Shelley Budgeon

Cultures of Intimacy and Care beyond ‘the Family’: Personal Life and Social Change in the Early 21st Century

The authors argue that if sociologists are to understand the current state, and likely future, of intimacy and care, we should decentre the ‘family’ and the heterosexual couple in our intellectual imaginaries. In the context of processes of individualization much that matters to people in terms of intimacy and care increasingly takes place beyond the ‘family’, between partners who are not living together ‘as family’, and within networks of friends. The first section of the article provides a critique of family sociology and the sociology of gender for the heteronormative frameworks within which they operate. It proposes an extension of the framework within which contemporary transformations in the realm of intimacy are to be analysed, and it suggests that there is a need for research focusing on the cultures of intimacy and care inhabited by those living at the cutting edge of social change. In the second part of the article, the authors draw upon their own research on the most ‘individualized’ sector of the population – adults who are not living with a partner. They explore contemporary cultures of intimacy and care among this group through a number of case studies, and argue that two interrelated processes characterize these cultures: centring on friendship, and decentring sexual relationships.

Emergent Feminist(?) Identities Young Women and the Practice of Micropolitics

The article seeks to examine identities young women are producing within late modern social conditions with the aim of exploring these identities in relation to the increasingly fragmented project of second wave feminism. In order to evaluate whether feminism has maintained intergenerational currency, the article, based upon interviews with 33 young women aged 16–20, discusses ways in which young women are engaging with choices available to them. The active negotiation of identity(ies) requires an examination of the discourses available to the subjects and in this study it is apparent that, while these young women were alienated from second wave feminism, their identities were indeed informed by intrinsically feminist ideals. This contradiction begs the question of what place young women occupy within the increasingly diverse category of ‘feminisms’? The tension between second wave feminism and postfeminism and their problematic relationship is analysed as a problem deriving from difference. Analysis of interview material is used to argue that the identities under construction allow the young women to engage in a resistant fashion with the choices they have available at the micro-level of everyday life.

Third wave feminism and the politics of gender in late modernity

Acknowledgements Introduction: Defining the Third Wave A Postfeminist Gender Order New Femininities and Feminist Subjectivities Experiencing Third-Wave Feminism A Politics of the Self The Limits of Choice Generational Dynamics and Feminist Futures Concluding Reflections Notes Bibliography Index

The Dynamics of Gender Hegemony: Femininities, Masculinities and Social Change

In this article theories of gender hegemony are utilized to assess how changing norms impact upon the binary construction of gender. Transformed gender ideals have materialized in the figure of the ‘empowered’ and autonomous yet reassuringly feminine woman. Despite the assimilation of key attributes associated with masculinity this particular expression of idealized femininity does not necessarily rework dominant perceptions of gender difference and their organization into a relation of hierarchical complementarity. Through the review of key empirical studies which have examined identity work undertaken by young women and young men as they negotiate idealized gender norms, this article examines how hegemonic relations are reproduced alongside the production of plural femininities and masculinities. This analysis is discussed in relation to changes associated with a move from a private to a public gender regime, a perceived feminization of the public sphere, and the complication of contradictory gender ideals.

The Contradictions of Successful Femininity: Third-Wave Feminism, Postfeminism and ‘New’ Femininities

In contrast to claims that feminism no longer retains currency in late modernity third-wave feminism asserts that feminism continues to be both possible and necessary.1 This position proceeds on the basis that the applicability of second-wave feminism to contemporary gender relations and social conditions is limited because the lived experience of femininity has become increasingly complex. Accordingly, third-wave feminism claims to offer a corrective to this situation by allowing women to develop their relationship to feminism in ways that are more relevant to the contradictions which characterize their lives. In reconstituting the subject of feminism for a ‘new generation’, in often ambiguous ways, an interesting challenge to established definitions of feminist values and practices is waged. However, this challenge is not without problems or conceptual inconsistencies. This chapter will consider what third-wave feminism offers to our understanding of new femininities emerging in late modernity and the relationship these emerging subjectivities have to both feminism and postfeminism.

Editors’ introduction: beyond the conventional family

I the West, at the start of the 21st century, ‘the family’ is a sociological concept under severe strain. Processes of individualization are rendering the romantic dyad and the modern family formation it has supported increasingly unstable, and the normative grip of the gender and sexual order which has underpinned the modern family is ever weakening. As a result more and more people are spending longer periods of their lives outside the conventional family unit. Recognizing these tendencies, Ulrich Beck (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002: 203) has recently, rather provocatively, described the family as a ‘zombie category’ – ‘dead and still alive’. The weight of opinion within the discipline of sociology might well disagree with Beck on this, given the effort which has been expended researching the ways in which the category lives on in changed and diversified forms – lone-parent families, stepfamilies, lesbian and gay ‘families of choice’ (Weston, 1991), ‘brave new families’ (Stacey, 1998). The move by family sociologists to pluralize the concept, to speak of ‘families’ rather than ‘the family’, emphasizes the ‘still alive-ness’ of the category, and seeks to maintain attention on family practices (Morgan, 1996). While we would not wish to deny the ways in which the family remains a central social institution and a key trope in the cultural imaginary, our intention in this issue of Current Sociology is not to inject a further shot of adrenalin into the category in the hope of restoring it to full and vibrant health. Rather we aim here to address the ways in which the category of the family is increasingly failing to contain the multiplicity of practices of intimacy and care which have traditionally been its prerogative and its raison d’etre. The impetus for this collection of articles came from the Friendship and Non-Conventional Partnership Project,1 which is part of the British-based ESRC Research Group for the Study of Care, Values and the Future of Welfare (CAVA).2 CAVA is a research programme investigating changing practices of partnering and parenting, and the implications of these for future

