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Celebrating female social scientists on International Women’s Day 2022

Dr. Neli Demireva, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Sociology at the University of Essex, who is a co-author of the book: Pioneering Social Research: Life Stories of a Generation , with Paul Thompson, talks to the UK Data Service, in one of our latest podcasts, about the female pioneering Social Scientists who have fought for gender equality over the years.

They are also a huge source of inspiration for other women in the world of Social Science and the rest of society too.

This clip from the podcast focuses on the work of Ann Oakley.

The whole podcast focuses on the work of other female Social Science Pioneers.

Dr. Neli Demireva has provided more details about the women featured in the podcast:

“18 interviews with women pioneers were recorded as part of the Pioneers of Social Research Project. The women pioneers carried out much major work in terms of gender, communities, health and ethnicity and the Pioneering Social Research book with Policy Press captures something of the social and cultural contexts in which they worked and the dilemmas they faced. Among them, they included:

  • Ann Oakley, a sociologist and early feminist, who focused on women and gender, housework and motherhood; and later on health. She was also the author of Sex, Gender and Society (Temple Smith, 1972); The Sociology of Housework (Martin Robertson, 1974). Additionally, she was a novelist,  who wrote: The Men’s Room (Virago, 1988). Studies by Ann Oakley in the UK Data Service’s collection:

Looking back on becoming a mother: longitudinal perspectives on maternity care and the transition to motherhood

Pioneers of Social Research, 1996-2018

  • Ruth Finnegan, FBA OBE anthropologist, began recording storytelling of the Limba in Sierra Leone and later made a notable community study of music in the new town of Milton Keynes.
  • Mildred Blaxter, a pioneer of qualitative methods in medical sociology, whose major works were on disability, and on transmitted deprivation. One of the studies by Mildred Blaxter in the UK Data Service’s collection:

Mothers and Daughters: Accounts of Health in the Grandmother Generation, 1945-1978

  • Avtar Brah, an interdisciplinary sociologist with a focus on migration borders and hybrid cultures. She was also a founder of Southall Black Sisters.
  • Maine Molyneux was a sociologist focusing on women and gender in the Middle East and Latin America.
  • Margaret Stacey, a sociologist, who led the Banbury community studies. She was also elected President of the British Sociological Association in 1982.
  • Leonore Davidoff, a sociologist and social historian and the founding editor of Gender and History.”

More resources:

Paul Thompson Interviews with the Pioneers
Pioneers of Qualitative Data – a rich and dynamic resource for the social sciences.