenda. 1955. Elizabeth Cadbury. London: George Harrap. P. 74,
Gardiner, A. G. 1923. Life of George Cadbury. London: Cassell. P. 196-198.
Ibid,
52 Stewart, W. A. Campbell. 1953. Quakers and Education: As Seen in their Schools in England. London: Epworth Press. P. 103,
experiment in Quaker education and attracted scholars from all
over the world,
The became a source of interest to the British
government authorities during World War I1 because of its huge
properties and spacious building. Due to the fact that
Quakers were conscientious objectors, pressure was brought to
bear on the Woodbrooke officials to donate the grounds and the
mansion and were encouraged to contribute to the war effort in
any way they could without engaging in direct action. As a
consequence, the lawns became a space for growing hay and
flower beds were changed into vegetable gardens. In the early
blitz of the war, Woodbrooke was bombed, but only minimal
damage was done to the buildings, and the incendiaries landed
mostly in the grounds. The cellars of the building were
renovated to accommodate students and faculty during air raids
and was a place where they retreated and carried on with
normal activities:
Some one would be writing an essay on the Lyrical Ballads in one underground comer, while some one else darned stockings in another- To ensure quiet during study hours a large notice was hung at the entrance to the cellars: Please Do Not Disturb-" One evening a gay "Women's At Homeu took place down below and during another Christofer Naish lectured humorous~y and delightfully on William de Morgan, while distant sounds of enemy
53 The historical details pertaining to Woodbrooke College during the years encompassing World War I1 come from: Davis, Robert, ed. 1953. Woodbrooke, 1903 - 1953 : A Brief History of a Quaker Ekperiment in Religious Education. London: Bannisdale Press. P . 73 -80 .
activity could be heard up above?
During the initial period of the war when the air raids were
particularly severe, Woodbrooke took in 23 residents from
among the poor of Birmingham who had had their homes
destroyed, and they stayed at the school for eight weeks while
they recovered enough to find other accommodation.
Changes also had to be made in the school policy because
foreign students of military age were no longer allowed at the
school, so a number of other categories of students were given
consent to become residents at Woodbrooke- Among them were
the Social Science students at the University of Birmingham.
During Dorothyr s time of study at Woodbrooke there were about
twenty-five Social Science students, many of whom were not of
Quaker origi~. Courses were taken at the other Selly Oak
Collegesr buildings, about ten minutes walk up the hill from
Woodbrooke .
In the fall of 1943, Dorothy met and became friends with
a young woman her own age named Axme Clarkson. At the same
time, Dorothy's elder brother Ullin, a conscientious objector
during World War 11 and a member of the Friend's Ambulance
Unit, was stationed in Birmingham. ~nstructed at Manor Farm,
Northf ield, workers in the Friends ' Ambulance Unit at tended
Woodbrooke on a regular basis during the course of their
training. 55 Anne was struck by Dorothyf s practice of talking
54Davis, 1953, op. tit., p . 7 5 .
Ibid,
in a broad Yorkshire accent, an indulgence in which she and
Ullin amused themselves from time to time. After a f e w days
in the residence, they were being shown around the other
colleges at Selly Oak, and on the way back she and Dorothy
found themselves at the back of the group and began talking.
They discovered that they had a lot in common, in that they
were both Northerners and the two youngest in the course, so
they became close friends.56 Next to the grounds at
Woodbrooke there was a yachting pool where they used to skate
in the winter. At the beginning the city was crowded with
American soldiers, and there w a s an influx of people, and
Woodbrooke was becoming the international college it was
always intended to be.
Dorothy has described the course in Social Science at
Woodbrooke as 'mickey mouser , and was never serious about
it.'' Anne theorized that the problem with the course was
that it was meant to be an introduction to social w o r k
training. Many of the students w e r e going on to be probation
officers, almoners (hospital social workers), personnel
managers or psychiatric social workers and this course was the
basis for further training. It was a course where the
subjects kept changing from t e r m to term, so nothing was dealt
56 Interview by the author with Anne Canham in Carlisle, England, on September 20, 1997.
s7 I n t e ~ i e w by the author with Dorothy E. Smith at OISE/UT. November 11, 1994,
with in any deptheS8 Further, the courses were at about the
'Ar level (senior secondary school) . The course work did not
give anyone any opportunity for intensely pursuing a field,
and there was no choice as to what classes were taken,
Another difficulty with Woodbrooke was the location. Some
classes were at Edgbaston, about a mile away from Selly Oak,
and some were at the University of Birmingham which was about
four miles away, so the students spent a fair amount of time
travelling from one lecture area to another, as well as the
required commute to observational sites and to placements for
practice work. Dorothy had no interest in pursuing social
work as a profession, but she did develop other intellectual
and artistic interests at this interval. She developed a
preoccupatioa with the philosophy of Spinoza, and a love of
poetry and classical music.
The coordination of the practical aspects of the social
work requirement was the responsibility of Miss Doris Newman,
who also gave lectures on "Social Conditions and Tendencies".
Miss Newman arranged the social work placements for the
students who were required to do one full day per week in any
social work organisation. She further planned fortnightly
observational field trips for the students as a group to
children's homes, factories, and schools. To experience what
it was like to be a factory worker, Dorothy and Anne had to
58 Canham, Anne. 1997. "The University of Birmingham Two Year Social Studies Diplomatt. An unpublished description of the programme by Anne Canham.
spend a month working as a factory hand in the holidays under
cover, Placements for students were also set up for practice
work in the summer holidays and they had to spend at least two
weeks in a social w o r k agency. Miss Newman expected a report
from each visit and placement, with a deadline to meet.59
The practicum of working in the factory for the summer
and doing other kinds of social work social work was a
transformative experience for Dorothy, partly because in the
factory she was like any other worker and she earned the same
wages as they did and actually had to live on them, From the
factory men she learned about politics. It was just before
the 1945 election in Britain which overturned the Conservative
majority, and the first Labour government was formed.
Learning what it was like to Live as a member of the working-
class, with people living in such pitiful conditions, was
something that she had not previously experienced, and,
believing that it was a situation that could not be alleviated
within the framework of social work, she decided not to pursue
it as a career. 60
The curriculum at Woodbrooke consisted of psychology,
social psychology, child psychology, social philosophy,
industrial relations, education and public health. Some of
the teachers were highly respected within their disciplines.
s9 Ibid.
Interview by the author with Dorothy E. Smith in Pam Wakewichrs office at Lakehead University, October 1 8 , 1994.
Charles Wilfred Valentine, who lectured in Child Psychology
and Education, had published several classic works in Child
Psychology, notably, The Psycholow of Early Childhood: A
Study of Mental Development in the F i r s t Y e a r s of Life (1942).
There was an influx of mature students who had been soldiers
into the Social Science course, and since they had become
accustomed to smoking during the war, Professor Valentine
allowed them to smoke in his classes. As a form of protest
against this, Dorothy and Anne would eat all through his
lectures. Also, Philip Sargant Florence, a flamboyant
professor who taught Industrial Relations, had published The
Logic of Industrial Organization in 1933, Anne and Dorothy
had been taught in psychology that if a crush had developed on
a particular teacher they would be more likely to pay
attention to what he said, and since they found Florencer s
lectures somewhat dull, they tried to develop a crush on him
so that it would improve their attention span. Apparently
their strategy was not too successful. Dr. Auden, the poet's
father, lectured in Public Health. Dorothy and Anne graduated
from the University of Birmingham Social Studies Diploma on
July 5, 1946.
After Dorothy and Anne had left Woodbrooke, David Wills
was instrumental in securing one or two positions for Anne,
one of which was at the Caldecott Community. Dorothy worked
there full time for one term. A man of about forty, Wills was
highly regarded in his field, and had trained originally at
Woodbrooke and then gone to the United States and trained in
psychiatric social work, Wills had written several books and
he had begun to organize experimental schools for maladjusted
children. The Caldecott community was a school for this
category of children with high intelligence, and had a good
reputat ion at the time, Dorothy would visit Anne there on the
weekends, and on two occasions Ullin joined them there as
well. There was a system at the community where the chil&en
were given 'social marks' if they behaved well, and if they
were unruly they had to work in the kitchen to earn back the
marks that they had lost. Dorothy and Anne dreaded working in
the kitchen, as they were always assigned helpers who were the
most badly behaved. They both considered the staff at the
community to be eccentric and the children's behaviour was
sometimes outrageous- One incident of note occurred when the
children broke into the staff's private rooms and stole their
best Sunday hats, and the children then went up to the top of
the building where there was a wheelbarrow, and proceeded to
push each other around the parapet wearing the hats."'
Dorothy's experience at Woodbrooke College introduced her
to social life through the procedures involved in social work,
in work required in factories, and in her placements during
the course. The mandate of Woodbrooke College involved a
commitment to social service work, and the demands of the
Interview by the author with Anne Canham at Carlisle, England, September 20, 1997.
course meant an involvement and direct contact with social
realities that would not have occurred in a more traditional
university setting. She was introduced to psychology, which
became important in her graduate research and her early
feminist critique of psychiatry, and to industrial
organization, which eventually intensified to become an
interest in organizational theory at the University of
California at Berkeley. Although she has minimized this
interval in terms of its signifi~ance~~, I argue that it was
the initial contact, however limited, with some of her future
intellectual interests and most of all, produced the beginning
of a consciousness of social life.
The London School of Economics, 1952 - 1955.
After graduating from Woodbrooke, Dorothy worked for
nearly five years as a secretary for two different publishing
houses in London, England. She was politically active during
this period. working for the Labour Party in the constituency
of Hornchurch, on the eastern fringes of London, to get the MP
Geoffrey Bing elected.63 At the age of 26. she applied and
was accepted, with one other woman who was also a mature
student, to the London School of Economics (LSE), Her
62 Interview by the author with Dorothy E. Smith in Pam Wakewichrs office, Lakehead University, October 18, 1994.
63 Personal communication with Ullin T. Place. October 1, 1997,
aspirations at the time were confined to the thought of
perhaps becoming a better secretary." She was supported
financially by her parents and she had some savings. H e r e
Dorothy developed an unexpected obsession for sociology. Anne
Clarkson remembers her visiting the North from London one
weekend in late 1954 and raving about her newly-found fixation
with Social Anthropology, as well as a summer holiday spent in
Ireland, where she had come into contact with the everyday
life of Irish women, and was fascinated by the way that they
could cook both soda bread and potatoes in one kind of pot
over an open fire." With certainty, Dorothy had found her
niche in life. Musing about her episode at LSE she said, 'my
discovery of the life of the intellect was an extraordinary
gift; it delighted me8 .'" LSE was formed in 1895 through the perspicacity of
Beatrice and Sidney Webb and Bernard Shaw who were all members
of the Fabian Society. Henry Hutchinson had been a wealthy
supporter of the society, and when he committed suicide in
1894, he left the Fabians f10,OOO. The meaning of his will
was vague, creating a debate among members as to how the money
should be used. The Webbs and Bernard Shaw, arbitrarily and
64 Stnithr D. E. 1994. "A Berkeley Education.Ir In: Gender and the Academic Experience: Berkeley Women Sociologists. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. P. 50.
65 Interview by the author with Anne Canham at Carlisle, England, September 20, 1997.
66 Smith, D. E., 1994, op. cit., p. 46.
without the support of the Fabians decided to spend
Hutchinsonrs legacy on a new school of economics in London.
It was through the Fabians t ha t LSE developed its reputation
as a radical socialist institution, which was dubbed by some
students as 'Hutchinson's curser.67 This attribute was an
undeserved one, as the majority of senior staff were
conservative in its beginning and it has remained 'an
essentially conservative institution in every sense of the
termr When Harold Laski was appointed a professor of
Political Science at LSE during the early 19209, his work on
Marxist political theory nourished the image of the school as
radical and socialist. The first chair in sociology at LSE
was taken up by Edward Westermarck, a Finnish anthropologist,
in 1907. The Sociological Society had been formed in London
in 1903, and as a result of its success, J - Martin White had
donated f2,2SO for one lectureship in sociology at LSE, a
temporary position, Martin White is credited, thr~ugh his
many endowments of chairs and lectureships in sociology, with
having established sociology in ~ritain."~ Through a grant
from the Rockefeller Foundation, Edward Malinowski was given a
67 MacKenzie, Robert. My LSE. In: Mack, Joanna. 1978. "The LSE : A Monument to Fabian Socialism. New Society, 44, 819, 588-91. P. 588,
Ibid.
'' Dahrendorf , Ralf . 1995. LSE: A History of the London School of Economics and Poli tical Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. P, 102,
permanent chair in anthropology in 1927,'~
Edward Shils brought classical socioLogical theory to LSE
in the late 1940s by way of Talcott Parsons' Structure of
Social Action (1937) and a style of teaching that presumed
that undergraduate students would go into graduate work and
become professional sociologist^^^^ A. H. Halsey provides a
vivid description of LSE in the early 1950s shortly before
Dorothy's arrival in 1952:
Its buildings sprawled in grimy liveliness on the East and West sides of Houghton Street off the Aldwych, Demob suits and battle jackets, incongruously adorned by the college scarf, thronged the street between the two main lecture theatres, The library was heavily used, assailing the nostrils the mustiness of books and the sickliness of human sweat, The studentsr refectory was a clutter of cheap and unappetising snacks, and the Studentsr Union pub, The Three Tuns, normally permitted no more than standing in discomfort - The inconveniences of a human ant heap were of no significance by comparison with the conversation and the visibility and audibility of great scholars. 72
Post-war LSE was an exciting place for the Social Sciences,
and students could listen to lectures by Karl Popper, Harold
Laski, who died in 1950; Lionel Robbins, R- H. Tawney, David
and Ruth Glass, T. H. Marshall, Chair of Sociology from 1954-
Ibid,
71 Halsey, A. H. 1982. "Provincials and Professionals: British Post-War Sociologists . Archives Europe'ennes de Sociologie, 23, 1, 150-175. P, 159.
72 Ibid, P. 155.
56; and Morris Ginsberg, who had retired by the time Dorothy
arrived.
There was considerable anxiety among members of the
British Sociological Association {BSA) in the early 1950s
about employment opportunities for sociology and anthropology
graduates, so a subcommittee of the BSA was formed to study
the 'recruitment, training and employment of sociologistsr -73
The study was completed between 1952 and 1954, with the London
B.A. in Sociology taken as the base of the investigation,
What was striking about this study was the pitiful lack of
openings available for women graduates in sociology. Of the
higher degree graduates, 20 were men and 4 were women, and of
these, three were found to be unemployed.?' In the category
of undergraduate degrees, several of the respondents who were
married women inc?icated that they were encouraged to 'make way
for a single person should one [job] become availabler . '* Of
the total number of respondents, less than 25% said that a
sociology degree was a condition of their employment, and one
or two of the graduates indicated they w e r e going to emigrate
to acquire better prospects for work in sociology el~ewhere.'~
The organization of the sociology curriculum at LSE from
73 Banks, J. A. and 0. L. Banks. 1956. 'lEmployment of Sociology and Anthropology Graduates, 1952 and 1954" . British Journal of Sociology, 7 , 1, 46-51, P. 46.
74 Ibid, p. 47.
Ibid, p . 49.
76 Ibid, p. 49-50.
1952 - 1955 was different from the method of taking prescribed and elective courses that had been developed in North American
universities, Lectures were a casual affair, and it was
possible to 'drop inr on as many lectures as one preferred.
For example, Dorothy never took classes from Tom A. Marshall,
Karl Popper or Donald G. MacRae, but she frequently attended
their lecture^.^' There was not necessarily a direct
correlation between the material presented in lectures and the
final examination^.^^ As she described in the following
interview excerpt, the principal place of fomal instmction
at the London School of Economics was the tutorial:
~t was a school where my major was in Social Anthropology, a sociology degree with a concentration on Social Anthropology- I just found it fascinating- It was organized as a Lecture Series but the central part of learning was your tutorial for the year, and that was with a small group of people who met with one individual. In some ways the man who was our tutor in the first year was very influential. He broke almost all the rules that we would consider good teaching, that is, he attempted to humiliate us. I'll never forget the first class. He would ask questions for which we had no background and no way of answering- He pointed to me and said, "Miss Place, define social structurem. I had never heard of social structure, perhaps I had heard of it but I had no idea what he was talking about, and he just gazed at me contemptuously for
77 Personal communication by the author with Dorothy E. Smith by e-mail message, March 31, 1998.
Helmes -Hayes, Richard. 19 9 0 . w'Hobhouse Twice Removedr : Johxl Porter and the LSE Yearsft- Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 2 7 , 3 , 357-389- P. 364.
what seemed a long time, and then said, W r . Blatch, can you give Miss Place a hand?" Somehow or other, he created a cultural resistance in the classroom, and it was not one that made you want to walk away, it was one that made us determined to beat him, And so we worked incredibly hard for h i m * I remember in the first part of the course we were looking at kinship systems and I was responsible for reporting to the class on the Zulu kinship system. I remember the level of adrenalin I had. 1 memorized the whole of a very complex kinship system in Zulu - there were transliterations from the kinship terms: and I got up at the board and started laying it all out with all the details and started putting in the (obviously it was in English script, I have no idea how Zulu is transliterated) but I had all the Zulu terminology and he was saying 'you really don't have to do this Miss Placer, and 1 was saying '1 KNOW IT, BUT I ' M GOING TO DO IT! ' We had this attitude - we worked harder for him than I think I have ever worked for anyone-79
The anthropologist who Dorothy is referring to in the previous
interview passage is Maurice Freedman, who was a specialist in
Chinese Studies, and had been teaching at LSE for only a year
when she took his tutorial. The 1952/53 calendar for LSE
lists anthropology under the t i t le 'Sociclogical Studiesr and
Professor Freedman had been a student at the school from 1946
- 1948 and on the staff of LSE from 1951 - 1970,~~ Due to
Parsonsr influence, social structure was a key term in
sociological terminology in the early 50s in Britain and
elsewhere. The early pressure exerted by Freedman in his
79 Interview by the author with Dorothy E. Smith in Pam Wakewich's office, Lakehead University, October 18, 1994.
Dahrendorf , cit . ,
approach to the acquisition of knowledge was, of course, an
important beginning, but much different from what would be
characterized as the 'feministr influences in Dorothy's
scholarly development. From an objective standpoint, it is
difficult to interpret the weight that could putatively be
assigned to the significance of each in relation to the other.
Dorothy had an interesting group of teachers, most of
whom were in the anthropology department, and many were
scholars with world-wide reputationscal Sir Edmund Leach was
one of her teachers, and he had been a graduate student at the
school from 1945 - 1947, and a pupil of Bronislaw Malinowski,
the famous social anthropol~gist.~~ Leach was respected
enough to be quoted in a paper presented at a meeting of the
Association of Social Anthropologists on January 10, 1954,
written by Talcott Parsons, called "The Incest Taboo in
Rela t ion to Social Structure and the Socialization of the
[F] ollowing Leach, [it can] probably be said that a kinship system cannot be a completely "closedw system in that features of it always have to be analyzed with reference to economic, political and other considerations which are not particular to kinship systems, which do not disappear in social structures which have entirely cast loose from a kinship
The teachers referred to in the following passage were related to me in an e-mail message from Dorothy Smith on March 31, 1998.
Dahrendorf, 1995, op. cit., p. 245.
base, 83
Raymond Firth, another student of Malfnowski who became his
biographer, and Lucy Mair, a distinguished anthropologist at
the school from 1927 - 1968, were both her teachers,B4 Dorothy took demography with David Glass, who Ralf Dahrendorf
identified as 'the key figure to make the department jell* in
sociology at LSE after the war? Ernest Gellner, a
philosopher on the LSE staff from 1949 - 1984, who held the
quaint title of 'Professor of Philosophy with special
reference to ~ o c i o l o g y ~ ~ ~ was another who Dorothy counts as an
important teacher during her student years at LSE, along with
John Barnes,
The most celebrated name at LSE from 1952 to 1955 was
Karl Raimund Popper, who had left Austria before it was
annexed by Nazi Germany in 1937 to teach philosophy at the
University of New Zealand. He came to teach at LSE in 1946,
confronting the dominant system of logical positivism that he
had abandoned in Viema before the war.87 In New Zealand, he
had written The O p e n Society and Its Enemies, a two volume
B3 Parsonsr Talcott. 1954. "The Incest Taboo in Relation to Social Structure and the Socialization of the Child." British Journal of Sociology, 5, 2, 101-117. P. 105.
Dahrendorf, 1995, op. ci t . , p. 248, 353.
Ibid, p.427.
87 Magee, Bryan. 1973. Karl Popper. New York: Viking Press. P. 4-5.
work in English which was eventually published in 1945. It
was this book that brought him the huge reputation which he
gained at LSE, In The Open Societyand Its Enemies (1945) he
took a hard line with respect to Manr s philosophy and
attacked him as a 'false prophetr, but this was only part of
his criticism:
He was a prophet of the course of history, and his prophecies did not come true; but this is not my main accusation. It is much more important that he misled scores of intelligent people into believing that historical prophecy is the scientific way of approaching social problems. Marx is responsible for the devastating influence of the historicist method of thought within the ranks of those who wish to advance the cause of the open society.
Important for the future creation of the SOK, the
interpretation of Marxism which Karl Popper instilled in his
students at LSE was to characterize it as a 'methodr, but he
denounced it as a 'poor methodr, saying that M a n , as a
pragmatist, would have agreed with this. He argued that the
social sciences were incapable of 'scientific fortune-tellingr
and differentiated between two kinds of prognostication: 1)
scientific prediction. supported by physics and astronomy; and
2) large-scale historical prophecy, the forecast of a
society's prospective growth.=' Likely, the legacy of Karl
Popper's teaching which remained with Dorothy Smith is the
Popper, Karl R. [I9451 1950. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. P. 275-
Ibid,
idea of Mancr s thinking as a method.
In her last year at the school Dorothy met her husband
William (Bill) Reed Smith, who was also a sociology student,
an American ex-soldier studying in London on the G . I . B i l l :
I don't remember a particular occasion of meeting him. 1 do remember he seemed different to how he became. I think that someone like myself who had been brought up in a middle class context, rather conventional, not really open, not really able to express feeling ... hero was this man who seemed to have almost as a gift the ability not to attend to conventions and etiquette and who expressed feelings.-.who slopped around in these loafers and wore sort of a sloppy shirt and lots of sloppy sweaters and had his hair all over the place and had managed somehow to go through the U.S. Army without ever having to go through basic training and I thought this was what he was. What I wanted from him in a way was this kind of freedom and he was in his way a good-looking man.
Dorothy married Bill Smith in London, England on Saturday July
2, 1955, with her mother in attendancemg' The marriage was an
unpretentious occasion. Dorothy and her husband planned to
emigrate to the United States immediately afterwards.
Dorothy's undergraduate years at LSE were ones of
profound change, both in her intellectual and personal life.
She graduated from LSE with honours, after proving to herself
interview by the author with Dorothy E. Smith in Pam Wakewichfs office, Lakehead University, October 18, 1994.
When I interviewed Anne Canham in Carlisle, England, on September 30, 1997, she showed me Dorothy's wedding announcement, which Anne had kept, along with all of Dorothy's letters and poetry.
that hard work could produce results, and that she was capable
of mastering a difficult and demanding curriculum- For the
Social Organization of Knowledge, this period has several
important implications- Her interest in political activism
and socialism is established, a precursor to the kind of
involvement which ultimately took place in the Vancouver
Women's Movement- Dorothy was exposed to M a r x at LSE through
the lectures of Karl Popper, It was a peculiarly Popperian
interpretation that characterized the work of M a n as an
historical m e t h o d . Some rudimentary intellectual ingredients
for the Social Organization of Knowledge became available and
were at hand at LSE: M a r x as a m e t h o d and sociology-
The Course o f Faminiam in England, 1926 - 1955,
Trends in feminist activism changed drastically over
this period of time, but did not disappear altogether, as is
commonly understood. During the First World War, women gained
new experiences in paid employment and donned army uniforms
for the first time in the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS)
and the Women's Army Adliary Corps (WAAC) . Shortages of
labour occurred in agriculture, for instance, and women were
encouraged to take up the slack, and through the Munitions of
War Act, women were deemed acceptable for jobs which had
previously been performed by skilled men. Likely the dearth
of male labour during the war was one motivation that prompted
Dorothy Foster Abraham to take up agriculture, She saw the
impact of the war firsthand:
In the first year at Woodhall [Wensleydalel, my father and brother Bob took me to France to go over the battle fields. I donr t remember a great deal about the actual battle fields, except the complete desolation. I remember so well one town which had been [destroyed] and was nothing but a few army huts remaining where we slept, but on Sundays, people poured in from surrounding districts where they were, I suppose, lodging, trying to find their old homes and bits of thingsOg2
One accomplishment of women's work in World War I was to make
post-war feminists aware of the widespread problem of blatant
wage discrimination. Once the War was over, however, women
were expected to return to a cult of domesticity and anti-
'* The Autobiographical Notes of Dorothy Foster Abraham, 1886 - 1976. Unpublished- P. 30,
260
feminism as an ideology developed, as women believed that
separate spheres for men and women would protect them against
menr s biologically determined brutality. 93 The organization
of this segment, devoted to the development of the material
conditions and activism of women as it evolved from 1926 - 1955, will follow the historical periodization which has been
established in the previous three sections: 1) Dorothy's
childhood and boarding school years, 1926 - 1943; 2) her
years at Woodbrooke during World War 11, 1944 - 1946; and 3)
the state of feminism in her years at LSE from 1952 - 1955.
Women had achieved a limited franchise in England through
the ~epresentation of the People Act, 1918. This allowed
women aged 30 who were qualified municipal government electors
or were married to municipal government electors, to vote, and
the new law enfranchised 8,479,156 women, 39,6% of the total
electorate of the British Isles. This act of parliament, on
the surface, seemed as if the government were caving in to the
demands of the suffrage cause which had been so active before
the war, but in fact this was not the case. Large scale
reforms to residence qualifications had to be made for men who
were disenfranchised because of relocation for World War I,
and there was a real possibility of a reduced electorate. The
government was under pressure to deal with women's suffrage
from a continued activism on the part of suffragists during
93 K e n t , Susan Kiagsley. 1988. 'IThe Politics of Sexual Difference: World War I and the Demise of British Feminism? Journal of British Studies , 27, 232-253. P. 233,
the w a r , and the threat of renewed militancy once the war was
over. Since there was a necessity for a wide range of changes
to the electoral act, women's suffrage was included as well,
in part as a tribute to women's war service, but at the same
time strict stipulations were put in place to prevent women
f rom becoming a majority. All reforms, including womenr s
suffrage, passed through the House of Commons in a vote of 387
to 57 _94 Later in the same year the Parlfament (Qualification
of Women) Act, 1918 m a d e women qualified to become members of
the House of Commons, Ten years later, by the Representation
of tshe People (Equal Franchise) Act, 1928, women were eligible
to vote on the same conditions as menOg5 Ironically, on the
very day that Equal Franchise Bill for women was passed by the
house of Lords, Emmeline Pankhurstrs funeral was taking place
in London. 96
When Dorothy E. Place was born in July, 1926, a backlash
against feminism was beginning to make itself felt in the
British Isles. The crude birth rate i n 1926 in England and
Wales w a s 17-8 births per thousand, the continuation of a
decreasing trend in births which had been taking place over
several decades, excluding a brief post-war increase in 1920
94 Pugh, Martin. 1992 . Women and the Women's M o v e m e n t in B r i t a i n , 1914 - 1959, P. 35-36.
95 Ross, J.F.S. 1953. "Women and Parliamentary Elections ." British Journal of Sociology, 4, 1, 14-24. P. 24 .
96 "The Death Of Ernmeline Pankhurst . I' 1928. The Labour Woman, 16, 6, p , 106.
to 24-0 births. Women were encouraged to start a family at a
young age, and to have at least three children, in order to
encourage a fixed population,97 There was a resumption of the
customary position of women as the overseers of their own
households. New forms of women's organizations began to
attract large memberships, ones which were less political and
less feminist in character, The Women's Institutes, Mother's
Union and the Townswomen's Guilds, for example, had mixed
memberships of feminists and anti-feminists,98
Feminist activism did not grind to a complete halt,
however. Instead women's political consciousness entailed a
process of diversification after the vote on equal terms with
men was achieved in 1928 . Issues such as equal pay with men,
married womenf s right to work, allowances for motherhood, and
birth control were of interest to feminists. Consequently the
women's movement, which for most of the early 20th century had
been focused on one issue, the vote, expanded on the basis of
issues, while at the same time experienced reduced numbers of
supporters. Women became vocal in such areas as housing. In
1928 in Manchester, for instance, women lobbied against
casement windows in a new housing project, requesting 'top
lightsf instead.99 In the Northern mining towns in the late
Ibid, p. 14 , 68.
99 "Labour Women Criticise the New Housing Scheme." 1928. The Labour Woman: A M o n t h l y Journal for Working Women, 16, 1, p. 7,
1920s. unemployment and poverty meant that miner's children
went without adequate footwear, and as a result, were often
forced to remain home from school or risk serious injury to
their feet in cold weathec, The Standing Joint Committee of
Industrial Women's Organizations supported a Private Members'
Bill, nick-named the 'Boots for Bairns Billr , to give
municipal authorities the power to provide boots to children
whether or not they were of school age-''"
Other questions to take the forefront of women's activism
in the late 1920s were Nursery School Movement and improvement
of the sweeping problem of the death of women in childbirth,
Arguing that men were more interested in the adolescents than
they were in toddlers, women took on the responsibility for
the health and welfare of children at a very young age.
Diseases like rickets, measles, scabies. ringworm and impetigo
were comonplace. Nursery schools, which provided poor
children with fresh air, sunshine and adequate nutrition were
seen to be the answer to these pr~blerns.'~' The schools were
not meant to be located only in slum areas, and most of them
took youngsters at two years of age, contributing a three-year
loo "Boots for Bairns Bill: New Scheme Initiated by Working Women. 1928. Labour Woman: A Monthly Journal for Working Women, 16, 12, p - 179,
lol "Laying the Foundations of Good Health: What Nursery Schools Can Achieve. Ir The Labour Woman : A M o n t h l y Journal for Working Women, March 1, 1928, P. 40.
foundation to a childr s educationclo2
In 1928, it was estimated that 3,000 mothers died in
childbirth every year, and the problem was more severe in the
smaller communities of England and Wales. There was a need
for improved pre-natal care, housing and factory
condition^.'^^ The Maternal Mortality Committee held their
third conference in October, 1928, with the Minister of
Health, Neville Chamberlain, in attendance. Regarded as a
'chillyr spirit by the women delegates, Chamberlain refused to
allow questions about a Bill before the House of Commons,
which abolished percentage grants for maternity and other
health purposes and replaced them with a block grant which
would not be changed for five years. The Bill was a step
backward for women's health:
the long struggle in 1926 had made the needs of mothers greater, not less, and that while during that period they in Glamorgan were able to feed the pregnant mothers from the Women's Fund, now the Local Authorities had no chance of getting enough money from the rates to do it, Already during the last year the infant mortality had risen from 76 to 86 per thousand lo*
The five hundred representatives of organizations concerned
lo' "Greatest Campaign of our Day: Nursery Schools in the Open Air. l1 The Labour Woman : A M o n t h l y Journal for Working Women. February 1, 1928. P. 2 4 .
lo3 Toll of Motherhood. " 1928. The Labour Woman: A M o n t h l y Journal for Working Women, 16, 11, p. 165.
Io4 llGovernment Treatment of Mothers and Babies, " The Labour Woman: A M o n t h l y Journal for Working Women, 16, 12, p . 184-5 .
with the problem of maternal welfare at the conference
unanimously passed a resolution that the projected Bill would
'hamper the extension of maternal and child welf aref , The
most distressing clause in the Bill was seen to be the
imposition of a fee for care at maternity hospitals and homes,
making it even more difficult to improve the mortality rate
among mothers,
The boarding school education that Dorothy E, Place was
exposed from 1926 to 1943 in England was accessible only to
upper and middle class girls, and as such was held up as a
standard to working-class and lower middle-class girls, who
could only aspire to the free secondary state schooling
offered under the Education Act of 1918. Boarding school
culture became the subject matter for a plethora of new
magazines aimed at the market of working-class and lower
middle-class girls, and the schoolgirl story became the basis
of a new form of mass media, the \childrenr s comicr or 'story-
paperr - lo6 Dorothy herself, as mentioned above, had a
standing order at her father's news stand for several of these
papers-
At a frivolous level, the story lines of these papers
were emancipatory, in that the heroines were often portrayed
in non-traditional roles, such as airplane pilots, 'The Flying
Ibid, p . 185.
lob D r o t n e r , Kirsten. 1983 . uSchoolgirls, Madcaps and A i r Aces: English Girls and their Magazine Reading Between the Wars." Feminist Studies, 9, 1, 33-52. P. 34-5.
Sisters, Joan and Kit Fortunec, and detectives like 'Sylvia
Silence - girl detective' in The Schoolgirl, and were represented as rebellious characters who had no need for adult
authority. A. J. Jenkinsonr s pre-World War I1 survey of
children's reading called mat do Boys and Girls Read? found that the ordinary twelve-year-old girl read/bought 2 - 0 school
story magazines per month, which fell to 1-3 per month by age
fourteen,lo8 Dorothy was not alone in feeling that the
boarding school experience was something to be endured. The
'story-papersr functioned as 'mental safety valvesr to their
readers who were disappointed or had contradictory school
experiences, based on the realities of sex and class. The
escalation of career stories in the papers came during the
Great Depression, which narrowed the vocational choices of
middle-class women, and provided little incentive for girls to
persevere in their academic efforts,'0g Some stories based
on close relationships between schoolgirls, such as Elsie
Jeanette Oxenham's The Abbey Girls series in the 1930s
inevitably ended with the 'prize of
heterosexual relationship. 'I0
A working-class version of the
marriage' and a
' s tory-papers ' was an
lo' Ibid, p . 42-44,
Io9 Ibid, p. 47.
'lo Auchmutz, Rosemary. 1987. "Youf re a Dyke, Angela ! The Rise and Fall of the school Girl Story." Trouble and Strife, 10, 23-30. P- 2 7 .
appeal to young women in a special segment in each issue
directed specifically to young working-class girls that was
created in The Labour Woman: A Monthly Journal f o r W o r k i n g
Women, Its solicitation was primarily political and one with
a serious message, In 1928 the journal held a contest for
drawings and essays depicting "The Young Woman Votert1 ,
Kathleen Wilkinson, aged twelve. was commended for her drawing
of a young woman on a street corner, with the caption, "Our
Vote, Our FreedomlL First prize for the contest went to
thirteen-year-old Joan Jahans, whose drawing was in four
sections. The first three sections show 'the office girlr,
'the customer and the shop-girlr and 'the waitressf, with the
fourth section depicting all of them walking together to the
polling booth.'" Younger women in the Labour Party were
encouraged by older members to recruit the 3,000,000 young
women who would be able to vote under the equal franchise Act
in 1928."' A plea in the journal was also written to girls
employed in 'light engineering' to organize into trade unions,
girls numbered in the thousands who made cosmetics, wireless
and photographic materials. A working class paper, this
medium was directed at children and young women who were
already involved in the solemn business of working. and the
"The Young Woman8 s Vote: Children8 s Drawings and Essays. The Labour Woman: A M o n t h l y Journal for Working Women. April 1, 1928. P. 53.