Individualized femininity and feminist politics of choice

Women’s right to exercise choice has been one of feminism’s central political claims. Where second wave feminism focused on the constraints women faced in making free choices, choice feminism more recently reorients feminist politics with a call for recognition of the choices women are actually making. From this perspective the role of feminism is to validate women’s choices without passing judgement. This article analyses this shift in orientation by locating women’s choices within a late modern gender order in which the ideal of choice has increasingly been associated with a new form of femininity characterized as self-determining, individuated and ‘empowered’. Instead of offering an effective analysis of the changing social conditions within which the relationship between feminism, femininity and individual choice has become increasingly complicated, choice feminism directs criticism at feminist perspectives characterized as overly prescriptive. This critique fails to appreciate how feminist ideals have been recuperated in the service of late capitalism and neoliberal forms of governance. By failing to engage critically with processes currently impacting on the social organization of gender choice feminism aids in the constitution of an individuated neoliberal feminist subject which performs cultural work vital to the reproduction of neoliberal governmentality.

Friendship and Formations of Sociality in Late Modernity: the Challenge of 'Post Traditional Intimacy'

Starting from the vantage point of a ‘relational ontology’ this paper explores the complex relationship networks of people who are single or are not living with a sexual partner. The ways in which people make sense of the boundaries of their connections is analysed. It is argued that the meaning of individual social bonds emerge relationally and that by asking why and how friendship matters to people, we begin to see what other kinds of interpersonal relationships also mean and why they matter. This lends insights into the ways relational networks operate within conditions of detraditionalisation and the emergence of non-linear life courses. In particular consideration is given to both the epistemic and ethical dimension through which friendship operate in daily life.

The ‘problem’ with single women Choice, accountability and social change

Despite increased acknowledgement of gender equality as a social good, there are some areas where the practice of women’s autonomy is apparently inconsistent with the normative prescriptions of a new ‘empowered’ form of femininity. Sexuality and personal relationship status are sites where women are positioned within neo-liberal and post-feminist discourse in such a way that their choices are subject to questioning. A model of gender hegemony is useful for understanding how and why choosing to be single may still constitute a ‘problem’ for women, despite the intensification of messages which also address women as autonomous, sexualized subjects. In cultures dominated by an ideology of marriage and family life, single women’s identity work resolves contradictions in the current gender order and in the process reinstates heteronormativity.

Kulturen von Intimität und Fürsorge jenseits der Familie - Persönliches Leben und gesellschaftlicher Wandel zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts

In einer Zeit, in der Individualisierungsprozesse immer mehr um sich greifen, haben Fragen von Intimität und Fürsorge für Soziologinnen an Bedeutung gewonnen. Die Frage, wie Menschen ihr persönliches Leben organisieren, wie Liebe und wechselseitige Fürsorge gestaltet werden im Zuge eines sozialen, kulturellen und ökonomischen Wandels, der zunehmend auf individuelle Lebensstrategien setzt, steht auf der soziologischen Agenda für das 21. Jahrhundert ganz vorne an. Wir gehen in diesem Aufsatz davon aus, dass die »Familie« und das heterosexuelle Paar im soziologischen Imaginären dezentriert werden müssen, wenn wir verstehen wollen, wie es gegenwärtig und zukünftig um Intimität und Fürsorge bestellt ist. Zwar anerkennen wir, dass die Vorstellung von »Familie« immer noch eine nahezu unvergleichliche Fähigkeit hat, Menschen sowohl emotional wie politisch zu mobilisieren, doch finden Intimität und Fürsorge, die für die Menschen wirklich wichtig sind, zunehmend jenseits der Familie statt, zwischen Partnern, die nicht als Familie zusammenleben und in Freundeskreisen. Im ersten Abschnitt setzen wir uns kritisch mit dem heteronormativen Bezugssystem in der Familienund der Geschlechtersoziologie auseinander. Dieses Bezugssystem müsste so erweitert werden, dass der Wandel im Bereich von Intimität analysiert werden kann. Dazu sind Forschungsansätze nötig, die sich auf die Kulturen von Intimität und Fürsorge einlassen, die von jenen ausgebildet wurden, die als Alltagspioniere des gesellschaftlichen Wandels leben. Im zweiten Abschnitt beziehen wir uns auf unsere eigenen Untersuchungen und stellen anhand einiger Fallstudien Kulturen von Intimität und Fürsorge unter Erwachsenen dar, die nicht mit einem Partner zusammenleben. Diese Kulturen sind durch zwei miteinander verbundene Prozesse gekennzeichnet: die Zentrierung auf Freundschaft und die Dezentrierung sexueller Beziehungen.