Ann Oakley – författare

Originally published in 1994 The Politics of the Welfare State looks at how the privatization and marketization of education, health and welfare services in the past decade have produced a concept of welfare that is markedly different from that envisaged when the welfare state was initially created. Issues of class, gender and ethnicity are explored in chapters that are wide ranging but closely linked. The contributors are renowned academics and policy-makers, including feminist and welfare historians, highly regarded figures in social policy, influential critics of recent educational reforms and key analysts of current reform in the health sector.

Originally published in 1994 The Politics of the Welfare State looks at how the privatization and marketization of education, health and welfare services in the past decade have produced a concept of welfare that is markedly different from that envisaged when the welfare state was initially created. Issues of class, gender and ethnicity are explored in chapters that are wide ranging but closely linked. The contributors are renowned academics and policy-makers, including feminist and welfare historians, highly regarded figures in social policy, influential critics of recent educational reforms and key analysts of current reform in the health sector.

Between 1880 and 1920 many women researched the conditions of social and economic life in Western countries. They were driven by a vision of a society based on welfare and altruism, rather than warfare and competition.

Ann Oakley, a leading sociologist, undertook extensive research to uncover this previously hidden cast of forgotten characters. She uses the women’s stories to bring together the histories of social reform, social science, welfare and pacifism.

Her fascinating account reveals how their efforts, connected through thriving transnational networks, lie behind many features of modern welfare states and reminds us of their powerful vision of a more humane way of living – a vision that remains relevant today.

Throughout history, records of women''s lives and work have been lost through the pervasive assumption of male dominance. Wives, especially, disappear as supporters of their husbands’ work, as unpaid and often unacknowledged secretaries and research assistants, and as managers of men’s domestic domains; even intellectual collaboration tends to be portrayed as normative wifely behaviour rather than as joint work.

Forgotten Wives examines the ways in which the institution and status of marriage has contributed to the active ‘disremembering’ of women’s achievements. Drawing on archives, biographies, autobiographies and historical accounts, best-selling author and academic Ann Oakley interrogates conventions of history and biography-writing using the case studies of four women married to well-known men – Charlotte Shaw, Mary Booth, Jeannette Tawney and Janet Beveridge.

Asking critical questions about the mechanisms that maintain gender inequality, despite thriving feminist and other equal rights movements, she contributes a fresh vision of how the welfare state developed in the early 20th century.