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Book
ReviewReview
EssaySistering:
power and change in female relationships. Melanie L. Mauthner, 2005. London:
PalgraveMacmillan; ISBN 1403941254, 228 pp., £15.99, paper
SAGE Publications, Inc.200610.1191/0967550706ab049XX
ValWalsh
Melanie
Mauthner's book, now out in paperback, demonstrates the way that feminist,
qualitative explorations of specific women's lives can illuminate, not just
those lives in their relation to society, its institutions and social forces,
but also, by implication, suggest other areas of (overdue) inquiry, and provide
some of the tools for making sense of and learning from those other explorations:
not just getting something onto the intellectual and political map, but providing
a basis for changing the map itself. With Dorothy Smith (1988: 222–23),
Mauthner's declared aim is to produce `a form of knowledge that remains accessible
to those who have contributed to its production' (p. 183): Mauthner interviewed
teenage sis- ters, and sisters in their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties.
She adheres to Strauss's (1987) reworking of grounded theory (as a process
of gener- ating theory through emerging categories from data), to acknowledge
both in vivo codes which stem from the language of participants, and sociolog-
ically constructed codes brought to bear by the researcher herself. She cites
the importance of the auto/biographical method for her exploration of `the
emotional and material production of subjectivity' (p. 193), which she says
allows her through language to draw together the two discordant epistemologies
of feminist standpoint theory and feminist post-structural- ism. Mauthner
maintains a double focus: both ontological (in terms of the centrality of
narrative and discourse in constituting `reality' through lan- guage), and
epistemological (focusing on subjectivity within knowledge production). This
hybrid, process frame, and her emphasis on power and change, direct our attention
to how sisters do these familial relations over time, which immediately draws
the reader in as co-participant, just as it did the sisters themselves. The
main body of the text draws extensively from tran- scripts of the sisters'
narratives, both individually and in dialogue. Two appendices provide additional
biographical information about the sisters,
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and
a detailed exposition of Mauthner's method and methodology. Readers are able
to make their own way, in any order or pattern, through these three sections,
which are both `freestanding' and interconnected. SISTERING DISCOURSES AND
FEMININITY Mauthner's stated aim is `to theorise agency empirically in the
context of a female family tie' (p. 8). She is explicit about her concerns
as a feminist sociologist: The concept of changing subjectivity is key to
the whole book... In focusing on subjectivity, I am particularly interested
in emotions as sources of knowledge and in the links between emotions and
language. (p. 10) Mauthner presents four sistering discourses, which emerged
from the women's narratives: best friendship; close companionship/distant
com- panionship; the positioned and shifting positions discourses. These are
not fixed, static or discrete; for example, they can co-exist within a relation-
ship at a single moment or over a period of time; one may permeate or replace
another over time. She demonstrates how these sistering dis- courses provide
`ways of thinking and understanding the different forms that sister relationships
can take' (p. 9). For example, the positioned discourse reproduces specific
elements of mother–daughter relationships, and Edelman's (1994) concept
of mini- mothering is prominent here in `big' and `little' sister roles of
carer and cared for. The figure of the mother, as a paradigm of care, intimacy,
power, hovers over these life histories, even when the mother is not `good
enough'. In these circumstances, fear of the fragility of familial bonds can
exert its conservative power, restricting a daughter's/sister's changing subjectivity:
`you think you can't have the row, you can't have the blazing argument, you
mustn't say that to Mummy, she might get upset' (p. 103). Mothers are seen
to play an influential role in nurturing or discourag- ing closeness between
sisters; as well as in terms of their presence/ absence in daughters' lives; and consequent physical and/or emotional workloads (i.e. roles) picked up
by daughters in the mother's `absence'. Rejection, distance, manipulation
contribute to daughters'/sisters' expe- rience of the mother, sister and self,
and all three in relationality. These scenarios, which produce the rebel,
the dutiful daughter, Miss Goody Two Shoes, the prodigal daughter, sisters
as rivals, etc., position daughters/ sisters in ways which it can take many
years to unravel (both in terms of understanding and changing), and the fact
that Mauthner's sisters span several generations enables us to glimpse these
processes within their nar- ratives. The fact that the positioned discourse
is inherently heterosexist is
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clear
but left implicit by Mauthner, rather than openly and directly har- nessed
to her analysis. The ability, opportunity and desire to shift from the positioned
dis- course into the shifting positions discourse, where role reversals occur,
and where women can adopt more equal positions of power, emerge as key (potential)
features of sistering. This is, therefore, a book about gen- dered power relations; women's differential emotional and social creativ- ity; and factors (external
and internal) which contribute to these processes over time. Narratives relating
crisis and change are structured around emotions and understanding them (pp.
