7 Gender and social change tony lawson

H ow in the context of the currently developing global order (and consequent ever-changing local political frameworks) might feminists most sensibly seek to transform the gendered features of society in such a manner as to facilitate a less discriminating scenario than is currently in evidence? This is a question that motivates much of the thinking behind this book. But posing it carries certain presuppositions. In particular it takes for granted the notion that gender is a meaningful as well as useful category of analysis. And it presumes, too, that, whatever the socio-political context, it is always feasible to identify some forms of emancipatory practice, at least with respect to gender discrimination. Or at least there is an assumption that such emancipatory practice is not ruled out in principle. Both sets of presuppositions have been found to be problematic. Specifically, various feminist theorists hold that there are conceptual and political difficulties to making use of the category of gender in social theorising (see e.g. Bordo 1993; Spelman 1990). And the reasoning behind such assessments tends in its turn to be destabilising of the goal of emancipatory practice. In this chapter I focus on these latter concerns rather than the more specific question posed at the outset. For unless the noted difficulties can somehow be resolved any further questioning of appropriate local and global strategies appears to beg too many issues. I shall suggest that the difficulties in question can indeed be resolved, but that this necessitates a turn to explicit and systematic ontological elaboration, a practice that feminists have tended to avoid (see Lawson 2003), but which, I want to suggest, needs now to be (re)introduced to the study and politics of gender inequality. By ontology I mean the study of the nature and structure of (a domain of ) reality, including the identification of its most fundamental components; and here my concern is primarily with social ontology, the study of social being. I must acknowledge at the outset