Ibid, p, 57.
classroom had been left behind--
In December 1941, legislation was introduced in Britain
to inaugurate the conscription of women, the only nation in
World War 11 to ratify such a tactic, An acute labour
shortage had prompted the government to adopt the National
Service Number 2 Act, so that single women from age 19 to 30
were conscripted* 'I4 During this interval, employment
prospects for women were greatly enlarged, so that 39 women
were employed for every 100 men. Tens of thousands of women
were inducted into the Land Army, the WRENS, the WAAFs and
many women joined the Women's Voluntary Servicem The
principle behind conscription entailed the choice of opting
for work in industry, civil defence or Women's Services, but
in reality this often meant that alternatives were curtailed
in favour of what labour needs actually existed at a
particular time.
Although some 7,250,000 women eventually worked in
industrial positions throughout World War 11, 8,770,000
continued to labour in the household as full-time home-
'13 Loughlin, Anne. 1933. 'IGirls Must Organise." The Labour Woman: A M o n t h l y Journal for Working Women, 21, 5, p . 72.
Summerf ield, Penny. 1989. What Women Learned from the Second World War. l1 History of Education, 18, 3 , 213-229. P. 215.
'I5 Davies, John. 1993. A History of Wales. London: Penguin Press. P. 604-605,
makers,f16 Women's Institutes or W-I.s, established in
England in 1915, became a full-fledged movement by 1919, and
created a variety of campaigns designed to contribute to the
war effort using the domestic skills of women who remained at
home, By 1943, W.1.s had 288,000 members.u7 Dorothy Foster
Place was an active member in several of the Women's
Institutes before and during World War 11, at first as a
county organiser, The membership roster of W I L r s included a
mixture of feminists and anti-feminists, so the ambivalent
nature of W. I. associations could be interpreted as a
softening of Dorothy Placers former militant feminism. While
still living in Northallerton, she was, for a f e w years,
President of the Romanby Women's Institute, and later
President of Otterington, Newby Wiske W. I, after she had
moved to Sowber Gate. Like many W.I. members, she took a
class in bottling and canning fruits and vegetables while the
w a r was on, doing a lot of this work at home.118 Canning was
a significant war project taken on by W,I,s:
The total amount of preserves made in 1940 including jam, bottled and canned fruit, chutney and fruit pulp was approximately 1,631 tons. This was made by amateurs in improvised quarters and not one penny was
'I7 Ibid, p. 227.
'la The Autobiographical Notes of Dorothy Foster Abraham, 1886-1976. Unpublished. P. 40.
paid to axxyone of that valiant company* =='
Women's Institutes were further recruited to distribute a
national questionnaire on the effectiveness of the evacuation
programme, to which some 1,700 institutes responded.
Feminism as a political force in Britain became languid
in the post-war years, and suffered from the same kind of
anti-feminist reaction that followed the termination of World
War I, Women who did not submit to giving up their wartime
jobs to men experienced a barrage of pressure from women's
magazines to remain in the household. Active feminists were
few, but British feminists at this time were women like Viola
Klein, author of The Feminine Character (1946) and Women's Two
Roles (1956); Edith Summerskil, who was politically active in
women's causes in the 1950s and Vera Brittain, whose feminism
changed to pacifism in the post-war era. Women during the
1950s considered that the work of emancipation had already
been accomplished, and that, as Marghanita Laski commented,
'rights for women, as far as my generation is concerned, is a
dead issuer . 120 After her militant suffrage work, Lucy Ellison Abraham
embraced the role of a pioneer in the organization of post-
suffrage women's civic groups in Birkenhead, and had middle-
class expectations for her daughter Dorothy, even though this
McCall , Cicely. 1943 . Woman ' s Institutes. London t W. Collins. P. 32.
120 Pugh, 1992, op. cit . , p. 284-285.
involved the non-traditional vocation of Analytical Chemist~y.
Dorothy Foster Abraham continued the independent and non-
conformist character that she had displayed so openly in 1912
in the WSPU, in that she ignoredher parent's concerns for her
education and took up the study of agriculture, eventually
becoming a capable farm manager- Her unconventional demeanour
was in great part abandoned when she married Tom Place and
became the manager of a large household at Sowber Gate-
Milner argued that she became awed by the 'upper-crust
localsr, neighbours like the Talbots next door who were
'country gentlemenr, and families who had all made their
fortune during the industrial revolution. It was Milnerrs
feeling that Dorothy Place was more inclined to behave like
'gentryr than her husband Tom, who, though politically a
conservative, practised a tolerance of the differences in
social class. Milner felt that it was his father's tolerance
of people that was passed along to the younger D~rothy.'~~
Before emigrating to America, Dorothy Smith accepted that
marriage and the domestic life were the direction she should
take. Faced with a dismal job market for sociologists in
Britain, she opted for a kind of life that was expected of
young women her age'2z, marrying an American and relocating
to the United States to what was most likely a better chance
''I Interview by the author with Milner Place, at Abrahamr s Cafe Bar, Huddersf ield, September 2 7 , 1997.
12+ Interview by the author with Dorothy E. Smith in Pam Wakewichrs office at Lakehead University, October 18, 1994.
for her to sertously engage a sociological career, This was a
move that brought with it a high cost, a separation from
family and familiar things, the confrontation with a strange
country and the frustrating discovery that the domestic life
was not w h a t she wanted after all.
Conclusion
Chapter Six is a study of Dorothy Smith's years at
boarding school, her residence at Woodbrooke College at Selly
Oak, and her undergraduate career in sociology at LSE. The
boarding school education that she received in England, and
its unique opportunities provided by the private evacuation
scheme of whole schools to the countryside during World War
11, was a clear social origin for the concept of 'botanizing',
or the selection process of sociological artifacts for
investigation. At Woodbrooke College, the Quaker-managed
residence where she and Anne Clarkson lived while studying for
the University of Birmingham Social Studies Diploma, she was
introduced to working-class culture and politics and the more
distressing realities of social life, and to the kind of
poverty with which, until then, she had been unfamiliar. This
was the location of her introduction to sociology as well,
albeit in a limited state- Her first encounter with the
sophisticated world of the intellect was at LSE, in the way of
world-class scholars and the difficulties of social
anthropology, an environment which fired her interest in
sociology, From Karl Popper, I argue that w h a t she took a w a y
was the notion that what M a r x had to offer was a method, and
f o r the Social Organization of Knowledge, this was likely its
most substantive intellectual beginning.
Chapter Seven
Dorothy E. Smfth in California, 1955-65: Studies in Social Osganizat&on
fntroduction
And the others knew, without words, that she was not talking about a problem with her husband, or her children, or her home. Suddenly they realized they all shared the same problem, the problem that has no name. '
In a special issue of Lffe devoted to 'The American
Woman: Her Achievements and Troublesf, published at
Christmas, 1956, the 'croonerr idealized as Mr. Relaxation,
Perry Como, was celebrated as a 20-year-oldr s ideal husband.
Dorothy Smith had been living in California for a little over
a year. The article stated that 'a basic occupation of
virtually every woman is choosing a man to marryr.' American
girls asked to name a public figure who would be considered a
'good catchr identified their first choice as Perry Como.
Women, the article stated, wanted men who would help with the
dishes, were good conversationalists, were well-read, polite,
sports buffs, and above all, a husband was expected to take
his wife dancing-3 Perry Como is photographed in the feature
pretending to step on his partner's toes, as 69% of the young
Friedan, Betty. 119631 1973,1974,1983- The Feminine Mystique. New York: W.W, Norton, P. 19,
"20-year-olds' Ideal: Perry Como, Their Choice Enacts Perfect Spouse. l1 1956. Life, Special Issue. "The American Woman: Her Achievements and Troubles. 41, 25, 143 -45. P . 143 .
Ibid, p . 145.
women in the sunrey stated that it was not important that
their husbands be good dancers, only that they try. At
Christmas, 1956, Dorothy Smith was newly married, and caught
in an American ideology of womanhood that insisted she f fnd
fulfilment in domestic life and in raising a family, She was
homesick, in a strange country, and had already faced a
miscarried pregnancy with terrible cornpli~ations.~ Her
husband, unlike the magazine version of Perry Como, was not a
perfect one, and her marriage became very unhappy, culminating
in her husband's abandonment of her one morning, three weeks
after she handed in her doctoral dissertation. She was left
with the responsibility for two small sons, aged five and nine
months of age.' Despondency about the state of her marriage
was a situation that she shared with many women in this era,
and with the exception of her preoccupation with her doctoral
research and the time spent with her children, she found
herself, in many ways, confronting 'the problem that has no
namerD6 This was the time in her life when her loyalties
became 'bifurcated', between the responsibilities connected to
the management of her home, and the sphere of the intellect,
Smith, D. E. 1994. "A Berkeley Education." In: Meadow-Orlans, Kathryn P. and Ruth A. Wallace. Gender and the Academic Experience: Berkeley Women Sociologists. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. P, 46,
Friedan, 1963, op. cit., p. 21.
the world of sociology-7 WomexPs predominant and often
ambivalent relationship to domestic labour and isolation in
the home becomes an clear productive force which begins to
lure white middle-class women toward feminist consciousness.
Dorothy Smith has written an autobiographical account of
her experience at Berkeley in Gender and the Academic
merience: Berkeley Women S o c i o l o g i s t s (1994)- As this
thesis seeks to uncover the historical development of the
Social Organization of mowledge, the following chapter will
concentrate on a selection of conspicuous intellectual
influences which she encountered during her years of graduate
research, at the same time as it analyses an emerging feminism
sparked by middle-class women's unique and ambivalent
relationship to the domestic realm, Frequently a doctoral
student discovers in graduate school the guiding interests
that will shape their future academic career, From 1955 to
1965, Dorothy wrote a doctoral dissertation and published four
articles based on this research, while married and caring for
two infants. She encountered organizational theory, Maurice
Merleau-Ponty, which marked a critical change in her
thinkingfa as well as Simone de Beauvoir, and Jessie Bernard,
indicating the beginning of a feminist, scholarly direction.
Smith, D. E. 1987. The Everyday World As P r o b l e m a t i c : A F e m i n i s t Sociology. Toronto : University of Toronto Press , P. 82,
Interview by the author with Dorothy E. Smith at OISE/UT, November 11, 1994,
Erving Goffman was her supervisor, and committee members were
John A. Clausen and Robert Blauner, Of note here is the point
that she developed a more complete understanding of 'social
organizationr at Berkeley which she put to use later in the
creation of the Social Organization of mowledge- The
structure of this chapter includes: 1) a r e v i e w of her
dissertation, attending to the most noteworthy theories of
formal organization included in it, and the ir individual
notions of 'social organizationr; 2) an exploration of
Smith's earliest feminist influences, Le., Jessie Bernard and
Sirnone de Beauvoir; and 3 ) commentary on forms of A m e r i c a n
women's activism and its relationship to the domestic labour,
from 1955 - 1965, 'an already happening womenrs movement, still hiddenr , g
"Westera S t a t e ~ o s p i t a l ~ ~ ~
In the fall term of 1956, three students in sociology
from the Berkeley campus, one of whom was Dorothy Smith,
approached "Western State Hospitaltt (an anonymous name given
to the hospital where she was a Research Sociologist from
Smith, 1994, op - cit. , p. 48.
I have outlined Dorothy Smith's doctoral research on two previous occasions: 1) in my MA thesis, in Chapter Three, "Miss Place, Define Social Structuren, p- 40-53, where it is analyzed along with the Free Speech Movement; and 2) in Chapter Three of this dissertation, "The Social Organization of Knowledge: An over vie^^^, in the section called IrSocial Organizationw,
1956- 1958'') to begin 18 months of research:
The mental hospital in question is situated in a small city and draws its patient population,.,numbering some 460 0 , , , f r a m both rural and urban counties, It has a medical staff of about 30, 10 social workers, 8 psychologfsts and about 700 attendants- The hospital takes all kinds of mentally ill persons with the exception of sexual psychopaths and mental defectives - l2
Directly after their coming, three male attendants were
discharged at the institution for exercising needless violence
in the control of a patient. The atmosphere was one of
' tension, suspicion and excitementf . l3 "Western State
Hospitalv1 was divided into f if ty-nine wards, 20 for women and
39 for men, with 2,014 beds for women and 2,272 beds for men.
Ratios of attendants to patients ranged from one for every 25-
30 patients, to one attendant from 10 - 15 people, Dorothy's observational work at the hospital was performed on
four wards, all in the women's quarters - 'an admission and treatment ward, a continued treatment ward, a geriatrics ward
and a I1chronic disturbed" unitr .I5
" Smith, D.E. 1965. "The Logic of Custodial Organizati~n.~~ Psychiatry, 28, 4, 311-323. P. 311.
l2 Smith, Dorothy E. 1959. I1Legitimate and Illegitimate Deviance: The Case of the State Mental Hospital," Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 5, 1, 15-39. P- 16.
l3 Smith, Dorothy E. Vower and the Frontline: Social Controls in a State Mental H~spital,~~ A Doctoral Dissertation from the University of California at Berkeley. 1963, P. 53.
l4 Ibid, p. 107.
Ibid, p. 55 .
The choice of Smith's thesis topic was decided upon
because it was 'at handf, in that her husband, Bill Smith, was
already conducting research at "Western State Hospitalv1 and it
was then considered an appropriate area of research in
sociology, given that an ethos of psychiatry in American
social life was, at that time, widely prevalent? Her
supervisor, Erving G o f f m a n , was working on Asylums: Essays on
the Social Si tuat ion of M e n t a l Patients and Other m a t e s
(1961). Likely, an additional nudge in the direction of this
subject was the fact that her brother, Ullin Place, a Lecturer
in psychology at the University of Adelaide from 1951-1954,
had published an important and well known article in The
British Journal of Psychology in 1956 called "1s Consciousness
a Brain Proce~s?~~" It was also chosen for career purposes,
in that it would provide her with a better chance of getting a
professional position afterwards . la Her doctoral thesis was
called "Power and the Frontline: Social Controls in a State
Mental Hospitallc, and was completed in 1963. She began by
introducing two qualities of a state mental hospital: a) it
was like a penal institution in that there was a guardianship
16 For example, Ken Keseyfs One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was published by Viking Press in New York in 1962, was a microcosmic account of life in the ward of a mental institution.
" Communication by Ullin T. Place with the author by E- Mail message, June 20, 1996.
Lecture by Dorothy E. Smith at Lakehead University, October 17, 1994.
quality to the work involved; and 2) it provided expert
medical and psychiatric therapy for patients.19
The dissertation's principles are based on traditional
sociology, drawing on M a r x , Weber and D m k h e i m to support a
theory of power to explain the social structure of the mental
institution. A Weberian definition of power was extracted
from Theory of Social and Economic Organization (1947) :
If it possesses an administrative staff, a corporate group is always, by virtue of this fact, to some degree imperatively co- ordinated. The usual imperatively co- ordinated group is at the same time an administrative organization. The character of the corporate group is determined by a variety of factors: the mode in which the administration is carried out, the character of the personnel, the objects over which it exercises control, and the extent of effective jurisdiction of its authority. The first two factors in particular are dependent in the highest degree on the way in which authority is legitimi~ed.~'
For the frontline type of organization that she was
researching, the centre of professional power did not
correspond with the site of accountability, that is, the power
was argued to reside with ward attendants who looked after the
individual wards, even though the accountability lay with the
physicians and psychiatrists. Smith also used the fundamental
Durkheimian concepts of mechanical and organic solidarity to
l9 Smith, 1963, op. cit - , introduction. 20 Henderson, A. M. and Talcott Parsons, 1947. Max
W e b e r : The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York: Free Press. P. 153,
describe the hospital organization- In mechanical solidarity,
social coherence would depend on the similarity of wards, and
was a weak form of organization, disintegrating easily, a
characteristic which she applied to "Western State Hospitalcnl
Organic solidarity was used to describe an organization with
cohesion that arose f r o m an interdependent reliance of
separate wards, each one having a distinct purpose, one that
had a stronger unity-21
Marx is given only a cursory reference, Likely a
consequence of Karl Popper's intense critique of Marxism which
she met with in lectures at LSE, the orthodox sociology that
was practised at the University of California at Berkeley, and
political phobias persisting from the McCarthy Era:
Of course it is the exercise of power which draws attention to its presence, It is a potentiality for certain kinds of effects rather than the effects themselves. For this reason it is important to be able to locate it by structural co-ordinates which are independent of its exercise. It is this which gives Marx's translation of social power into the ownership of the means of production its analytic strength- It provides a single dimension by which all bases of power in a society could (it seemed) be translated either directly or by simple rules of transf~rmation,~~
What she was interested in analysing in her thesis, was the
idea that the professional system of social controls in place
at "Western State Hospitaln1, meant to restrict the abuse of
Smith, 1963, op. cit., introduction,
Ibid, Smith,
power at the level of the frontline workers, often fell apart
and was not a functional arrangement? Works like Robert
Presthus The Organizational Society (1962) were beginning to
analyze the dysfunctional aspects of large scale
organizations,
There are some influential forms of 'social organizationr
that Smith adhered to in her doctoral research. She had spent
an entire year reading organizational theory before writing
the dissertation for a second time, having decided that the
first attempt contained two theses in one.25 Two notable
ref esences are Robert Michels Political Parties: A
Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modem
Democracy (1915) ; and Peter M. Blau and W* Richard Scott8 s
Formal Organizations: A Comparative Approach (1962) , It is
important to r e m e m b e r that Dorothy Smith was researching a
large scale, complex institution, and was looking at the
phenomenon of p o w e r , so her selection of theorists at this
time was likely determined in order to be compatible with this
kind of model and as well as to reflect a conventional form of
sociology, given her status as an undergraduate. The impetus
and sanction for any kind of innovative experiment in
" Ibid, Smith, 1963, p . 47.
24 Horowitz, Irving L, , ed. [n. d. I The Anarchists: From Diderot to Camus, from Thoreau to V a n z e t t i , a Ringing Roll-Call of the Great Non-Confonnists and Dissenters. P. 551,
'' Smith, 1994, op. cit., p. 50-51. 283
sociology, especially at Berkeley, was limited, given that the
early work of Erving G o f f m a n (social interaction theory) and
Harold Garfinkel (ethnomethodology) was only beginning in the
early 1960s- In any case, these theoretfcal constructs were
the basis for her subsequent, more advanced work,
Robert Michels' book, Political Parties (1915) , formed
the cornerstone of most of the organizational theory that was
being developed at the time that Dorothy Smith was writing her
thesis. H i s idea w a s that a successful political party
actually needed an 'oligarchic structure of controlr, where
power is vested in 'political dominant class, the class of a
minorityr, despite any kind of democratic rhetoric that might
exist.26 Dorothy's Smith's observation and argument was that
Michelsr 'iron law of oligarchy' was a theory that went under
the belief that all organizations working for the realization
of explicit objectives engage in parallel types of action. It
was this conjecture that formed the foundation of most of the
then current organizational theory, so a dispute with Michels
would mean a critique of contemporarytheory would be
insinuated. '' Michels ' formulation of 'social organizationr
was to be found on a continuum of restricted and less
restricted forms of oligarchy. The narrowest form was the
26 Michels, Robert. El9151 1949, 1958. Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. Glencoe. Illinois: Free Press. P. 393.
27 Smith. 1963, op. cit,, p. 244.
284
institution of absolute monarchy, founded upon the
detednation of a single individual, and legitimated by an
appeal to God,28 Wider types of oligarchy could be found in
all parts of social life- Interestingly, Michels found no
incompatibility between the historical materialism of Karl
M a n and the continued existence of oligarchies:
There is no essential contradiction between the doctrine that history is a the record of a continued series of class struggles and the doctrine that class struggles invariably culminate in the creation of new oligarchies which undergo fusion with the old- The existence of a political class does not conflict with the essential content of Marxism, considered not as an economic dogma but as a philosophy of history; for in each particular instance the dominance of a political class arises as the resultant of the relationships between the different social forces competing for supremacy. "'
Social organization, for Michels, was the power that was held
by a few or even one individual, even in the working-class, or
the notion of a 'working-class 6liter, as in the work of
Vilfredo Pareto. 3o It was transmitted historically, and held
in place by a 'cult of venerationf that developed for persons
holding positions of leader~hip.~'
For the purposes of Smith's thesis and the observations
made in the course of her research, Michels8 theory was not
28 Michels, [I9151 1949, 1958, op. cit., p. 3.
29 Ibid, p. 407.
30 Ibid, p. 394.
Ibid,
operative in the organization of the state mental institution,
in that the majority, the 700 ward attendants, were in
practice, the group in power:
The power of the attendant group to determine policy in the hospital can be considered as arising in default of professional leadership. From the perspective of some of the issues raised in this chapter, the weakness of the professional group as a counterpoise to this power can be viewed as a failure to develop structures sustaining professional norms and values. 32
Only 16% of the patients at the mental institution were
voluntary, "Western State HospitalI1 represented the terminus
for mental patients who were difficult to deal with, and the
patients cases which involved complicated issues
supervision could not be evicted. 33
Much of the thesis is an argument presented to show how
the professional staff at the state mental institution are
relatively powerless in comparison with the frontline workers
the ward attendants, disjuncture, the opposite what
one might led expect the structure such formal
organization, For example, psychiatry as a practice was held
to be peripheral to the medical profession as a whole, and
psychiatric credentials did not
authority the practitioner, 34
necessarily give
Furthermore,
32 Smith, 1963, op. tit- p. 261.
33 Ibid, p.79-82,
34 Ibid, p. 261,
prestige
the majority of
the physicians at the hospital had no background in psychiatry
or involvement with the mentally ill before arriving there.
Most of the medical doctors had taken positions at "Western
State Hospitalu later on in their professions and the job
represented ' a dead-end, a place of semi-retirement ' 35 :
State hospital work has low status among physicians, The low skill requirements, coupled with the chronicity (and perhaps low social class position) of much of the patient population reduce the value of the work, Moreover, institutional medicine in a non-medical organization, such as an industrial organization, or on board a ship, tends to create an inference that the physician was or would be unsuccessful in private practice, 36
The work at the hospital was, for the medical practitioners,
unrewarding and held little chance of upward mobility, To
relieve their monotony, the physicians would engage in
'curious elaborations of the simple procedures of electro-
shock therapyr .37 As a new member of the professional staff,
the doctor would be reliant on the ward attendant to teach
him/her the workings of the hospital, as they would be more
conversant than the physician in the field of mental
illness. 38
Peter M. Blau and W - Richard
A Comparative Approach (1962) was
Scott s Formal Organization :
employed in supporting a
35 Ibid, p- 180 *
36 Ibid, p - 172.
37 Ibid, p. 183 ,
3B Ibid, p . 184-
more detailed description and explanation of the explicit
organization of "Western State EospitaPL The state mental
hospital which Smith studied came under the definition of a
' formal ' organization, or one that had been 'purposefully
establishedg, with the mission of accomplishing a number of
specific ends, with definite rules w h i c h supported the
realization these ends, This is a notion in contrast to an
'informalr organization which does not exhibit any proof of
having been planned within the content of its structure.3g
In Dorothy Smith's critique of B l a u and Scott in her
dissertation, she pointed out that the purpose of an
organization functioned at the same time as a standard by
which the success of the organization could be evaluated, a
duality which was not always evident in organizational theory.
Also, the attainment of an organization's goals were not
always a criterion of success, in that the circumvention of
'certain states or eventsr could be further evidence of
achievement. 40
Blau and Scott's definition of 'social organizationr had
to do with patterns of human social behaviour that a
sociologist was in the habit of searching out, which was, of
course, the goal all sociological of theory and method:
"Social Organizationw refers to the ways in which human conduct becomes socially organized, that is, to the observed
39 Ibid, p . 5 -
regularities in the behaviour of people that are due to the social conditions in which they find themselves rather than to their physiological or psychological characteristics as individuals. The manv - 4
social conditions that influence the conduct of people can be divided into two main types, which constitute two basic aspects of social organizations: (I) the structure of social relations in a group or larger collectivity of people, and (2) the shared beliefs and orientations that unite the members of the colle~tivity.~~
Smith's conception of social organization in her doctoral
dissertation was constructed with the formal, custodial
elements of the state mental hospital in mind, with a further
attention to the informal aspects of its organization. For
example, individual wards were characterized as an
'information pocketr. where gossip and information were
informally exchanged, and was an important source of power for
the frontline workers. *' It Western State Hospital If was
organized in the nineteenth century policy of the state of
California in the fashion of a cottage system. Although this
was a answer to the problem of situating and looking after
patients, and minimizing difficulties in patient control, it
was a solution in fact created another problem - the frontline category of organization with its own adjunct problems of
regulation.43 The state mentar hospital was what Blau and
4L B l a u , Peter M. and W. Richard Scott. 1962, Formal Organizations : A comparative Approach. San Francisco, California: Chandler. P. 2.
42 Ibid, p. 130; p. 234.
43 Smith, 1963, op. cit. , p, 62.
Scott would characterize as a 'parallel specialization'. They
separated 'parallel and ' interdependent ' forms of
specialization in an organization, giving the example of a
department store, where different departments had different
sales lines, An 'interdependentr organization would be
something like a car manufacturing works, where each stage of
the labour process was dependent on a previous stage of the
procedure - A parallel type of organization would increase the
detachment between units rather than creating
interdependence - 44
Several journal articles came out of the research
performed at "Western State HospitalM, the first published in
1959, called "Legitimate and Illegitimate Deviance: The Case
of the State Mental Hospitalrr, Smith recognized in the
acknowledgements of this article that many of the ideas
contained in the paper were obtained from discussions with her
husband, William Reed Smith- This was the only journal
article to be published before handing in her PhD dissertation
in 1963, and then three others followed quickly afterwards,
based on the research at the mental institution. Certainly
another large influence would have been the work of her
dissertation supervisor, Erving Goffman, The phenomenology
extant in Goffman's The Presentation of Everyday Life (1959)
44 Blau, Peter M. and W. Richard Scott. 1962- Formal Organizations: A comparative Approach. P. 183- Quoted in: Smith, D . E - 1965. "Front-Line Organization of the State Mental Hospital-" Administrative Science Quarterly, 10, 3 , 381-399- P. 385-
was used in her doctoral thesis as the basis for ethnographic
work, and the 'indefinite characterr of the kind of
interviewing she performed at the hospital ." In her later publications, after she had separated from her husband and was
working as a Lecturer at Berkeley, Smith refers to GoffmanJ s
A s y l u m s : E s s a y s on the Social Situation of Mental Patients
and O t h e r Inmates (1965) as one of the f e w sources of research
that has not neglected the area of 'the structme and logic of
custodial organizationJ . An important conceptualization of social organization to
emerge from Dorothy Smith's experience at the University of
California at ~erkeley~~, and one that she argues comes from
the experience of women, was her notion of a divided thought
process or a 'bifurcation of consciousnessr:
Entering the governing mode of our kind of society lifts the actor out of the immediate place in which she is in the body- She uses what becomes present to her in this place as the means to pass beyond it to a conceptual order. This mode of action creates a bifurcation of consciousness, a bifurcation, of course, which is present for all those participating in this mode of action. It establishes two modes of knowing, experiencing and acting, one located in the body and in the space which it occupies and moves into; the other, passing beyond it. And although 1 have
Smith, 1963, op. cit., p. 62.
" Smith, 1965, op. cit., p. 311.
Smith, D.E. 1987. The Everyday World As Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Toronto : University of Toronto Press. P. 6-7.
used the feminine pronoun in general, it is primarily men who are active in this mode, 48
This form of organization came from many evenings of working
in her office at the Institute of Human Development in the
Sociology Department at Berkeley, She would leave her small
children and the w o r k of running a household and, while Bill
Smith looked after the children, would devote three hours to
her thesis,4g This was the world she lived in as a
sociologist, but w h e n she left th i s space, she returned to the
world of her children and their activities, a location she
felt 'was a refuge, a relief from the abstracted processes of
sociologyr Dorothy Smithr s interval at Berkeley could be
described as a kind of 'sociological purgatoryr, halfway
between heaven and hell. It was at once the trap of an
unhappy m a r r i a g e and an intellectual snare- As an English
immigrant, she was too vulnerable to resolve her marital
difficulties. In sociology at Berkeley, in a male-governed
department which for the most part required adherence to
conventional forms of thinking, she could see the discipliners
constraints and limitations, and as a graduate student was
powerless to re-shape its scripture.
Smith, D.E. 1979. "A Sociology for Womenn. In: Sherman, J., ed, The P r i s m of Sex: Essays in the Sociology of Ki?owledge, P. 166-167,
49 Smith, 1994, op. cit., p, 51.
Smith, D. E. 198%. The Everyday World As Problematic: A Feminist Sociology, Toronto : University of Toronto Press. P- 7.
Waiting in the Wings: Feminism in Sociology, 1955 - 1965.
Traditionally, the onus has been on the discipline of
philosophy to create a new gp i s t eme or direction of thought
that can be taken up and used by other disciplines. No doubt
this was the case in the work of Simone de Beauvoir, notably,
the publication of the two volumes, Le D e d e m e Sexe: I. L e s
F a i t s et L e s M w e s , 11- LflExp6rience Vgcue in 1949, written
by a woman who did not think of herself as a feminist until a
mature woman well over sixty- In a period when feminism had
almost disappeared, this work materialized, and though
stimulating a furore in the male intellectual circles in
France, it had little impact in the United States, especially
on women, who considered it 'too radical for America in the
fiftiesr5'. The criticism of Beauvoir was usually sarcastic
and heavy at first, and emanated from French men and women,52
In the United States Beauvoir was suspected of having Marxist
tendencies, and since The Second Sex came to America in the
McCarthy Era, this presented an obstacle to its acceptance.
Dorothy Smith read Simone de Beauvoirrs The Second Sex
very shortly after it was translated into English and issued
5L Dijkstra, Sandra. 1980. I1Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan: The Politics of Omis~ion.~ Feminist Studies , 6, 2 , 290-303, Po 290,
'' Moil Toril. 1990. F e m i n i s t Theory and Simone de Beauvoir, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil BlackwelL P, 2 6 ,
in America in 1953 , 53 Its impact in the 1950s seems to have
been negligible, and even feminist writers were not willing to
admit to its having any influence on them- Even Eleanor
Flexnor, who wrote Century of Struggle: The Women's Rights
M o v e m e n t in the U h i t e d States in 1959, appears not to have
been moved by it.54 Betty Friedan barely mentioned Simone de
Beauvoir in The Feminine Mystique (1963) . a book which is described as a ' translation' of The Second Sex, and w h e n she
did so, it was on the most objectified and cursory terms:
When a French woman named Simone de Beauvoir wrote a book called The Second Sex, an American critic commented that she obviously Irdidnr t know what life was all about," and besides, she was talking about French women. The *rwoman problem*' in America no longer existed. 55
Nevertheless Beauvoirrs book was an immediate financial
success, becoming a best-selling book in France, in that
22,000 copies were sold the first week? For Dorothy Smith,
its revolutionary message remained buried for almost two
decades, which appears to have been a similar experience for
most North American feminists. The liability for this slow
acceptance of Beauvoir's work in American feminism is
53 Interview with Dorothy E. Smith by the author, at an informal lunch, August 21, 1997.
'' Dijkstra, 1980, op. cit., p. 292.
55 Friedan, Betty. 1963. The Feminine Mystique. New York: W.W. Norton, P. 19-
56 Parshley, H. M., tr. 1989. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. New York: Vintage. P- vii.
attributed to the reluctance with which Betty Friedan
acknowledged her intellectual debt to Simone de Beauvoir,
something that she did not admit to until 1975." Dorothy
Smith argued that the lack of acceptance surrounding
Beauvoir's work was because 'it did not make central the
critique of ideologies at work in our daily
The Second Sex is an eccentric mixture of materialism and
existentialism, abstract, and as such not accessible to the
non-intellectual. As Dorothy Smith became a Marxist feminist
in the early 1970s women's movement in Vancouver, Beauvoir's
chapter in The Second Sex (1949) called '[The Point of View of
Historical Materialismmr was a critical point of reference.
Simone de Beauvoir began, twenty years before. the critique of
Frederick Engelsr The Origin of the Family, Private Property
and the State (1884) which absorbed Marxist feminists for at
least the first ten years of the Second Wave of the women's
movement. She was the first to designate women's domestic
labour as productive, in that her 'pottery, weaving,
gardeningr made her a contributor to economic life.59 If she
was naive in any way about the
equality, it was her statement
realisation of women's
that contemporary women would
Dijkstra, 1980, op. cit., p. 293.
Smith, 1987a, op. cit., p . 50. This critique is also applied to Jessie Bernard's Academic Women (1964) .
59 Beauvoir, Simone de. 119491 1953, 1980, 1989. The Second Sex, Translated and edited by H. M. Parshley. New Y o r k : Vintage. P. 54-
gain equality with men through the advancement of
technology.60 Beauvoir was further the first feminist writer
to engage with Kegel's analogy of the master and slave, which
she argued was suited to the situation of w o m d , an analysis
which is taken up many years later in the so-called feminist
standpoint epistemologies of Dorothy Smith, Nancy Hartsock,
Hilary Rose and Jane Flax, As an immediate influence,
Beauvoirrs analysis of the subjection of women had no direct
use in Dorothy Smith's doctoral work. For Dorothy to engage
seriously with this work during her graduate years at Berkeley
would have meant almost certain intellectual self-destruction
and most likely would have provoked prompt censure from her
male professors and thesis committee,
True to the pattern of most American women academics in
the era of an 'obscured' women's movement from 1955 - 1965, the feminist sociologist, Jessie Bernard, did not refer to
Simone de Beauvoir and her work in Academic Women (1964) . This book was also one that Dorothy Smith read in graduate
school, 'finding it wonderfully enlightening about my working
life and world' ,62 Academic Women (1964) was a work that
Jessie Bernard did not characterize as a feminist one, and, in
fact, did not become an admitted feminist until what she
60 Ibid, p . 55.
Ibid, p. 64-
62 Smithr 1994, OP 0 tit ., p 48 .
296
refers to as her 'fourth revolutionf in the 1970s? She was,
however, extremely active in the civil rights movement in the
1950s, and helped to establish the Society for the Study of
Social Problems (SSSP) in 1951.~~ With other founding members
of SSSP, she was dismayed with the course of the American
Sociological Society (ASS), and 'its refusal to take a stand
on social issues, its elitism and cronyism, and its increasing
service to business and industry' .65
For Dorothy Smith, the work in Jessie Bernard's Academic
Women (1964) only became of use to her later in her career.
She made use of Bernard's concept called the 'stag effectr,
which was defined as the relative ease with which male
academics initiate and maintain social contacts that assist
them in their careers, networks which are unavailable to
women, and therefore excludes them from participation in a
male system of communication, Greater channels of
communication in the academe meant greater productivity.
Bernard had created this phrase on the basis of comments made
from women P M s in the course of a study done at Radcliffe:
The Radcliffe study compared Radcliffe PhDs in several institutions with women on
63 Deegan, Mary Jo. 1991. Women in Sociology: A B i o - Bibliographical Sourcebook. New York: Greenwood Press. P. 75.
Ibid, p. 73.
Galliher, John F, and James M. Galliher. 1995. Marginali ty and Dissent in Twentieth-Century Sociology: The Case of Elizabeth Briant L e e and Alfred McLung L e e . Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. P. 100.
the faculty of one women's college which places great emphasis on publication. Then, within the faculty of this one college, it compared the productivity of men and women- The first comparison thus ?rteasuredm the influence of institutional environment and encouragement on productivity; the second comparison held this factor constant and lrmeasuredw the influence of sex. 66
The Radcliffe study, of course, corroborated the already
overwhelming evidence that male academics were more productive
than women, which Bernard argued was the direct result of the
'stag effectr. Professional associations that slighted women
members, invitations to men's clubs and stag dinners, the
discomfort with women's attendance at gatherings, all
presented a barrier to womenf professional ad~ancement,~' '
Dorothy Smith employed Bernard's concept of the 'stag effect'
to exemplify women's position within the university, in a
paper to explain the rage behind the massacre of fourteen
women at LfEcole Polytechnique in Montreal, 1989?
