At the 1998 International Sociological Association congress in Montreal, a survey was conducted among the attendees who wanted to answer with the following question: What are the most influential books in Sociology? The result was that the top 40 on the list were all written by men. The interpretation that there was no woman who reached the level of men in this field was then a majority, almost unanimous, in sociology. This situation was also reflected in the syllabuses and bibliographies that appeared in the sociological theory subjects of the universities of the different countries. It was also a reflection of the fact that the majority of teachers who taught this subject were men.
Since then, numerous studies have made it possible to stop making invisible extraordinary contributions made by women, whose concealment has seriously harmed social improvement and the consideration of sociological theory in society. At the European Sociological Association 2024 Conference in Porto, a new survey was carried out with the same question among attendees who wanted to answer. The result was different: 4 out of the top 10 were written by women. At the same time, these and other books written by women have been appearing in the bibliographies of university subjects and also among the teaching staff who teach these subjects in universities. Today discriminating against gender in theories about society harming all citizens is no longer scientifically nor socially acceptable.
A particularly scandalous case is that of Jane Addam who is considered by more and more specialists to be the creator of sociology. Being the only sociologist to have won a Nobel Prize and also being the leading specialist on issues as socially important today as peace, her exclusion from the programs is a pseudoscientific sexist prejudice. One of the reasons given for not including her is that she was a social worker, as if a woman could not be two things at once, since Jane Addams was a sociologist and a social worker. However, it seems that men can be two things at the same time, like Max Weber, who was actually an economist and was only a sociologist at the end of his life.
We are very much in luck. Women are making great contributions to the theories that allow citizens to understand and transform their societies.
Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Barcelona.
Extensive experience in the participation of EU funded research projects particularly from the EC’s Framework Programme.
Co-editor of RASP: Research on Ageing and Social Policy.