Jane Addams

Who was she?

• American progressive era reformers

  • Community organizer, peace advocate, social philosopher

  • Social settlement movement

• Sympathetic to feminists, socialists pacifists and pragmatists

  • Rejected all labels: believed in cross group cooperation

• Co-founded and led hull house in chicago

  • Served immigrants poor women and children

  • John dewey, george mead, max weber and WEB Du bois all lectured there

  • Feminist radical queer friendly space

• Didint intend to become a sociologist

  • Opposed to viewing the neighborhood as a laboratory; wanted focus on assisting neighbors not studying them 

  • Founding member of american sociological association 

  • Peace activist (nobel peace prize in 1931)

Gender and the canon

• Gender and sociology at the turn of the 20th century

• Men sociologists tended to maintain distance from subjects

  • Operated from their offices

  • Coordination with others often women to collect data 

  • Saw data and findings as the end goal

• Women sociologists saw sociology as a tool

  • Data and findings indicated issues needing resolution

  • Saw their role as problem-solvers

• World wars elevated science and objective paradigms

  • Men faculty assumed predominant roles 

Wednesday february 26th:

Lateral progress:

• Social advancement cannot be declared through the breakthroughs of a few, but only in social gains all share

  • Poor and oppressed are victims of circumstance

  • Charity is good by insufficient and often done from a presumed superiority

  • society has a responsibility to understand marginalized people

  • Oppressed people should be afforded voice and the means to participle in lateral progress

Sympathetic understanding: HER BIGGEST theoretical intervention. 

• Foregoing for feminist care ethics and standpoint epistemology

Knowing one another-> reinforces social fabric-> potential for empathetic moral action increases

• Theory and cation are inseparable. Three R’s of settlement movement:

  • Residence: care must not be abstract or reductive, but informed by deep knowledge and partnership with oppressed communities

  • Research: scientific study of the causes of poverty, which are relational and contextual

  • Reform: apply persistent social and legislative pressure to socialize care by changing practices of institutions