148, 151). For some sisters, iden- tity and experience were much discussed
and processed within their rela- tionships. For others, `central aspects of
their sistering remain unspoken' (p. 167). Mauthner (p. 14) cites Johnson's
(1986) insight, that power `pri- vatises the secrecies of the oppressed' – in this case, women. And within the sisters' narratives, there are instances
of breathtaking denial: for exam- ple, around disability (pp. 157–58)
and sexuality (p. 77). While it is gendered subjectivity and discourses of
femininity which are foregrounded, the book provides insight and impetus beyond
these. Caring and power relations in intimacy: issues of relationality, of
powerfulness and powerlessness, whether power relations are fixed or open
to negotiation, the impact of age and life stage, triggers for change – `I couldn't actually be me' (p. 96) – these are significant in every
life. This is one of the sisters, com- menting on the role of talk and experience
in developing new interpretations of experience (p. 107): `We, I think, I
think we've learnt to listen to each other, isn't it, that's the thing, isn't
it, it's rather than talking, it's actually learning to listen to each other'.
This is a book about inequality, and the challenge of equality in relationships.
One of the sisters acknowledges: `Because equality is difficult isn't it?'
And: `Most, I think, most relation- ships are, are premised on some sort of
inequality' (p. 140). GENERATING CHANGE Mauthner's research provides impetus
for exploring `other socially invis- ible bonds and support networks'(p. 173),
both familial and extra-familial (for example, between brothers, brothers
and sisters, lesbians, and gay men). Before the end of the book, as an erstwhile
(?) `big' sister, I was starting to think about that bond in terms of Mauthner's
sistering discourses. And then there are my relationships with women ... I
read this research account as a mother's daughter, a sister-free woman with
one brother, and a second cousin I have always referred to as the nearest
thing to a sister (though we live geographically at a distance and hardly
meet); and years influenced by the idea of `sisterhood', as an emotional and
political `dream' and a metaphor for feminists and for
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women's
friendships generally. In these scenarios, the comment, `That's not very sisterly',
amounts to equating `sisterly' with `feminist' virtue, and clearly draws on
assumptions about both sistering and feminism. I found myself reaching for
Susie Orbach and Luise Eichenbaum's (1988) land- mark book, Bittersweet: Love,
Envy and Competition in Women's Friendships. I noted I first read this in
1989: time to reread it, 16 years later, in the light of this book on sistering.
As well as having relevance for various academic disciplines and pro- fessional
practices, Melanie Mauthner's book has the potential to encour- age readers
to be more reflective and self-reflexive about their own sibling relationships,
and even relationships generally; as well as honing critical awareness regarding
societal and institutional pressures and their conse- quences. In exemplary
feminist fashion, Sistering positions the reader across the complexity of
the personal, professional and political, while implicitly challenging these
as discrete and unconnected categories of experience or identity. `Change
in sistering occurs through women's experiences of power relations, their
reflections and emotions about these and ability to name them' (p. 169). The
feminist process Mauthner describes here (encom- passing experience, critical
thinking, emotions, new vocabularies for emergent consciousness, and feminist
theory and dialogue) is a basic pre- requisite for surviving and thriving
despite those power relations: of moving from the positioned discourse to
the shifting positions discourse, via auto/biographical process and feminist
consciousness and theory. For women need to be conscious and creative, with
stamina for the long haul. It is regrettable that lesbian experience of sistering
does not form part of Mauthner's study: the evidence she presents of how heterosexual
feminin- ity functions within kin relationships, and influences power and
change in those relationships, would surely have been enriched. Towards the
end of the book, she reflects: `Can sisters be located in the positioned discourse
and be best friends? Probably not'(p. 169). The posi- tioned discourse was
never about nurturing women's friendship or inti- macy. Mauthner's verdict
has much to tell us about the dilemma of women's relationships in western
society, across all differences, and why adult–adult, peer processes
must replace the parent–child scenarios which foster heterosexual femininity
at the expense of women's subjectivity, if we are to be friends, never mind
best friends.
REFERENCES
Edelman, H.
1994: Motherless daughters: the legacy of loss.
Hodder & Stoughton.
Johnson, R.
1986: The story so far: and further transformations? In Punter, D., editor, Introduction to contemporary cultural studies. Longman , 277—313.
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Orbach, S.
and Eichenbaum, L.
1988: Bittersweet: love, envy and competition in women's
friendships . Arrow Books.
Smith, D.
1988: The everyday world as problematic: a feminist sociology . Open University Press.