Browsing by Author "Harrington, Carol"
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Item Restricted Conformity and Resistance: Experiences of Domestic Work and Domestic Social Networks(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 1996) Harrington, CarolOppression, ideology and subjectivity are understood in this thesis as based in historically specific material social relationships. Domestic work is understood as a necessary aspect of human productive activity. The nuclear family-household, based in a male-breadwinner/female home-maker gender division, is identified as the basis for the social organisation of domestic work in twentieth century New Zealand. This social organisation is identified as having oppressive effects for women. The spread of ideologies about domestic skills as a feminine personality attribute and full time domestic work as natural and appropriate for women, is considered as important in maintaining this oppression. Analysis of a series of in-depth interviews conducted with twenty one Pakeha mothers of children under the age of five, formed the empirical basis for my investigation of women's resistance to, and conformity with, the social organisation of domestic work. Support for the dominant social organisation was found to exist in varying degrees of tension with dissatisfaction and a desire for change for these mothers. Respondents actively tried to overcome some of the oppressive aspects of full time domestic work, and were critical of its social organisation at the same time as they expressed a commitment to it. The social networks of the respondents are considered as both an aspect of their domestic work, and as a mechanism through which they can resist some of the oppressive effects of its social organisation. A pattern of "domestic social networks" is identified, in which most of the respondents' ties are with other women and based in a shared engagement with domestic work. Such social networks may transmit norms and ideals of good motherhood, but also may validate dissatisfaction with the social conditions of domestic work and help to ameliorate some of the oppressive effects of these conditions. Women's subjective acceptance of, and resistance to, the social conditions of their oppression is understood through theoretical consideration of the importance of both ideology and of human agency. Feminist theory has frequently understood women's subjective experience of motherhood through psychoanalytic accounts of the development of gendered personality. More recently post-structuralist understandings of subjectivity as formed in/through discourse have been utilised by feminists to explain how female personality and desires develop in accordance with social norms. I argue against both such perspectives as deterministic. Human agency is put forward as essential to a conception of resistance. Gramsci's conception of ideology as a terrain of struggle for hegemony, and of human subjectivity as potentially contradictory, is found to be most useful in interpreting the contradictory responses of my interviewees to domestic work.Item Restricted Politics of the Aesthetic: The Role of Fashion in Class and Gender(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2014) Richards, Harriette R.; el-Ojieli, Chamsy; Harrington, CarolFashion plays a number of roles in the development of culture and society. The most important of these roles is the one fashion plays in giving of form to class and gender, in actualising cultural mores with respect to different forms of class and gender. This thesis uses Chanel as a case study and periodises the twentieth and twenty-first centuries into three distinctive Western capitalist eras so as to ascertain the impact of fashion in relation to class and gender over time. Each separate era is considered in terms of its capitalist development, its particular aesthetics, and its fashion processes in terms of production, distribution and consumption. Each era provides evidence of the parallels that exist between the development of Western capitalism and the development of fashion. In the modernist era capitalist developments in industrialisation and mass production were manifested in streamlined functionalist aesthetics that accounted for both the technological advances of the period and also the social advances whereby women had increased social involvement. In the post-World War Two period, the Golden Age of Western capitalism, capitalism advanced towards the extremes of mass production and standardisation and the proliferation of fashion styles contributed to the increasing democratisation of dress which aided both social class and gender mobility. The postmodern era of Western capitalism witnessed the rise of globalisation and the unprecedented advance of technology. These developments were apparent in aesthetic style as dress became defined by postmodern hyperreality, imagery and spectacle. While the postmodern age was marked by greater class and gender fluidity than ever before it was also defined by a growing gap between the rich and the poor. This study points to the political importance of fashion in the development of culture and society. However, it also acknowledges that the roles fashion plays are far from straightforward. The contradictions inherent in fashion as art, either as contestatory and antagonistic or as conservative and conformist, are recognised as being of primary importance in the development of the fashion industry and class and gender over time.Item Restricted PUBL113: Public Policy: Social and Public Policy: Values and Change(Victoria University of Wellington, 2011) Harrington, CarolItem Restricted PUBL113: Public Policy: Social and Public Policy: Values and Change(Victoria University of Wellington, 2012) Harrington, CarolItem Restricted SOSC102: Sociology: Doing Sociology(2019) Harrington, CarolItem Restricted SOSC214: Sociology: Special Topic: Knowledge, Power, Understanding(Victoria University of Wellington, 2009) Harrington, CarolItem Restricted SPOL113: Social Policy: Social and Public Policy: Values and Change(Victoria University of Wellington, 2011) Harrington, CarolItem Restricted SPOL113: Social Policy: Social and Public Policy: Values and Change(Victoria University of Wellington, 2012) Harrington, CarolItem Restricted SPOL214: Social Policy: Special Topic: Knowledge, Power, Understanding(Victoria University of Wellington, 2009) Harrington, Carol
