This article argues that systematic comparative analyses of women's strategies and coping mechanisms lead to a more culturally and temporally grounded understanding of patriarchal systems than the unqualified, abstract notion of patriarchy encountered in contemporary feminist theory. Women strategize within a set of concrete constraints, which I identify as patriarchal bargains. Different forms of patriarchy present women with distinct “rules of the game” and call for different strategies to maximize security and optimize life options with varying potential for active or (...) passive resistance in the face of oppression. Two systems of male dominance are contrasted: the sub-Saharan African pattern, in which the insecurities of polygyny are matched with areas of relative autonomy for women, and classic patriarchy, which is characteristic of South and East Asia as well as the Muslim Middle East. The article ends with an analysis of the conditions leading to the breakdown and transformation of patriarchal bargains and their implications for women's consciousness and struggles. (shrink)

This text examines the concepts and assumptions of the five major sociological theories and the classical roots of the modern theories. It focuses upon functionalism, conflict theory, theories of rational choice, symbolic interactionism and phenomenology. and expands the discussion of Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical contributions. A new section on sociology of the body is also provided.

Without patriarchal laws and legally permitted gender discrimination, it becomes clearer that a powerful draw back to gender equality springs from norms about gender identity, concepts of masculinity and femininity, and tacit rules of interaction between women and men. This article offers a theoretical perspective to analyze hidden power in gender relationships. The conceptualization is based on research into marital power carried out in the Netherlands. The focus of this research was not on the way the “power cake” is divided (...) up between spouses but rather on the operation of power processes and mechanisms that can explain why change toward gender equality in marriage is so slow. (shrink)

Based on interviews with a random sample of white women who are in a second marriage, this article examines changes in women's marital power across marriage, divorce, and remarriage. In some marriages, women's market work is not considered a resource and hence does not have a positive effect on marital power, particularly when husbands are employed in low-status occupations. Conversely, women who are domestically oriented do not necessarily suffer a loss of power. Hochschild's concept of “economy of gratitude” illuminates the (...) way that marital power is affected by the meanings couples assign to women's paid and unpaid labor. Furthermore, women's previous market work and marital and divorce experiences affect the meaning of their paid and unpaid labor upon remarriage, as well as their desire for each. (shrink)

Based on an ethnographic study of women's social groups and networks in a community of Vietnamese immigrants recently settled in the United States, this article explores the effects of migration on gender roles and power. The women's groups and networks play an important role in the exchange of social and economic resources among households and in the mediation of disputes between men and women in the family. These community forms are an important source of informal power for women, enabling them (...) to cope effectively with male authority in the family. Yet, despite their increased power and economic resources, these women supported a patriarchal social structure because it preserved their parental authority and promised greater economic security in the future. (shrink)

This article examines how gender shapes the migration and settlement experiences of Mexican immigrant women and men. The article compares the experiences of families in which the husbands departed prior to 1965 to those in which the husbands departed after 1965 and argues that the lengthy spousal separations altered patterns of patriarchal authority and the traditional gendered household division of labor. This induced a trend toward more egalitarian conjugal relations upon settlement in the United States. Examining the changing contexts of (...) migration illuminates the fluid character of patriarchy's control in Mexican immigrant families. (shrink)