Fantasizing the family : women, families and the quest for an individual self
Date
2006
Authors
Mackinnon, A.G.
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Journal article
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Women's History Review, 2006; 15(4):663-675
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Abstract
Much is made in current sociology of the ‘individualizing project of modernity’. The assumption appears to be that women who have previously been embedded in ‘family’ are increasingly becoming, and are viewed as, ‘individuals’. But is the notion of the individualizing self a product of a late twentieth and early twenty‐first century way of viewing the world, one which frequently fantasizes the past? Is it not the case that throughout history women have attempted to retain a sense of an individual self apart from their family persona but that the various ways in which history has described them and analysed them has resulted in their invisibility within certain categories? Drawing on several diverse research projects, this essay looks at representations of ‘the family’ portrayed through the varied lenses of feminist history (the family as site of conflict and oppression) demographic history (the family as the unchanging unit of measurement) and family history where it is viewed as both a constant but changeable presence. These representations are frequently ‘at odds’, some versions offering more spaces for women’s voices and agency than others.
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Copyright 2006 Taylor & Francis