66 Bernard, Jessie S. 1964. A c a d d c Women. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press. P, 149.
Ibid,
68 Smith, D.E. 1992b. Whistling Women: Reflections on Rage and Rationality." In: Carroll, William K. et al,, eds. Fragile T r u t h s : T w e n t y - f i v e Years of Sociology and Anthropology in Canada. Ottawa : Carleton University Press. P. 218-20. Even in her later work, Dorothy Smith's citations to these path-breaking works by Simone de Beauvair and Jessie S . Bernard are few. At the time of the publication of The Second Sex and Academic Women, 1953 and 1964, respectively, there was a want of serious attention given to these books by American women academics, who, of course, w e r e in an extreme minority. The few other feminist writers in sociology in the 1940s and 1950s, like Viola Klein and M i r r a Komarovsky, were
Patterns of American W b m a n h o o d , l955-196S. 69
All have worn the Black Costume - sweater, skirts, stockings and sandals - two almost exclusively, Maggie and another girl, an actress, are usually neat; the other four are usually unkempt, All have long hair, two waist-length, They often do not wear make-up; this gives them a slightly ingenue look, despite the slightly rawboned wality they a l l share. Their pads vary more, from the actress's neat three-room apartment to one poetess's barren cubbyhole.
The above quotation is a description of group of six
Bohemian females, part of sociological and psychological study
of the Beat Generation, young women who Rigney and Smith
divided into two categories : 1) the angry young women, and
2) the Beat Madonnas, All were young women who had had
violent andfor unhealthy upbringings, had experimented with
drugs and whose 'CPI and MMPI patterns portray them as
rebellious, unconventional and impulsive'," Beat Madonnas
shared the same cultural portrait, but were characterized as
well-adjusted and more financially successful than the 'angry
young women', as well as being more attractive, better-
also consigned to obscurity until the 1970s Women's Movement ignited a renewed interest in women's work and writing.
69 This subsection focuses on the origins of the women's movement as it originated in Civil Rights activism. As a consequence it will not refer to other social movements extant during this era, such as the activism around the Vietnam War, or the Free Speech Movement,
Rigney, Francis J. and L. Douglas Smith. 1961. The Real Bohemia: A Sociological and ~sychological Study of the "BeatsM. New York: Basic Books. P. 86,
dressed, and from upper middle-class families. Rigney and
Smith's evaluation of these two types of Beat Generation women
seems to be based more on class than on a psychological
profile.
Dorothy Smith came to California in the middle of the
Beat Generation, just a few years before Jack Kerouac
published On the Road and h he Dhanna Bums in 1958, and Allen
Ginsberg published Howl and Other Poems in 1959 with City
Lights Books in San Francisco. Black clothing, drugs, poetly,
were all a part of the paraphernalia of beat culture:
beats clothe themselves in black; live on diets near the level of starvation, and produce well-known voices and visions; avoid feeding the lusts of the flesh by washing, shaving and other vanities; reject the pursuit of filthy lucre (except that which may be gathered in by a principled re j ection) . Even beatnik sexuality has been conquered by ~coolnessn: it is calm, indifferent, principled, the antithesis of sensuality . ''
In 1955 when Dorothy Smith arrived, Goodwin J, Knight was
Governor of California. The same year, C a r y l Chessman, the
!'Red Light Bandit" was smuggling manuscripts out of San
Quentin on the subject of capital punishment- For the next
five years this controversy would affect the entire world on
the subject, and the government of California would initially
pass legislation forbidding prisoners to publish, and then
'' McWilliams, Wilson Carey. 1958. "The Beats". In: Hale, Dennis and Jonathan Eisen. 1968, The California Dream. New York: Macmillan. P. 293.
execute Chessman in 1960, when a bill against capital
punishment was defeated eight votes to seven-73 During the
ten years that Dorothy Smith lived in Berkeley, California,
she would have experienced a zeitgeist comprised of beat
poets, civil rights, McCarthyism, the House Committee on Un-
American Activities, the Free Speech Movement, Black Friday,
the begiming of the student movement, and the Watts riots in
1965 in Los Angeles. She and her husband Bil l . would get away
from Berkeley and the pressures of their doctoral work by
travelling across the bay to San Francisco to the North Beach
area where the coffee houses on Grant Avenue held poetry
readings, 74
Smith's political activism increased at Berkeley,
attending 'demonstrations, teach-ins and lectures' with her
husband and son David:
I had picketed to protest the police handling of people demonstrating outside the meetings of the House Un-American Activities Committee in San Francisco. I'd brought my son along pulling in a little red wagon as we walked. I was astonished when a car stopped and the driver leaned out to ask how I could expose my child to such violence. What violence? The violence there had been yesterday's attack on the demonstrators outside the committee room,75
73 Delmatier, Royce D., Clarence F. McIntosh and Earl G. Waters - 1970. The R u m b l e of C a l i f o d a Politics, 1848-1970. New York: John Wiley. P. 332, 345.
74 Smith, 1994, op. cit., p . 46.
Ibid,
This kind of protest, based on the politics of the New Left,
and the work against racism taken up in the C i v i l Rights
Movement were the political origins of the women's movement of
Dorothy Smithf s involvement in Vancouver from 1968 - 1977 .
These w e r e social movements where women's commitment was
fundamental, but obscured, Instead, women as they have been
historicized in this period, are often depicted as hopelessly
trapped in a cult of domesticity and suburban life, as they
are represented in Betty Friedanrs The Feminine Mystique
(1963)- To some extent, for white middle-class women, this
was certainly true, but to focus exclusively on an historical
impression of American womanhoodrs dissatisfaction with
domestic life obscured the Civil Rights activism of black
women and other forms of activism in which women were engaged
at the time.
The ideology of femininity that is presented in Betty
Friedan' s watershed study of American women, The Feminine
Mystique, was published in 1963, the same year that Dorothy
Smith handed in her doctoral dissertation. Betty Friedan had
studied psychology as a graduate student at the University of
California at Berkeley under Erik ~rikson. '' According to
Friedan's commentary, the career woman had been vilified by
the American public:
76 Moskowitz, Eva. 1996. "Its Good to Blow Your Top: Women's Magazines and a Discourse of Discontent, 1945-19652 Journal of Women's History, 8, 3, 66-98. P. 8 9 ,
In the spectacular Christmas 1956 issue of Life, devoted i n full t o the %ewm American woman, w e see, not as a womanfs magazine villain, but as documentary fact, the typical "career woman - tha t f a t a l error t h a t feminism propagatedn - seeking 'helpw from a psychiatrist, She is bright, well-educated, ambitious, attractive; she makes about the same money as her husband; but she is pictured here as llfrustratedn, so %asculinizedm by her career that her castrated, impotent. passive husband i s indifferent to her sexually- 77
Dorothy Smith was experiencing a' frightening dissipation of
independent identi ty consequent then for women on marriagef?
She was, as contained i n the above description, a 'career
woman - that f a t a l error that feminism had propagatedf , and
according to Friedan, a prime candidate fo r the psychiatrist 's
couch, where, ironically, along with marly other gifted
American women, Dorothy Smith ended up, a classic example of
' the problem that has no The predominant role for
women that w a s prescribed at the time by American women's
magazines and television was that of a wife and mother, and
women who pursued a career were viewed as deviant. Women's
magazines, which Betty Friedan so carefully analyzes,
contained constant images of women 'kissing the i r husbands
goodbye i n front of the picture window, depositing their
cit . , Smith, 1994, op. cit . , p. 46.
79 Dorothy Smith talks about her experience with psychiatrists i n her book The Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge (1990a) . See: p. 5 .
station wagons full of children at school, and smiling as they
ran the new electric waxer over the spotless kitchen floor'-80
Dorothy Smith was expected to be a good mother, wife, and if
there was any time left, a graduate student, in that order of
priority. Of course, attempts by American women to live up to
this vacuous ideology had devastating consequences, and many
took refuge in 'the growing armies of marriage and child-
guidance counsellors, psychotherapists, and amtchair
psychologists, on how to adjust to their role as
housewives ' . " The dissatisfied housewife in America is not a complete
version of the history of women in this period, In reality,
Friedan's portrayal of American women counted principally for
white, middle-class, and educated women. More women, working-
class or in the black community, were active, often in radical
politics. Women called as witnesses before the Ohio Un-
American Activities Commission in the mid-1950s, for example,
were members of the Communist Party and engaged in
untraditional activities for women of the time, activism which
did not necessarily depend on their husband's approval. The
questions that they were asked when they witnessed before the
Commission were based on the assumption that these women
Friedan, Betty. 1963. The Feminine Mystique. New York: W - W . Norton. Quoted in: Weigand, Kate. 1992. IrThe Red Menace, the Feminine Mystique, and the Ohio Un-American Activities Commission: Gender and Anti-Communism in O h i o , 1951-54," Journal of Women's History, 3, 3, 70-94. P, 70.
Friedan, 1963, op. cit., p. 21.
adhered to "the feminine mystique" , when in fact, they did
not, Rose Mladjan was asked by the Commission if she baked
cakes, she said "yesw, but to the rest of the questions she
replied, "1 decline to answerw, Many of these women had been
active in radical politics and the Communist Party since the
1930s, and although did not live the "feminine mystiquem, used
it to their own advantage to redeem themselves before the
Commission, They were quick to present themselves as ordinary
women, mothers, whose husbands had served in World War IT, and
exhibited a concern for llwomen's issuesH, like a better public
school system, housing, and more hospitals,B2
The Civil Rights Movement which became a powerful force
in American Society in the 1940s and 1950s was sustained at
its most fundamental level as well as in leadership roles by
the work of black women, although at the time when the apex of
the movement was taking place, male leaders were the most
visible presence. Dorothy Smith had no direct involvement in
this kind of activism, in that it took place primarily in the
South, particularly in the Mississippi Delta, but as the
movement grew it eventually came to San Francisco and Los
Angeles- She would have been aware of the Watts Riots that
took place in Los Angeles in August, 1965. In Watts, prior to
the riots, black women were the political leaders and often
Weigand, Kate. 1992. "The Red Menace, the Feminine Mystique, and the Ohio Un-American Activities Commission: Gender and Anti-Communism in Ohio, 1951-54. Journal of Women's H i s t o r y , 3 , 3 , 70-94- P, 70-94,
carried more influence than church ministers. The success of
black women in California politics was rooted in the
ideological construct of them as the powerful 'black
matriarch', a stereotype that grew out of the negative image
of the 'black mammyr - In California, Vaino Hassan Spencer was
elected a municipal court judge, and in 1966, Yvonne
Braithwaite was elected to the State Assembly, examples of
black women who held powerful positions in California twenty
years before black men were accepted in appointments of the
same statusDa3 This kind of image of the black woman was
supported by the racist and sexist Moynihan Report which was
published in 1965, which advanced the theory that strong black
women who dominated black men were to blame for most of the
social problems of African-Americans, At the time of the
Watts Riots, an arrogant Moynihan announced that the
controversy which exploded on the publication of his Report
impeded the realization of his recommendations, and this was
likely the cause of the uprising.84
The Watts Riots began on August 11, 1965, when an officer
of the California Highway Patrol made an ordinary arrest in
South Central Los Angeles, apprehending Marquette Frye, aged
21, for drunk driving. A crowd gathered, and when the police
13' OrTooler James. 1973. Watts and Woodstock: Ident i ty and Culture i n the United States and South Africa- New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston- P. 84-87,
84 Horne, Gerald. 1995. Fire This Time: The W a t t s Uprising and the 1960s. Charlottesville, Virginia : University Press of Virginia. P- 230-231-
dragged away a young woman, they became enraged and began
heaving projectiles at the departing police cars - Six days of
rioting followed:
Thirty-four persons were killed and at least 1,032 were injured seriously enough to require treatment. Virtually all were black- In addition 3,952 were arrested, of whom 60 percent were later convicted, Almost 1,000 buildings were damaged, burned, looted, or destroyed; total property damage was estimated at around $40,000,000 ."
Many black women were arrested for burglary during the riots,
along with Chicano women, in particular those Chicanos who
were associated with the Civil Rights Movement. Chicano and
black women were supportive of the looting, as a protest
against the questionable credit practices of the shopkeepers,
and the hated tos Angeles Police Department. One woman was
arrested because she said, "My 11 year old hasn't had a school
book since he was 5 years oldI1 Black male Civil Rights
leaders reacted with conflicting positions regarding the
violence of the Watts Riots, saying that they abhorred the
upheaval on the one hand, but that the riots had helped to
bring the social problems facing black people in Watts into
public focus . 87
Civil Rights leaders in the 1950s disparaged San
Sears, David 0. and John B . McConahay . 1973 . The Pol i t i cs of Violence: T h e New Urban Blacks and the Watts Riot. Washington, D. C.: University Press of America. P. 4-5.
86 Home, op. c i t . , p. 207.
Ibid, p. 153.
Francisco's weak commitment to the movement, and due to a
critical housing shortage in the city, they focused their
protests on the high rate of substandard housing in the
Fillmore district (an area like New York's Harlem) and
organizing around the problem of the black vote. The San
Francisco Housing Authority had adopted a racist policy for
selection of its tenants in 1942 which became known as the
lrneighbourhood patternm, and work began to overturn this
policy, when Mattie Banks and her husband applied for tenancy
in a North Beach housing project in 1952- The NAACP hired a
number of lawyers to question the legality of the practice,
and the San Francisco Housing Authority tried to base their
legal argument on a character assassination of Mattie Banks
and her husband. The neighbourhood patternw was eventually
declared illegal on September 1, 1952, a partial victory in
that housing in San Francisco did not improve substantially
for black families as a result ,88 By the 1 9 6 0 ~ ~ however, the
mask of a liberal San Francisco in its policies toward the
black community began to crumble, and little political
progress was made between 1954 and 1965- This became a crisis
in a five day race riot in the city in 1966, when a policeman
killed a black teenager who allegedly stole a car. White-
owned businesses left the Fillmore district afterwards,
88 Broussardr Albert S, 1993. Black San Francisco: The Struggle for R a c i a l E q u a l i t y fn the West, 1900-1954. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas- P- 221-225,
creating a ghetto - a9
The issue of Civil Etights also became visible in San
Francisco outside of the black comrmmity, across the bay from
Berkeley, however, in the North Beach area on Grant Avenue,
the centre of beat culture, The North Beach Citizen's
Committee, lead by Pierre Delattre, and comprised of a number
of Quaker members, was a group formed in February, 1959, to
help Bohemians to become aware of their civil rights, and to
teach them how t o deal with the realities of harassment and
arrest It was common at the time for a white woman, who
was accompanied by a black man, for instance, to be stopped by
the police on Grant Avenue and interrogated with questions
like 'Hey, nigger-lover, let's see your license...What are you
doing with this nigger?, The police would ordinarily threaten
a woman with a black man with arrest for vagrancy, an type of
charge that was usually kept for prostitutes. Jerry
Kamstra, tired of police persecution and characterization of
B o h e m i a n s as drug fiends, bums and Communists, spoke out on
the issue of civil rights in the North Beach area at a protest
rally on police harassment at Washington Square on January 3 0 ,
1960 . 92
This commanding movement became the spark for a womeno s
89 Ibid, p. 242.
R i g n e y and Smith, op. cit,, p . 165.
91 fbid, 1961, p. 164,
92 Ibid.
movement in the late 1960s and early 70s- The most celebrated
incident, and one that is unforgettable in the Civil Rights
Movement 5s the day that Rosa Parks refused to give up her
seat on the bus, sparking the Montgomery, Alabama Bus Boycott
in 1955-56,93 Although the quiet spoken activist, Rosa Parks,
was the stimulus for the events that followed organized by
Martin Luther King, her protest was enabled by the work of the
hundreds of black women who worked in Civil Rights before her,
Although men were the forerunners of the movement, women
became the grassroots organizers- There have been many
explanations for this, but one that was apparent, was the idea
that women were more likely than men to attend church and get
involved in religious activity, and many of the women who
organized for Civil Rights came out of organized religion.
The fact that women were more involved in civil rights was
just an extension of the fact that women were more committed,
generally speaking, to activism in their comm~nities,~~
By the early 1960s, women were beginning to become active
on their own behalf, particularly in the area of welfare
rights, which became a national issue in the middle of the
decade- Welfare reform was taken up by a number of
organizations, including students, civil rights workers,
93 Crawford, Vicki L-, Jacqueline Anne Rouse and Barbara Woods, eds, 1990, Women in the C i v i l Rights Movement: T r a i l b l a z e r s and T o r c h b e a r e r s , 1941 - 1965. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, P, 71-84,
94 Ibid, p, 8-9,
church people and persons interested in anti-poverty- At the
neighbourhood level, groups of welfare m o t h e r s organized a
number of protest groups in the larger cities of Minnesota,
In particular, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children
League (AFDC) , formed with the objective of changing the
public's conception of the welfare client. It was established
by a circle of welfare mothers who became active in
legislative politics and lobbied the state for reform to the
welfare laws, The leaders set an example in that they tried
to become upwardly mobile, going back to school, becorning
active in Parent-teacher and voluntary associations, using the
skill they acquired there to get jobs. Their argument to the
state legislature was that welfare women knew more about the
laws than the legislators and could provide better advice, and
they used the strategy of playing by the 'establishment's
rulesr to attain their political goals.95
The rebelliousness of Beat Madonnas in the 1950s, the
example of black women in the Civil Rights Movement, the
resistance of middle-class white women against the
oppressiveness of domestic labour, the activism of working-
class women in the mid-west in Ohio during the hearings of the
Un-American Activities Commission, and the work towards
welfare rights in the early 1960s combined in a gradual growth
over the space of a decade to m a k e the ingredients for a more
95 Hertz, Susan H. 1977. "The Politics of the Welfare Mother's Movement: A Case Study.ll Signs, 2, 3, 600-11. P.603.
powerful, widespread, and diversified women's movement in the
United States which eventually spread to Canada, Here,
Dorothy Smith adopted a set of feminist ideals in the
Vancouver Womenf s Movement which also included Marxism, and
put them to work in the remaking of sociology partly through
the creation of the Social Organization of Knowledge- The
Second Wave of Feminism did not solidify over the space of a
few months in the late 196Os, but was the outgrowth of a
number of forms of womenr s activism, a productive force, that
had been at work since the early to mid-1950s.
Conclusion
The development of her understanding of 'social
organization' and study of organizational theory that Dorothy
Smith discovered as a graduate student at the University of
California at Berkeley comprised some of the coherent origins
in the early history of the Social Organization of Knowledge.
Many of these ideas came from the most conventional sociology,
the theories of the sociological fathers, M a n , Durkheim and
Weber, in that the Berkeley sociology department was largely
made up of an orthodox and conservative faculty. Michels'
'iron law of oligarchy' was presented as being the motif which
was the basis of most organizational theory in the late 1950s
and early 60s, and one that was only beginning to be
challenged, even though it had been around since 1915. Peter
Blau and Richard Scott provfded a contemporary theoretical
source for Smith's doctoral dissertation-
It was noted that feminist scholarship, in the examples
of Jessie Bernard, Simone de Beauvoir and ultimately, Betty
Friedan, although available and widely known, were not
seriously addressed by either men or women in the sociological
community, The influence of these women, particularly Simone
de Beauvoir, remained dormant as an *hence for two decades
to come, Civil rights activism and an ideology of despair on
the part of women toward domestic labour were argued to be the
productive force in a future w o m e n ' s movement which eventually
swept North America and E u r o p e . Both professionally and
personally, this interval was a kind of purgatory for Smith,
as she could see what she wanted to accomplish for sociology
in the years to come, but was powerless, as a graduate
student, to do anything about it, For Dorothy Smith, it was a
time of catastrophe in her personal life, and an ordeal in her
scholarly one, a raw beginning for a productive career,
RED MOON RISIN*:THE BARLY VANCOUVER WOMENrS MOVEMENT WORK OF DOROTHY SMITE, 1968 - 1977.
Introduction
For Dorothy E - Smith, the Vancouver Women's Movement as
she experienced it from 1968 - 1977 was the one of the most
intoxicating episodes of her life, not only in regard to her
scholarly development in sociology and the establishment of
the Social Organization of Knowledge, but to her growth as a
woman and a feminist. The belief system comprised of feminism
and Marxism that was adopted by Smith as a mature woman, was a
reversal of the form of her mother's, who at the same age, had
beg= to adopt middle-class values and to mellow from radical
suffrage activism of her youth. At the age of 42, Smith came
to Vancouver in the fall term of 1968 with her two sons, David
and Steven, to join the Department of Anthropology and
Sociology as an Associate Professor at UBC. She confronted an
academic and secular community replete with serious social
'Red Moon Risingu was the name of a calendar published by Press Gang Publishers, who produced Dorothy Smith's first book, Women Look at Psychiatry (1975) which she edited along with Sara J. David- The calendar included a year long retrospective look at the Women's Movement in Vancouver and the rest of Canada, The illustration on the front of the first calendar depicts an Asian woman holding a machine gun and wearing a red arm band, clearly an allusion to the Vietnamese War. The credit for the illustration reads: "an adaptation by Pat Devitt from a Chinese book on Vietnamese liberation struggles." Price of the calendar was $1.50 and it was published from 1969 - 1975. In: WMAC. Press G a n g - File 144. The choice of the title "Red Moon Risingw is meant to convey the amalgam of a New Left political agenda, which included a protest against the Vietnamese War, and the introduction of womenr s concerns into that political environment, w h i c h marked the beginning of the Women's Liberation Movement in Vancouver.
problems and radical factions were extant within the student
and teacher populations of even the smallest high schools and
community colleges. A rivalry then existed between the
'leftistr Simon Fraser University (SmT) and the more
conservative University of British Columbia (UBC) , Militant
activism on the part of both student bodies made headlines in
the Vancouver sun2 from September - December, 1968. In
Vancouver, a movement of student unrest based on New Left
rhetoric was at its zenith, and the power of the organized
women's movement was just beginning to seethe. It was a
critical time when women's work in the home became a
productive force in the inchoate stage of feminist theorizing,
in the example of the first articles by Margaret Benston and
Peggy Morton theorizing domestic labour,3
This chapter examines the social setting of the Vancouver
Women's Movement as a force that both directly and indirectly
affected the production of Smith's sociological projects at
the time, including the formation of the SOK. It begins by
looking at the historical makeup of the Vancouver academic and
secular communities in the fall and winter terms of 1968/69,
The Vacouver Sun has been used from a critical standpoint in this chapter to historicize the student protest movement, and to give examples of obvious and prevalent sexist attitudes toward women, which were then a part of its publishing practice. The Sun has been used sparingly to historicize two initial acts of protest in the women's movement, which from then on in this chapter has been reproduced almost completely from materials found in the Women's Movement Archive Collection (WMAC),
See: Benston, Margaret. 1969. "The Political Economy of Womenr s Liberation. " Monthly Review, 21, 4, 13-27; and Morton, Peggy. 1970. "A Women's Work is Never Done." Leviathan, 2, 1, 32-7-
and the germinating women's movement of the same time frame.
Next, 1 provide an analysis of Dorothy Smith's collected works
of the period, making linkages from the womenr s movement to
the historical development of the SOK. Finally, I produce 1)
a study of the economic features of the Vancouver Women's
Movement; 2 ) two ' herstories' - a) the womenf s occupation of
the offices of The Georgia Straight; b) the Indo-Chinese
Conference in April, 1971; and 3 ) an analysis of the women's
organizations, both grass roots and university-based, that
were present in Vancouver from 1968 - 1977, which played an
clear role in the creation of Smith's sociological projects.
Setting the Scene: Student Act iv igm, The Georgia Straight and the Status of Women
The women's movement often referred to as the 'Second
Wave of Feminismr that became a world-wide phenomenon in the
late 1960s grew out of the New Left and Civil Rights movements
in the United States. In Vancouver, however, the women's
movement was rooted in, and at the same time a rebellion
against, the New Left political doctrine espoused by members
of the student protest movement. In the fall of 1968,
Vancouver student leaders were Martin Loney, the student
president of SmT and Dave Zirnhelt, the student president of
the UBC. The ideological tone of many student leaders in the
late 60s was profoundly Marxist, and Zirnhelt and Loney were
followers of this kind of thinking. Dr. Kenneth Hare was the
President of UBC, and the acting President of SFU was Kenneth
Strand. Women were more often than not minor players in the
316
student movement, however, Carey Linde was the Alma Mater
Society Vice-president for UBC and a member of the Students
for a Democratf c Society (SDS) at the time,& UBC was
experiencing serious problems of overcrowding, as the
university's resources were adequate for 14,000 students but
the enrolment had skyrocketed to 20,000.~
Dr. Kenneth Hare of UBC, doubtlessly attempting to stave
off the radical student activism which was simultaneously
occurring in the United States and Eiiope, publicly extended
an invitation to negotiations with Dave Zirnhelt, suggesting
that students should have a greater say in university
affair^.^ In defiance of Hare's mollifying gestures and
despite its consenrative reputation, the first acts of
resistance in the Vancouver academic community came from the
UBC student body. It began innocently enough, with two
illegal beer-drinking events called a 'pub-insr held on
September 23 and 26, 1968, protests against the existent
liquor laws preventing the institution of a pub on the
campus.
On October 24, the dissent escalated sharply when about
1,000 students invaded the UBC Faculty Club, a privately owned
facility which was managed autonomously from the university,
The invasion was instigated by the Yippie leader of the Youth
* Vancouver Sun, October 9, 1968, p . 10,
Ibid, October 23, 1968, p. 2.
Ibid, September 6, 1968, p. 23 ; September 7, 1968, p. 10 *
ibid, October 9, 1968, p , 10.
International Party, Jerry Rubin, who had been invited to
speak to 2,000 students at a noon-hour rally outside the
Student Union Building at TJBC, Armed with a 50 pound pig, a
symbol of Yippie protest, they took over the club and about
100 students staged an all-night sit-in, demanding that the
obscenity charges levelled against The Georgia Straight be
dropped. The protest ended peacefully 22 hours later, after
several professors appealed to the students who remained to
leave the building- Police presence at the event was minimal,
and the RCMP was only called in to protect Singapore's Prime
Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, who was a guest at the Faculty Club
residence.' Estimated damage involving the theft of
silverware, cigarettes, and liquor was $6,122, which Dave
Zirnhelt later refused to pay?
The incidents at UBC were in the nature of spirited
tomfoolery in comparison with the bitter confrontations
between the administration and students which occurred a short
time later at Simon Fraser University. On November 14, 1968,
a meeting between the SFU administration and students,
organized by the Students for a Democratic University (SDU) ,
ended in chaos when acting President Kenneth Strand
impatiently rejected all of the student demands -lo A week
afterwards, on November 21, 100 students raided the SFU
administrative building and took over four out of five
- - -
October 25, 1968, p - 1-2.
Ibid, October 26, p. 31; February 1, 1969, p. 20.
Ibid, November 15, 1968, p . 28.
floors." Following a three-day occupation, Strand called i n
100 unarmed RCMP off icers who arrested the 114 demonstrators,
According t o a n examination of t he 1 0 9 names and addresses of
those apprehended tha t appeared in the Vancouver Sun. seventy-
three w e r e men and th i r ty - s ix w e r e women.'2 Eventually the
charges against those arres ted w e r e reduced t o a maximum $600
fine o r six months imprisonment? Only one of the students
arrested got a three month prison term and 56 received f ines
of $250.'~ The in tensi ty and seriousness of the conf l ic t a t
SE'U during the 1968/69 school term l e f t fears i n the Vancouver
community and the rest of Canada for the universityr s future.
The underground newspaper, The Georgia Straight , was
another high prof i le example of the New Left beginnings of
feminist activism in the larger Vancouver community. One of
the most celebrated of a number of underground newspapers i n
Canada a t the time, and more an avant-garde, cu l tura l venue
than a po l i t i ca l one, The Georgia Straight's struggles are now
legendary. The f i r s t issue was put together i n a Pr ior Street
Warehouse studio, and released at the beginning of May, 1967,
the price being set a t t en cents." O n September 3, 1968, the
Ibid, November 21, 1968, p. I.
l2 Ibid, November 23, 1968, p. 2; November 25, 1968, p. 10. Names were examined by gender, assuming them t o be either masculine o r feminine, O f the 113 arrested, 109 names were given t o the police and l i s t e d i n the Vancouver Sun.
* Ibid, February 5-6, 1969, front page.
l4 Ibid, March 19 , 1969, p- 1-2.
l5 PaLils. Naomi and Charles Campbell. 1997. The Georgia Straight: What the H e l l Happened? Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre. P- 3.
Vancouver City Council passed a by-law prohibiting the sale of
anything on the city streets, a move to impede the sale of the
paper which was rescinded the following week."
Copies of The Georgia Straight w e r e seized on September
18, 1968, when polf ce discovered that the paperr s cartoonist,
Peter Almasy (aka Zipp, creator of the comic strip 'Acidman')
had published an edition with nude drawings of characters
identifiable as Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Twiggy,
Mama Cass, Bob Dylan, Charles de Gaulle. President Lyndon
Johnson and Jesus Christ engaged in a ' love-inr . l7 Peter
Almasy and Dan MacLeod were arrested and charged with
publishing and distributing obscene literature.'' The effort
to ban the sale of the 'hippier paper was condemned by the
B.C. Civil Liberties Association, but their bid to support the
continued publication of The Georgia Straight failed.
Distribution of the paper was banned when the New Westminster
council unanimously voted to revoke their business license,19
Then, the Vancouver City Council rejected the banning of the
paper pending the outcome of a triaL20 It took months to
come to a conclusion, but finally, in September of 1969. Judge
l6 Vancouver Sun, September 4, 1968, p . 13; September 11, 1968, p . 71.
17 Ibid, September 19. 1968, p. 40.
la Ibid, September 21, 1968, p. 3 .
l9 Ibid, September 23, 1968, p. 27; September 1968, p. 29.
'O Ibid, September 25, 1968, front page.
320
Isman dismissed all charges ,21
As the full force of the student campaign and a sweeping
movement involving an urban hippie life-style were developing
in Vancouver, womenrs activism was only beginning to emerge,
The Royal Cormnission on the Status of Women had been formed on
February 16, 1967 - In April of 1968, a few months before
Dorothy Smith arrived to teach at UBC, the seven Commissioners
initiated a succession of public hearings in 14 cities of all
Canadian provinces and territ~ries.'~ The earliest archival
evidence of political activity on the part of women for their
own status in Vancouver came from a document created by the
Vancouver Women's Caucus, which cited an occupation of the
Simon Fraser University Board Room in June, 1968, by a group
of left-wing women students called the Feminine Action League.
In the fall semester of 1968, they reorganised the group to
f o m the Vancouver Womenf s Caucus and began to hold regular
meetings on the SFU campus- These were interrupted when the
SFW administration building was occupied by students in late
November and women's meetings took a subordinate position to
the intensity of the student protest.
When the meetings w e r e restored, they were held in
women's houses in the Vancouver
Women's Caucus rented their own
Labour Temple on West Broadway.
community, and eventually
meeting place downtown in the
They viewed their move off-
21 P a d s , Naomi and Charles Straight,.,. p. 25,
Campbell- 1997. The Georgia
22 Report of the Roya l Commission on the Status of Women in Canada, 1970. Ottawa: Information Canada. P. ix,
carrrpus to be important and one that enhanced their political
accomplishment :
There are several reasons why our off- campus move was successful : I) Women are suffering similar oppression; 2) the weakness of the student left in Vancouver so that there was no competition from campus activity; 3) the presence of several women who were out of the old left tradition, politically experienced and had women's liberation as a priority; 4) the general labour consciousness of Vancouver; 5) the fact that the women in the group had always been action oriented , 23
This relocation set a precedent for the future character of
the Vancouver Women's Movement, in that the ties between the
intellectual community and a grass roots movement springing up
in the downtown core, as well as the smaller municipalities
throughout the province, became firmly linked. Feminist
activism in Vancouver was, for the most part, produced by
women in the greater Vancouver community and was not
restricted solely to female members of the academe.
Furthermore, from the beginning of the women's movement, women
professionals in the academic sphere formed close alliances
with grass roots organizations in Vancouver and smaller
communities throughout British Columbia. One of the earliest
womenr s groups, for example, established in 1968, was
Coquitlam' s tlWomen in Teachingw, founded through a
consciousness-raising group comprised of female members of the
23 WMAC. Vancouver Women's Caucus. File 161. 0080, llWomenrs Caucus: A History and Analy~is.~~ P, 2-3.
British Columbia Teacher' s ~ederation. 24
It was not long before the initial growth of feminist
consciousness in Vancouver was realised in overt acts of
protest on the part of groups of women- At the beginning of
September, 1968, thirteen exasperated mothers joined hands and
blocked traffic at Marine Drive and the Twenty-first
intersection in Westminster so that their children could
safely cross in order to get to school, When the children had
negotiated the busy street, they continued to block traffic,
ignoring the warnings of a policeman in order to protest what
they argued was a dangerous situation as there were no
sidewalks and no street patrol. They kept up the
demonstration for several days until the police agreed to hire
a civilian guard to assist the children in crossing the
street." In another instance, Tania Riopel and Elizabeth
Boppart, members of the Roman Catholic Church in B.C. sparked
a protest when their advertisement petitioning against the
Popef s encyclical on birth control was refused for publication
in the official Roman Catholic newspaper. Catholic women next
published a copy of the petition in the Vancouver Sun and the
Province, urging Canadian bishops to recognize that the Pope's
stand against artificial means of birth control was causing 'a
crisis of consciencer in the B.C. Catholic community. The
collected signatures were sent to the Canadian Catholic
24 WMAC . Vancouver Status of Women. File 158. "Guide to the B.C. Women's Movement."
25 Vancouver Sun, September 3, 1968, p. 3; September 9, 1968, p. II.
Conference of Bishops held in September, 1968, 26
At first few women engaged in protest on behalf of
women's status, and public opinion concerning women and the
women's movement were often overtly hostile, When women did
get attention, it was usually connected to a language of
sexual objectification- Headlines in the Vancouver Sun, for
example, at the beginning of September, 1968, announced 'Hey,
Look What8 o at W C - - A Sexy Anthropology Proff , ref erring to
the ratings that Madeline Bronsden had received in UBCfs
'anti-calendarr, a student publication which rated the
universityr s academic staff . 27 Women who were a part of
hippie counter-culture were often publicly demeaned,
manifested when the Sun carried an article about transforming
a 'hippie girl' into a 'traffic-stopping beautyr:
First scene of the transformation performance took place in the beauty salon of a department store. Lyndafs blonde hair came out from under the tea- cosy beret and was set into a with-it style of fluffy curls,..Swiftly w e brought out underwear, nylons, black patent pumps, white gloves and pearl earrings. Bill for the complete outfit - including hairdo and false eyelashes - was about $70 . 28
Widespread attitudes of women's inferiority provided a fertile
ground for women's activism in Vancouver. At Christmas, 1968,
when five destitute women attended the annual Salvation Army
Dunsmuir House dinner in Vancouver, the public relations
26 Ibid, September 1 7 , 1968, p . 2; September 18, 1968, p.
27 Ibid, September 10, 1968, front page.
Ibid, October 24, 1968, p . 35.
