Gender is about how bodies enter history. Gender is a social structure, not a reflex of biology, though it’s a structure that relates to, and organizes, human reproduction. It’s a complex, changing structure, and the notion that it can be understood through simple dichotomies is sadly mistaken.
Most of my research on gender and sexuality has used ideas and methods from the social sciences to understand problems raised by activism: in the women’s movement, gay and lesbian movements, and men’s work for gender equality (see masculinities).
My first academic publication on gender was in 1974, a simple sex-differences study based on a survey of teenagers in Sydney. But those were the days of the Women’s Liberation movement, and both politics and ideas were moving fast.
Most of my research on gender and sexuality has used ideas and methods from the social sciences to understand problems raised by activism: in the women’s movement, gay and lesbian movements, and men’s work for gender equality (see masculinities).
My first academic publication on gender was in 1974, a simple sex-differences study based on a survey of teenagers in Sydney. But those were the days of the Women’s Liberation movement, and both politics and ideas were moving fast.
In the late 1970s I was involved in research on Australian secondary schools that gave a vivid picture of gender regimes in operation. In-your-face realities of school and family life made me think harder about gender as a social process, and how its dynamic related to the dynamic of class.
In the 1980s I was involved with a group of researchers and activists in Sydney concerned with HIV/AIDS. Social action was vital for stopping the epidemic, but needed a research base. We designed field studies of sexuality and its social contexts, both in the gay community and beyond, using current theory in sociology and psychology. Unlike most social research, the results were immediately wanted in peer education and policymaking; so we had to make our work meaningful for action.
In the early 2000s I was involved in another collaborative study, about gender relations in the public sector, with Toni Schofield, Sue Goodwin and other colleagues. We hoped that a research base would help fire up new gender equity initiatives. The project ran into severe political difficulties, but did some beautiful fieldwork. This raised questions about how gender embeds in institutions, and how institutions are changing in the new market society.
All these studies raised theoretical problems, so I was looking at psychoanalysis, theories of the state, psychological measurement of difference, the new feminist social history, and more. My argument that gender should be understood as a multi-dimensional, historical social structure was crystallized in “Theorising gender”, published in 1985, and was spelt out in full in Gender and Power. It seemed to find an audience, since that is my second most cited publication.
Meanwhile, involvement in AIDS prevention research posed questions about sexuality as a social process. I was not happy with the discursive turn in sexuality research under the influence of Foucault and the problematic of 'identity'. Institutions, practices, sweaty bodies and children seemed to matter more. In 1990 Gary Dowsett and I brought together a group of Australian social researchers for a theoretical seminar, published as Rethinking Sex.
Meanwhile, involvement in AIDS prevention research posed questions about sexuality as a social process. I was not happy with the discursive turn in sexuality research under the influence of Foucault and the problematic of 'identity'. Institutions, practices, sweaty bodies and children seemed to matter more. In 1990 Gary Dowsett and I brought together a group of Australian social researchers for a theoretical seminar, published as Rethinking Sex.
A conceptual framework doesn’t change quickly; it took a long time to integrate this new experience. My introductory book Gender took some steps in this direction, while also revising the structural model of gender and bringing the argument of Gender and Power up to date. The second edition Gender: In World Perspective went much further. I’m working right now (2011) on a more systematic ‘southern theory’ approach to gender questions.
SELECTION OF TEN
I have chosen ten publications that best represent the different kinds of work I have done in this field. They aren’t necessarily the best known; they are all contributions that I’m glad to have written, or co-written. The rest of my work in this field is listed in the main bibliography.
Connell, Raewyn. 2012. Gender, health and theory: conceptualizing the issue, in local and world perspective. Social Science & Medicine, vol. 74, 1675-1683.
Gender is now recognized as a significant issue for public health, but in health policy (and research) it's usually treated in a simple dichotomous way. This paper shows that a more sophisticated relational approach is needed for health issues, both on a local and a world scale.
Connell, Raewyn. 2012. Gender, health and theory: conceptualizing the issue, in local and world perspective. Social Science & Medicine, vol. 74, 1675-1683.
