Feminist Theory—Reconstructing Research and Teaching About American Politics and Government

In: News for Teachers of Political Science, Band 52, S. 6-9

Abstract

Every social institution is affected by the way in which its internal processes are publicized. For example, the survival of the family as a social institution depends to a great extent on its privacy. It is almost impossible to imagine what forces in society might be released if all conflict in the private domain were thrown open for public exploitation.When E. E. Schattschneider wrote the above passage in 1960, (inThe Semisovereign People,p. 17), he could not know that the women's movement was about to resurface not only in the United States but around the world, and that one of its aims would be exactly to expose the "conflict in the private domain" of the family. The ideology of "the family," the power relations in families—these and other "family"-related or other "personal" matters would be questioned in the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond.