Feminism is a project not an identity

Abstract

Sylvia Walby is a sociologist who has written extensively on gender inequality, patriarchy and feminism in, for example, books such as Theorizing Patriarchy (1990), Patriarchy at Work (1986), Gender Segregation at Work (1989), Out of the Margins (1991), Gender Transformations (1997) and The Future of Feminism (2011). She was a founder of the Feminist Studies Association and the European Sociological Association. Her work theorising social change includes books such as European Societies (1999), Contemporary British Society (2000), Globalization and Inequalities (2009) and the recent book Crisis (2015). In recent years much of her work has been on violence, including The Concept and Measurement of Violence against Women and Men (2017) and work for the UN on violence against women. She is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Violence and Society Centre at City, University of London, UK, and UNESCO Chair in Building Peaceful Societies through Research on Gender Equality. In this interview Sylvia Walby talks to Jo Littler about gender inequality; why feminism is better understood as a project than as an identity; how gender dynamics were sidelined during Covid; ways to understand crises; and what we mean by 'violence'.