Throughout history, records of women's lives and work have been lost through the pervasive assumption of male dominance. Wives, especially, disappear as supporters of their husbands’ work, as unpaid and often unacknowledged secretaries and research assistants, and as managers of men’s domestic domains; even intellectual collaboration tends to be portrayed as normative wifely behaviour rather than as joint work.Forgotten Wives examines the ways in which the institution and status of...

Drawing on her long experience as an academic researcher and writer, Ann Oakley develops a sociology of the research process itself, telling the story of how a research project is undertaken and what happens during it, to both researchers and those who are researched. This remarkable book focuses on a topic of great importance in the provision of health services – caring and social support.Setting neglect of this topic in the wider context of an ongoing crisis in gendering knowledg...

In a distinguished career lasting nearly sixty years, Ann Oakley has produced trail-blazing publications that span the fiction - non-fiction divide including The Men's Room, made into a BBC TV series with Bill Nighy.This novel is timely, set in the perplexing present of the constraints of the Covid pandemic. Locked down, Alice Henry is determined to decide what to do in her final years - an ongoing muddle of medical, domestic and romantic interruptions. When she stumbles o...

Between 1880 and 1920 many women researched the conditions of social and economic life in Western countries. They were driven by a vision of a society based on welfare and altruism, rather than warfare and competition.Ann Oakley, a leading sociologist, undertook extensive research to uncover this previously hidden cast of forgotten characters. She uses the women’s stories to bring together the histories of social reform, social science, welfare and pacifism.Her fascinating ...

In this ground-breaking book, acclaimed sociologist Ann Oakley undertook one of the first serious sociological studies to examine women’s work in the home. She interviewed 40 urban housewives and analysed their perceptions of housework, their feelings of monotony and fragmentation, the length of their working week, the importance of standards and routines, and their attitudes to different household tasks. Most women, irrespective of social class, were dissatisfied with housework – an impor...

The starting point of Ann Oakley's fascinating book is the fracture of her right arm in the grounds of a hotel in the USA. What begins as an accident becomes a journey into some critical themes of modern Western culture: the crisis of embodiment and the perfect self; the confusion between body and identity; the commodification of bodies and body parts; the intrusive surveillance and profiteering of medicine and the law; the problem of ageing; and the identification of women, particularly, ...

In an era of pandemic infection, the importance of hygiene at home and in public spaces has never been greater. This book recaptures the buried history of the household science movement, including domestic science teaching, public health, higher education for women and the scientific content and aims of domestic science courses. It explores how it was viewed in the context of new public health concerns and as a driver to opening higher education to women, raising questions about the legacy...

Ann Oakley is a pioneer in the field of sociological research. In this classic re-issue, she interviewed 60 women to find out what it’s really like to have a baby. Covering pregnancy, birth and child care, she relies on the stories mothers tell to discuss whether and why women want to become pregnant, how they imagine motherhood to be, the experience of birth, post-natal depression, feeding and caring routines and the challenges for the domestic division of labour and to fathers.Sh...

A consideration of the role of the midwife in childbirth, which currently stands at the point of divergence between two differing philosophies of childbearing. In one, pregnancy and birth belong to the medical profession, in the other it is a part of the experience of ordinary life.

Originally published in 1994 The Politics of the Welfare State looks at how the privatization and marketization of education, health and welfare services in the past decade have produced a concept of welfare that is markedly different from that envisaged when the welfare state was initially created. Issues of class, gender and ethnicity are explored in chapters that are wide ranging but closely linked. The contributors are renowned academics and policy-makers, including feminist a...

"This is a remarkable achievement. Like Batman's Utility belt for teachers. So many practical, wise, inspiring, and achievable ideas are packed in here. I can imagine this becoming as indispensable for teachers as Gray's Anatomy is for doctors..." - Stephen Fry"If you want a book to assist with your work with traumatised children, choose this one. It is the best!" - Professor Peter Fonagy OBE, Chief Executive, Anna Freud National Centre for Children & Famil...

Rich Fritzky poses five questions to forty-five individuals who have devoted much, if not all of their lives, to Abraham Lincoln. The individuals reveal what led them to him in the first place, the attribute or ‘fixed mark’ that sealed their belonging to him, the conversations that they would most have liked to have had with him, the words of his that they were most moved by, and the why and how of his, maybe just maybe, helping save the soul of the Republic yet again in our own time. Amon...