324
officer remarked that they had always thought of it as 'a poor
man's dinnerr and never thought of inviting women before,29
The British Columbia geneticist Dr- James Miller, speaking at
a lecture series at UBC in March of 1969, remarked to his
audience, 'Have you ever watched a bunch of girls trying to
throw a ball? Its pathetic- r 3 0 In the same lecture series,
Dr. Hanna Kassis argued that 'North American women are
regarded more basely and with more disdain than the women of
almost any other society todayf Helen OrShaughnessy, voted
vice-president of the Vancouver United Fisherman and Allied
Workersr Union in February of 1969, noted that as a woman, she
earned $2 -34 as a fish filleter, but 'the company can hire a
man off the street and pay him $2.37 an hour to start at a job
that has taken her years to
In the fall of 1968 when Dorothy S m i t h had just arrived,
formal organizations, such as the Royal Commission on the
Status of Women assigned to deal with the 'woman' problem,
were seen to be highly ineffective. Many prominent Canadian
women did not support it, like the former Mayor of Ottawa,
Charlotte Whitton, who said she 'wouldn't appear before it if
you pointed the noon-day gun at mer, Grace MacInnis, the NDP
member for Vancouver-Kingsway supported the Commission, but
did not send in a brief. Ottawa's Senator Josie Quart said
29 Ibid, December 20, 1968, p. 38.
Ibid, March 7, 1969, p. 26.
Ibid, February 7, 1969, p. 22 - 32 Ibidf February 8, 1969, p. 34.
325
'she had her doubts whether Canadian women rea l ly suffer f r o m
much discrimination' and Judy LaMarsh had l i t t le hope t ha t the
Commission would accomplish anything . 33 Womenr s poverty,
especially, w a s one area w h i c h was seen to have been neglected
by the Royal Commission, i n tha t 300 ,000 Canadian families i n
1968 w e r e headed by women whose choices consisted of e i t h e r
inadequate Social Assistance payments o r a low-paying j ob - 34
Women i n Vancouver, who w e r e fa r removed from O t t a w a both
geographically and pol i t i ca l ly doubtlessly f e l t tha t t h e i r
state of a f f a i r s was not l i ke ly t o be helped i n any concrete
w a y by the Royal Commission.
During Dorothy's first year i n Vancouver a Br i t i sh
Columbia Human Rights B i l l with a Charter f o r women, older
workers and minority groups was introduced into the parliament
and given a f i r s t reading- In February, 1969, women w e r e
given equal r ights in employment, a s w e l l as equal pay, for
the f i r s t time. The wording of the Charter was ambiguous,
however, s ince the bill 'still allow[edl employers t o refuse
t o hire women f o r cer ta in jobs f o r which they are not suited,
so long as they do not refuse t o hire them on the basis of
t h e i r sexf .3s
Although feminist issues w e r e starting t o receive
a t tent ion from women, t he academic community and the larger
Vancouver population, the women's movement was frequently
33 Ibid, October 2 , 1968, p. 57.
34 Ibid, November 7, 1968. p. 38.
35 Ibid, February 28, 1969. front page.
326
obstructed by the framework in which it was represented in the
mass media at the time, namely as a 'bra-burning movementr, an
example of the sexually-oriented, objectifying jargon that was
used to describe women as a sex. A flagrant example of this
disdain was published in the Vancouver Sun in August, 1969:
Local G i r l s Not A b r e a s t of Trend Local lingerie retailers and manuf acturerr s representatives maintain that most Vancouver women are hooked on bras and are not joining the ban-the-bra movement- In fact, they say, sales are increasing here- The trend is more apparent among university students and other young people who follow a philosophy of womenr s liberation. l6
There was
organized
no lack of work to be done by members of the
women's movement to effect a change in negative,
hostile and prejudicial attitudes towards women. Regard given
to women's concerns was often trivialized, not only by men,
but by women themselves- This circumstance was further
exacerbated by the fact that women who did espouse a feminist
and revolutionary consciousness toward the status of their own
sex had no language with which to describe it, further
intensifying their condition of powerlessness.
T h e SOK and the Vancouver Women's Movement: Feminist Principles in the
Collected Works of Dorothy E, Smith, 1968-77.
Dorothy Smith's appointment at UBC was a time of
intellectual change, and a period when her thinking took on a
36 Quoted in: Kloppenborg, Anne et al., eds. 1977. 1985. F i r s t Century: A C i t y Album, 1860-1985. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, P. 161.
radical character. She began writing sociological theory
thinking of herself as an anti-theorist. A n incident at an
annual meeting of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology
Association, where Smith observed students being 'chopped to
bitsr prompted her to write theory to protect her students ,37
She described UBC at the time as repressive, where women
faculty members were often still sessional lecturers well into
their sixties. Her participation in the student movement was
limited, due to her status as a faculty member, but she was
supportive of it.'* Many of her i n m t i o n s in sociology at
this time came about as a consequence of her involvement in
the women's movement, and her writing became devoted to an
analysis of women's perspective with an aim to the advancement
of women's status both in sociology and in the larger society.
Other feminist writers at the time, such as Margaret Benston
and Peggy Morton, were beginning to theorize women's
experience of domestic labour in the but Smith
avoided this debate, which was engaged in primarily by
feminist writers in Toronto.
The site of her conversion to feminism can be located in
37 From my class notes in Dorothy E. Smithr s course in Advanced Sociological Theory, September 13, 1995.
38 Preliminary interview by the author with Dorothy E. Smith, Pam Wakewichrs office, Lakehead University, and the Thunder Bay Airport, October 18 , 1994.
39 My MA thesis, 'The Creation of Dorothy Smithr s Standpoint Epistemology: A Feminist Appropriation of Male Theoristsn, contains an analysis of the domestic labour debate in feminist theory, which engaged the attention of feminist writers in North America and Europe from 1969 to 1985. S e e p. 76-87,
the life-changing experience of teaching the first Women's
Studies course at UBC- The initial Women's Studies class came
out of an Alma Mater Society Lecture Serfes organized by the
students at UBC which Smith did not attend, Anne Petrie, a
well known commentator on CBC News World, was a major
influence in the establishment of Women's Studies as a formal
part of the university, rather than it being just a lecture
series put on by the Alma Mater Society, Smith described it
as 'completely transforming to discover this practice of
corning from your own experiencef .'O
The Women's Studies Program began as a series of non-
credit lectures in the fall term of 1971 sponsored by Women's
Liberation and the Alma Mater Society at UBC, called "The
Canadian Woman: Our StoryBr, and the founding teachers were
Dr. Dorothy Smith and Dr. Helga Jacobson from Anthropology and
Sociology, Meredith Kimball from the Psychology Department and
Professor Annette KoLodny from the Department of English
Literature. The agenda for the fall term, 1971, included
lectures on IgIntroducing the Canadian Womangs and "Portraits of
Women in Canadian Literature% In 1972, it continued as a
non-credit ten week course from October 3 to December 5,
available f o r men and women either on or off-campus. Cost of
attending the class included a $2 registration fee and there
was a charge of -25 cents per lecture, Free baby-sitting was
available and the
Building at UBC.
lectures were held at the Student Union
Formal lectures, which became popular and
Ibid.
were often attended by hundreds of people, broke up afterwards
into smaller seminars held in other university locations, In
the fall series of 1972, Shelagh Day spoke on "Angerw, Lisa
Hobbs lectured on mSocialism, Communism and FeminismK and
Meredith =&all addressed the class on Itsex Role
Socializationn. Seminars were organized around topics of
INLiberated Relationshipsw, lrMarxism and Feminismw, "Lesbian
Lif e-StylesN1, "Study of the Status of Women in Non-Western
culture^^^ and ItFeminist TherapymqL
A formal accredited course in Women's Studies began in
the fall term of 1973 after the unqualified success of the
non-credit evening program that had been offered for the two
previous years. Here is a student's comment on the course
taken from a pamphlet called Voices of Women Students,
assembled by the Women's Research Collective at UBC in 1975:
Its an absolutely indispensable course. At first there was a lot of argument about whether it was too academic, and a lot of women had come with the idea that it should be more like a sort of sensitivity/gestalt sort of thing. But I really felt strongly after a month that we were going the right way - the whole idea of getting academic information, because too many women just don't have that information. They don' t know what they're arguing about, We have these feelings, without knowing why we have them, Its really sort of a weird thing; youf re kind of left floating around. And now I feel I can put my foot down, and slam my fist down on the table, and
41 WMAC. Vancouver Women's Caucus. The Pedestal, 4, 8, 1972, p . 6.
330
I know what I' m talking about, ̂12
The establishment of the Women's Studies Course was achieved
through struggle, in that the rational process took a total of
thirteen committees to get the course in place. and the
organizers were challenged at every step of the procedure.
The area of women was then considered to be 'intuitiver and
not anything that was thought of as a scholarly concern.43
The curriculum of Women's Studies at UBC was up for
grabs, in that t he re was almost no material available to use
in this original classroom environment. There was a badly
made film made by the National F i l m Board on the Suffragette
Movement- There was a library of three books which Smith used
for the class, one which was written by Catherine Parr Trail.
Another was written by Mirra Komarovsky:
It was about women as wives and it was about the nearest thing to a feminist view. I remember it as being rather a good book. I think she is rather a good sociologist or was,..she may not be alive now. I wrote and told her tha t it had been important to us and she wrote me a very nice letter in a very a sort of, you know, very wavering elderly script - 44
This first Women's Studies Course was the point of departure
for much of Dorothy Smith's feminist scholarship and she
42 In: Auger, Jeannette A. and Jill I?- Thomas. 1975-
Liberated Views : Observations on the Women 's Libera tion Movement. Vancouver: Sociology Department, UBC .
43 Dorothy E. Smith. Lecture. t tWomenrs Studies i n Canada." Lakehead University, October 17, 1994.
" Preliminary interview by the author w i t h Dorothy E. Smith, Thunder Bay Airport, October 18. 1994. Most likely the book by M i r r a Komarovsky that she is referring to is Blue- Collar Marriage (1962)-
thinks of it as the most exciting intellectual experience of
her life, It was in this environment, one she and the
students used to call 'the real universityr, that they
invented a curriculum and learned that scholarship could begin
from womenr s experience. In the early 70s, it was unusual for
women to have attained the rank of professor, so younger women
thought of the female teachers in Women's Studies as
'incredibly strong and good, and brightr ...' convincing models ' . . . 'solid as a rockr . . .really inspiringf .45 The UBC
women faculty members who originally taught Women's Studies
were also instrumental in setting up similar programs in
smaller B.C. communities. The four founding members travelled
widely in the province with this objective.'"
There are some areas of Smith's early scholarship in the
Social Organization of Knowledge which could be reasonably
interpreteda7 to contain linkages to the organized womenr s
movement. By 1970, Dorothy Smith's class in Interpretive
Procedures at UBC included a stronger attention to Marxrs work
and she had begun to use her famous paper, "'Kf is Mentally
4S WMAC. UBC. Women's Office, Item 152, Women's Research Collective. Voices of Women Students. P . 43 .
Helga Jacobson, for example, visited the Tamitik Status of Women in Kitimat, in November, 1977, to discuss women's research. WMAC. Tamitik Status of Women. File 150 . Minutes. Meeting of the Tamitik Status of Women Committee, November 3, 1977.
47 The following interpretations are my own, construed from my reading of S m i t h f s work and the history of the womenf s movement at the time. I have tried to establish connections that younger readers, not having lived through this period, might understand for themselves as being possible linkages between Smithrs work and the dpamics of the women's movement.
111 : An Anatomy of a Factual Accountg1, eventually published
in 1978, as a way of teaching social organization. Although
there was not yet a recognizable presence of feminism in her
teaching methods, she was beginning to be supportive of women
graduate students .48 The paper " 'Kr is Mentally 111" is based
on data that she obtained in an undergraduate course on
deviance that she had taught at Berkeley, The paper analyzes
what Smith referred to as an identifiable 'comunal freezing-
out processr, or dynamic of exclusion of 'Kr by a number of
her friends and acquaintances, based on a subtle, insidious
conceptualization of her activities over a period of time in
which they ultimately characterized her as mentally ill-49
The practice of spurning on the part of the group of
people described in "'K' is Mentally Illtr was similar to a
widespread phenomenon in the early women's movement known as
'trashingr. Dorothy Smith has never made, in her writing, the
connection of ' K ' s experience to the ritual in the women's
movement known as 'trashingr, as it was based on research done
at Berkeley, Nonetheless, it is an observation worth noting,
in that the paper itself was written and introduced to her
students at a time when 'trashingf as a dynamic of exclusion
was becoming a well known concept, This could well be an
unplanned concurrence. The practice itself was a powerful
breach of trust, as in the example of Ti-Grace Atkinson, who
Personal communication with James L. Heap, January 15, 1998.
Smith, D. E. 1990b. Texts, Facts and Femininity: Ekploring the Relations of Ruling. London: Routledge. P. 13 -16.
was asked to leave the group she had originally organized, a
radical feminist group known as The Feminists50:
Trashing could be personal or group oriented, each group finding a derogatory term to apply to the others, It was found in all sectors of the movement, but more so in the small group sector when being radical meant being right- The early years brought feminist ideas that were new and =citing; however, as each position developed, it was seen in polemic terms of either/or, The high riding spirit brought with it a level of insecurity as groups took unbending positions, defending their own particular strategy or ideology as the correct line* The end result was brands of feminism which bred contempt for those feminists who did not think or organize in the same way.=
Some feminist groups went so far as to exclude married women
or women who had children, or were derisive of 'straight'
women who chose to live a conventional lifestyle. They often
alienated the very women they were trying to reach.
In Vancouver, for example, the Vancouver Women's Caucus
voted 21 to 18 to expel the Young Socialists and the League
for Socialist Action from the Caucus at a General Meeting on
August 13, 1970. The reason given for the expulsion was the
Young Socialists' desire to build a mass movement on the issue
of abortion while the majority of members wanted to shift from
organisation around issues to an emphasis on constituencies of
women, such as working women and women in education. The
ostracized members accused the general membership of
Ryan, Barbara. 1992. Feminism and the Women's M o v e m e n t : D y n a m i c s of Change in Socia2 M o v e m e n t , Ideology and Activism, New York: Routledge. P. 44, SO, 62.
conducting a 'red-baiting campaignr and a style of democracy
that was ' formal, repressive and constricting' .52
Another more serious incident regarding trashing and
exclusion which occurred, one that became violent, transpired
on the last evening of the Indo-Chinese Conference which took
place in Vancouver at the beginning of April, 1971- Several
North American women met at UBC for a critical evaluation of
the conference- During the meeting, when a Canadian woman was
speaking, an assembly of six women who called themselves
Canadian Union of Rabid Senseless Extremists (C,U.R.S.E.),
made an entrance into the meeting replete with theatre props
and signs prepared to perform guerilla theatre. The ensuing
pandemonium had catastrophic effects on the entire audience:
Immediately a woman stood up grabbing away the sign. She demanded the C.U.R.S.E. women leave- Other women came forward pushing and shoving trying to get the guerilla theatre women out of the meeting. The C-U-R.S.E- women linked arms and refused to leave- At this point a couple of women began beating up on one woman- in the theatre group, the other woman in the skit shouted, 'Don't hit her, she's pregnant', but the American woman kept on slugging her shouting, 'She shouldn't be here thenr. The five C.U.R.S.E. women then formed a circle to protect their pregnant sister,.-by this time the theatre group was in tears, along with half the audience- Some women from the audience rushed up to stop the attackers and calmed them down enough so that the theatre group could do its skit-53
52 WMAC . Vancouver Womenr s Caucus. File 161. IrDef end Democracy in Women's Caucus." "Women's Caucus: A History and Analysis, "
" The Georgia Straight, Volume 5, No. 151, April 8 - 13, 1971. Special Issue. Women's Liberated Georgia Straight. P. 17.
Dorothy Smith, who attended this conference, took a position
against the practice of exclusion Fn the women's movement,
opposing it in terms of an attempt to encourage the
participation of working class women who w e r e under-
represented, saying that 'we can Ieam from our mistakes
without trashing and dividingr - 54
The early protests of the womenr s movement in Vancouver
were often a rejection of and protest against the sexual
objectification of women. The Vancouver Women's Caucus
picketed Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau at the Seaforth
Armories in Vancouver on his visit to Vancouver on August 8,
1969, with signs that read "Hustle Grain, Not WornenIt, a
reference to his reputation as a ladiesr man who exploited
women to enhance his political image? Another original form
of protest the women's movement was the disruption of beauty
contests, Margaret Benston's article in The Pedestal in 1970,
called "What is a Beauty Contest?", noted that the protest
candidate from Simon Fraser University Women's Caucus, Janiel
Jolley, had been barred from the "Miss Canadian Universityu1
contest at Waterloo-Lutheran. Her protest was to consist of
wearing no makeup and simple clothing to the contest events
and to discuss women's position in Canadian society.56 A
54 Smith, D.E. 1977. llThe Women's Research Centre, Vancouver. l1 unpublished paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, May, 1977, Fredericton, New Brunswick,
S5 Toms, Marcy. 1969. Why Picket Trudeau?' The Pedestal, I, 1. P. 1.
56 Benston, Margaret. 1970. "What is a Beauty Contest?" The Pedestal , 2, 1, p. 3.
similar demonstration took place when the Vancouver guerilla
theatre women disrupted the Miss Teenage B-C- contest on
February 21, 1971 .'' It might be construed that the practice of challenging
these processes of the sexual objectification of women in the
women's movement coincided with Dorothy Smith's early
confrontation with the privileging of objectified forms of
knowledge in sociology- Her quarrel with objectified forms of
knowledge, like Durkheirnrs 'positionless accountsr, might be
understood as a kind of translation process that took place,
from the women's movement, directly to her sociological work-
Smith says no, it did not quite work like that-58 Her first
attempt at disputing an objectifying system prevalent in
sociology came with her paper, "The Ideological Practice of
Sociologyn (1974b). which was a critique of the then prevalent
forms of Marxist thinking. Since her days in graduate school
at Berkeley, she had been uncomfortable with the kind of
sociology in which the activities of people were unrecoverable
in sociological accounts. In her essay, wWornenrs Perspective
as a Radical Critiqge of Sociologyi1 (1974a), she observed that
'the pursuit of objectivityf was paid work done by a
sociologist to create forms of knowledge 'to which they are
otherwise indifferentr :
He works with facts and information which have been worked up from actualities and
WMAC- The Vancouver Women's Centre. File 171. Women's Centre Calendar.
58 $-Mail communication by the author with Dorothy E. Smith, Thursday, April 16, 1998,
appear in the form of documents which are themselves the product of organizational processes, whether his own or administered by him, or of some other agency. He fits that information back into a framework of entities and organizational processes which he takes for granted as known , without asking how it is that he knows them or what are the social processes by which the phenomena which correspond to or provide the empirical events, acts, decisions, etc- of that world, may be recognized, 59
This questioning of objectified forms of knowledge which had
long been the predominant mode of knowledge creation in the
social sciences persuaded Smith to think about a different way
of doing sociofogy, one that pulled apart objectified facts
and information to reveal the organizational processes that
were a part of their construction. She described it as 'the
women's movement and the experience of relying on experience
enabled me to join together and build on a number of strands
in my thinking, among them sociologyrs peculiar language and
how it makes people disappearf
In Chapter Two, I initiated the argument that there was
an logical connection from the 'direct experiencer component
of the SOK to the large-scale incidence of consciousness-
raising groups and their practice of sharing individual
personal experience among women, making this the basis of
political organizing for change and often a starting place for
women's scholarship and activism. There is a great deal of
59 Smith, D. E. 1974a. "Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology. I f . Sociological Inquiry, 44, 1, 7-13. P. 9.
60 E-Mail communication by the author with Dorothy E. Smith, Thursday, April 16, 1998,
historical evidence of the far-reaching effects of the
practice of consciousness-raising and its importance to the
organized women's movement during this period, Dorothy Smith
in fact did belong to more than one consciousness-raising
group." She has stated that participation in the practice of
consciousness-raising was not necessary for learning from the
women's movement about the 'critical and political uses of
womenf s experience' . '* In fact some womenr s experiences with
C-R groups, including Dorothy Smith's, were not always very
satisfying. Rather, she entered into what she describes as a
'dialoguer with the women's movement and its procedures:
I think rather I/we entered into a kind of dialogue within the women's movement in which we were continually discovering our experience under a new aspect, the aspect that came into view when we explored ourselves under the category 'womenr and as we read/listened to other women speaking from their experience in a variety of contexts- The critique of objectifying women made by other feminists came out of this same process -63
This observation on Smith's part creates a tension with what I
have interpreted from a historically distanced position, as I
did not participate directly in the Vancouver Women's
Movement. Given the widespread nature of the practice of
consciousness-raising at the time was one of the movement's
'procedures', and what I argue was likely Smith's 'taken-for-
grantedr relation to it, my own site of time and distance can
61 Ibid.
62 Ibid.
63 Ibid,
provide an informed insight and one that is not inappropriate,
Further, the utterance, 'dialogue with the women's movementr.
although reflecting an overarching description of Smith's and
other women's relationship to the women's movement, obscures
the very real and individual concrete practices in which women
were likely to participate,
B. Thompson's early article in The Pedestal in 1972 on
small groups or encounter groups, as they were sometimes
called if men were in attendance, related the strengthening
effect that this kind of experience had on women's lives:
Just one last word about that group three years ago- The loved one said something to me in that second group that was pretty good, I thought. I had said I felt boxed in by my poverty and my job and my responsibilities to my children; that I lived in a box. Then I had sobbed like a child- The group moved in and held me, and I stopped and heaved and blew my nose- One heavy lady said, "Do you want to talk about what just happened?" and I said "N0L1l because I was embarrassed about being a baby in front of them- The group spoke of other things and sat around on the floor touching hands and toes and so on, And then Martha's loved one said, lVIrm still thinking about how it must be to live in a box, and I get a very bad feeling. I've been wondering what you could do about that airless little
Anonymity was frequently practised during consciousness-
raising sessions, so 'Marthaf and 'the loved-one' were likely
the only identification that
Participants were encouraged
nowr, and to speak honestly,
the author had for these members.
to keep focused on the 'here and
and Ms. Thompson related that
64 Thompson, B . 1972 - "Feelings. The Pedestal, 4, 7, P. 8-11.
although she sometimes felt chagrined the format provided by
the facilitator, she looked forward to the meetings?'
Consciousness-raising as a protocol and a starting place
for forms of feminist resistance was widely employed in the
Vancouver Womeng s Movement, The Guide to the B- C. Women's
Movement, produced by Western Canadian Womenf s News (WCWN) as
a special project for International Women's Year in 1975
contained a section on Consciousness-Raising, listing nine
publications that were then available on it, including kits,
guides and lists of rap groups available, The guide listed
the historical origins of many of the organisations as
beginning in C-R groups - Vancouver Rape Relief, for example,
advertised consciousness-raising on rape workshops with the
police, and the United Church Women advertised C-R on the
issue of feminist theology, Many small B X - communities had
individual Women's Centres which offered consciousness-raising
groups on a regular basis, places like Burns Lake, Kamloops,
Courtenay, or 100 Mile ~ o u s e . 66
Consciousness-raising as a practice was thought to
validate the authority of women's direct experience, and 1
argue that it was obvious that as a specific convention in the
women's movement, it affected several of Dorothy Smith's
scholarly works from 1968 to 1977. As a code of behaviour in
the Vancouver Women's Movement, it was a specific and concrete
Ibid,
66 WMAC, Vancouver Status of Women, File 158. Western Canadian Women's News. 1975. Guide to the B - C - Women's M o v e m e n t . P, 4 ,
material site which would have supported Dorothy Smith's
initial scholarly attention to women and their concerns.
Smith has described consciousness-raising as a process of
discovery:
Our discoveries of a language, political, cultural, artistic, philosophic, were grounded in the practice called 'consciousness raising'. It has had many uses, but its early uses were to work on how to speak from what we knew had no names, that had to be expressed in any kind of language we could lay hold of that would do the fob - Speaking from experience was a method of speaking; it was not a particular kind of knowledge, but a practice of telling wherein the particular speaker was authority of speaking of her everyday life and the world known to her as she was active in it ,67
Emphasis on the personal lives and experiences of individual
women generated the feeling that women were no longer alone
and isolated with their individual oppression, and that
together as a group they represented the strength necessary to
bring about social change.
The first work reflecting women's experience was Smith's
essay, "Women, the Family and Corporate C a p i t a l i s m " (1973)'
where the social organization of the family was presented as a
'bifurcationr into public and private spheres, and women took
up a social space involved with the private world of domestic
work, The SOK, as it began to be formulated by Dorothy Smith
in this paper had a deductive source in women's experience or
their labour in the home:
67 Smith, D .E. 1990b. Texts, Facts and F e m i n i n i t y : Exploring the Relations of R u H n q , London: Routledge. P . 2 .
The production o f the home as an actual material site of affairs is the direct responsibility of women. They are central to the home as an enterprise, Their work, their ability to manage, and their commitment to the daily drudgery of housework is fundamental - 6B
The earliest feminist component of Smith's SOK method can be
argued to have logically emanated from the domestic sphere, in
the ordinary, everyday concerns of women- Women's domestic
labour was a key ingredient of early feminist theorizing and a
productive force in the historical development of Smith's
Social Organization of Knowledge,
The Vancouver Women's Movement, and its activism
frequently founded in the practice of consciousness-raising,
provided the rudimentary support for the argument for an
authentic 'women's perspectivef, initially drafted in Dorothy
Smith's "Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of
Sociology" (1974a). Womenf s experience of the afternoon soap
opera was used in this paper as a device to describe a place
where womenr s concerns predominated, j ust as men' s concerns
were dominant in a form of sociology that was created and
theorized by and for men- Women in this era could not find a
place for themselves in this kind of sociological theory. An
authorization of women's own direct experience, extrapolated
from the consciousness-raising and other practices of the
women's movement was a feature of Dorothy Smith's firsthand
creation of the SOK, and one that was needed to confront
68 Smith, D. E. 1975-76. lrWomen, the Family and Corporate Capitalism. Berkeley Jorrrnal of sociology, 2 0, 55- 90, P. 69,
sociological theories that were created by and for men.
Direct experience, as it had been viewed by members of the
discipline of sociology to that point, had dismissed it as
irrelevant in any kind of objectified or 'scientific'
analysis, and students were taught to avoid it as a reputable
source of knowledge,
Although consciousness-raising as an exercise was not
viewed as a way of healing psychological disorders, but as a
source of courage-gathering for women's life changes and
political transformation, it influenced forms of feminist
psychotherapy that were beginning to emerge at the time. The
first collection of essays edited by Dorothy Smith and Sara
David called Women Look At Psychiatry (1975b) was in part an
application of the principles drawn from women's
consciousness-raising groups and applied to the emotional and
psychological lives of women in an effort to alleviate the
oppressiveness of psychiatry and male psychiatrists. Essays
written by Smith in this book are concerned with how the
psychiatric profession organised women's lives by the way that
male psychiatrists created and perpetuated concepts of women's
mental illness, through their authority. Women, on the other
hand, attributed a lack of authority to themselves:
Men represent to both men and women more than merely the authority of a special knowledge. They are invested also with the power and authority of the institutionalized order of ruling of which psychiatry is a part. Thus they appear in their professional contexts with an aura which draws upon the authority of their profession, and the participation of their profession in the governance of our
society- 69
The notion of direct experience, or the idea of an 'insider's
knowledge' absorbed in part from the consciousness-raising
techniques of the women's movement begins its entry into the
scholarly lexicon of the SOK in Dorothy Smith's essays in
Women Look at Psychiatry (1975b) , The of der, male-oriented
model of psychiatry was a place where 'no leakage from the
personal to the impersonal is permitted8
In these essays, Smith began the creation of a new kind
of authority with its roots in the women's movement and
women's authentic experiences, Many of the essays in Women
Look at Psychiatry (1975b) were not scholarly in the
traditional sense, but were the intimate personal experiences
of women's oppressive encounters with male members of the
psychiatric profession, Marsha Enomoto's biographical
narrative of psychiatric treatment, for example, as it was
related to her by a female patient in the essay "It was an
Eighteenth Century Horror Show", is a nightmarish account of a
woman mental patient's personal experience with incarceration,
shock treatment and psychiatric abuse.
Dorothy Smith's maturing scholarship during the
historical events of the Vancouver Women's Movement included
the formation of a loyalty to the politics of Marxist-
feminism, realised partially in the publication of Marxism and
Femin i sm: A Place to Begin, A Way to Go (1977b) , as well as
69 Smith, D.E. and Sara David, eds. 1975b. Women Look at Psychiatry. Vancouver: Press gang. P. 8.
several other essays in this period, Marxism as an interest
was taken up before her adoption of feminist principles, The
reading and appropriation of M a r x r s theory for the creation of
the SOK provided the distinctly materialist element in her
method and an insistence on the grounding of sociology in the
activities of real people in the world, The taking up of
Marxrs work was an important gesture on her part and a venture
into the Marxist-feminist debates of the period, one which she
largely felt excluded her and ignored her scholarship in this
area, especially the Eastern Canadian feminist/academic
community- She described the failure of other Canadian
feminists to recognize her contribution:
Actually I have to say that one of the things that I found really upsetting was that as a Marxist-feminist my work never became a part of the Marxist-feminist debates in Canada ...I don't know whether it was because I was writing on the West coast or whether I was writing the wrong kind of thing or whether Marxist-feminism in central Canada or Eastern Canada was cliquish in some way but nobody ever ref erred to my work. 7L
Dorothy Smith is right about the citations to this small book,
which was published in Vancouver by New Star Books and meant
to be a part of the series of Marxist-feminist books of the
period, like Maria Dalla Costar s The Power of Women and the
Subversion of the Community (1972) , F r o m the time of its
publication in 1977 to August, 1996, Marxism and Feminism: A
Place to Start, A Way to Go (1977b) was cited a total of nine
times, according to Social Sciences Citation Index, unlike
71
Smith, Preliminary intelrview by the author with Dorothy E. Thunder Bay Airport, October 18, 1994.
many of her later scholarly works which garnered citations in
the hundreds. Possibly it was a effect of her marginalized
position in the academic community at UBC and an insensitivity
of Eastern feminists, particularly in Toronto, to the work of
women in Western Canada- Smith's perseverance in the area of
Marxist-feminism contributed to the developing language of the
SOK. She began to locate the origin of her oppression and the
oppression of other women in 'an objective organization of
societyr .72 The two polarizations of the SOK, 'direct
experiencer and the 'relations of rulingr are clearly derived
from her early Marxist-feminist work and Marx's class theory
of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie,
Smith's belief was that a Marxist-feminist analysis was
the best way of addressing the economic, political and
personal features of the oppression of women. In M d s m and
F e m i n i s m : A P l a c e to begin, A Way to Go (1977b1, she used the
example of wives who were beaten by their husbands to
illustrate how women's lives were organized by forces external
to them and over which they had little control. A women who
was dependent on a man, and who was being beaten, had her life
regulated by agencies outside the reach of her authority in
two ways: 1) Under a capitalist economic system, marriage and
a family became a trap, which women were unable to leave
because the whole 'institutional organization of the society
is at work to put them back into that relationshipr; and 2)
Through the application of the label of 'battered wifer a
72 Smith, D. E. 197713. Feminism and Begin, A Way to Go, Vancouver: New Star
Marxism: Books. P,
A P l a c e to 10.
woman was incorporated 'into the professional system of
controls ' . " The first battered womenr s shelter, Transition
House, had only just been buf lt in Vancouver,
From 1968 to 1977, Dorothy Smith experienced a deep
change personally, politically, and intellectually through her
involvement in the historic moment of the Vancouver Women's
Movement- This transformation touched specific areas of her
scholarship and the Social Organization of Knowledge: 1) The
organizing qualities in a society had a material foundation in
the authentic lives of human beings, both men and women; 2)
The polarizations of societal organization were divided into
the relations of ruling and localized experience; and 3) Any
sociological inquiry could begin with direct experience as the
initial starting place for the creation of knowledge.
The Vancouver Women's Revolution: Economics, Events and Organizations
Economics
'We've laid our organizational bases on the basis of money from the state, ' 74
Groups in the Vancouver Women's Movement from 1968 to
1977, and most likely in local forms of the women's movement
throughout Canada, rather than relying primarily on their own
resources for the source of their economic and monetary
74 Smith' D.E. 1977b. Marxism and Feminism: A Place to S t a r t , A Way to Go. Vancouver: New Star Books. P, 25.
support, initiated what became a rather precarious and
unreliable prac t i ce of dependency
municipal and d v e r s i ty governments
the
for
federal , provincial,
the funding
women's centres and women's projects- This left women's
activism and the progress of women's status at the whims of
those in positions of power, forces which were often
prejudiced against the advancement of women's status:
The basis of our appeal has been the assumption that in some way or other, these institutions were just and even- handed, that they were in fact democratic, that they were open to persuasion, to pressure to the demands that we might make. We are finding now that this is not so. They are not open, and indeed it is part of our discovery that they never w e r e truly open because their treatments of interventions from the women's movement has always been highly selective, They have always chosen what they should support and what not to support on the basis of what would make the least impact and make the least real change.75
What began grass roots organizing and autonomous fund-
raising on the part of women's organizations culminated in
huge amounts of Eederal funding that were extended often on a
one-time basis during International Women's Year (IWY) in
1975, and were summarily retracted once IWY had come to an
end. For example, when the Vancouver Women's Caucus began to
organize, they held their meetings at women's homes in the
community. The Women's Caucus raised money for their Abortion
Campaign in 1970 by appealing to the medical community to
contribute the cost abortion. for ' the
of pressuring the Provincial and Federal Governments into
actf ng in a responsible mannerr . '" This kind of initiative diminished as the women's movement expanded and there was an
increasing reliance on government funding.
The Western Canadian Women's News Service published a
Guide to the B- C, Women's Movement in 1975 as a special
project for International Women's Year, Of the nine
organizations listed that would provide financial assistance
to women's organizations, all nine were affiliated with the
provincial, municipal or federal governments, The Guide
listed Canada Council grants regarding media projects with
Canadian content, It suggested obtaining Civic Grants from
the Social Planning Department of 'your local city councilr.
Two widely used programmes at the time inaugurated by
financial aid from the federal government were the Local
Employment Assistance Program (LEAP) and the Local Initiatives
Program (LIP) . Provincial financial support was accessed
through the Provincial Status of Women Co-ordinator, the
Secretary of State Women's Programs and the Women's Economic
Rights Branch in the Parliament Buildings in Victoria. The
literature on women's funding initiatives suggested by the
guide contained only one source for autonomous organizational
fund-raising, a Ms, Magazine article called "The Dollars and
Sense of FundraisfngtC in the June, 1973, issue. All other
sources were advice on how to appropriate government money,
76 WMAC. Vancouver Women's Caucus, File 161, Letter, Re: Abortion Campaign Federal and Provincial, The Vancouver Womenr s Caucus is on the March.
for instance, pamphlets like IrHow To Write a Proposal and Get
it Fundedrr and 'Citizenr s Guide to B .C. Government Fundingm .77
Many women at the time considered dependence on government
handouts as a from of 'selling outr or 'co-optationr, but
Dorothy SmLth stated that 'I don't think our work is
necessarily contaminated in those ways'
International Women's Year prompted a comparatively large
inundation of federal government assistance for women's
projects in Vancouver and smaller B.C. municipalities. The
federal government set aside a total of $5 million for the
entire country for IWY, of which half was under the
jurisdiction of the Secretary of State Department - $2.5
million for IWY projects and women's groups. The other half
of the money was used to pay for a three-month advertising
campaign which cost $500,000 and hired an exclusively male
advertising team, and to pay for five regional conferences on
the status of women at a total cost of $1 million, Some of
the remaining $1 million was used to conduct surveys to
measure the effectiveness of the Secretariat in achieving a
change in public attitudes towards women at the end of 1975.
