Sylvia Walby | |
---|---|
Born | Sylvia Theresa Walby 16 October 1953 |
Nationality | British |
Known for | domestic violence, patriarchy, globalisation |
Spouse(s) | John Urry, deceased |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Sociologist, Criminologist |
Institutions | Royal Holloway, University of London |
Website | Official website |
Sylvia Theresa Walby OBE FBA FAcSS (born 16 October 1953) [1] is a British sociologist, currently Professor of Criminology at Royal Holloway University of London. She has an Honorary Doctorate from Queen's University Belfast for distinction in sociology. [2] She is noted for work in the fields of the domestic violence, patriarchy, gender relations in the workplace and globalisation.
Walby is coordinator of the Gender Equality Research Network International (GENIe) the aim of which is to develop, through research, the knowledge base to understand and reduce gender inequality. [3] She is principal Investigator of the Lancaster node of Quing, an Integrated Project funded by the European Union under Framework 6 to investigate gender and citizenship in a multicultural context, 2006–2011, Member of the executive board, and Leader of the strand on Intersectionality. She is also co-organiser of an international network on Gender Globalization and Work Transformation (GLOW).
Walby is the first UNESCO Chair in Gender Research and coordinates the associated UNESCO Chair in Gender Research Group. She was appointed in 2008.
Walby has been Sociology Professor at the University of Leeds, Professor and Head of Department of Sociology at Bristol University; Reader in Sociology and Director of the Gender Institute at the LSE; Lecturer in Sociology and Director of the Women's Studies Research Centre at Lancaster University; Visiting Associate Professor in Sociology at UCLA and Honorary Visiting Scholar at the Schlesinger Library, Harvard University. She was the first President of the European Sociological Association and has been Chair of the Women's Studies Network UK.
Her current research is situated within the tension between general social theory and specific forms of inequality, especially gender. Over the years this led her from theories of patriarchy to a current concern to mainstream difference into social theory. She has an interest in economic matters, a fascination with new political forms, and concern with marginalised groups. Today, all of these issues are framed by globalisation, the understanding of which requires new forms of social theory, especially complexity theories.
She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours. [4] In 2017 her contribution to sociology was recognised by Queen's University Belfast who awarded her an Honorary Doctorate in Social Sciences (DSSc). [5]
In 2022, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences. [6]
Walby is co-organiser of an international network on Gender Globalization and Work Transformation (GLOW), with members in US, Japan, Germany and UK. Key interests are in the relationship between the new knowledge based economy and new non-standard employment forms in the context of changing forms of regulation and deregulation and globalisation.
Work for the UN on improving statistics and indicators on violence against women:
ESRC funded seminar series, "Gender Mainstreaming" 2003–04.
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that societies prioritize the male point of view and that women are treated unjustly in these societies. Efforts to change this include fighting against gender stereotypes and improving educational, professional, and interpersonal opportunities and outcomes for women.
Sociology of sport, alternately referred to as sports sociology, is a sub-discipline of sociology which focuses on sports as social phenomena. It is an area of study concerned with the relationship between sociology and sports, and also various socio-cultural structures, patterns, and organizations or groups involved with sport. This area of study discusses the positive impact sports have on individual people and society as a whole economically, financially, and socially. Sociology of sport attempts to view the actions and behavior of sports teams and their players through the eyes of a sociologist.
Masculinity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors considered masculine are influenced by both cultural factors and biological factors. To what extent masculinity is biologically or socially influenced is subject to debate. It is distinct from the definition of the biological male sex, as anyone can exhibit masculine traits. Standards of masculinity vary across different cultures and historical periods.
Intersectionality is a sociological analytical framework for understanding how groups' and individuals' social and political identities result in unique combinations of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these factors include gender, caste, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, height, age, weight, species and physical appearance. These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and oppressing. However, little good-quality quantitative research has been done to support or undermine the practical uses of intersectionality.
Men's studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to topics concerning men, masculinity, gender, culture, politics and sexuality. It academically examines what it means to be a man in contemporary society.
