Ann Oakley reader

Ann Oakley is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, and Founding Director of the Social Science Research Unit at the Institute of Education, University of London. She has been researching and writing on topics relating to the position of women, gender, reproduction, family life and the role and construction of women in academic culture for forty years. Her work is widely cited by school and university students and others within and outside academia as having pioneered a feminist social science.

Ann Oakley is one of Britain's most important feminist sociologists. She has transformed the way that we think about gender, housework, motherhood and methods. This excellent collection provides easy access to her classic works and combines this with an illuminating contemporary commentary." Sylvia Walby, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds

• Contents: Part 1: Sex and gender: Introduction; The difference between sex and gender; Genes and gender; A kind of person; Childhood lessons; Science, gender and women's liberation;Part 2: Housework and family life: Introduction; On studying housework; Images of housework; Work conditions; Standards and routines; Marriage and the division of labour; Helping with baby; Housework in history and culture;Part 3: Childbirth, motherhood and medicine: Introduction; The agony and the ecstasy; Lessons mothers learn; Medical maternity cases; Mistakes and mystiques of motherhood;Part 4: Doing social science: Introduction; The invisible woman: sexism in sociology; Reflections thirty years on; On being interviewed; Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms?; Who's afraid of the randomised controlled trial? Some dilemmas of the scientific method and 'good' research practice; Paradigm wars: some thoughts on a personal and public trajectory.