Of the $2.5 million for individual projects, the Secretary of
State allotted $160,000 to British Columbia and the ~ukon.'~
77 WMAC. Vancouver Status of Women. File 158. Guide to the B.C. Women's Movement. 1975. Vancouver: Western Canadian Women's News, P. 6-7,
78 Smith, D . E . 1977. M m i s m and Feminism ..., p. 25.
79 WMAC + Western Canadian Womenf s News Service. File 167. International Women's Year, 1975,
This amount had to cover all the small communities in the
province and grant applications of projects for more than
$25,000 were not considered. In most cases the grants which
were awarded were much less than this- Projects in the
Vancouver area, of course, received the lion's share of the
funding - $106,211, while Victoria women's groups received
$10,240 and communities in the B.C. interior received $41,215.
Grants awarded to women's organizations which directly
effected the intellectual projects of Dorothy Smith were the
amount of $1,918 for the founding conference of the British
Columbia Women's Studies Association, and $16,000 given the
University of British Columbia Women' s office for their "Women
in Focusm audio-visual workshop. The largest grant was
allocated to the Vancouver Art Gallery in the amount of
$25,000 to commission a ballet in tribute to Emily carr.'O
There was enormous controversy over the way that IWY
monies were disbursed, A single woman's centre could cost
between $25,000 and $75,000 a year to operate, including 2 or
3 salaries and basic operating expenses. None of the grants
were sufficient to fund a woman's centre in a large urban
area, and large numbers of women's groups found themselves
competing with each other for the meagre crumbs which the
government allowed. Women's organizations in B.C. and the
rest of Canada were also angry that despite the fact that they
had invested considerable energy in working towards equality
WMAC. Western Canadian Women's News Service. File 167. Secretary of State IWY Grants to B.C. Women. April 29, 1975.
3 52
for women, they were not consulted by the Secretariat in the
preparatory stages of funding distribution, Women were also
upset at the amount set aside for conferences ($1 million).
because they believed that the time for talk was over and
there was a need for action in the implementation of the
findings of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. As a
result of inadequate funding, women's organizations began to
rely largely on volunteer labour, regardless of the fact that
feminists were trying to teach women not to work at unpaid
employment, which to them meant the perpetuation of women's
exploitation,
Traditional sources of fundraising for womenr s groups
based on their domestic labour, like bake sales, etc,, were
rare. The cultural atmosphere of 1968 to 1977 was, in
appearance at least, one of freedom, in the areas regarding
both issues of sexuality as well as finance. For example,
members of the hippie counter-culture sometimes opened 'free-
storesr, where clothing and food could be obtained for
nothing. Some conventional sources of revenue in the women's
movement were maintained, although New Left ideology of the
period incorporated the notion that it was 'uncoo18 to pay too
much attention to capitalist enterprise or to financial
matters, The Vancouver Women's Centre published a calendar
which they advertised was 'entirely produced by womenr -
'volunteer labour as usualf. The price was $1.82 Historical
82
Centre
Ibid, International Women's Year, 1975.
WMAC. Vancouver Women's Centre. File 171. Women's Calendar . 1973 . Final Page.
evidence of the era records women's anxiety and inexperience
in regard to financial matters- The Vancouver Women's book
store, for instance, began with no grants and with only
donations and loans, W h e n asked in an interview about their
plans to pay staff salaries the response was: 'We talk about
it every once and awhile* We are a little afraid of it, We
are not in any competition with any bookstore- 83
Events
The SOK was not produced in an historical vacuum, and the
Vancouver Women's Movement was replete with a rich history
containing a number of consequential occasions which were a
part of Dorothy Smith's temporally situated social setting.
At least two of the historical events in the Vancouver Women's
Movement from 1968 to 1977 have already been mentioned - the
Indo-Chinese Conference held in April, 1973, and International
Women's Year in 1975. There were few incidents which appear
to have been spontaneous or unorganized protest, with the
exception of the unrehearsed occupation of the office of The
Georgia Straight by a group of women on Thursday April 3,
1971- Many of the events of this period were carefully
orchestrated by and affiliated with a specific feminist
organization on definite issues, but the Indo-Chinese
Conference involved an inter-organizational involvement of
women in the Vancouver community, as well as Indo-Chinese,
a3 WMAC. Vancouver Women's Bookstore- File 160.
3 54
Vietnamese, Canadian and American women, I have chosen to
look at these two occasions because of their distinctive
character: 1) the occupation of The Georgia Straight as an
instance, not only of a unplanned event and demonstration of
the increasing militancy of women, but further as a happening
which contained the characteristic grass roots qualities of
the Vancouver Women's Movement and one that occurred outside
of the academic realm; and 2) the Indo-Chinese Conference,
which Dorothy Smith attended as a representative, as an
instance when the issue of racism began to be questioned in
t h e womenr s movement.
The Georgia Straight was a bi-weekly newspaper in a
tabloid format which was sold on the streets of Vancouver and
the suburban communities surrounding the city. On Wednesday
April 2, 1971, the paper released an Easter issue which
infuriated a group of women (in all historical accounts these
women remain anonymous, but some of them may have been workers
for the Vancouver Womenr s Caucus publication, The Pedestal)
who consequently occupied The Georgia Straight headquarters
the next day for t h e purpose of putting together a womanrs
issue of the journal. The offending illustration showed a
nude man who was in the process of being crucified on the
pubis of a headless, naked woman. The insulting effect of the
caricature was exacerbated by the fact that one of the
headlines beside it made a reference to the Indo-Chinese and
Vietnamese women who were in Vancouver for the Indo-Chinese
Conference.
The editorial staff of The Georgia Straight insisted that
355
they had not meant to associate the cartoon with the Indo-
Chinese women, but admitted that they could understand how the
cover could be interpreted in that manner- The position
statement explaining the format of the 'Women's Liberated
Georgia Straightr. agreed that the cartoon represented an
humiliation of women designed to sell the newspaper:
The women feel that much of the paper on a continuous basis is sexist-- that it objectifies and exploits women, rather than seeing women as human beings with a full right to the fu l l equalLty that is the right of all people..,rmrch of the criticism is valid. The Georgia Straight carries many reflections of this society. And this is a society that degrades and exploits women. It has been our intention to put out a paper that reflects the needs of people who are oppressed by the capitalist system. Sexism is one aspect of this oppression,
The editorial in the Women's Issue, which the female
protesters called 'The People's Straight', avowed that they
would make serious attempts to accommodate women's demands,
producing a paper that 'should reflect a greater concern with
the needs of all oppressed groups
The women who assembled 'The People's Straight' worked
with the female staff of the newspaper to publish the special
edition, and the paper came out on time containing 'articles,
pictures and cartoons related to the particular needs and
interests of Part of the women's grievance was the
The Georgia Straight, 5, 157, April 8-13, 1971. Special Issue. Women's Liberated Georgia Straight, Inside Front Cover. Editorial.
Ibid.
86 T h e Pedestal, 3, 5, May, 1971. P. 3 .
reality that the female staff of the paper were w o r k i n g in
subordinate positions.87 The women 'liberatedr the office of
The Georgia Straight not with intentions of sabotage but so
that they could make use of it. The destruction of property
was limited to tearing the front pages off a number of the
Easter Editions, prompting a street vendor to write a letter
to the editor lamenting that 'the action of ripping off the
objectionable portion of the front cover [was] an act of
passion and prejudice. And because of that I am stuck with a
number of papers to sell which have been tornf .88 The
occupation and protest had a positive outcome, in that the
male editorial staff agreed to incorporate the women's
demands, 'at least on a trial basisr, and the sale of the
Women's Liberated Georgia Straight took in $540 which was put
toward a women's centre and defense fund?
Dorothy Smith has often commented bo th in her writing and
teaching, on the bitter controversies w h i c h were a part of the
early women's movement in Vancouver- The conflict that she
has mentioned was conspicuously present in the organizational
stage and during the Indo-Chinese Conference which was held in
Vancouver in April, 1971, which Smith attended. Much of the
planning for the conference took place in the United States.
The proposal for a conference to be held in Vancouver between
Indo-Chinese and North American women emerged from a dialogue
-
'' Womenf s Liberated Georgia Straight, centre page. 88 Womenfs Liberated Georgia Straight, p. 4.
The Pedestal, 3, 5, May, 1971. P. 3.
in association with North Vietnamese women, Women Strike for
Peace (WSP) and the Voice of Women (VOW), A delegation of
three women from New York were chosen to go to Budapest to
consult with the Indo-Chinese women concerning the plans for
the conference, At this juncture, the Vietnamese women made
it clear to the American organisers that they wanted to learn
about and develop large scale contacts with as many Women's
Liberation groups in North America as possible. Even in the
planning stages of the conference it became clear that the
conference was divided into a number of factions, each one
espousing a particular cause and ideology. Preliminary
planning meetings for the conference took place in the United
States - one in New York and two in Baltimore. A further
planning conference was scheduled for December 5 - 6, 1970 in
Buffalo, New York. All of the planning meetings were
conducted and organized by US People's Anti-Imperialist
Delegation or the 'anti-imperialist' contingent of what was to
be the conference in Vancouver in April, 1970
Women's Liberation groups w e r e not contacted until the
final stages of planning, a manoeuvre which infuriated the
members of these organisations, which was further aggravated
by the expectation that Women's Liberation groups pay for the
$10,000 conference. The controversy arose from the anti-
imperialistsr co~ections to the New Left, which was viewed by
the women's movement as male-dominated movement. The women
from the anti-imperialist faction were 'defined in a narrow
90 WMAC . Womenr s Liberation Alliance. File 174. I1Fourth World Manif estoI1 . P . 2,
Left-male context and being imposed upon the women's movement
by Left men by their Left womenr A number of members of
Women's Liberation in Vancouver were 'saddened' at the tactics
of the American women from the anti-imperialist groups, and
consequently compiled a Vourth World Manifestout which they
sent to their Indo-Chinese sisters communicating their concern
over the way that the conference was being organised- The
letter which accompanied the manifesto, was sent to the Indo-
Chinese delegation on January 13 , 1971. " Decisions regarding
the participation of the conference were also made by the US
People's Anti-Imperialist Delegation, It was resolved that
there would be 400 representatives, 20% of whom were to be
Canadian, Of the 80% who were American, half were to be
'Third World womenf and the remaining representatives were to
come from Women's Liberation groups. Six women from Indo-
China attended the conference. Attempts would be made to
contact GI wives, women's groups who worked with GI wives and
women members of the military, as the Indo-Chinese women had
an agenda of peace and an end to the Vietnamese Warag3
The conference was divided along racial and political
lines. The first portion of the conference was set aside for
the Voice of Women (VOW) and Women's Strike for Peace (WSP),
which were long established organizations, 'turned out in
Ibid,
92 WMAC. Women' s Liberation Alliance - File 174. Letter accompanying the "Fourth World Manifesto". January 13, 1971.
93 Ibid, p - 4 .
embarrassingly small numbers * . 94 The second portion was
attended only by the 'Third World' contiagent which consisted
of women from Native groups, black women, Asian Americans and
Canadians, Chicanos and Mgtis, The last two days were
assigned to Women's Liberation delegates:
They came from as far away as San Diego, Nevada, Saskatchewan and Alaska. They cane from community groups, tenants associations, unemployed groups, women's liberations groups and collectives, and gay women's groups. They were predominantly young women with just a scattering of older women from welfare rights organizations- Their discussions with the Indochinese posed most sharply the enormous differences between the women's movements in the revolutionary societies of Vietnam and Laos and those in the 'advancedr capitalist societies of Canada and the US. 95
It was felt that racial tension was diffused at the conference
by keeping the factions separated, but attacks of racism
emerged over inconsistencies in the security arrangements:
By the third day the disputes over security were becoming so divisive between the Third World and white women that it was decided (partly as a result of discussion with the Indochinese) that security would be much relaxed. Immediately the tension was reduced, and from then on security caused no large problems and relations between the Third World and white women improved. 96
As an historical event, the Indo-Chinese Conference was
important in that it highlighted the fragmented, explosive and
94 Roberts, Anne and Barbara Todd. 1971. "Murmurings After the Indo-Chinese Conference," The Pedestal, 3, 5, P* 6- 7 *
Ibid,
Ibid,
quarrelsome nature of the early women's movement, which
Dorothy Smith refers to in her feminist work on a number of
occasions. 97 It further provides evidence that, contrary to a
widely held belief in contemporary feminist scholarship,
issues of race, class and sexuality were of intense interest
to feminists prior to the 1980s- Notwithstanding their lack
of language and an understandable analytical naivete,
feminists in the Vancouver Women's Movement at this time
displayed an intense concern as well as a consciousness of
these problems, The liberation of the Georgia Straight and
the fractious occurrences at the Indo-Chinese Conference form
the sociohistorical backdrop to the creation of the SOK and
the social realities of which Dorothy Smith was a part. Their
inclusion here is meant to convey the depth and complexity of
the social upheaval that was occurring in the Vancouver
community of women, which was mirrored in the early
conceptualization of the SOK method, a repercussion of the
radical changes taking place in the larger society,
Organizations
The social conditions under which the creation of Dorothy
Smithr s scholarly work was organized, reproduced, and
distributed meant that she came into contact with and
maintained affiliations with several feminist organizations in
the city of Vancouver. Some of these were directly connected
97 S e e : Smith, D.E., 1987; 1990a; 1990b.
to the University of British Columbia, like the Women's O f f i c e
and the Women's Research Centre, but others, like the
publishing house Press Gang, were a part of the grass roots
feminist community. These associations were crucial to the
production of the sociological knowledge that she imagined,
and comprised the material conditions in which the Social
Organisation of mowledge was created and proliferated,
Press Gang began as an informal cooperative of five men
and one woman who voluntarily printed posters and other
printed matter for leftist and counterculture groups in
Vancouver, asking only the price of materials in return. They
printed stickers with captions like "Wages for Houseworkn,
"This Exploits and Degrades Womenu, and IrE.T. is a Girl ! And
if She Worked Here, She'd Have Been Paid 51% Less Than the
Boys!u98 The first publishing initiative by Press Gang in
1971 was She Named It Canada Because Thatf s What It Was
Called, a cartoon spoof on the history of Canada put together
by female members of The Corrective ~ollective.~~ The woman
who worked during the early days of the Press Gang collective
found that she cleaned the rollers more of the time than she
operated the presses, so when two of the men left the
organisation, she worked to have them succeeded by two women.
Despite the increased equity of the arrangement, the men and
women experienced a growing tension in their working
98 WMAC. Press stickers.
99 She Named It 1971. [1971, 1972,
Gang. File 144. Collection of printed
Canada Because Thatf s mat It Was Called. 19731 - By The Corrective Collective.
Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers.
environment, so much so that the men began working in the
evenings and the women worked in the day. Divisions erupted
over long-term objectives in that one person thought the
collective should concentrate on profit, one argued for a
position as a printer for the Communist Party of Canada, one
wanted to stop printing altogether, and the women wanted to
form an all-woman printing business, Splits then arose in
November 1973 regarding the measure of quality that should be
included in the printing work, and the people who left at this
time felt that commercial standards of neatness were not
necessary. Sara Davidson and Pat Smith, interested in
augmenting their printing skill, stayed to work at the
publishing house and they expanded to a staff of five or six
women. loo
The Press Gang collective took on the task of publishing
Dorothy Smith's and Sara David's first collection of essays,
Women Look at Psychiatry (1975) . They were as completely
unskilled in a project of that magnitude as Dorothy and Sara
were in book publishing, so when asked in an interview during
August of 1976 about this experience they explained:
We decided about a year and a half ago we were really having problems. The collective was in a collective depression. We kept printing stuff that other people wrote that we didn't necessarily agree with or wasn't terribly important. All our effort was in that direction so we decided that what we would actually like to do was start publishing. We had meetings with Dorothy Smith and Sara David and it took us a long time- We had never
loo WMAC. Press G a n g . File 144. Tress Gang: An All- Woman Print Shop-" Hysteria, 1, I, March, 1980- P, 8.
3 63
done a book like tha t before, We had never been involved in editing, even typesetting or laying out a book of that size, It was all quite new to us and it took US a year from the manuscript to the completed book. We learned a tremendous amount from that book. lox
Women Look at Psychiatry was eventually printed and published
by the Press Gang Collective in 1975. Pat Smith designed the
front cover and sketches in the book were done by Lindy
Filkow ,
Pat Smith of Press Gang characterized the organisation as
one which was 'not at all into women's businessesr and 'our
official rap is we are an "anti-capitalist, feminist
colle~tive~~~.'~~ Their rates at the time were considered
competitive with other Vancouver businesses and they priced
their work on a sliding scale, Money and the size of a salary
seemed to be unimportant to the Press Gang members, who seemed
to have an altruistic agenda when it came to their work- Pat
Smith recalls that she often didn't get any salary at all or
lived on $200 per month, Their business mandate seemed to be
consistent with a leftist ideology of anti-capitalism, where
monetary concerns were secondary to co-operative ideals and
service to the feminist community.
In contrast to an anti-capitalist motivation on the part
of the Press Gang collective, Dorothy Smith was more ambitious
for her first book, Women Look at Psychiatry (1975) . H e r
lo' WMAC. Press Gang. File 144. "Press Gang - Vancouver Feminist Print Shop. " Interview. August, 1976.
lo' WMAC. Press Gang. File 144. "Press Gang: A n All- Woman Print Shop.I1 Hysteria, I, 1, 1980, P. 8-9.
motives were also altruistic ones, given that she and Sara
David signed over the royalties to their book to the B,C,
Womenf s Studies Research ~ssociation. O3 Although
disappointed that the book was not more successful financially
than it was, she held no grudge against the organization:
1 am not at all angry with Press Gang. r think rather I made a mistake in publishing Women Look at Psycbiatzy with them. They produced a good book (it has some defects of workmanship, e.g, a tendency to come apart) but they did an excellent editorial job on it. But where they failed was in neglecting the selling of the book. Connecting with the commercial was, I think not compatible with the kind of craft ethos that was theirs, At all events, taking selling seriously was not something they envisaged and could see that they needed to do or learn how to do as part of the political act of producing feminist work at the time when not many people were doing that, So Women Look at Psychiatry was very disappointing to me, because I had been pretty sure that, following Cheslerfs best-seller on women and madness, it would have had a very good sale.lo4
Regardless of the Press Gang Collective's inexperience they
did attempt to distribute the book using contemporary
marketing techniques, They produced a short-sleeved red T-
Shirt that advertised the book with the slogan, "I'm Not Mad,
I ' m Angry1' printed inside a dark ink blot. An original Women
Look at Psychiatry T-shirt is housed in the Women's Movement
Archive Collection at the Morwiset Library at the University
lo' Smith, Dorothy E. and Sara David, eds, 1975, Women Look at Psychiatry, Vancouver: Press G a n g Publishers. Inside front page,
lo' E-Mail communication by the author with Dorothy E. Smith, February 12, 1998,
of Ottawa, donated by Nancy Adamson,
Early research on the history/herstory and the status of
women in B.C. was often conducted at the UBC Women's Office,
whose headquarters were Room 230 in the Student Union
Building. It was established in September of 1971 as 'an
educational resource service to the members of the university
community and the community at large8 , The Women' 6 Off ice
was run by students at UBC, which made for some organizational
problems, in that their concentration on the demands of the
programs often led to the neglect of their studies. Paxt of
the objective of this research collective was the connection
that it developed and maintained with the larger Vancouver
community:
It has been our attempt in establishing the evening educational program to bring together the ideas and experiences of women both on and off campus, This link between the university community and the community-at-large must be maintained if we are to reach a full understanding of women's situation in contemporary society. We feel that our program has been most successful in breaking down the existing barriers- Because the program attempts to link the interests of university women and community women, it is essential that non- students work as a part of the collective.
Members of the Women' s Office and the Women's Research
Collective were responsible for starting the non-credit
Women8s Studies Course mentioned above, and the Women's
Studies credit course at UBC. The attendance of the lectures
WMAC. UBC Womenr s Off ice. File 152. "The Womenr s Office: An Eval~ation.~~ Page 1.
and workshops put on by the UBC Women's Off ice varied f r o m 50
to 400 people on any given evening. Some workshops had
waiting lists and in the 1973174 term 250 people
registered. lo' They also organized the Womenr s Action Group
which worked to eliminate the most conspicuous signs of
intolerance against women and published A Report on the Status
of Women at the University of British Columbia in 1973.
Addit ionally, they produced the publication The Voices of
Women Students in 1974, which was available free of charge for
students.lo8 The student members of this collective also
accumulated materials far a Women's Resource Library, a
Women's Music Library and organized a film series called
In 1975, during International Womenr s Year, the UBC
Women's Office received a huge grant for $16,000, the second
largest in the province, from the Secretary of State for an
audio-visual workshop called "Women in Focus " . 'OS Dorothy
Smith worked on at least two of the video productions for the
audio-visual library that was established over the course of
the next two years:
I was very interested in this problem of the disappearance of the women's movement in the 1920s and 30s because I was involved in teaching the Women's Studies course, the general introductory course, I
Ibid, I1Attendancet1 . WMAC . UBC Womenr s Off ice. File 152. Press Release,
September 2, 1974.
log WMAC . Western Canadian Women' s News Service, File 167. Thomas Fisher Rare book Collection. F- M. Dennison Collection, Collection 51. Box 9.
had to learn a lot about feminists and socialists in B .C- and then I became interested in why [there was a] lack of continuity,, ,why we didn't know anything about these people. I discovered a woman who was living in an old person's home who had been one of these activists and 1 interviewed her because I was interested in this problem of a gap. In talking with her and in preparfng for it I discovered that there had been actual repression of feminism along with socialism in B.C.UO
The Women's Office created a collection of 3 6 half-hour long
audio-visual tapes, many of which were in colour- They were
accessible to women throughout B.C. for rental and resale at a
reasonable cost, "Women in Focusw became a series of
television programs for women which was aired on Tuesday
evenings at 9:00 p.m. on Vancouverrs Cable 10 Television, and
were shown in smaller B - C. communities ,lfl The Tamitik
Status of Women, a Women's Centre in Kitimat, for example, put
on a monthly program over Channel 10 which was produced by
"Women in Focusn , ' I2
On July 16, 1976 the UBC Women's Office was evicted from
the Student Union Building, the reason given by officials in
the Alma Mater Society that the space occupied by the
organization was 'untenably excessiver . 'I3 After several
Unstructured interview by the author during lunch with Dorothy E. Smith, August, 21, 1997.
'I1 WMAC. Western Canadian Women's News Service. File 167- Thomas Fisher Rare Book Collection. F. M. Dennison Collection. Collection 51- Box 9. International Women's Year. P- 2.
WMAC. Tamitik Status of Women. File 150. Tamitik Status of Women Association, 1989.
lr3 WMAC. UE3C Womenr s Office. File 152. Press Release. August 1, 1976.
meetings, where the issue of space and allocation were never
discussed, the Women's Office and the "Women in Foc~s'~ Audio-
Visual library were forced to relocate to #4 - 45 Kingsway,
sharing the office of the Women's Research Centre of the
British Columbia Women' s Studies Assocf ation. Members of the
Women's Office reported that over their six year occupation of
quarters in the Student Union Building, they 'were frequently
hasselled and undermined by some [male] members of the A.M,S,
student executiver -llq Regardless, their achievements in
women's scholarship were impressive, and Dorothy Smith was an
active participant in their accomplishments,
Monthly planning meetings for the Women's Research Centre
began in November, 1976, when the board, the co-ordinator, and
the volunteers created the organization's policy, planned
projects and attended to financial matters. Among the twelve
founding members of the policy collective were Dorothy Smith,
Helga Jacobson and Roxana Ng- When the Women's Research
Centre became a full time undertaking on January 3, 1977, it
marked the beginning of an increased sophistication in women's
research. The days of inexperience and the lack of a language
to explain womefirs particular circumstances were coming to an
end. The Research Committee identified goals for the centre
which were placed under four categories: 1) Daycare,
especially when it came to the needs of working mothers who
could not afford to pay; 2) Immigrant women, to study laws,
policies and services as they directly affected the lives of
immigrant women, to be used for immigrant women's service
groups; 3) Northern women; and 4) Domestic workers both in
private homes and who worked for janitorial services .Is
Membership in the Women's Research Centre was by subscription
at a cost of $7.50 per year, Affiliation with the centre
meant that an individual could receive 'full length reports
and working papers on such topics as "Marxism and F e m i n i ~ r n ~ ~ by
Dorothy Smith at cost'."6
According to the minutes of the Vancouver Womengs
Research Centre, Dorothy Smith attended every meeting from
January 3 to August 11, 1977, The founding organisers adopted
a fundamental structure for the centre consisting of a Board
of Directors, a Policy Collective and various Research
Committees. Policy around issues of open meethgs, credit for
work accomplished, confidentiality, ownership of any data, and
the use of the research and data by members were considered.
It was also agreed that a policy which encouraged the members
of the centre to do public speaking be adopted and the task
should be rotated, giving the more inexperienced members an
opportunity to acquire this skill- A Wife Beating Committee
was added to the study areas of the centre in April, 1977.
Among the mundane tasks that Dorothy performed for the
collective was the preparation of a list of laundromats with
Cath Alperovitz, that would assist in the distribution of
'I5 WMAC. Women's Research Centre, File 100, tlWomenrs Research Centre . " February 14, 19 77. Brief summary of activities.
WMAC. Womenr s Research Centre - File 100. Subscription letter.
leaflets.lL7 She and Cath Alperovitz also worked together to
devise a course outline for a Women's Studies course backed by
the Burns Lake Women's Centre in connection with the College
of New Caledonia. Helga Jacobson and Dorothy jointly prepared
a working paper on the confidentiality of research- At the
final meeting, before her move to Toronto, she agreed to
summarize other people's work in order to present it at a
workshop set up by the Women's Research Centre to assist the
B- C, Federation of Women in fundraising techniques,uB Andr
shortly before her relocation, the Women's Research Centre
decided to move as well to 'a new office at the old BC Fed
buildingr, at 517 East Broadway, Vancouver- Rent for the new
off ice was the same - $175 per month,1L9
Conclusion
This chapter provides an analysis of the social
conditions which were a logical source for Smith to draw from
in the early creation of her method of examining objectified,
textual forms called the Social Organisation of Knowledge. At
the time of the Vancouver Women's Movement, Smithrs distant
relation to Margaret Fell and her mother' s Suffragette
experience likely assumed a stronger significance. She
lL7 WMAC- Women's Research Centre- File 100- Minutes of the Vancouver Women's Research Centre. April 2, 1977.
WMAC- Women's Research Centre. Minutes of P. C. Meeting. August 11, 1977,
ensured, for instance, that her mother's autobiographical
account of her militant political activism was tape-recorded
before her death in 1976- Feminist exemplars which had
probably receded from her consciousness at the London School
of Economics and the years at Berkeley became a source which
she drew from in a process of identity-formation, alternatives
from her past which bolstered her choice of becoming a
feminist sociologist. Older models of the women's movement
became the subject matter for her Women's Studies classes,
Here I have focused on the pre-formations, events,
ideologies, practices and activism of the members of the early
Vancouver Women's Movement from 1968 - 1977, Unlike the
American women's movement which emerged from the Civil Rights
and New Left activism of the early and mid-1960s, the
Vancouver Women's Movement grew out of the New Left Student
Protest Movement. Events at Simon Fraser University and the
University of British Columbia sparked a radical political
environment in the city, A widespread consciousness of
women's issues occurred simultaneously through the institution
of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in February of
1967. A certain amount of ideological overlapping occurred
between the student movement and the women's movement,
especially in the initial stages, in that Marxist-feminism was
taken up partly from the Marxist elements of the student
movement, and from the dissatisfaction of women's caucuses in
Marxist organizations.
I have examined three interpretive sites where it might
be construed that linkages between phenomena in the organized
3 72
women's movement were translated by Smith as themes in the
early imagining of the Social Organisation of Knowledge.
These are : 1) the ' communal freezing out process ' , examined
in Dorothy Smith's famous essay, "K' is Mentally Illtr (1978),
which I argue is similar to a ritual in the early women's
movement known as 'trashingr; 2) the early protests in the
women's movement often took the form of the disruption of
beauty contests, a protest against the objectification of
women, similarly, the Social Organization of Knowledge was a
method to uncover the organizing power of objectified forms of
knowledge in sociology; and 3 ) the widespread practice of
consciousness-raising, with its emphasis on authority of the
personal experience of women, and its affect on the 'direct
experience' component of the Social Organization of Knowledge.
Although these could be interpreted as logical connections,
Dorothy Smith argued that it was a 'dialoguer with the women's
movement which affected her early scholarly work.
Dorothy Smith's early scholarly/feminist work was
reinforced and inspired from the introductory work she
accomplished in the first Women's Studies courses at UBC, an
intellectual enterprise that was also derived from the women's
movement. Events like the women's occupation of the offices
of The Georgia Straight and the Indo-Chinese Conference held
in Vancouver in 1971 formed a part of the social history which
gave rise to the SOK, Finally, the organisations in which
Dorothy Smith played a founding role w e r e a another source of
her feminist scholarship, as well as providing for the
material conditions under which her work was published.
373
CHAPTER NINE
SPLITTING TnE WEBL: THE SOX AND THE TORONTO WOMEN'S MOVEMENT, 1977-1998
There is a very ordinary. mundane aspect of the women's movement which we usually donf t think about, To a very great extent, it begins in texts, By texts, I don't mean a text book or anything as formal as that. I just mean anything which might come to us in the form of words on paper. whether in articles in magazines, in newspapers or in books, We might even consider television and movies as a kind of text, In any case there are words or images fixed in a material form and without their speaker's presence, In any kind of way the women's movement has come to us, it has to a large extent travelled to us in this form.*
Dorothy Smith's relocation to Toronto marked the
beginning of a new phase in her work. and more particularly in
The idea for this title came from the following quotation from Dorothy Smith's article called "The Renaissance of Womenn (198423) in Knowledge Reconsidered: A F e m i n i s t O v e r v i e w published by the Canadian Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW) . P - 8 :
"1 have this dream: in Toronto, in front of an apartment building near my office, [the old Rochdale building on the South side of Bloor Street West near Huron Street] there is a large sculpture of a woman hunkered down on her hams, Her head is bowed down almost between her knees. She is hunched over - a massive but passive sculpture emphasizing rounds and cunres. the weight of the back, thighs, shoulders, all her shape. In my dream she starts to get up. I see that she is covered with a scarcely visible web which has held her down. In my dream she stands up, she stretches, raises her powerful arms to the sky and splits the web."
Smith, D. E. 1979f. I1Using the Oppressor's Language.I1 Resources for Feminist R e s e a r c h , Special Publication 5, Spring, 1979. In Search of a Feminist Perspective: The Changing Potency of Women. March 4 - 5, 1978. University of Waterloo. Proceedings. P. 10-20,
the form of the women's movement that confronted her when she
arrived, Her sons were now teenagers, so it was a time that
she described as 'nutty teenagers with nutty friendsf, and the
pressures of single parenthood and a demanding career resulted
in the diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome, which persisted
for about four years.3 The changes in her approach to
sociology over the next two decades were enormous, and the
twenty years at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
were the site of her most substantive contributions to
sociology, theoretically, and at the category of method, As
the opening quotation testifies, Smith's interest in textual
forms of knowledge, which had its genesis in her Interpretive
Procedures class at the University of British Columbia, began
in earnest after her arrival in Toronto, and found a
meaningful connection to the organized women's movement. Even
now, in 1998, though she is at a point in her career where she
is in semi-retirement, she muses about writing a book about
the This is the interval when the Social
Organization of Knowledge becomes a formal course in the
sociology department curriculum at OISE/UT, and through the
intellectual affiliations that take place with her students
and other collegial relationships, it matures to the
Interview by the author with Dorothy E, Smith at her office at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, November 11, 1994.
Personal communication by the author with Dorothy E. Smith, December 8, 1997,
recognizable method that it has become today.
The Toronto Womenrs Movement was a vastly different
configuration than the community of women Smith left behind in
the Vancouver, At first, Marxist-feminist writers comected
to the Toronto Women's Movement had given a weighted attention
to theories that explained the skills and value of work in the
household, in the form of the domestic labour debate. As the
women's movement matured and diversified and women gained more
access to the public sphere, domestic labour gradually
diminished as a intellectual interest. Already formed and
divided into a throng of groups based on sexuality, racially
and ethnically defined needs, and cultural pursuits, members
of the Toronto Women's Movement were unmindful to any possible
offering Dorothy Smith could make, indeed, were at first
indifferent to her scholar~hip,~ Ten years had passed since
the women's movement had been introduced in Toronto, when a
women's caucus at the University of Toronto's student league,
the New Left Caucus, renounced male chauvinism in the
organization and formed one of the first five Women's
Liberation groups in North America.= There had been time
enough for trashing, factional division and the fractious
nature of the early women's movement to have taken effect.
Interview by the author with Dorothy E. Smith at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, November 11, 1994.
" Prentice, Alison, et al. 1988. Canadian Women: A History. Toronto : Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. P . 353.
Instead of a feminist community who all knew, or knew of each
other, Toronto was segregated into communities of women based
on class, race, sexuality as well as political and academic
affiliations, presenting, by the force of numbers and
separation of interests, increased barriers to net-working.
This chapter subsumes a far-reaching, intellectually
complex duration of Dorothy Smithrs scholarly career, covering
the effect of wornenrs activism as an interdisciplinary
renaissance for women in the 1980s which included sociology.
It historicizes an era encompassing the weakening of Marxrs
influence as a theorist, and class as an analytical category,
and the rise of poststructuralist and postmodern philosophy
that occurs with its concomitant seepage or contamination of
history and sociology from its origins in literary theory.
These two decades of Dorothy Smith's life and work lend
themselves to logical arrangements and consequently this
chapter will be organised as follows: 1) the affect of the
women's movement on Social Organization of Knowledge from 1977
to 1989; 2) Dorothy Smith's response to the incursion of
poststructuralism and postmodermism in the 1990s, and her
interest in the text as a site of sociological investigation;
and 3) The rise and development of the Toronto Women's
Movement, from 1977 to the present.
The Social Organization of Knowledge and the Toronto Women's M o v e m e n t , 1977 - 1989.
Anyone who has been a student of Dorothy Smith's, and has
visited her office, knows of its apparent chaos, a trait which
many of her students find highly amusing. She would be the
first to attest to the accuracy of this statement. There are
some theories as to the reason for this idiosyncrasy, which
include: I) a form of rebellion against the importance that
her mother placed on domestic skills, and her mother's
proficiency in the organization of the home; or 2) a lukewarm
interest in domestic pursuits, due to an unequivocal obsession
with scholarly endeavours. When the sociology department
moved from the sixth to the twelfth floor, on the event of
O1sE/UTrs amalgamation with the University of Toronto in
November, 1996, her office got 'spruced upr a bit, as a
consequence of the move, but the last time I was there, things
had begun to retrogress once more, to the level of piles of
paper, books, envelopes, etc. and its traditional muddle. As
a productive force, women's domestic skills over the centuries
seem to have contributed to the development of a contemporary
feminist configuration, at least in the case of Dorothy Smith,
wherein women are more apt to be interested in the public
sphere than in the private.
