Engendering the Social

*How were the foundations of sociological theory shaped by an implicit masculinity?

*Did classical sociology simply reflect or actively construct theories of sexual difference?

*How were alternative accounts of the social suppressed in sociology's founding moments?

*Does the masculine subject still lurk beneath the allegedly generic individual in modern sociological theory?

The focus of this edited volume is on the problematic engendering of classical and contemporary sociological theory. Feminist interventions in sociology continue to be regarded as marginal to the enterprise of sociological theorizing, resulting in a truncated vision of the scope and concerns of sociological theory. This collection challenges this narrow vision, and contributes to expanding the conventional diet of sociological theory. In part one, contributors interrogate the classical canon, exposing the masculinist assumptions that saturate the conceptual scaffolding of sociology. In part two, contributors consider the long-standing and problematic relation between sociology and feminism, retrieving voices marginalized within or excluded from canonical constructions of sociological theory. In part three, contributors engage with key contemporary debates, explicitly engendering ostensibly gender-neutral accounts of the social. This collection is unique in that it goes beyond a critical feminist interrogation of sociological theory to develop a politics of reconstruction, working creatively with the sociological heritage to induce a more adequate conceptualisation of the social.