Sociology of gender is a prominent subfield of sociology. Social interaction directly correlated with sociology regarding social structure. One of the most important social structures is status. This is determined based on position that an individual possesses which effects how they will be treated by society. One of the most important statuses an individual claims is gender. Public discourse and the academic literature generally use the term gender for the perceived or projected (self-identified) masculinity or femininity of a person.
The feminist school of criminology is a school of criminology developed in the late 1960s and into the 1970s as a reaction to the general disregard and discrimination of women in the traditional study of crime. It is the view of the feminist school of criminology that a majority of criminological theories were developed through studies on male subjects and focused on male criminality, and that criminologists often would "add women and stir" rather than develop separate theories on female criminality.
Michael Alan Messner is an American sociologist. His main areas of research are gender and the sociology of sports. He is the author of several books, he gives public speeches and teaches on issues of gender-based violence, the lives of men and boys, and gender and sports.
Jeffery Richard (Jeff) Hearn is a British sociologist, and Research Professor at the University of Huddersfield, and Professor at the Hanken School of Economics.
John Richard Urry was a British sociologist who served as a professor at Lancaster University. He is noted for work in the fields of the sociology of tourism and mobility.
The following events related to sociology occurred in the 1990s.
Catherine Hakim is a British sociologist who specialises in women's employment and women's issues. She is known for developing the preference theory, for her work on erotic capital and more recently for a sex-deficit theory. She is currently a professorial research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Civil Society (Civitas), and has formerly worked in British central government and been a senior research fellow at the London School of Economics and the Centre for Policy Studies. She has also been a visiting professor at the Social Science Research Center Berlin.
Beverley Skeggs is a British sociologist, noted as one of the foremost feminist sociologists in the world. Currently, she works as a "Distinguished Professor" in the Sociology Department at Lancaster University, developing a Center for Social Inequalities in the North West of England. She continues to run the "Economics of Care" theme at the International Inequalities centre at the London School of Economics (LSE) and is a visiting professor at Goldsmiths University. She has been the head of two of the UK's leading Sociology Departments, at the University of Manchester and Goldsmiths, as well as co-director of Lancaster's Women's Studies. In addition, she played a part in transforming Britain's oldest sociology journal, The Sociological Review, into an independent foundation devoted to opening up critical social science and supporting social scientists.
Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are held by men. The term patriarchy is used both in anthropology to describe a family or clan controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males, and in feminist theory to describe a broader social structure in which men as a group dominate women and children.
Feminist political theory is an area of philosophy that focuses on understanding and critiquing the way political philosophy is usually construed and on articulating how political theory might be reconstructed in a way that advances feminist concerns. Feminist political theory combines aspects of both feminist theory and political theory in order to take a feminist approach to traditional questions within political philosophy.
The breadwinner model is a paradigm of family centered on a breadwinner, "the member of a family who earns the money to support the others." Traditionally, the earner works outside the home to provide the family with income and benefits such as health insurance, while the non-earner stays at home and takes care of children and the elderly. The breadwinner model largely arose in western cultures after industrialization occurred. Before industrialization, all members of the household—including men, women, and children—contributed to the productivity of the household. Gender roles underwent a re-definition as a result of industrialization, with a split between public and private roles for men and women, which did not exist before industrialization.
Rosalind Clair Gill is a British sociologist and feminist cultural theorist. She is currently Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at City, University of London. Gill is author or editor of ten books, and numerous articles and chapters, and her work has been translated into Chinese, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish.
Susan 'Sue' Felicity Himmelweit, is a British economist, emeritus professor of economics for the Open University in the UK, and was the 2009 president of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE).
Ann Phoenix, is a British psychologist and academic, whose research focuses on psychosocial issues related to identity. She is Professor of Psychosocial Studies at the Institute of Education, University College London. She was previously ESRC Professorial Fellow for the Transforming Experiences research programme. She was previously Co-Director of the Thomas Coram Research Unit, and Reader in Psychology at the Open University.
Nicholas Abercrombie is a British sociologist and retired academic. He was Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University from 1990 to 2004.
Gender transformations, 1997: CIP t.p. (Sylvia Walby) data sheet (Sylvia Theresa Walby, b. 10-16-53)