In Chapter Two I formulated a conceptual framework for
the components of the Social Organization of Knowledge, which
included the notions of social organization, direct
experience, document and text, botanizing, the text-reader
378
conversation, and forms of disjuncture- The development and
creation of the SOK did not proceed in an orderly fashion, and
it proceeded project by project essay by essay, in bits and
pieces hidden and contained in the plethora of scholarly work
that she produced from 1977 to 1989. This is not to say that
her individual journal articles were not focused and
organized, only that her thinking on the SOK was not linear,
and that the project of uncovering the progression of this
thinking is rather like the huge task of tidying up her
office, looking for the patterns of her work in the course of
this operation. It requires extracting the relevant portions
from the mountain of material that she generated at a time
when her creativity was at its most prolific and inscrutable.
This section will concentrate on formulations of the some
components of the SOK and how these concepts have evolved
during a decade which finally allowed, through the concerted
pressures of the women's movement, women's concerns to take
centre stage in sociology.
In the duration of 1977 - 1989, Smith published 44
articles, including translations of former articles and book
reviews. In the same interim, she presented 67 public
lectures and/or unpublished papers at various universities and
con£ erences . The m a j ority of this work was done on behalf of
women's status, to create a place for women's perspective and
standpoint in sociology. Of the articles done on or about
Dorothy E- Smith's curriculum vitae.
379
women, three possible categories emerge: I) articles which
deal with the women's socially organized exclusion from the
ruling culture; 2) articles on women's inequality in the
family based on a Marxist-feminist analysis; and 3) essays
that formulate a specific form of sociology for women,
including both theory and method, In addition, Smith has
written essays which deal solely with aspects of the SOK and
the text, several of which have been already examined in
Chapter Three, "The Social Organization of Knowledge: An
Overvieww- A reasonable place to begin is the way that
Dorothy Smith views the social organization of exclusion that
marked women's lives.
First in a series of essays on the topic of women's
socially organized exclusion from participation in the
productive or creative aspects of human society was Dorothy
S m i t h r s paper called, llA Peculiar Eclipsing: Womenr s
Exclusion from Manr s Culturew (1978a) - This work was an
expanded version of an article that was first published in
1975, in DBC ~epores* under the title Tdeological Structures
and How Women are Excludedtr, and in 1976 in Priorities: A
Publication of the N - D o P o Women's ~ o m n z i t t e e ~ , under the same
title. She argued that women have been systematically, and in
Smith, Dorothy E . 1975, Vdeological Structures and How Women are Excludedm. U8C Reports. A Special Issue for International Women's Year at UBC, 21, 5, 6-8.
Smith, D. E. 1976. *Ideological Structures and How Women are Excludedtt. Priorities: A Publication of the N . D . P . Women's Committee, 4, 2, 7-10, 27-28,
an organized fashion, excluded from a means of expression in
men's culture, and when they have actively insisted on their
right to expression, they have almost a k y s been forcibly
repressed. The governing part of society mostly made up of
men is what organized women's lives:
These organizations are part of the larger apparatus of ruling the society, the apparatus which puts it together, co- ordinates its work, manages its economic processes, generally keeps it running, and regulates and controls it* This means that the forms of thought we make use of to think about ourselves and our society originate in special positions of dominance. Since these positions of dominance are occupied by men (almost exclusively), this means that our forms of thought put together a view of the world from a place which women do not occupy. Hence, the means that women have had available to them to think, image and make actionable their experience have been made for us and not by us.''
Social organization, in this kind of setting, is conceived of
as an hierarchical force working from the top to the bottom,
where women are victimized and situated in a social
environment over which they have little control. In the
argument of women's exclusion as being a deeply embedded
property of social organization, Smith emphasized that the
problem for women was more serious than simply just bias or
prejudice, and further, was a part of the organization of
capitalism. This type of power formation exhibited itself at
lo Smithr D. E. 1978a. "A Peculiar Eclipsing: Women8 s Exclusion from Manr s Culturet1 - Women's Studies International Quarterly, 1, 4, 281-295. P- 282.
a multitude of levels of authority, in Freudian theory of
sexuality, the literature on mothering, in the mass media, in
the spiritual and intellectual intelligentsia, in the social
organization of education, at the level of discourse and
conversation. Women were excluded from power, or when they
attempted to move beyond their prescribed boundaries they
receive 'ridicule, vilification and an opposition f r o m menr."
Much of Smith's work on the socially organized exclusion
of women from 1977 - 1989 were studies of women within the
educational environment, both at the level of teaching and
administration. One extensive research project in this area
was published in 1978 and was a collaboration with Marilee
Reimer, Connie Taylor and Yoko Ueda, and other m e m b e r s of the
Wollstonecraft Research Group called "Working Paper on the
Implications of Declining Enrolment for Women Teachers in
Public, Elementary and Secondary Schools in Ontarion (1978d) .
This is one of the few investigations in her curriculum vitae
that is heavily weighted in statistical analysis, as it
pertained to women in the educational system in Ontario. A
large report consisting of some 80 pages, most of the
attention was given to tables which analyzed the position of
women teachers in comparison to men. The position of women
teachers in the Ontario educational system was not argued to
be the sole consequence of discrimination, but inequality.*
statistics were employed to provide an entry into the social
organization of the educational system. In theory, men and
women should have been competing equally for positions along
the hierarchy of the educational structure, but the social
organization of this structure was one of segregation,
exclusion, and inequality. Even women who remained unmarried,
for example, and who should have had an equitable standing and
opportunity with men, based on the organization of the
sequence of a man's life, did not have a balanced entrance to
promotion. It was being a woman that enabled their inequity,
not the burden of a household and its repercussions for their
occupational obligation^.^
Dorothy Smith also wrote about the effect of the
relations of ruling on the various organizations within the
women's movement, in the essay mentioned above called Where
There is Oppression There is ResistanceIr (1979~). She argued
that since the organizations and projects that identified
themselves as feminist and part of the Canadian Women's
Movement depended largely on state funding, their autonomy was
at risk. She admitted that it would have been difficult for
women to proceed otherwise. This dependency had its down side
Smith, Dorothy E. , Marilee Reimer, Connie Taylor and Yoko Ueda. 1978d. Working Paper No. 2 4 . Ifworking Paper on the Implications of Declining Enrolment for Women Teachers in Public, Elementary and Secondary Schools in Ontario1'. P- 3-4.
Ibid, p . 9 *
in that it enabled 'a process of absorptionr:
As the process of absorption goes on, its effects are a progressive weakening of the active dialogue, the active political talk; the continual challenges and advances, The problem is not that we donr t continue to talk. Rather our talk isnr t fed and vitalized by an intimate practical action. Now when the women's movement comes together, the call for a new theoretical base is made in a practical vacuum. The practical base of the political process is being leached away -
This essay noted the increased organizational capacities of
women through larger and more powerful networks, but the
attendant erosion of the energy and imagination of the women's
movement was 'like a starfish eating a clam, sucking the
living tissues from the shellr, as a result of the processes
of control in place through systems of organizati~n.~~
The theoretical construct which was at the basis of
Dorothy Smithr s method for a sociology for women was called
'the standpoint of womenf, a phrase which was first mentioned
in the essay "A Peculiar Eclipsing: Women's Exclusion from
Man's Culturel1 (1978a). This theory was based on the
experience of women and the social organization of their
lives, an experience 'directly felt, sensed, responded to,
prior to its social expressionr and the sociology for women
began at the point where this experience was impinged upon by
l4 Smith. 1979a. op. cit., p. 14.
IS Smith, 1979a, op. cit., p. 13.
an external social organization,16 The social organization of
women's lives has meant that their primary experience has
historically taken place in the household, and because of this
was antithetical to the sociological concept of agency, which
imputed the possibility of choice. Women had few options in
the way that the organization of their lives proceeded:
Women have little opportunity for the exercise of mastery and control, Their working lives are not structured in terms of a project of their own. The housewife, for &le, becomes rather highly skilled at holding together and coordinating the threads and shreds of several lines of action, the projects of more than one individual, while herself pursuing none. The conflicts academic and professional women experience when they are also housewives are partly conflicts between opposing modes of organizing C O ~ S C ~ O U S ~ ~ S S -I7
In creating a sociology for women, social organization was a
pervasive aspect of the society in which we live, an everyday,
taken- f or-granted feature of our lived lives . l1 Institutional
Ethnography: A Feminist Methodn (1986d) was concerned with
the ordinary yet hidden ways in which human lives are directed
and co-ordinated. In her own experience, the simple act of
walking with her dog in her own neighbourhood was ordered by
City By-Laws, the neighbours' lawns, the forms of ownership of
her neigbourhoodrs homes/apartments and her neighbours'
l6 Smith, D. E. 1979b. .A Sociology for Women'. In: Sherman, J., ed. The P r i s m of Sex: Essays in the Sociology of Knowledge. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. P. 135,
individual expectations that were influenced by these kinds of
organization.18 Social organization was at work in the
ordinary event of having lunch with a friend, or going to the
laundromat- Every part of social life was externally
organized by a further extended series of social relations
with some form of organizational power of control. In
sociology, the control worked at the level of categories,
labels and abstraction, so that the work and activities of
what was being analyzed disappeared. For example, the the
category 'single motherf made the work accomplished in this
experience disappear, or what single mothers did in relation
to their children's education did not get understood as a form
of work.19
The greatest part of Smith's work in the period from 1977
to 1989 was spent in the creation of a Marxist-feminist
analysis of the social organization of women's lives. In
1979, she wrote a paper called lrWomen's Inequality and the
~arnilyll~~, work which she identified as comprising part of a
book that she was writing for New Star Books in Vancouver on
women and class, which ultimately did not get published. This
la Smith, D.E. 1986. ltInstitutional Ethnography: A Feminist Method", Resources for Feminist Research, 15, 1, 6- 13. P. 7,
l9 Smith, 1986, OF. cit., 8.
20 It was eventually published as: Smith, Dorothy E. 1981b. "Women's Inequality and the Familyn. In: Moscovitch, Allen and Glenn Drover, eds, Inequality= Essays on the Poli t i c a l Economy of Social Welfare. Toronto : University of Toronto press.
essay was a study of the social organization of women's work,
both within and outside the home, and the historical changes
that occurred in class settings of women's inequality. Using
examples from farm households in Canadian history, she showed
that women held a position comparable to a managerial capacity
in the organization of the home, The wife's work in the
household fostered her husband's situation in the economic
domain, but it did not contribute to a womanf s own
advancement. She argued that the early Canadian farm family
functioned in much the same way that a small business would in
a capitalist mode of production, and womenf s work capacity was
assumed to be inexha~stible,~' Under the rise of the middle-
class family and capitalism under a corporate form, business
became separated from the home and social organization assumed
two distinct configurations. where men moved from easily from
one to the other, but women were increasingly isolated, and
'the domestic world becomes truly privatizedr, and her work
was an appropriation, a private one, rather than a public
one. 22 Smith' s work on the social organization of women in
the family from a Marxist-feminist viewpoint followed
recurrent themes of historical changes over time,
One well-known Marxist-feminist analysis that Dorothy
Smith wrote during the period of the 1980s described as a
renaissance for women, was one she shared with Varda Burstyn
Smith, 1979f, op. cit., P. 14-15.
22 Ibid, p . 23-
387
called Women, Class, Family and the State (1985b) . Varda
Burstyn was an active member of the Revolutionary Marxist
Group and a socialist feminist? She wrote on a regular
basis for the Socialist V o i c e producing such articles as
"Socialism and Feminism: The Beginning of Herstory" (1978)
and "Spring in English Canada: The Flowering of the Women's
Movementrt (1978) ,24 She also wrote a long editorial letter to
the Marxist newspaper In Stnzggle commenting on the process of
'rethinking huge questionsr, that was besetting the
organization with regard to women8 s issues 125
W o m e n , C l a s s F a m i l y and the State (1985b) analyses a
social organization of women in the family where again they,
and other family members, have little control over their
condition, creating a dependent situation for women:
Choice, decision, moral commitment, love, hate, alienation, are there in a context and in conditions in which family members have no choice, where their particular commitments to each other make a difference in the terms of the fate of individuals and of the family as a relational working unit, but do not change the conditions, means, grounds, of what they may or can do* No matter how it is done, where men are wage earners and women cannot earn enough outside the home to
23 Varda Burstyn was responsible for the donation of the archival material from the Revolutionary Marxist Group to the Women's Movement Archive Collection at the Morriset Library at the University of Ottawa.
WMAC. File 86. Revolutionary Marxist Group.
'* WMAC. File 86. Revolutionary Marxist Group. Letter from Varda Burstyn to In Struggle, November 4, 1981. Published December, 1981.
provide for their children independently of a man and his wage, dependency permeates every aspect of the interpersonal process in the home - regardless of how loving, how caring, how much or little respect each has for the other, how they have been able to work together, how much the man has learned to grant autonomy to his wife, or she has learned to assert herself vis-a-vis hint?
As part of an organization of work in a capitalist economy,
womenf s domestic Labour had, until the womenr s movement,
remained obscured from the external means of production, even
though it was a indispensable factor in the process of
economic production and the reproduction of the worker.
Women, C l a s s F a m i l y and the State (1985b) is one of the few
places where Dorothy Smith analyzes women's domestic labour
under capitalism, as it was a theoretical debate she largely
eschewed, not unlike her disinterest in domestic labour as a
practice, already mentioned in the introduction to this
section. She preferred instead to write in a mode of macro-
sociology, to deal with larger issues, such as the corporate
order, the educational system, and the organization of
relations in political economy.
2 6 Burstyn, Varda. 1985 . Women, Class, Family and the State. By Varda Burstyn and Dorothy E- Smith. Forward by Roxana Ng. Toronto: Garamond, P. 6.
Dorothy Smith's R e p l y to Poststructuralism in the 19908
Dorothy Smith's response to the encroachment of
poststructuraEsm and postmodernism in socioLogy throughout
the 1990s became manifested in her work as an interest in the
text and discourse, which had been taken up by theorists like
Barthes and Foucault- She displayed a willingness to confront
this theoretical paradigm, but with an attendant loyalty to
the materialism which she appropriated in her earlier career
from Marxf s The German Ideology. What emerged was an amalgam
of the two eras, the materialism drawn from Marxist-feminism
on the one hand, and postmodern theory on the other. Other
than being amenable to adopting a sociological interest in
'discourse' and the 'textr, and an attention to the work of
Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault, Smith never does embrace
the posturing of poststructuralist language with its
specialized lexicon and references to the psychoanalytic and
the semiotic.
At the very point when one would expect a decrease in
productivity, Dorothy Smith's career trajectory in the 1990s
has escalated. She continues to write in a driven and
prolific manner. Since 1990, she has published two books and
some thirty odd articles, written a number of unpublished
pieces, and contributed at least half a dozen smaller magazine
articles to Canadian Dimension. Her curriculum vitae was
updated in July, 1997. From 1990 - 1994, she participated in
56 public lectures, conferences and addresses. Since 1990 her
academic awards have increased, from the Outstanding
Contribution Award for the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology
Association (1990). the Hawthorne Lecturer for CSAA (1990),
the John Porter Award (1990), the Degr Prize Lecturer at the
University of Waterloo (1991), the Landsdome Professor at the
University of Victoria (1991). LL-D. Honoris Causa from the
University of British Columbia (1992), the Kerstin Hesselgren
Professor in Sweden (1993). and the Jessie Bernard Award for
Lifetime Achievement from the American Sociological
Association (L993). At the time of writing this dissertation,
she is about to release a new book in the fall of 1998, based
on a collection of the papers which she has published since
1990, called Writing the Social: Cri t ique, Theory and
Inves t igat ions.
The categories of her work at this time are several, for
instance, she has written some articles in the area of women
and education. Two examples of this are her work with Alison
Griffith, wWomenrs Work as Mothers: A New Look at the
Relation of Class, Family and School Achievementu (1989e) and
"Girls and Schooling: Their Own Critique" (1995a). Two
essays are unique in their subject matter. "Whistling Women:
Reflections on Rage and Rationalitym (1992b) is an historical
rationale for the event of the Montreal Massacre that occurred
at LrEcole Polytechnique in Montreal on December 6, 1989, and
there is an introduction to a collection of essays by Sally L.
Hacker to which Smith wrote an introduction. She had spent
several days interviewing Sally Hacker shortly before she
died_27 There are two papers which directly address, and are
a critique of, postmodern theory. One is an unpublished
paper, "The Out-of-Body Experience: Contradictions Within
Femini~rn~~ (1992e) , and Telling the Truth after Postmodernisml~
(1996b) . Of all these papers, the majority, eleven in
are devoted to the analysis of the text, textual forms and
textually-mediated discourse, a huge body of evidence of her
tenacious fascination with this area.
One of Dorothy Smith's forays into the materiality of the
text is an unpublished paper called "Texts in ActionN which
she wrote with Jack Whalen in Oregon. They were interested in
examining how the text entered into the social organization of
sequences of talk, and how the text, in standard conversation
analysis, is not usually recognized as part of the talk- They
argue that the text 'can be seen to operate as something like
a third party to the talkr :
Like Levy, we insist on the materiality of texts to how they operate- However, we have decided to remain with the term of 'textr in part because the notion of 'documentf is counter intuitive in many ordinary contexts, but also because we want to preserve the term as a bridgehead connecting the analysis of texts as constituents of social organization with literary and cultural theory. Our use of
27 Smith, Dorothy E., ed. 1990. Doing it the Hard W a y : Investigations of Gender and Technology, By Sally Hacker, London: Unwin Hyman. P. 1,
28 This documents the articles which she has written/published to May 15, 1998.
the concept of text insists on its materiality - hence on its local presence. in whatever form, 29
This work analyzed the way that the text operated in the local
setting of 9 - 1 4 emergency dispatching in a public safety
communication centre, where Jack Whalen worked for a period of
some fifteen months, and in this local site, it is the
computer text that becomes the third party in the sequence of
talk between the call-taker and the caller,
The material form of the 'textr varies in Dorothy Smith's
recent work, in that the article called "Politically Correct:
An Ideological Codet1 is an analysis of a radio documentary,
the CBC program 'Sunday Morning* hosted by Mary Lou Finlay.
This work is typical of Dorothy Smithr s recent work, in that
she is often partial to Foucault's notion of discourse, and
has been developing a theory of public and other forms of
discourse based on Mikhail Bakhtinrs idea of speech genre in
his theory of the novel.30 Another paper examines the "Report
of the Climate Committeem (Committee to Make the Department
More Supportive of Women). It is an analysis of a report
written by a junior faculty member of the Political Science
Department at the University of Victoria, and the response to
29 Smith, Dorothy E. and Jack Whalen. lrTexts in Actionw. Unpublished paper. This essay was likely written in the Spring of 1996, when Dorothy Smith's reduced work load at OISE/UT allowed for her to work with Jack Whalen in Oregon.
30 Smith, Dorothy E. 1995~. "Politically Correct : An Ideological Codem. In: Richer, Stephen and Lorna Weir, eds . Beyond P o l i t i ca l Correctness : Toward the Inclusive University. P. 29-30,
that report, a letter from some eight male faculty members
demanding an apology from the Climate Committee members.
Smith pinpoints the construction formats of each text,
identifying what makes the women's committee report less
authoritative, and the appropriation of legal jargon by the
male professors in their letter, which authorizes their
demands. 3r
One poststructuralist theorist thae Dorothy Smith has
turned to in the explication of 'textr is Roland Barthes,
whose 1977 essay, "Work and Textw, supports a materialist
account of the text, in that 'it reinstates the reader/writer
or listener/speaker as actual people situated and active in
the everyday/everynight worlds of their own
Barthes is quoted in her recent essay, "From the Marginsrr
(1997~) which studies several 'subtexts', i-e., several long
quotations from several authors in different disciplines, to
observe how these branches, sociology, anthropology, and
political science have incorporated and developed methods for
objectifying the realities of people's lives. In one of my
interviews with Dorothy Smith, she once informed me that she
3' S m i t h , Dorothy E. 1997. IrReport and Repression: Textual Hazards for Feminists in the AcademyIr. Linda Eyre and Leslie Roman, eds . Dangerous Territories. New York: Routledge,
32 Smith, Dorothy E. 1997~. IrFrom the Margins: Women's Standpoint as a Method of Inquiry in the Social Sciencesw. Gender, Technology and D e v e l o p m e n t , 1, 1, 113-135. P. 115,
was addicted to reading3, in that she always had a book in
her hand, on planes, at home, in her office, or, as I have
sometimes observed her, walking down the hallways of OISE/UT.
Now, in her contemporary approach to sociology, the text has
taken over her consciousness, and since its formations and
configurations are incalculable, she seems to have found an
infatuation to last her to the end of her days.
Milestones of The Toronto Women's Movement, 1967 - 1988
This historical analysis covers the beginnings of Women's
Liberation in Toronto, and its rise to the height of feminist
activism in the 1 9 8 0 ~ ~ documenting Dorothy Smith's connections
andfor direct participation, and its attendant changes over
that time. The periodization for this historical treatment
ends at 1 9 8 8 ~ ~ ~ when the Toronto Women's Movement was
doubtlessly at its most powerful, and was begiming to deal
seriously with the issue of its endemic racism. Whereas the
Vancouver Women's Movement was characterized by a 'grass
rootsg quality, the
33 Interview bv
Toronto mode of
the author with
feminist activism in the
Dorothy E. Smith during - lunch in the OISE/UT cafeteria, August 21,-1997.
34 The choice of the date of 1988 as a n end to the historical treatment to the Toronto Women's Movement is an arbitrary one, chosen to restrict the analysis to a manageable time frame which could be adequately dealt with in the space of one chapter. A whole book could be written on the fascinating history of the Toronto Women's Movement, so I: have had to rigorously limit my approach.
1980s was eclectic, splitting off into various networks based
on class, sexuality' (dis) ability, academic connections,
groups based on racial and ethnic affiliations, political
interests, issues of the moment, and cultural concerns. I
make an attempt here to include historical evidence which will
have a direct or indirect affiliation with Dorothy Smith, with
the exception of the introduction to Toronto Women's
Liberation, when she was still in Vancouver. I have included
the early years in the Toronto Womenr s Movement as a way of
comparing the activism that was accomplished by women in
Vancouver, analyzed in Chapter Eight, and a way of documenting
the continuity of the Toronto Women's Movement. Due to the
complexity of feminist activism that 1 am recovering, many of
the events and groups may not have a firsthand connectedness,
but would certainly be aspects of the Toronto Women's Movement
which Dorothy Smith would have been aware of, and would have
been a part of the social environment which was an ongoing
force in the site of the production of her work.
Thus, the organization of this chapter is not a mirror
image of the way that Chapter Eight is organized with regard
to women's activism in Vancouver. I begin by providing an
historical background to the Women's Liberation Movement in
Toronto before Dorothy Smithr s arrival, as a way of
orientation to the Toronto Women's Movement. As feminist
publishing was a strong force in the Toronto Women's Movement,
and an important venue for Dorothy Smith's academic and
intellectual work, I provide a segment studying several
feminist journals and publishing enterprises which emerged
during the renaissance period of the 1980s, including a the
history of the confrontation with endemic racism in the
Women's Press. Rather than providing a separate section
devoted to economic analysis, as in Chapter Eight, the
financial resources mobilized by the Toronto Womenr s Movement
will be integrated section by section,
Introduction to Toronto Women8 s ~iberation~'
At present, there is no comprehensive feminist work
available on the local histories of Canadian Women's
Movements, even though there are several historical treatments
of the Canadian Women's Movement as a whole, leaving a huge
gap in the knowledge that is accessible on feminist a c t i v i s m
in C a n a d a . Mentior, of the Toronto Women's Liberation Movement
(WLM) as a specific entity is restricted to a few scattered
pages in several texts, and a few paragraphs in Prentice et
a1 , ' s Canadian Women: A History (198 8) - 1 would argue that
35 In most accounts, the Canadian Women's Movement begins with the establishment of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women on February 16, 1967, This w a s set up on the example of a number of similar Commissions on Women's Status that. had been organized internationally, principally, the U.S. Status of Women's Committee, 1961-63; France, 1966; and West Germany, 1962-66. The first such Committee on the status of women was set up by the League of Nations in 1935, followed by the United Nations in 1946. See: Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada. 1970 - P. 1.
most of the work done to date on this fascinating area of
Canadian women's history is comprised of a bare bones of
material, and is frequently deficient in any kind of vigilant
analysis, with the possible exception of Canadian Women: A
History (1988) . More recent work making a positive
contribution to the history of the Canadian Women's Movement
are Pierson et al., 1993; and Agnew, 1996. The rich resource
of historical material available at the Morriset Library
Special Collection, the Women's Movement Archive Collection
(WMAC) has largely untapped in the documentation of Canadian
womenrs history. The possibilities for this kind of work are
unlimited, and there is a stockpile of knowledge yet to be
reclaimed in this area.
The earliest organizing in Toronto, mentioned in the
opening statement of the chapter, emerged from the Canadian
student Left, specifically, the Student Union for Peace Action
(SUPA) in August of 1967 .36 Dorothy Smith was teaching at the
University of Essex at Colchester at the time, and would
arrive in Vancouver in the September of 1968. During the
first year of the women's movement in Toronto, 1967-68, only a
few sporadic meetings were held, and the principal objective
of the WLM at this time was the preparation and presentation
in Ottawa of the "Brief to the House of Commons Health and
Welfare Committee on Abortion Law ReformI1. It documented the
36 WMAC. File 509. Toronto Women's Liberation Movement. Limpus, Laurel as told to Sherry Rochester. "The History of the Toronto Women's Liberation Movementrr. February, 1971.
appalling statistic that 800 women in Canada died in 1967 as a
result of illegal abortions or home remediesm3' Women who
belonged to the Women's Liberation Movement also belonged to
the Toronto Student Movement, and at this time a split
occurred, forming the New Left Caucus. These women were being
pressured from both sides on the issue of loyalty - the Left and Women's Liberation, The division of the women from the
New Left Caucus took place in the following manner:
Some men in the New Left Caucus were circulating a paper of little anecdotes which were very chauvinistic in character - bad caricatures of femininity. It accidentally fell into the hands of the women's caucus of the group. Ten women read it, blew their minds, got together in one night and wrote a position paper. In that paper, we said we had no intention of working with men who, in private, had that kind of caricature of us, We said that we didnr t think that jokes about being feminine were at all funny- We considered leaving the left, but we decided that we should tell them to leave insteadD3'
Another of the original community-related events challenged by
Toronto Womenrs Liberation occurred at a 'winter bikinir
contest in 1968 where protesters held up a meat-cutter's chart
to symbolise the merchandising of female flesh, and another
student appeared in a full-length fur coat, with a sign
37 WMAC. File 509. Toronto Women's Liberation Movement, Women's Liberation Group. Brief to the House of Commons Health and Welfare Committee on Abortion Law Reform. P, 4.
C File 509. Toronto Women's Liberation. Laurel Limpus, op. cit., p.5,
reading "I: have a mma"
In the second year of Toronto Women's Liberation, 1968 - 69, several women from Toronto and Ottawa attended the Chicago
Women's Liberation Conference- This had a important influence
on early feminism in Toronto, and was the first q o s u r e for
most of these women to the practice of consciousness-raisingr
who had 'never heard of consciousness-raising before at
allr - 4 0 The central debate of this conference was centred
around women who advanced the idea of consciousness-raising
and those who believed that the main oppression that women had
to face lay in the question of Marxism. After the occasion of
the Chicago Conference, the WLM group called a meeting and
about 20 or 30 women from the University of Toronto attended,
which was described as 'pretty middle class', and for the
first few months just congregated for the purposes of chatting
to each other on various issues. Many of the women had
concerns around aligning Women's Liberation with a Marxist
viewpoint, and it was in these meetings that dreadful
arguments broke out on this question, and led to the first
split and the formation of the Toronto New Feminists. It took
about two months of clashes for the first split in Toronto
Women's Liberation to take place-4f This account of the
39 Prentice, et al., 1988, op. cit., p. 353.
'O WMAC. File 509. Toronto Women's Liberation. Limpus, op- cite, p. 2.
41 Ibid,
division that led to radical feminism in Canada differs from
that in Canadian Women: A Eiistory (1988) - This version
stated stated that it was Bonnie Kreps who started the first
radical feminist group in Canada, abruptly leaving a meeting
of Toronto Womenf s Liberation in 1969, rejecting the idea that
women's oppression lay in the home.42 It was based on a
letter from Kreps, a former activist with radical feminists in
New York. Rather than being the consequence of the actions of
one person and one event. the inauguration radical f e m i n i s m
in Toronto was likely the result of the elongated context of
two month stretch bitter quarrelling the Toronto
culminating in the incident of Krepsf leaving, Many of the
women in Toronto Women's Liberation were unwilling to entirely
repudiate male members of the Left, and felt that although
they were oppressors, they should not be the enemy.43
Toronto meetings began take procedural
and structural issues into account, and the group's
organization became increasingly formal. Qualifications for
membership in the Toronto WLM were: 'a person is a member if
she is a woman, comes to general meetings, puts her name on
42 This is documented in two places, using the same letter from Bonnie Kreps : I) Prentice et a1 - . eds . 1 9 8 8 . Canadian Women : A History, Toronto : Harcourt , Brace, Jovanovich, P . 357; and 2) Burt, Sandra, Lorraine Code and Lindsay Dorney. 1993 , Changing Patterns: Women in Canada- Toronto : McLelland and Stewart. P. 165.
Limpus, cit ,
the mailing list, and considers herself a memberr ,4q The main
organization, which in 1969 consisted of about 150 members,
was divided into subgroups based on individual activities.
The responsibility of sharing information among groups was the
responsibility of the 'chairmanr, and decision-making was
enacted on a democratic basis* Women's Liberation in Toronto
at this time still aligned itself with the New Left and it
formulated specific policies with regard to other Toronto
groups, and participation in projects with other groups, It
welcomed women affiliated with the press, but insisted that
they adopt the group's attitude to the press, namely that 'we
will not be able to rely on the llbourgeois pressw to build the
kind of movement that we Women were encouraged to
participate in strikes, projects of various kinds, to do radio
programmes, and to use discretion when representing the
rn~vement.'~ Women like Molly Moore began to organize new
women's dinners, many retreats for w o m e n were held in the
summertime, and services like Dial-A-Commie were in~tituted.~~
Financial affairs for the new Women's Liberation Movement
in Toronto were fairly straightforward, although an ideology
44 WMAC. File 509. Toronto Women's Liberation Movement, Structural Procedures Accepted July 1969, 0092.
45 Ibid.
Ibid. This document was typed by volunteer labour by Steve Moore, Worker-Student Alliance, Toronto Student Movement.
47 Limpus, op. cit ,
of anti-capitalism, also present in the Vancouver Women's
Movement, likely interfered with any detailed historical
documentation of ordinary monetary concerns, so evidence
available for an economic analysis of available resources is
sparse. Rent for the WLM office at the University of Toronto
was $40 per month and other expenses included the telephone,
$20 per month; Dial-A-Commie at $50 a month and office
supplies costing $10 per month. O f f ice work was usually
accomplished by volunteer labour and members were requested to
pledge a certain amount of money each month to cover
expenses. 48 Fund raising for the Toronto Womenr s Caucus took
the form of selling Women's Liberation literature at meetings,
where a table for pamphlets and donations would be set up.
Greeting cards with a Women's Liberation graphic, both for
Christmas and year round use, were also sold.49 In 1970,
Women's Liberation literature was generated through Hogtown
Press, and it was suggested that women on the literature
Committee work directly with Hogtown to eliminate duplication
of bo~kkeeping.~~ Money for subscriptions to newsletters was
petitioned, and members of Women's Liberation were available
for speaking engagements, where an honorarium was charged.
48 WMAC. File 509 . Toronto Minutes of the General Meeting.
49 WMAC. File 509. Toronto minutes. No date-
'' WMAC- File 509. Toronto Minutes of the General Meeting,
Women's Liberation Movement. September 15, 1970.
Women's Caucus, Early
Women's Liberation Movement. September 15, 1970,
Rita MacNeil, who was then a member of the Toronto Women's
Caucus, wrote songs for the Women's Liberation Movement, and
the Caucus charged $2 for a recording of
In 1969, an amendment was made to the criminal code on
abortion in Canada, allowing for three physician member
hospital boards to decide whether or not a woman was eligible
to receive a legal abortion, At the same time, a further
legal change was made making it no longer a criminal offense
to give out information on birth control methods- In the
summer of 1969, the Toronto WLM began an educational campaign
around the problem of women's general lack of knowledge of
birth control, and were provided with free space a couple of
evenings a week on the University of Toronto Campus- Later
on, it was found that great numbers of women were much more
interested in finding out information on the availability of
legal/illegal abortions. Abortion quickly became the central
issue of the Toronto WLM in 1969 to 1970, and the office which
had provided solely birth control information was given the
name of the Women's Liberation Birth Control Information and
Abortion Referral Clinic- They had attained information on
legal abortions in England and safe, reliable, but illegal
abortions that were available in several parts of Canada for a
cost of between $200 and $400. For most women, this was too
expensive, and so the women at the centre began assisting
WMAC. Toronto Women's Caucus. Open Letter from Iva Stanley of Toronto Women's Caucus, October 15, 1971,
404
pregnant women in the complex process of going before hospital
abortion boards.52 The same year, a report emerged in the
press quoting Sherry Brydson, a University of Toronto student
member of the WLM, who stated that she was arranging '2 or 3'
abortions per week for young women in Quebec and even
suggested that there might be enough students to organize
charter flights to England for the purposes of obtaining
abortions. Another member of Women's Liberation denied any
involvement on the part of the movement in procuring abortions
in Quebec and el~ewhere.'~ By September of 1970, there was
direct evidence of involvement of WLM in the procurement of
abortions. The WLM Newsletter reported that a Mr. Mitchell
from Detroit, Michigan, was the business manager for a group
of physicians who called themselves "the D and C Sixw who were
organizing an abortion clinic in Niagara Falls, New York, The
report by Lyn Center stated that the abortion collective would
assist the group of doctors to 'make their first thou or twor
by chartering a bus from Toronto to send 20 or so women at a
rate of $300 per abortion, $200 if the pregnancy is in its
52 WMAC. File 509. Toronto Women's Liberation Movement. Brief to the Badgley Committee to Study Therapeutic Abortion Law by Harriet Kideckel. A Brief History of the Toronto Women's Liberation Birth Control Information and Abortion Referral Centre, 1969-70-
53 WMAC. File 509. Toronto Women's Liberation Movement. uWomen8s student movement denies sending girls for Quebec abortions. Toronto Star, September 26, 1969.
eighth week or less . '* In response to the 1969 legislation, women's liberation
groups across Canada organized a protest called the Abortion
Caravan in May, 1970, which for 11 days travelled from
Vancouver to Ottawa with a coffin symbolic of all Canadian
women who had died of illegal abortions, the climax of which
was the event of the women protesters chaining themselves to
the Visitor's Gallery in the House of Commons, using the
militant tactics of the S~ffragettes.~~ After the Abortion
Caravan, member's of Toronto WLM consolidated to form an
abortion collective, whose work consisted of maintaining an
answering service at the Women's Liberation Abortion Referral
Service at Spadina and Harbord. 56 According to the 1970
minutes of the WLM in Toronto, the work of the abortion
collective quickly became frustrating, Consequently the
abortion collective made the decision to operate autonomously:
Last month the abortion collective came to present its case to the general meeting for support, enlightenment and fresh ideas, We came away with an overwhelming feeling of an impotent organization unable to come to grips with the reality of any practical situation, We didn't come away
54 WMAC. File 509. Toronto Women's Liberation Movement, Minutes of the General Meeting. September 15, 1970. "Abortion Days ! rr by Lyn Center,
55 Prentice, et al., op. cit . , p. 354. An account of the events of the Abortion Caravan can be found in Pierson, Ruth Roach, et a1 , 1993 . Canadian Women's Issues. Volume I. Strong Voices. Toronto : James Lorimer. P . 123 - 127.
