Sum Blog #4: Harriet Martineau

For class this week , we finally learned about a female sociologist by the name of Harriet Martineau. She was an education woman from England whose family was from "comfortable means" during the 1800's. I say that we finally heard about a woman in the field of Sociology because although women have done a lot to contribute to the realm of Sociology, there have only been the rare or occasional mention of them in any book related to the foundations of Sociology. Obviously, women did not have the same rights that women of today possess so any work that Harriet contributed was viewed as not that compelling in the eyes of the founding men of Sociology.  Harriet is only mentioned in a few brief pages among the entire chapters written about the men of Sociology which seems unfair considering that she was a pioneer in writing the first text book on sociological research methods titled How to Observe Morals and Manners in the year 1838. By "morals", she meant the collective ideas and/or the prescribed behaviors of people within a society and by "manners" she was referring to the patterns of actions and associations that people engage themselves within. Martineau deemed that the most important law of Social Law was that of "Human Happiness", essentially how you judge the fairness of society. She studied this because she reserved the subject matter of her study to be that of social life within a society and that it ought to be studied and developed in a disciplined and systematic manner. The role that she took on for herself in regards to her being a sociologist was that of public educator. She wanted everyone to possess the knowledge of her findings, not just the rich and prestigious , which was the typical audience for research findings in the fields of Sociology.  She of course was not the only woman whose work went unaccredited, this was the norm for a lot of women that "played with the big boys", although their work was important it was usually dismissed by men in the field because it was a common belief that women should essentially be seen and not heard much like children. As a woman myself it was refreshing to read about Harriet Martineau and her struggles of hearing loss and poverty caused by a failed business venture and yet she was still able to overcome those hurdles to have her work and research being recognized as her role as the founding "Mother of Sociology". She is a true inspiration for women still today.
The image that I chose definitely sums up the mentality that men possessed back then and unfortunately sometimes still today.... ridiculous I know!