Dorothy Smith is one of the first Canadian feminists who significantly contributed to the development of feminist research and made the successful effort to change academic practices which used to be man-stream only. The Everyday World as Problematic by Dorothy Smith reveals how the experience and knowledge of women were systematically ignored in the system of socially legitimated knowledge, especially in the higher education institutions.
The major thesis of the author is to challenge male intellectual hegemony and to empower the positions of women. Smith claims that sociology used to be written “from the standpoint of men located in the relations of ruling of our societies” (Smith, Dorothy E. 1). As some researchers state, “the cornerstone of feminist standpoint theory is a recognition that the rationalization of gender norms as natural reifies social relations” (Wylie, Alison, and Sismondo, Sergio 2).
Smith is rather convincing in supporting her thesis. She provides many practical examples to illustrate and explain her approach and thesis. The major theoretical perspectives of the author are different from the other sociologies as she considers the everyday world as a site of a problematic which is open to sociological inquiry. Smith points out that she does not support the usual meaning of the notion “problematic” which is understood by other researchers as a row of theoretical questions and concepts related to them.
It is possible that some people, especially males, might think that many statements of the author have apparent biases as Smith claims that the opinion of women is less authoritative in the institutions. Smith explains that actual reality and local practices are accounted for by such institutional ideologies that make some things invisible. To break these barriers, she suggests that feminists should consider the actual practices as a kind of entry into the knowledge of how everyday life is constituted.
One of the major strengths of Smith’s work is that she describes the practical examples of how the concept of “everyday world as problematic” is used in the research practice making visible everyday work that women make and the way this work is organized. Still, it is not easy to understand Smith’s approach or use her method of institutional ethnography to the specific area of research without problems. Lack of distinct terms and definitions can be considered as the major weakness of the book. For example, the author’s method of inquiry might be helpful in a political economy to solve problems with addressing gender issues, but she admits that it is difficult to claim how class and gender intersect in the practice of ruling authorities.
The perspective of Smith has influenced the feminist community for a long period of time. It is an overall opinion that this work by Dorothy Smith made a major contribution to the field of sociology and to the debates within feminism challenging it by the author’s attempts to understand and explain how the economy and the state authorities dominated by males influence lives of women.
Smith insists that a feminist approach to sociology has been sorely missing and is badly needed to understand contemporary society because existing social scientific methods use the principles of anonymity and impersonality. The approach used by Smith has some similarities to the conflict approach which also interprets society as a struggle for power between different groups in conflict for limited resources. Still, Smith inquires to the aspects of the everyday life which are usually ignored by conventional sociology.
It is generally agreed that The Everyday World as Problematic by Dorothy Smith is an interesting work from the sociologic point of view, especially due to its discussion of the hidden processes of the everyday life. It was rather informative for me to read this book, though sometimes it was difficult to understand the exact message of the author. I would recommend this book to others who want to get familiar with the ideas and approaches of feminist sociologists.
Works Cited
Smith, Dorothy E. The Everyday World as Problematic: a Feminist Sociology. UPNE, 2012.
Wylie, Alison, and Sismondo, Sergio. “Standpoint Theory, in Science.” International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2nd ed., Elsevier, 2015.