56 WMAC. File 509. Toronto Women's Liberation Movement. Abortion and Birth Control Collective.
with one new constructive idea, The upshot of the meeting is that the collective will make its own decisions, run its own affairs, and forget about obtaining any sort of intelligent response from Wt- There was a whole series of questf ons and criticisms from people who were totally naive of our past and present (eg. contacting doctors, discussing clinics) - Its hard to imagine how frustrating such suggestions are until you realize how hard we worked during the summer & how we exhausted nearly every possibility only to have the hospitals tighten up the abortion quotas?'
In April of 1971, the Toronto Women's Liberation Abortion and
Birth Control Collective prepared a brief, "A Realistic
Programme for Birth Control and Abortion for Ontario Under the
Present Federal Law", outlining the then current situation of
abortion alternatives for women and made suggestions for
change. Of the 230 hospitals in Ontario which were eligible
for three-member physician committees, few had actually
organized them, and the ones who had, used them over-
cautiously, if at all. This brief recommended that all
hospitals set up therapeutic abortion committees, and that the
federal government establish approved abortion clinics that
have birth control and venereal disease educati~n.~~
By the early 19708, what had begun with a single
organization in Toronto, the Women's Liberation Movement, that
identified itself as socialist, and interested in addressing
57 WMAC. File 509. Toronto Women's Liberation Movement, WLM Newsletter. November, 10, 1970. Abortion Report by Carolyn Ross.
the practical side of women's concerns, had split into several
groups. Some of these w e r e the Women's Coalition, which
included the Toronto New Feminists, a radical feminist group,
Saint Joanr s Alliance, the Womenf s Committee of the United
Auto Workers, the Toronto Women's Caucus (a group of women
formed by a break with Toronto New Feminists, and had 100
members with 600 on a mailing list in October, 1971); Voice of
Women, and Rising Up Angry, which included the Leila Khaled
Collective, the Young Socialists, and the Womenf s Commission
of the League for Socialist Action- Splitting and chaos were
ordinary occurrences, a phenomenon that did not necessarily
mean negative consequences for the women's movement, but could
be interpreted the creation of a vibrant diversity. Besides
the early split of the New Feminists, several women left the
Women's Liberation Movement documented by a letter on October
3, 1971, signed by seven members of the group. They
criticized the movement for 1) a decline in membership, due to
a 'system of friendship alliancesr which they felt was
undemocratic; 2) its elite nature as it was comprised of 'a
very select group of womenr; and 3) a lack of structure, i,e-
no regular minutes kept at meetings, that they believed was
necessary for mass political work-59 The issue of 'red-
baitingr was one that sparked division between Women's
s9 WMAC. File 509. Toronto Women's Liberation Movement, Letter from Barb Cameron, Charnie Cunningham, Lynn Lang, Ruth McEwan, Cathy Pike, Judy Skinner and Leslie Towers to the Toronto Women's Liberation Movement. October 3, 1971,
Liberation and socialist groups- In late March, 1971,
Corileen North and Yvonne Trower, founding members of the
Toronto Women's Caucus, resigned from the group asserting that
it had been allowed to be dominated by a Trotskyist group, the
League for Socialist Action, The Trotskyist women, voting as
a bloc majority had begun to control the business meetings of
the Toronto Women's Caucus. This kind of friction was
characteristic in Toronto, and in the patterns of localized
women's movements elsewhere in North America, and a necessary
part of the phenomenal growth of feminist politics and
culture. By the time Dorothy Smith arrived in Toronto,
diversification had already taken place, and becoming a part
of this women's movement proved to be a difficult process.
Feminist Publishing in Toronto
The earliest forms of publishing in the Toronto Women's
Movement came in the way of individual newsletters and briefs
put out by early feminist organizations, 'usually cranked out
on Gestetners, without much regard for aesthetic appealrO6'
One of the first in Canada was the Toronto Women's Caucus
publication called The Velvet Fist, established in 1970, which
was published every six weeks, subscriptions costing $2 for 10
60 Pierson, Ruth Roach et al. 1993. Canadian Women's Issues. Volume I. Strong Voices. Toronto : James Lorimer.
issues. 61 The Toronto Women's Place Newsletter printed from
1972 - 1976 had a circulation count of 3.000 in the height of
its reputation, in a feminist publishing industry which in
Canada seldom exceeds a spread of 2,50 0. 62 Feminist journals
in Toronto, by the time Dorothy Smith arrived at OISE/UT in
1977, had become more refined. and rather than publishing
group news began dealing with poetry and articles on feminist
political and cultural interests- Almost immediately on her
arrival, she published llEducation and Women's Exclusion from
Our Culturew (1979d) in Fireweed: A Women's Literary and
Cultural Journal. Fireweed, a quarterly journal that dealt
with politics and literature, which began publishing in
1978 . " Another of her early Toronto articles, "Where There
is Oppression, There is Resistancem (1979~) was printed in the
special Fifth Anniversary Issue of Branching Out: A Canadian
Magazine for Women which started as a periodical in 1974. and
by 1980, had began to run out of resources. Dorothy Smithrs
speech on "Gender, Class and Powerm at the Marxist Institute
on September 27, 1984 was reviewed by Barbara Cameron in 1984,
in Cayenne: A S o c i a l i s t Feminist Bulletin, which had a brief
61 WMAC. Toronto Womenrs Caucus. Open letter from Iva Stanley to Women's Liberation, October 15, 1971.
62 Pierson, op. cit., p.408-9.
63 Pierson, op. cit., p . 408.
410
run in the 1980s .64 Dorothy Smith was also a support person
in Toronto for an exiled member of a Russian feminist
collective, who had helped to create the first feminist
journal in Russia in s i x t y years, Tatiana Mamonove was
invited by several Canadian feminists to tour Canada, and
Smith helped to co-ordinate her visit in Toronto, from
February 26 - March 1, 1981, with Eve Zaramba of Broadside, Carolyn Egan from the International Women's Day Committee, and
Shelley Acheson of the Ontario Federation of Labour."' Traces
of Dorothy Smith's influence exist in feminist publishing in
Toronto from the late 1970s onwards, either in the way of
published articles, reviews or advertisements of her books.
Another feminist periodical that started originally in
Toronto was The Other Woman: A Revolutionary Feminist
Newspaper. It began publication in 1972 and the price was
twenty-five cents per issue. In this journal, it is possible
to trace the development of increasingly polished forms of
feminist analysis and the evolution of a language of feminism
through the decade of the 1970s. In the first two years, the
layout technique lacked any kind of skilled approach, The
winter, 1972, edition contained the article "Each One Teach
Onett, and was a feminist lesson on the basics of electricity.
64 WMAC. File 364. Cayenne. Toronto. Cayenne: A Socialist Feminist Bulletin, November/December, 1984.
65 WMAC . International Women8 s Day Committee. Toronto. Letter to Carol Egan from Chrystia Chomiak, Thursday, December 11, 1980.
A cartoon portrayed Pierre Trvdeau strapped into an electric
chair with appropriate head gear with the caption, Electrical
Power: Make Electricity Work for In 1973, it reported
the arrest of Adrienne Potts, a feminist song-writer:
On May 15 [I9731 Adrienne and a friend walked down Bloor Street after seeing a movie at Rochdale. They w e r e approached by two men in a car. Thinking the two men were two male chauvinists out cruising, A d r i e ~ e gave them the finger and continued walking- The men circled around the block twice and identified themselves as Metro Toronto Police from 52 Division. They said that it was NOT VERY LADYLIKE to tell police officers to fuck off, Adrienne was then told she was under arrest for possession of marijuana, even though she had not been searched and did not have anything on her ,€'
The above passage attends the early f e m i ~ s t issue of sexism,
to police brutality and harassment, and the plain verbal and
gesticular language used at the time of the early women's
movement, phenomena which were not usually reported in the
mainstream press.
Ms. Potts was also involved in the renowned nrBrunswick
Fourt1 incident which occurred on January 5, 1974 with Sue
Wells, Heather Beyer and Pat Murphy, in the Brunswick Tavern
on Bloor Street West, The four women were drinking in the
tavern and were joined by a man who became obnoxious and when
the women asked him to leave their table he came back and
66 WMAC. The Other Woman: A Revolutionary Feminist Newspaper. Winter, 1972 , P . 11.
67 I1Adrienne Potts 2bzestedIu- The Other Woman: A Revolutionary Feminist Newspaper, 1, 6, 1973, p. 5.
poured beer over Adrienne's head, The Bmswick Tavern
provided an outlet for customers to get up on the stage and
sing, so Adrienne and Pat went up to the stage and to the
melody of "1 enjoy being a girl", began to singtt :
When I see a man who's sexist And who does something I donr t like, I just tell him that he can fuck off I enjoy being a dyke I've always been an uppity woman I refuse to run I: stand and strike Cuz Lr m gay and 1' m proud and T r m angry And r enjoy being a dyke.
The bar manager disconnected the microphone after the first
few lines and shortly afterwards eight police officers arrived
and the women were arrested, abused by the officers, and
thrown into a paddy wagon- It took five hours to complete the
paper work for charges of creating a disturbance. Judy
LaMarsh handled the case free of charge, arguing that their
detainment amounted to a form of false imprisonment- Three of
the "Brunswick Fourt1 were acquitted, but as Judge Waisberg
considered Adrienne Potts to be the loudest woman in the group
and the 'obvious' cause of the disturbance, he gave her a
suspended sentence and three months probation.='
By October 1974, The Other Woman was giving a great deal
of attention to feminist art and culture and had a photo of
Rita McNeil on the front cover by Annette Clough, promoting
WMAC, File 357. Brunswick Four. "Four Women Claim Police Harassmenttf .
WMAC. File 357. Brunswick Four. "The Brunswick Four Minus One : Trialtr .
McNei1° s music. Born a Woman: Rita MacNeil Song-Book was the
f i r s t book of songs to emerge from the Canadian Women's
Movement, and was published by Women's Press, Rita MacNeilrs
initial compositions came out of her experience with the
women' s movement. The Other Woman also published an account
of a student show that took place at the Ontario College of
Art in February, 1973, in the student's gallery. It was a
show called tcWomenrs Worktr, put on as a contrast to commercial
galleries which discriminated against women, an exhibition
which 'was a tremendous critical and educational successr and
resulted in a Women's Artmobile which drew its material from
women artists from all over Southern Ontario. In 1974, a
story appeared about Cora, the Women's Liberation Bookmobile-
Travelling around small-town Southern Ontario, it carried
materials on wages for housework, feminist novels and poetry,
non-sexist children's books, the law, abortion, birth control
and lesbianism. Design for the periodical was still rough,
for example, subtitles were done i n crude hand-printing.
A change in format in The Other Woman appeared in 1976.
It began with its usual simple layout style, with an article
about interviewing Miss Canada 1975, who had assimilated the
language of the women's movement in her acceptance speech. It
included an account of the protest of the Miss Canada Pageant
The Other Woman, 3, 1, August, 1974.
'I The Other Woman, October, 1974, p. 14.
414
that had been organized by a coalition of Toronto women.72
The next edition featured an article on feminist credit
unions, m a r k i n g a change to practical financial matters, from
the journal's original mandate of reporting events reflecting
the early women's movement preoccupation with sexism and
ideology. It gave sensible advice on how to open a credit
union, using the example of the Metro Toronto Women's Credit
Union, which held its first meeting on February 27, 1976. 73
A radical transformation took place in the structure of
the periodical by the following issue, in that it began to
contain sophisticated advertisements, graphic designs, and
book reviews, Dorothy E - Smith' s and Sara Davidr s Women Look at Psychiatry was reviewed by Margaret Murray. The review was
uncritical, and supported Smith's remark in Chapter Eight
about the inferior quality of the book's binding:
it gathers together factual information and experiential reports in a well- balanced and easy flowing fashion; it is an eye-opening source book for those new at the game and as Press Gangrs first major publication it is a success,-a small note. the book is poorly bound, the glue leaving something to be desired (like its function) . i found that by the time i had read the book in its entirety, the book and its jacket had gone their separate ways. 74
This issue of The Other Woman included attractive graphic
72 The O t h e r Woman, 4, 1, 1976, p. 3 .
73 Ibid, 4, 3, 1976, p. 4-6.
" Ibid, 4, 5, 1976, p. 21.
designs promoting the women's book store, Papyrus, Goldberry
Natural Foods General Store, the Times Change W-*e
Employmeat Service, and the ad from Glad Day Gay Liberation
Books and Periodicals at 4 Collier Street, likely a new source
of income for the periodical. The next edition featured an
interview with Press Gang Publishers, In 1977, The Other
Woman included Pat Leslie's letter of resignation, who
attributed her disillusionment to the fact that 'there is no
power in being a working-class lesbian'.75 She left because
she felt alienated from what she felt was a middle class
women's movement, and she had been responsible for most of the
work for the journal for a period of five years.
Just after Dorothy's arrival in Toronto, Broadside,
another feminist newspaper, began publishing in 1979, this
time 'in a cheaper tabloid format8 . 76 Right at the beginning
of publication of this news magazine there is clear archival
evidence, in the form of three separate lists with her name on
them, that Dorothy Smith was on a list of prominent Toronto
women that were targeted for the purposes of fundraising for
the new feminist newspaper. This would seem to indicate that
the Toronto feminist community was immediately aware of her
growing reputation as an author. Other prestigious women on
these lists included Margaret Atwood, Mary O f Brien, June
7s Ibid, January-February, 1977, p. 11.
76 Pierson, op. cit., p. 4 0 9 .
416
Callwood, Laura Sabia, Judge Rosie Abella, and Kay
~acpherson. " Broadsf de kept reasonably welbdocumented
financial records, right from the time they were first
established. For the first six months of operation, from
October, 1979, to March, 1980, production costs were $1,200.
The organization produced an annual projected budget of
$44,100 in fixed costs, and a projected average annual revenue
of $34,545, The Broadside Collective predicted an annual
shortfall of $9,555, based on subscription rates $8 per annum
and $12 for two years. 78 By March 30, 1982. their reported
net loss was much less, $2,618-16, in that the revenue from
sales for the previous year were $21,925.02 - 7 9
Financial strategies for raising capi ta l for Broadside
were very ambitious in the begiming, They offered preferred
shares to company Directors, as Ontario law at the time meant
they had to sell shares within the exacting controls set up by
the Ontario Securities Commission. This law effectively made
it impossible to raise capital by selling shares that might
entail high risk to friends and casual supporters. Each
member of Broadside was required to buy $500 worth of common
shares as a condition of membership, and with this capital. as
77 WMAC. F i l e 356. Broadside. Three fundraising lists, c. 1979,
78 WMAC. F i l e 356. Broadside. Pro forma budget projections - May, 1979.
WMAC. F i l e 356. Broadside, Income Statement. Year End, March 20, 1982.
well as the preferred shares, donations from non-members, a
credit union loan and an advance from a member, they managed
to cover the deficit which they met with the first year of
operation. Their financial objectives, according to a
fundraising letter which was sent out by Eve Zaramba on June
29, 1980, stated that they intended to raise $100,000 in the
following few years and $20,000 by the end of 1980."
Fundraising for Broadside also took humbler forms - The
collective organized a It Strawberry Brunch for Friends of
Broadsidetu, at $15 per ticket on June 14, 1981, and a
"Broadside Bingo Night 'I, on March 19, 1983 ,
A much larger project was the co-sponsoring of a New
Year's Eve Dance in 1981 with W o m y n l y Way Productions, who had
first refusal rights to Mama Quilla 11, the popular all-woman
feminist rock band which was active in the Toronto music scene
from 1978 - 1982- Mama Quilla 11 played for other feminist fund-raising events like the "Fireweed Festival", supporting
the feminist journal Fireweed at Harbour Front in Toronto in
September, 1979, and did a benefit concert for Press Gang
Publishing House in Vancouver in May, 1981.~' Debate erupted
over the issue of whether or not to make Broadside's New
WMAC. File 356. Broadside. Letter to Hellie Wilson, Ottawa, f r o m Eve Zararnba of the Broadside Collective, June 29, 1980.
81 WMAC. File 356. Broadside. Tickets.
'' WMAC. File 438. Mama Quilla 11. Feminist Rock Band, Toronto, 1978-82. Mama Quilla I1 Performances 1981-82 - Some Highlights.
Year's Eve party a "Women Onlyn dance* There had been no
prior discussion, and the Toronto !?ornenrs Bookstore sold the
tickets costing $15 (buffet included) on the understanding
that everyone was welcome, Some irate women who had not been
consulted threatened to picket the dance, and to encourage
others to boycott the dance 'in the name of lesbians and
Toronto s womenr s communityr , 83 Further, Mama Quilla' s
drummer was induced not to work at the dance if men were in
attendance, in spite of the terms of her contract. Broadside
prepared a statement attempting to diffuse the atmosphere of
conflict, saying that, yes, they had made a mistake by not
discussing the issue thoroughly beforehand, but that they
would honour anyone who bought tickets.
After ten years of continuous publication Broadside
missed a deadline due to extreme financial problems and their
dependence on volunteer labour, The collective was forced to
suspend publication in February, 1989, stating the problem to
be 'burn-out brought on by continuing financial insecurity' .*'
The instability experienced by the collective was also felt by
other feminist publications in Canada:
In the middle of the 1980s, with the advent of the Consenrative government, the Secretary of State Women' s Program, (probably the biggest supporter of feminist publications) was required to
83 WMAC. File 356. Broadside. Broadside Editorial re: the New Year Dance. Draft.
WMAC. File 356. Broadside, Letter to WancyI1 from Susan G. Cole for the Broadside Collective, n.d,
establish "eligibility criteriau, that forbade women's groups to take any particular stand on abortion (read pro- choice) , or to promote any particular lifestyle (read lesbian) , By 1990, the federal budget under the leadership of Finance Minister mchael Wilson had cut all operational support to the nationally funded feminist periodicals, B5
Old contributors of Broadside were asked for a donation of
$100 or anything they could afford, and requested to help with
a special edition to mark its 100th issue- In a letter of
appeal to other feminist groups, a request was made for
support needed to be able to continue printing? The sad
announcement of Broadside's decision to discontinue publishing
was released on International Women's Day in 1989. They
called a public meeting to discuss the newspaper's future at
OISE on Thursday March 16, 1989 at 7pm, saying that unless
there was some kind of intervention from the feminist
community, they would have to close their doors at the end of
March. As a final gesture, they were given the funding by the
Ontario Women's Directorate to produce a tenth anniversary
issue
In addition to feminist periodicals and newspapers,
diligent attention to the book publishing of women's history,
politics and culture began in earnest with the establishment
WMAC. File 356- Broadside. Letter to subscribers from The Broadside Collective, April 18, 1989.
WMAC. File 356. Broadside. Letter to subscribers from the Broadside Collective, April 18, 1989.
of The Women's Educational Press, the original feminist
publishing enterprise in Canada, through its pioneering
declaration which they called The Oscroft M a n i f e s t o in
February of 1972 .88 Up until the mid-1970s, it received
enough state funding to support six or seven staff members.8g
Through some financial assistance from the Department of
Manpower and Immigration, the Press was able to produce its
first compendium of feminist essays and commentary in July of
1972, called Women Unite! An Anthology of the Canadian
Women's M o v e m e n t - It contained a number of classic essays,
notably "Sisters, Brothers, Lovers ...Listen,,.", written in
the fall of 1967 by Bemstein, Morton, Seese and Wood, m e m b e r s
of the Student Union for Peace Action (SUPA) . It was a paper
addressed to men of the New L e f t , written for a membership
conference of SUPA, part of the first organizing experience of
Women's Liberation in ~anada,'' The collection also contained
Peggy Morton's early essay "A Woman's Work is Never Done-,,or
the Production, maintenance, and reproduction of Labour Powerrr
(1970) . Women U n i t e l was originally put on a back burner
88 Gabriel, Chris and Katherine Scott. 1993 . "Womenr s Press at Twenty: The Politics of Feminist Publishing. In: Carty, Linda, ed- And Still W e Rise: F e m i n i s t Political Mobilizing i n C o n t e m p o r a r y Canada. Toronto: Womenrs Press. P. 27.
89 Gabriel and Scott, 1993, op. cit., p. 40.
Bernstein et al. 1967. "Sisters, Brothers, Lovers. . . Listen. . . . In: Women Unite! A n Anthology of the Canadian Women 's Movement. 1972 . Toronto : Canadian Womenr s Educational Press. P. 31-39.
because the Discussion Collective No, 6 of the Toronto Women's
Liberation Movement could not afford to publish it, and when
they sent it to an external publishing source, they insisted
on editing privileges, which the collective refused to grant.
Finally, at the formation of The Canadian Women's Educational
Press, the Discussion Collective permitted the material to be
edited and it was published.9f
During 1984 - 1985 Dorothy Smith began negotiations with
the Canadian Womenr s Educational Press (usually called simply
Women's Press) with a prospectus for a book of four essays
entitled "A Sociology for Womenw, This was five years after
the publication of her groundbreaking article of the same
name, published in The Prism of Sex: E s s a y s in the Sociology
of Khowledge (1979) . She was dealing at the same time with
New Star Books in Vancouver for a work on women and class,
which the editors at Women's Press were more interested in,
and the Managing Editor, Jane Springer, emphasized 'that if
for any reason New Star is u n a b l e to do the book, we would
very much like to consider The S o c i a l Issues Group at
Women's Press felt that "A Sociology for Womenw, since it was
directed at a specific discipline, would not be as marketable
as an analysis of women and class. After some months, the
S o c i a l Issues Group finally made the decision not to publish
91 Bernstein, 1967, op. cit., p. 7-8.
92 WMAC. File 99. Women's Press. Letter to Dorothy Smith from Jane Springer, Managing Editor of Women's Press, December 19, 1984,
her collection:
After some deliberation, we have decided it was not for Women's Press- Although we have done some academic publishing, w e are increasingly opting in favour of academic books that can be used in community college courses and in first and second year undergraduate courses in universf ties, 93
As it turned out, Smith never did publish any of her writing
with Toronto's leading feminist publishing company. Instead
she turned to the mainstream publishing industry, and most of
her work has been published through the University of Toronto
Press, Routledge in England, and Northeastern University Press
in the United States, who originally published The Everyday
W o r l d As Problematic: A Feminist Sociology (1987).
By the late 19809, a crisis erupted in the Women's Press
organization around what was represented in the media, and
what was felt by many members of the publishing company, to be
the hidden problem of an exclusionist and racist publishing
policy. The episode was characterized by M a r g i e Wolfe, now
President of the Organization of Book Publishers of Ontario,
to be a serious power struggle between two groups of women,
one tha t had little to do with racism, and one t h a t was
largely played out a m o n g white women, Margie Wolfe, a former
member of Women's Press and now co-owner of Second Story
Feminist Press argued that the issue of racism was used in a
93 WMAC. File Smith from Maureen March 26, 1985.
99. Women's Press. Fit zgerald, Managing
Letter to Dorothy Editor, Women's Press,
power struggle to replace one group of women with another."
On August 9, 1988, The Women's Press made headlines in the
Toronto Globe and Mail, "Stories of White Writers Re j ectedgl
and "Race Issue Split Women's Pressfr, when the Publishing and
Policy Group rejected three contributions to the anthology of
short stories called Iinagining Women,95 Until this impasse
Women's Press works had never addressed the question of
'race8, and had published few books by women of colour,
Margie Wolf e' s "Working With Words : Feminist Publishing in
Canadaw, for example, published in 1982 in a Women' s Press
anthology called S t i l l A i n ' t Satisified! Canadian Feminism
Today, makes no reference to an endemic racism in the Canadian
Womenr s Movement, but was rather an analysis of the
differences between mainstream and feminist approaches to
publishing. During the late 1970s, at the time of Dorothy
Smith's arrival in Toronto, the organizational structure of
The Women's Press changed to one that was two-tiered,
Formerly, the whole membership had decision-making power as to
what was published, but this now was transformed into a number
of smaller collectives which dealt with different subject
areas, for instance, the Social Issues Group that dealt with
Smith's manuscript. The ordinary day-to-day responsibilities
of the Press fell to the salaried staff, which now held the
94 Intemiew by the author with Margie Wolfe at Second Story Feminist Press, July 27, 1998-
95 Black, Ayanna, 198 9. "Recognizing Rac i smIt . Interviews by Ayanna Black. Fuse, ~pril/May, p. 27.
balance of power in the organization, along with long-time
members.96 With this type of organizational structure in
place, Gabriel and Scott (1993) argue that the way was paved
for a working practice in The Women's Press which 'effectively
excluded many groups of women - including younger women working in the movement - and suppressed dissentr ,''
Dispute on the issue of racism in The Womenr s Press
publishing policy arose in the fall of 1986 concerning a
project to have an all Women of Colour Almanac, which some
members were opposed to on the basis of 'business
considerations' ,g8 It was put forward by some members that
this argument concealed an element of suspicion, anxiety about
losing authority and fear of working with an outside group of
women of colour. It intensified to become a serious problem
in May of 1987, around the collective consultations regarding
the handling of racism in the women's movement in a draft of
Feminist Organizing for Change (1988) , co-authored by Briskin,
McPhail and Adamson. The disagreement came from Larissa
Cairncross who challenged the complete inattention to the
matter of racism in the manuscript:
It is not only insufficient at this point to make a statement that the book is "based on experiences when the issue of racism did not have a high profile in the
9h Gabriel and Scott, op . cit . , p . 41.
WMACr File 99. Womenr s Press. Press Release, May 11, 1988.
womenr s movement" (p - 14) to account for the absence of this central discussion from the book, its almost a non sequitur, It is unacceptable within the framework of an analysis that calls itself llsocialist- feminist to omit this discussion, 94
Cairncross suggested that the authors: 1) Define the problem
correctly and fully; 2) Examine the role of racism in the
development of the movement as a white woman's movement, the
forms it took, and the objective reasons for its exclusive
power in the organization of resistance to women's oppression
in the marketplace, in the home and in the street, She made
the proposal to re-organize the book with an initial chapter
requiring more research called "Racism as a Formative Element
of Feminist Organizati~n~.~~~ This sparked a long two and
one half hour discussion of the status of Feminist Organizing
for Change by the Publishing and Policy G r o u p of Women0 s
Press, which offered a contract for the book that was
conditional on the specific suggested changes already noted
above- The memo to Linda Briskin, Margaret McPhail and Nancy
Adamson warned that the conditional nature of the contract
also meant the potential use of a 'killr clause, often used in
the publishing business, but one that had never been used by
the Women's Press. The book was approved for publication 'on
condition that a revised m s . [manuscript] incorporating a
99 WMAC . File 9 9. Women' s Press, Brief from Larissa Cairncross to Maureen Fitzgerald, Managing Editor, The Women's Press. Re: The treatment of racism of the women's movement in Feminist Orsanizinq for Chancre.
satisfactory examination of the intrinsic role of racial
exclusivity in the development of the womenr s movement ' . The storm that ensued on the issue of structural racism
in the publishing policy of Women's Press one year later was
likely one of the most bitter and complex confrontations in
the history of the women's movement in Canada, After the
debates around Feminist Organizing for Change (1988 ) , members
of the Women's Press began the mechanism of consciousness
raising on how endemic racism was affecting the publication
policy of the organization. The result was the formation of a
separate conclave called the Popular Front-of-the-Bus
~aucus.~O~ It divided the Women's Press members into two
factions, with the Popular Front-of-the-Bus ~aucus'~~
becoming the majority, and the Publishing and Policy Group the
minority, The uproar around the split in membership took
place at a regular meeting of the Publishing and Policy Group
on May 11, 1988- Two statements were read at this encounter:
I) a statement by Susan Prentice which expressed her dismay at
the letters sent by the Fiction Group to the authors of
lo' WMAC. File 99. Women's Press. Memo from Maureen Fitzgerald to Linda Briskin, Margaret McPhail and Nancy Adamson re: Feminist Organizing for Change. May 20, 1987.
WMAC. File 99. Women's Press. Press Release, May 11, 1988.
lo3 Members of The Women's Press who aligned themselves with the Popular Front-of-the-Bus Caucus were: Larissa Cairncross, Ann Dector, Maureen Fitzgerald (Managing Editor) , Chris Gabriel, Heather Guylar, Rona Moreau, Michele Paulse, Susan Prentice, Katherine Scott, and Wendy Waring.
Imagining Women, which dealt with the structural racism in
their stories; and 2 ) a statement read by Ann Dector on
behalf of the newly formed Popular Front -of -the-Bus Caucus,
which ended with the statement 'And we are leaving NOW to
begin that work8 .f04 At this point the entire Popular Front-
of-the-Bus, the bulk of the Women's Press membership, got up
and withdrew from the meeting.
By May 16, 1988, the Publishing and Policy Group
(PPG)' '~ had issued its own press release clarifying their
position as to how they felt new initiatives in policies of
anti-racism should take place, The PPG stated that the
debates that had taken place over what should actually be done
had been misconstrued as an attitude of opposition to any kind
of anti-racist program of action, Their view of the division
was :
The Press is now divided into those who believe they have the correct position on combatting racism and the rest of us who stand accused of "resistingN and I1not getting it right? This division has resulted in considerable time being spent on an internal process of cleansing, historical blaming and scapegoating, instead of more positive contributions to building an anti-racist women's movement. In this highly charged environment it has
lo* WMAC. File 99. Women's Press. Open Letter to All Members of Women's Press from the Popular Front-of-the-Bus Caucus re: The PPG Meeting of May 11, 1988 and Anti-Racism at the Press.
Members who aligned themselves with the Publishing and Policy Group were Judi Coburn, Connie Guberman, Liz Martin, Lois Pike, Graziela Pimental, Christa Van Daele, Margie Wolfe, and Carolyn Wood-
been increasingly difficult to separate out a politic of guilt and self- recrimination from the constructive unlearning of racism which is our task,
According to a brief that was issued by Women's Press on
November 21, 1 9 8 8 , after the Publishing and Policy Group had
been locked out of Womenr s Press in July, 1988 ,lo' the PPG
then exercised the use of an obscure by-law in the
organizationr s constitution, which gave power to an
arbitrarily chosen three-member board on which they held the
majority, It was documented that the PPG used this legal
loophole to interpret the membership as to make qualified many
women who had long ceased to be involved in the Press, to
exclude many current members, and to convene a General
Membersr Meeting to divide the assetsloe of Womenr s Press,
especially the backlist of publications and office equipment.
The brief stated that old members were solicited for their
loyalty and support, a strategy which ultimately failed, and
the minority then requested that all further transactions take
place with lawyers present. log For example, former members
WMAC. File 99. Womenr s Press. Press Release. May 16, 1988.
Interview by the author with Margie Wolfe at Second Story Feminist Press, July 27, 1998.
Personal communication with Kari Dehli, August 6, 1998.
log WMAC, File 99. Womenr s Press. Brief. What's Been Happening at Women's Press, November 21, 1988.
Lorie Rotenberg, who worked at the Press from 1972 to 1974 and
Deirdre Gallagher, who had worked on an a summer Opportunities
for Youth Project in 1976, wrote statements that supported the
will of the majority, the Popular Front-of-the-Bus Caucus,
urging the withdrawal of the PPGrs motion-u0
The end result was that Margie Wolfe's position was
terminated and she accepted a seven month severance package,
after being refused the rights to titles by the majority of
members ,111 Lois Pike and Carolyn Wood were removed as
Directors of the Corporation of the Press by the provisions of
By-Law 1, Section 3 of The Canadian Women's Educational Press
by a requisition dated July 15, 1988. The formal meeting
which dissolved their positions took place on August 2, 1988,
and they were replaced with elected members .l12 One positive
outcome of this grave series of events was the development of
a draft of anti-racism guidelines which were eventually
adopted by the Women's Press in 1988, which entailed
accountability, inclusiveness, affirmative action and editing
policies, and an amendment of its power structure.'* It
'lo WMAC. File 99. Women's Press, Rotenberg. Letter to Women's Press from June 25, 1988.
WMAC, File 99 , Womenr s Press, Press Authors. December 21, 1988,
I* WMAC. File 99. Women's Press.
Statement by Lori Deirdre Gallagher,
Letter to Womenr s
REQUISITION. Dated at Toronto, 15th day of July, 1988. NOTICE OF MEETING, Toronto, July 16, 1988- Signed by Maureen Fitzgerald, President, Canadian Women's Educational Press.
Gabriel, op. ci t . , p. 46-47.
began a mandate to publish fiction where the protagonist
resembled the author in terms of race and ethnic group.
Another propitious consequence of the episode, which came
about the same year, was the formation of Second Story
Feminist Press, only a few months after the lock-out of
members of the Publishing and Policy group in July, 1988.
Starting with nothing, not even a loan guarantee system, it
immediately received backing from the publishing industry, in
that the University of Toronto Press agreed to distribute
their books and they procured the commitment of several
American distributors. Several writers left Women's Press and
supported the new enterprise- Further, thirteen commissioned
sales representatives quit the Women's Press en masse and
aligned their support with Second Story Press. Today, Second
Story Press has a publication list of about 100 books,
publishes about 10 books a year, and has a catalogue which
includes children's books, novels, cookbooks, and academic
material under their Women's Issues Publishing Program.''*
The Women's Press continues to thrive as an organization.
Controversy still follows them, as three books that they
published are presently the centre of a dispute in British
Columbia, Asha's Mums, Belindars Bouquet and O n e Dad Ttvo Dad
Brown Dad Blue Dad, all children's books at the kindergarten
and Grade One level which examine the experience of same sex
'I4 Interview by the author with Margie Wolfe at Second Story Feminist Press, July 27, 1998-
431
parents, have been banned for use in the Surrey, B-C- public
school system, The ban w a s the first one ever to be
challenged in Canada by a coalition of parents, students,
teachers and authors, and to be heard in the B.C. Supreme
Court, Ashars Mums was a particularly successful book, in
that it has in print since 1990, and has sold 8,000
copies, '1-5 Funding cuts by the Ministry of Culture in 1997
had a serious effect on the publishing industry. Women8 s
Press survived a financial crisis in 1997 w h e n their loan
guarantee of $90,000, with a deadline of December 31, 1996 was
about to be rescinded by the Ontario Development Corporation.
It was extended for another three months, and in the meantime
they secured alternative funding and made plans to reduce
their need for a line of credit to $25,000- In 1997, it
earned approximately $250,000 per year and published about six
titles per annum, which it planned to reduce to three, in
order to trim costs.116 Womenr s Press celebrated 25 years of
feminist publishing in December, 1997.1L7
'15 Q u i l l and Quire, 63, 10, 1997, p. 22.
