Power and politics

Kath Woodward and Sophie Woodward

Chapter 3 in Gender Studies, 2025, pp 41-62 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter builds on the framing of gender as a relation that we set up in Chapter 2 to think further about the relations between gender and power in terms of the everyday operations and experiences of gendered power, as well as the role of institutions. Gender is made and remade through hierarchical systems and the more diffuse operation of power which circulates in everyday routines and through class and race and economic inequalities. We consider theories of power such as Gramsci's understandings of commonsense, and Barthes on myths to think through how it is that gender comes to be seen as self-evident truths, as these ‘truths’ are operationalised in populist politics. We make the case for how and why multidisciplinary approaches matter as we outline the multidimensionality of how gendered power and inequalities emerge and operate. The chapter pays particular attention to language and draws on Evelyn Fox Keller's critique of the purported objectivity of scientific language. We connect this to disciplinary challenges of working in scientific disciplines and make connections between these disciplinary practices and how knowledge is generated. We take as a case study a Lancet report on women and cancer which highlights both how patriarchy operates as well as building on Crenshaw's intersectional approach to think about multiple forms of inequality. We use this to argue that multiple disciplines with different emphases on objectivity and subjectivity are necessary to understand gendered inequalities in caring for those with cancer, poor detection rates as well as global inequalities and data gaps.

Keywords: Power; Inequality; Common-sense; Standpoint theory; Cancer; Knowledge production (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781800373945
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