Father and Daughter: Patriarchy, Gender and Social Science

Description

Father and daughter provides an unique 'insider perspective' on two key figures in twentieth-century British social science. Ann Oakley, a highly respected sociologist and best-selling writer, draws on her own life and that of her father, Richard Titmuss, a well-known policy analyst and defender of the welfare state, to offer an absorbing view of the connections between private lives and public work. Using an innovative mix of biography, autobiography, intellectual history, archives, and personal interviews, some of which have not been previously available to the public, she provides a compelling narrative about gender, patriarchy, methodology, and the politics of memory and identity. This fascinating analysis defies the usual social science publications to offer a truly distinctive account which will be of wide interest.

Ann Oakley is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the Institute of Education, University of London. A social researcher for almost 50 years, and author of many publications, she is also well known for her biography, autobiography, poetry and fiction. She founded both the Social Science Research Unit and the EPPI-Centre at the Institute of Education, and has been involved in many initiatives concerned with the research-policy relationship.

"A fascinating study of an eminent father by his eminent daughter. This respected sociologist, feminist and novelist offers a true 'insider's view' of their relationship." --Cherie Booth, QC. "In Father and Daughter, Ann Oakley revisits her childhood years and explores the causal links between her family's fraught domestic relationships and her father's idiosyncratic "socialist view of inequality" that excluded gender issues from its policy concerns. This superbly researched memoir will become a classic of its kind - albeit a highly controversial one." --Robert Pinker, Emeritus Professor of Social Administration, London School of Economics and Political Science. "An honest, intriguing and readable book about the author and her eminent father, her conflicts with him and his conflicts with his female colleagues. I could not put it down!" --Baroness Blackstone of Stoke Newington. "I love Ann Oakley's writing. She interrogates quite beautifully ' the shadowy spaces' in which public and private lives overlap and the effect this has, particularly on women." --Melissa Benn, writer. "A tribute to the achievements, but many weaknesses, of her famous, revered father, Ann Oakley's own memoire of a childhood dominated by "the Professor" makes often poignant but always fascinating reading" --Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town. "Ann Oakley is a highly original writer. The personal becomes political as she revisits her own history and that of her father. The web of social connections that made up the LSE's Department of Social Administration makes particularly fascinating reading."-- Jane Lewis, London School of Economics and Political Science. "Ann Oakley's story of how she is still taking stock of her relationship with Richard Titmuss is one of family dynamics and secrets, of politics at the grand and small scale, and of the ongoing process of making sense of who we are." --Professor Graham Crow, Southampton University. "Oakley's book is a very important contribution to historical and sociological scholarship. It is an original and carefully researched corrective to the existing "business as usual" institutional and intellectual history of conflicts and tensions in the development of sociology, social administration, social policy and the professionalisation of social work." Times Higher Education "Powerful and unique." LSE Review of Books blog