Globe and Mail, January 3, 1997. P, CIO . 'I7 Globe and Mail, December 11, 1997. P. C4,
Conclusion
By the 1990s, the text and 'textually-mediatedr forms of
discourse began outweigh a former attention to Manc in Dorothy
Smith's work, as a response to the pervasiveness of
poststructuralist and postmodem theory. Most of her writing
in the 1990s reflects this interest, and although she was
willing to engage the theory of the poststructuralists,
Barthes and Foucault, it is not at the expense of a
materialist approach. Social organization that occured from
the 'relations of rulingf, becomes an organization that is
studied almost exclusively in textual forms, through the
computer used in 9-1-1 emergency calls, radio documentary, and
the textual cast of contemporary feminist activism in a
Canadian university.
This final chapter is an historical sociology of the
Toronto Women's Movement from 1967 to 1988, the time of its
most vibrant activism. It began with an orientation to the
early Women's Liberation Movement and its origins in the New
Left Student Caucus at the University of Toronto. The 1980s
constitute the height of the women's movement in Canada, where
feminist publishing and feminist culture explode in Toronto,
This time span reflects the positive outcome of a series of
stressful events, in that the trashing and division that has
taken place in the 1970s became the outcome of the growth and
power of t h e womenr s movement in its heyday, and when
diversity gave rise to the politics of inclusiveness in the
late 1980s. This is a women's movement where Smith's
participation was predominantly scholarly in the form of its
activism, which included the coming into season of the Social
Organization of Knowledge.
CHAOTER TEN
CONCLUSION
During my childhood, my father had an irksome habit of
quoting proverbs to me, a fixation, 1 am ashamed to say, that
in my own mature years, I have also adopted. The one he
repeated most often, to nry profound irritation, was ItWisdom is
the principal thing; therefore get wisdom and with all thy
getting get understandingn (Proverbs 4 : 7 ) * I have more than
once heard the comment from my colleagues that Dorothy Smith's
work was difficult to understand, thus in many ways I saw my
primary objective for this work as uniting an analysis that
was as genuine as possible with reflective interpretation. 1
saw my role as a translator - one willing to use all the historical evidence and technical resources at my disposal to
understand and then explain her work. Dorothy Smith has
developed her own lexicon and style ('relations of rulingr,
'standpoint of women', 'bifurcation of consciousnessf are a
few of her most well known concepts) one that has become
recognizable in our discipline. I would venture to guess that
there are many sociologists who, if given a passage of her
work in an anonymous form, would quickly be able to identify
the author. In order to 'translate' her work for the thesis,
I made use of two language 'dictionariesf: one was the
historical as well as geographically relevant forms of the
womenrs movement; and the other was the limitations of the
traditional and neo-classical canons of the sociology of
435
knowledge, which was used as the logic for Dorothy Smith's
creation of a new method, the Social Organization of
Knowledge. The women's movement and the sociology of
knowledge were examined in Chapter Two, providing the
problematic, or the sociological puzzle, which this
dissertation seeks to unravel: the knowledge of her work that
would continue to be obfuscated if some of the logical and
obvious social origins of the Social Organization of Knowledge
were to remain unexamined-
The body of criticism that has accumulated in the
interpretation of Dorothy Smith's work contains evidence that
these scholars, in the course of their respective analyses,
have frequently misinterpreted the likely social and
intellectual origins of her thinking* As I have argued in the
introduction to the thesis, the origin of her 'standpoint of
women' method of beginning sociological inquiry, and a way of
begiming studies in the Social Organization of Knowledge is
acknowledged by her to be the actual experience of women in
the world, in the form of their household labour, which has
been a common thread for the material experience of women,
despite their differing experiences of sexuality,
(dis) ability, race and class. Bandyopadhyay, one of her early
critics, misread the materialist foundation that she tried to
establish through the use of M a r x , by attempting to quash her
argument that ideology only becomes ideological when ideas are
put into practical use. By the mid-1980s. Sandra H a r d i n g had
created the category of 'feminist standpoint epistemologiesr,
which, while establishing Dorothy Smith as a well known
scholar, especially in the United States, does so with a
misunderstanding of her work, with Harding's emphasis on a
philosophical origin in the work of Hegel and his master-slave
metaphor.
Critiques in the 1990s of her standpoint of women theory
are most often ones argued on the basis of: 1) the critique
that the standpoint epistemology, as it has come to be known,
was incapable of incorporating the standpoint of women of
colour (Lemert, 1992; Cornell, 1992; Collins, 1992); 2)
critiques that came from scholars adhering to a postmodem or
poststructuralist theoretical orientation, who faulted her
materialist approach (Cheal, 1990 ; Clough, 1993 ; Kennessey,
1993; M a n n and Kelley, 1997); and 3) a number of critiques
that seem to have been accomplished without a careful
attention to her work, which I would categorise as criticism
for its own sake, offering little in the way of suggestions
for the amelioration of her theory (Doran, 1993; Hekman,
1997). Dorothy Smith's work has variously been accused of
being capable of handling only the 'single case study8
Bandyopadhyay, Pradeep. 1974. "A Critical Note". Catalyst, 8, 55 - 61. P. 55.
Harding, Sandra, 1986. The Science Question in Feminism. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. P. 26,
(Bandyopadhyay, 1974); 'the standpoint of women is judged to
be superior to that of menr (Cheal, 1990); 'being of interest
to women and womenr s studies onlyr (Hak, 1992) ; as itself
ideological (Doran, 1993); and as having Schutz' theory of the
lifeworld as the origin of her approach (Hekman, 1997) . Recent work that 'get Cs] it rightr 3, is that which has
correctly pinpointed the origin of her theoretical work in
women's labour (Harding, 1992; Weeks, 1995; Denzin, 1997)-
This dissertation has attempted to clarify the misconceptions
that have accrued in the body of criticism around Dorothy
Smith's work concerning the social origins of her thought.
As I originally imagined, my dissertation became a
focused and extended sociology of knowledge, one that
incorporated two interwoven themes: 1) an interpretive
historical sociology of intergenerational patterns of the
women's movement, and the argument that the principle of
women's equality has been transmitted through the generations
of women in Dorothy Smith's family; and 2) a historical
materialism attentive to suitable 'productive forcesr, a term
In an interview with Dorothy Smith where we discussed at length the social origins of her 'standpoint of women' theory, she told me she would withdraw her support for my doctoral project if I did not 'get it rightr, I had made the mistake of concentrating on the philosophical origins of 'standpoint epistemologiesr in the Hegelian master and slave metaphor, taking the interpetation that Sandra Harding had created in 1986. Dorothy was passionately adamant that the origins of her thinking came from women's experience - in the execution of household labour. Here I am reproducing Dorothy Smithfs own terminology from an interview during lunch in the OISE/UT cafeteria, August 21, 1997 .
appropriated from M a r x and Engelsf The German Ideology, that
formed a part of the creation and development of Dorothy E.
Smith8 s SOK method,
The history of women's relation to household skills and
labour, and how women, in their political activism on their
own behalf, have appropriated that household labour, are
argued to change in the forms of the women's movement that are
represented here, It is a dissertation which is written
almost exclusively from the standpoint of women, which, as
Dorothy Smith has argued, begins in the ordinary domestic
practices of women as they are realized in their labour in the
household. This thesis is an historical sociology of
generations of women, mothers and daughters, the historical
forms of their domestic labour, and the relationship of this
labour to their various women's movements, and the ultimate
outcome of this labour and activism, the intellectual product
created by Dorothy Smith called the Social Organization of
Knowledge, This concluding chapter puts in order exactly what
these various historical relationships of women to domestic
labour have been, and what part they played in the creation of
Dorothy's method.
The form that women's skills in the household took in
Margaret Fell's time were rich and incredibly varied,
demanding much of women's time, inventiveness, effort and
competence. Many of these talents were related in Genrase
Markham's ancient guide to women8 s work called Country
Contentments (1623 ) , where it was recounted that women were
required to know and be skilful in a wide range of
occupations, including cheese-making, baking, caring for the
sick, farming, beer-making, spinning, weaving, and the
creation of sturdy clothing for their families. Margaret Fell
and her daughters, although they had help from a number of
servants with these household and farming chores, likely knew
how to perform these tasks themselves- Their relationship to
these household tasks and skills was one of high esteem, pride
and honour, and I argued that it was through these strengths
that they gained from the day-to-day ordinary work in the
household, that they conceivably gained a measure of the
strength and courage to move into the public sphere as
activists on behalf of other Quaker women. This was the first
setting for intergenerational transmission of 'feminismr from
mother to daughter in Dorothy Smith's family, when Margaret
Fell, through the conversion of her whole family to the Quaker
way of life, began the process of teaching her daughters the
principle of women's equality, a part of the Quaker doctrine.
It was also the point of departure the transmission of women's
domestic household skills, the labour which reproduced the
material conditions of the Quaker women's lives. The
relationship of these women to their labour in the household
was argued to be connected to their sense of worth as women,
and the starting place for the creation of the SOK.
Every historical form of the women's movement in this
dissertation is argued to have a relationship to womenf s
labour in the household and their everyday lives. During
women's activism in the Suffrage Era, this affiliation becomes
oriented to class divisions in British society, in that
working class women still associated pride with the hours of
drudgery required by their labour in the home, but middle
class women, at least those who could afford it, hired working
class women to do this work, Working class women were often
involved in the domestic service in Edwardian Britain.
Dorothy Smith's grandmother, Lucy Ellison Abraham, nee
Golding, was a middle class woman who could afford to have
servants, and during her suffrage work, Dorothy Foster
Abraham, Dorothy Smith's mother, lived at home at 2 Kingsmead
Road in Birkenhead, and likely had domestic responsibilities.
Lucy Ellison Abraham and Dorothy Foster Abraham had inherited
the principle of women's equality, likely from their Quaker
heritage, but as 'daughters', the form of their activism was
different. What would have been rejected by the Quaker women
of Margaret Fell's time, given their loyalty to pacifism, was
taken up by the succeeding generations of women in their fight
for the vote. It was a militant, all out women's war against
the British government to achieve this end. The unique
quality of the Womenfs Social and Political Union (WSPU), was
their appropriation of women's domestic skills, putting them
to good use for the 'causef, and, as a jarring contradiction
to us, militancy and feminine values were co-existent.
Dorothy Foster Abraham began farming in Wensleydale
shortly before the end of World War I, and most women who had
worked during the War returned to the household. A partial
franchise was achieved for women in 1918, so a great many
suffrage groups, except, of course, the militant WSPU,
continued to work for the full franchise, There was a return
to an ideology which prescribed home-making for women, and the
activism that took place was centred around pragmatic
concerns, such as children's health, housing, and the death of
women in childbirth, They began to work for projects such as
the Nursery School Movement, issues that reflected their
responsibilities as mothers and housewives. Dorothy Foster
Abraham began to develop the skills in the household, such as
making Wensleydale cheese, baking bread, etc, that would
enthral Dorothy Smith as a child when she was old enough to be
allowed to 'hang aroundr her mother's kitchen. This is the
time when Dorothy began to learn about women's experience and
discover her respect for women's labour. Women returned to
their traditional mode of operation, which was their work in
the domestic sphere, and if they did venture out into public
activism, it was based on what was 'acceptablef as far as
their established societal roles as women would allow, A
similar pattern occurred during World War 11, when women
worked during the time of actual warfare, but returned to the
home once the war was over. Dorothy Foster Abraham
contributed to the war effort through her domestic skills, as
a member of the Women's Institute, which sold fruits and
vegetables and made jam as a part of their wartime
contribution, When Dorothy Smith began studying at the London
School of Economics, it triggered the beginning of a divided
loyalty, as she fell in love first with sociology, then with
her husband, Bill Smith,
When feminism and the women's movement began to gather
momentum in America about ten years after the publication of
Simone de Beauvoirrs The Second Sex in its English translation
in 1952, it was largely a response to women's prescribed
relationship to domestic labour. Dorothy Smith was studying
for her doctorate at the University of California at Berkeley,
struggling between faithfulness to two environments which she
loved. the w o r l d of her children, and the realm of sociology.
Betty Friedan's formulation of 'the problem that has no name',
was constructed as women's boredom and intellectual atrophy
due to their forced confinement to labour in the household,
When women began to talk to each other once again, it was
about their problems as middle class housewives and their
frustrating relationships with men. Black women in America in
the 1950s and early 1960s experienced a different oppression
based on racism, however, and they were more likely to be
active in the public sphere than white women, in that they
were often forced to work for white women as domestic servants
to make a living, and were often highly involved in civil
rights activism as ordinary workers and leaders,
Through the involvement in the women's caucuses of New
Left political groups and the practice of consciousness-
raising, members of Women's Liberation in the late 1960s began
to intellectualize their experience by theorizing, through
Marxist concepts, their experience of domestic labour. It was
a debate which was to engage women's attention for a decade
and a half, from c. 1969 to c, 1985, Dorothy Smith's
involvement in the women's movement was a continuation of the
feminist axioms of women's equality that she had learned from
her mother and grandmother, but it was a form of feminism that
she created on her own terms, eschewing militancy, for
example, and applying feminist principles to sociology, but
not to issues that arose from women's direct experience in the
household. She applies women's direct experience with
household labour to a sociological method, rather than using
this experience as a basis for political activism on behalf of
women's status- Her contribution to the women's movement and
the advancement of women's status was realized through the
discipline of sociology, through her work towards its
feminization and its politicization,
In the 1 9 8 0 ~ ~ the Social Organization of Knowledge became
a practical i~ovation for sociology, a method of studying the
mundane, ordinary aspects of social life as they are affected
by the textual forms of its organization. She concentrates,
in her writing, on the examination of the social organization
of women's lives and the study of the 'textr as a subject for
investigation. Smith does not participate formally in the
domestic labour debate, due to a disagreement with the
approach of her peers, who began their analyses with Marxist
concepts, instead of beginning with women's direct experience
of labour in the household. Instead, women's direct
experience is felt by her to be the fundamental ingredient in
her 'standpoint of womenr method of begi~ing sociological
inquiry, a method which can be used as a component of the
Social Organization of Knowledge. Women's domestic labour is
something that attracted her respect, even if it was not
something that she wanted to take up as a vocation, or an
activity which sustained her attention or interest. Household
labour is a vocation whose skills she learned to admire,
through the example of her mother, but one that she theorized
for sociology, rather than practised- Dorothy Smith, as well
as the feminist scholars who are her peers, have long since
discarded an interest and preoccupation with the theoretical
implications of domestic labour, and moved on to the concerns
of a postmodern world,
This thesis has situated the life and work of a world-
renowned feminist sociologist, Dorothy E. Smith, in the
context of an historical sociology of women's movements which
are argued to be a productive force behind the creation of her
work. It is a reminder that an individual sociologist whose
work was feminist in its orientation, regardless of the extent
of her contribution, was dependent on the productive genius of
other women, both in her history, and in the contemporary
women's movements of which she w a s a part* Dorothy Smith gave
to the women's movement, but more importantly, she also
received a legacy of women's activism from previous
generations, and from the work of her peers- Through the
women's movement, many other feminist sociologists have worked
to authorize the presence of feminist consciousness within the
discipline of sociology in various inventive ways, so much so
that the mention of 'feminismf as a standpoint barely raises a
murmur anymore, when it once was considered a risky
undertaking, Feminism is an accepted part of classical
theoretical approaches and methods in sociology, and
frequently is required learning in introductory and
undergraduate texts. Such has been the strength of the
womenf s movement and its influence on Dorothy E . Smith, and her subsequent authority in sociology, so that her particluar
're-makingr of the discipline could be putatively rebelled
against and changed by future women sociologists bent on
change, improvement and amelioration of its theories and
methods.
The Collected Works o f D o r o a y E. Smith1
1959, llLegitimate and Illegitimate Deviance: The Case of the State Mental Hospital, " Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 2, 1, 15-39.
1963. l8Power and the Frontline: Social Controls in a State Mental Hospital. Ir A Doctoral Dissertation Prepared for the University of California at Berkeley,
19 65a. "The Logic of Custodial Organization. Psychiatzy, 28, 4, 311-323.
1965b. I1Front-line Organization of the State Mental HospftaLW Adininistrative Science Quarterly, 10, 3 , 381- 399. Reprinted in: Hasenfield, Yeheskel and Richard A- English, eds. 1974, Human S e d c e Organizations: A Book of Readings. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1966. "The Role of Sociologyin Medicine-" In: Folta, J. R. and E. S . Beck, eds - A Sociological Framework for Patient Care. New York: John Wiley.
1968, IrAcademic Women- It Essax Review, 1, 1.
1971 - nHousehold Space and Family Organization. Pacif ic Sociological Review, 14, 1, 53 -78. Reprinted in: Davies, E- I. and K. Herman, eds. 1972. Social Space. Toronto: New Press and in: Cardwell, J. Do, ed- 1974. Readings in Social Psychology: A Symbolic Interactionis t Perspective . Philadelphia: F , H. Davies .
1973. I1Women, the Family and Corporate Capitalism-It In: Stephenson, Marylee, ed. Women i n Canada. Toronto : New Press, Reprinted in: Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 2 0 , 1975, Summer, 55-90.
1974a. I1Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology. Sociological Inquiry, 4, 1, 1-13. Reprinted in: McNall, S o , ed- 1979. Current Perspectives in Sociology and in: Harding, Sandra, ed. 1988. Feminism and Method01 ogy: Social Science Issues. Bloomington : Indiana University Press,
Does not include book reviews. This compilation conforms to the sequential arrangement on Dorothy E. Smith's curriculum vitae, updated July, 1997.
19 74b. IrThe Ideological Practice of Sociology. Iv Catalyst, 8, 39-54. Reprinted in an abbreviated form as Theorizing as Ideologyvr in: Turner, Roy, ed, 1974, E~omethodo logy : Selected Readings. Harmondsmith, Middlesex: Penguin,
1974c. "The Social Construction of a Documentary Reality," Sociof ogicaf Inquiry, 44, 4, 257-268 .
1975a. wIdeological Structures and How Women are Excluded," Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology. Special Issue for International Womenr s Year, Women in Canadian Social Stmcture , 12, 4, Part I, 353-369. Reprinted in: Grayson, Paul J, , ed. 1980, Class, State, Ideology and Change, and Gaskell, Jane S. and Arlene Tigar McLaren, 1987, Women and Education: A Canadian Perspective, Calgary, Alberta : Detselig Enterprises -
1975b. Women Look at Psychiatry. Edited by Dorothy E. Smith and Sara J1 David. Vancouver: Press Gang.
I1Women and Psychiatry. In: Smith, D, E, and Sara J. David, eds , Women Look at Psychiatry, Vancouver: Press Gang -
"The Statistics on Women and Mental Illness: How Not to R e a d Them- In: Smith, D, E, and Sara J. David, eds, Women Look at Psychf atry. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers,
"A Feminist Therapy Session." By Dorothy E. Smith and Rita MacDonald. In: Smith, D. E, and Sara J. David, eds . Women Look at Psychiatry. Vancouver : Press Gang Publishers,
1976a. What it Might Mean to do a Canadian Sociology: T h e Everyday World as Problematic. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 1, 3, 363-375.
1976b. "K ist Geiteskrank. " In: Weingarten, E., F. Sack and J. N. Schenkein, eds . Ethnomethodologie: B e i trage auf einer Soziologie des Tagslebens . Frankfurt : Suhrkamp .
1977a. vlSome Implications of a Sociology for Women." In: Glazer, Nona Yetta and Helen Youngelson Waehrer, eds. Women in a Man-Made World. Second Edition. Chicago : Rand-McNally .
1977b. Marxism and Feminism: A Place to Begin, A Way to Go. Vancouver: New Star Books.
1977c. IvDoes G o v t . Funding Co-Opt?I1 Kinesis, 6, 11, 5 -6 .
1977d- "The Women's Research Centre, Vancouver: An Alternative Model for Research," Unpublished Paper Presented at the Annual Meetings of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, Fredericton, New Brunswick, May, 1977-
1978a- IrA Peculiar Eclipsing: Women's Exclusion from Men's Culture. It Women's Studies Iizternational Quarterly, 1, 4, 281-295,
1978b- "'Kt is Mentally 111: The Anatomy of a Factual Account, ~ociology, 12, 1, 23-53.
1978~- "The Exclusion of Women in Forming the Values and Beliefs of Society-" Socialization and L i f e Skills, March. Report of the Proceedings of the Canadian Teachersr Federation Workshop on the Status of Women in Education held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, November 6-8, 1977 - Ottawa: Canadian Teachersr Federation,
1978d. "Working Paper on the Implications of Declining Enrolment for Women Teachers in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools in Ontario." By Dorothy E, Smith, Marilee Reimer, Connie Taylor and Yoko Ueda. Report for the Commission on Declining Enrolments in Ontario.
1978e. "Racism: What is Our Responsibility?" Society, 2, 1, 4 .
1979a. "The Intersubjective Structuring of Time: An Analysis of How it was Done on a Particular Occasion/ A n a l y t i c Sociology, 2, 1, c13-e12.
1979b. Sociology for Women-" In: Sherman, Julia A. and Evelyn Torton Beck, eds. The Prism of Sex: Essays in the Sociology of Kizowledge, Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press,
1979~- "Where There is Oppression, There is Resistance." Branching Out, 4, 1, 10-15.
1979d. "Education and Women's Exclusion from Our Fireweed: A Women's Literary and Cultural Journal, 3 -4, 29-40,
1979e. Wducational Cutbacks and the Workload of Elementary School Teachers. Ir By Dorothy E. Smith and The Wollstonecraft Research Group. Women in the Education Workforce, September, Ottawa: Canadian Teachers8 Federation.
1979f. I1Using the Oppressor's Language," Resources for Feminist Research, Special Publication 5, p - 10-20. In Search of the Feminist Perspective: The Changing Potency of Women. March 4-5, 1978. University of Waterloo-
1980a. TRIAW in the 1980s: The Role of a Research Institute in the Furthering of Personhood-" Resources for Feminist Research, Special Publication 8, pp - 131-13 3, Third Annual Meeting of the Canadfan Research Institute for the Advancement of W o m e n (CRIAW) , November 9-11, 1979.
1980b- IrTextual Analysis as Explication of a Social Relation: An Examination of the Reader-Text Relation in a Psychiatric Case History- " Unpublished paper presented at the meetings of the Philosophy of the Social Sciences Association, October, 1980 -
l98la. I1Le Partie-pris des Femmes . Translated by M. Verthuy. In: Cohen, Yolande, ed. Femmes et Politiques. Montre'al: Le Jouriteur. P. 139-44,
198Ib. wWomenFs Inequality and the In: Moscovitch, Allan and Glenn Drover, eds - Ihequality: Essays on the P o l i t i c a l Economy of Social Welfare. Toronto : University of Toronto Press.
19 8 1c - "On Sociological Description: A Method From M a r x , Human Studies, 4, 4, 313-337.
19 8 Id. "The Experienced World As Problematic : A Feminist Method. " Twelfth Annual Sorokin Lecture, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, January 28, 1981.
1981e- "A Method for a Sociology for Women,fit Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, 1981.
1982a. "Women Class and Family-l1 In: Hersom, Naomi and Dorothy E. Smith, eds- Proceedings and Papers from a Workshop held at the University of British Columbia, January, 1981. Women and the Canadian Labour Force, Ottawa: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
1982b. "The Active Text: A Textual Analysis of the Social Relations of Public Textual Discourse/ Unpublished paper presented at the World Congress of Sociology, Mexico City, August, 1982.
19 8 2 c - "Where are the W o m e n ? l1 Unpublished paper presented with Gilles Malnarich at the Conference Commemorating the Centenary of Marxr s Death, University of Manitoba, March, 1982.
1983a. "No One Commits Suicide: Textual Analyses of Ideological Practices. Human Studies, 3 09 -3 59 .
1983b. I1Women, Family and the Productive Process.It In: Grayson, J. Paul, ed- Introduction to Sociology: An Al tema te Approach. Toronto : Gage.
1983~- IrWomen, Class and Family. " In: Miliband, Ralph and John Saville, eds , The Socialist Register, London: Merlin Press
1983d- Ifwomen and the Making of Class * It Unpublished paper presented at the Meetings of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, Vancouver, 1983.
1984a- ItTextualLy Mediated Social Organi~ation,~ Iiztemational Social Science Journal, 36, 1, 59-75.
1984b- "The Renaissance of Women-lt In: Franklin, Ursula Martius et a1 . mowledge Reconsidered: A Feminist Overview, Ottawa : Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women,
1984~. "The Deep Structure of Gender Antitheses: Another View of Capitalism and Patriarchy. " H u m a n i t y and Society, 8, 4, 395-402,
1985b. Women, Class, Family and the S t a t e . By Varda Burstyn and Dorothy E- Smith- Introduction by Roxana Ng- Toronto: Garamond,
1985c. uEthnomethodology m d Textual Analysis." Unpublished paper presented at the Boston Symposium on Ethnomethodology. Boston University, August, 1985.
l985d. If Feminist Research and Womenr s Experience : When Mothers Talk," Unpublished paper presented to the Conference on Motherwork, Montreal, October, 1985,
1986a- El Mundo Silenciado de las Mujeres, Santiago, Chile: CIDE .
1986b. A Future f o r Women at the University of Toronto: The Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Status of Women. By Dorothy E, Smith, A. J. Cohen, J, Drakich, Do Rayside and G. Burt, Centre for Women's Studies in Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Occasional Papers No. 13.
19 8 6c. The Women Educators ' Computer Conferencing Research Project Report - Toronto : Federation of Women's Teachersr Associations of Ontario.
1986d. ltInstitutional Ethnography: A Feminist Method.Ir Resources for Feminist Research, 15, 1, 6-13,
1986e. ffWomen and the Inertia of the Educational System? Canadian Dimension, 2 0, 3, 33 -4,
1986f- "The Rise and Fall of Feminist Organizations in the 1970s: Dayton as a Case Study." By Judith Sealander and Dorothy E, Smith, Feminist Studies, 12, 2, 321-341,
1987a. The Everyday World As Problematic: A F e m i n i s t Sociology, Toronto : University of Toronto Press,
1987b, IcAn Ethnographic Strategy for the Study of Textually- Mediated Relations of Ruling: The Making of a DACUM, " The Nexus Project Occasional Paper No- I- Depaxtment of Sociology in Education- Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
198 7c - Feminism and the Malepractice of Sociology* It Popular Feminism Papers No. 3 , Toronto: Centre for Women's Studies in Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
1987d. "Constructing Cultural Knowledge: Mothering as Discourse, By Alison I - Grif f ith and Dorothy E, Smith, In: Gaskell , Jane and Arlene McLaren, Women and Education: A Canadian Perspective, Calgary, Alberta : Detselig Enterprises,
1988a. "Writing Women's Experience into Social ScienceJ1 F e m i n i s m and P s y c h o l o g y , I , 1, 155-169,
1988b. trDetermining Training Needs in the Plastics Industry," The Nexus Project Occasional Paper No, 5 . Department of Sociology in Education. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education ,
1988~- IrFemininity as Discourse- l1 In: Roman, Leslie GI and Linda K- Christian-Smith, eds - Becoming F e m i n i n e : The Politics of Popular Culture, London: Falrner Press.
1988d. "Writing Sociology: The Feminist Contradi~tion,~~ Unpublished paper presented by invitation to the Conference on Feminist ran sf or mat ions of the Social Sciences. If Hamilton College, New York, April, 1988 -
1989a- Tomment on Sandra Hardingrs 'Is There a Feminist Method? Feminism in Philosophy N e w s l e t t e r , Summer, 44 - 46 -
1989b- IrFeminist Reflections in Political Economy.Ir S t u d i e s in P o l i t i c a l Economy, 3 0 , Autumn, 3 7 - 5 9 . Reprinted in: Connelly, Patricia M, and Pat Armstrong, eds. 1992- F e m i n i s m in A c t i o n = Studies i n Political Economy. Toronto: Scholarsf Press,
1989~. "Sociological Theory: Methods of Writing Patriarchy." In: Wallace, Ruth, ed. Feminism and Sociological Theory- London: Sage.
1989d- "Gender, Power and Peace, In: Gorham, Deborah and Janice Williamson, eds . Up and D o i n g : Canadian Women and Peace, Toronto: Women's Press.
1989e- IIWomenrs Work as Mothers: A New Look at the Relations of the Family, Class and School A c h i e v e m e n L n In: Miller, Gale and James Holstein, eds . Perspectives on Social Problems, Volume I - Greenwich, COM, : JAI: Press.
1989f. T h e Out-of-Body Experience: The Social Organization of Textuality. Unpublished paper presented at a panel memorializing Sally Hacker at the meetings for the Society for the History of Technology, Sacramento, California, October, 1989-
1990a. The Conceptual Practices of Power: A F e m f n f s t Sociology of Kbowledge, Toronto : University of Toronto Press.
1990b. Texts, Facts and Femininity: Exploring the Relations of Ruling- London: Routledge,
1990~- Doing it the Hard Way: Investigations of Gender and Technology- Edited by Dorothy E. Smith and Susan Turner. Boston: Unwin-Hyman,
1990d. "What did You Do in School Today? Mothering, Schooling and Social Class-" By Dorothy E. Smith and Alison Griffith. In: Miller, Gale and James Holtstein, eds - Perspectives on Social Problems, Volume 2 . Greenwich, Conn,: JAI Press.
1990e. Toordinating the Uncoordinated: Mothering, Schooling and the Family Wage. By Dorothy E, Smith and Alison Griffith. In: Miller, Gale and James Holstein, eds- Perspectives on Social Problems, Volume 2 - Greenwich, Conn. : JAI Press,
1990f- "The Job-Skills Training Nexus: Changing Context and Managerial PracticeJr By Dorothy E. Smith and George Smith, In: Muller, Jacob, ed- The Political Economy of the Communi ty College , Toronto : Garamond .
1991a. "Writing Women's experience into Social S~ience.~~ Feminism and Psychology, 1, 1, 155-169,
1991b. Status of Women in Ontario Universities: F i n a l Report. Two Volumes, By Dorothy E, Smith, Janice Drakich, Penni Stewart, B o d e Fox and Alison Griffith. Toronto: Ministry of Colleges and Universities.
1992a. llSociology from Women's Experience: A Reaffirmati~n.~~ Sociological Theory, 10,1, 8 8 - 9 9.
1992b. -Whistling Wornen: Reflections on Rage and Rationality- In: Carroll, William K, et al, , eds . Fragile T r u t h s : 25 Years of Sociology and Anthropology in Canada. Ottawa: Carleton University Press.
1992~- "Remaking a Life, Remaking Sociology." In: Carroll, William K, et ale, eds. Fragile Truths: 25 Years of Sociology and Anthropology in Canada, Ottawa : Carleton University Press.
1992d. "Texts as Action." Unpublished paper co-authored with Jack Whalen, Marilyn Whalen and Marilyn Carter presented at the Conference on lrEthnomethodology: Twenty-Five Years Laterrr at Bentley College, Waltham, Massachusetts, August, 1992.
l992e. "The Out -of -Body Experience : A Contradiction for feminist^.^ Unpublished paper presented in a session the Sociology of Culture, Gender and Power at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Pittsburgh, August, 1992.
1993a. "What Welfare Theory Hides." In: Grover, Glenn and Patrick Kerans , eds - New Approaches to Welfare Theory. Aldershot, Hants, England: Edward Elgar,
1993b- "High Noon in Textland: A Critique of Clough." Sociological Quarterly, 34, 1, 183-192.
1993c. 'I'Literacyr and Business: Social Problems as Social Organi~ation.~' In: Holstein, James and Gale Miller, eds . Reconsidering Social Constructionism : Debates in Social Problems Theory. Part 11. New Challenges in Social Constructionism. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
1993d- "The Standard North American Family: SNAF as an Ideological Code. " Journal of Family Issues, 14, 2, 5 0 - 65.
1994a. llVerfungsverhaltnisse, Textualitat und Hegemonie." (The Relations of Ruling, Textuality and Hegemony). Das Argument: Zeitschif t fur Philosophie unde Sozialwissenschaften, 206, 36, Jahrgang Heft 4/5, 693- 712.
1994b. "Familienlohn und Mannergewalt-I! In: Alcoff, Linda, Frigga Haug, Klaus Holzkamp, Birgit Romrnelspacher and Dorothy E . Smith, eds . Sexueller Mibrauch: Widerspruche eines offenlichen Skandal s. Forum I(ri tische Psychologie 33. Argument Speziale, 33-54,
19 94c- "Making Connections, Thinking Change Together: Women Teachers and Computer Networks - I' By Dorothy E, Smith and Linda Harasim. In: Bourne, Paula et al- , eds, F d s m aad E d u c a t i o n : A Canadian View- Volume 11. Toronto: Centre for Womenr s Studies in Education,
19 94d, IrA Berkeley Education, Ir In: Meadow-Orlans , Kathryn P . and Ruth A, Wallace, eds - Gender and the A c a d e m i c Experience: Berkeley Women Socio logis t s~ Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
1995a. Girls and Schooling: Their Owz Cri t ique, By Dorothy E. Smith, Liza McCoy, and Paula Bourne- Ontario Institute for Studies in Education: Centre for Women's Studies in Education Publication Series.
19 95b - lrComrnent on Kenneth Dauberr s 'Bureaucratization - the Ethnographerr s Magic1 , C m r e n t A n ~ o p o l o g y , Spring, 88-99.
1995~- "'Politically Correctr: An Ideological Code." In: Richer, Stephen and Lorna Weir, eds- Beyond Political Correctness : Toward the Inclusive Universi ty. Toronto : University of Toronto Press.
1996a. lrContradictions for Feminist Socf a1 Scientists, In: Gottfried, Heidi, ed. Feminism and Social Change: Bridging Theory and Practice, Chicago : University of Illinois Press -
l996b. I1Telling the Truth After Postmodernism. Ir Symbolic Interaction, 19, 3, 171-202,
19 9 6c. I1Connecting Feminist Research . It Clippingdale, Linda, ed . Voix Fenzinis tes/Feminist Voices, Memories and Visions: Celebrating 20 Years of Feminist Research with CRIAW/ICREE', 1976-1996, 178 -183,
1996d. "The Relations of Ruling: A Feminist Inq~iry.~~ Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies, 2, 3 , 171-190,
1996e. Response to Judith Stacey and Barrie Thorner s Essay: "The Missing Revolution: Ten Years Later. " Perspectives: The ASA Theory Section Newsletter, 18, 3, 3-4.
1996f. "Texts in Action. If Unpublished paper by Dorothy E , Smith and Jack Whalen,
1997a. "Wife Abuse and Family Idealizations: The Violent Regulation of Family Regimes, In: Ronai, Carol Rambo , Barbara Z s e m b i k and James Feagin, eds* Everyday Sexism in the Third MXllennium, New York: Routledge.
1997b. I 1 R e p o r t and Repressf on: Textual Hazards for Feminists i n the Academy. " In: Eyre, Linda and Leslie Roman, eds - Dangerous Territories : Strugg1es for Difference and Equality in Rducation* New Y o r k : Routledge.
1997~. Tram the Margins : Womenr s Standpoint as a Method of Inquiry in the Social Sciences-" Gender, Technology and Development, 1, 1 , 113-135,
1997d. Comment on Hekmanrs Truth and Method: F e m i n i s t Standpoint Theory Revisited. Ic Signs: Journal of Women in Cul tu re and Society, 22, 2, 392-398-
l998a- I F R e g u l a t i o n or Dialogue, IF In: Pavlich, D e n n i s , Sharon K a h n , and Nichola Hall, eds - Academic Freedom and the ~nc lus i ve U n i v e r s i ty, Vancouver : University of British Columbia Press,
l998b. Writing the Social: C r i t i q u e , T h e o r y and Investigations. Toronto : University of Toronto Press -
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