Gender is now recognized as a significant issue for public health, but in health policy (and research) it's usually treated in a simple dichotomous way. This paper shows that a more sophisticated relational approach is needed for health issues, both on a local and a world scale.
Connell, Raewyn. 2010. Kartini’s children: on the need for thinking gender and education together on a world scale. Gender and Education, vol. 22 no. 6, 603-615.
One of the most important arenas for practice is education. But we need to keep education informed by current theory, including global perspectives. This is my attempt to show how. Kartini was a pioneering Javanese feminist, mega-famous in Indonesia, who died tragically while very young.
Connell, Raewyn. 2009. Gender: In World Perspective (second edition of Gender). Cambridge, Polity Press.
This is my attempt to be both systematic and accessible. (Is it possible to do both?) It gives an account of gender that is informed by current research, and reflects the global diversity of practices and ideas. It seems to have met a need; the first or second editions have been translated into five other languages so far.
Connell, Raewyn. 2009. The neoliberal parent: mothers and fathers in the new market society. Pp. 26-40 in Paula-Irene Villa and Barbara Thiessen, ed., Mütter - Väter: Diskurse, Medien, Praxen. Münster, Westfälisches Dampfboot.
How are gender relations affected by the global triumph of free-market capitalism and neoliberal politics? There is a lot of relevant research. This paper brings together studies from around the world on changes in family relations at times of neoliberal transition. The title of the book means: Mothers/Fathers: Discourses, Media, Practices.
Connell, Raewyn. 2006. Glass ceilings or gendered institutions? Mapping the gender regimes of public sector worksites. Public Administration Review, vol. 66 no. 6, 837-849.
How is gender embedded in institutions, and how does gender reform work inside the present-day state? This paper reports from a large collaborative research project in public sector agencies in Australia. It is published in the leading US journal on public administration.
Connell, Raewyn, MD Davis and Gary W. Dowsett. 1993. A bastard of a life: homosexual desire and practice among men in working-class milieux. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, vol. 29 no. 1, 112-135.
By the end of the 1990s a safe sex’ strategy against HIV/AIDS had been developed in Australian gay communities. But these communities were mostly middle-class. What was happening among men who had sex with men outside them? This project was an attempt to find out.
Connell, Raewyn. 1990. The state, gender and sexual politics: theory and appraisal. Theory and Society vol. 19, 507-544.
How feminism should relate to the state has long been an issue for the women’s movement. How to understand the state has long been an issue for social science. This long paper applies the theory from Gender and Power to these classic problems.
Connell, Raewyn, June Crawford, Susan Kippax, Gary W. Dowsett, Don Baxter, Lex Watson and R Berg. 1989. Facing the epidemic: changes in the sexual lives of gay and bisexual men in Australia and their implications for AIDS prevention strategies. Social Problems, vol. 36 no. 4, 384-402.
This paper reports from the first large-scale Australian study of sexual practices and their social contexts. It fed into the gay community’s own education strategy and helped make Australia a world leader in AIDS prevention practice. We published both locally and internationally; this is in a leading US journal.
Connell, Raewyn. 1987. Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Sydney, Allen & Unwin; Cambridge, Polity Press; Stanford, Stanford University Press.
My theoretical blockbuster: an attempt to work out a full-scale social analysis of gender, using the best tools of theory and assembling a wide range of research findings, as they stood in the mid-1980s. It criticizes essentialist and sex role theory, discusses both psychological and social levels, tackles problems of embodiment and politics. I think its main conclusions hold up well today, though of course all the detail has to be updated.
Kessler, Suzanne, Dean J. Ashenden, Raewyn Connell and Gary W. Dowsett. 1985. Gender relations in secondary schooling. Sociology of Education, vol. 58 no. 1, 34-48.
Based on close-focus research in Australian secondary schools, both working-class and ruling-class. This project was vital for my thinking about hegemonic masculinity, gender as a social process, and the interplay of gender and class, as well as for issues about education.
