ABSTRACT
Before exploring how sociologists may come to terms with their responsibilities, this chapter sets out with an exploration of the neglect of family abuse. Mostly simply put, without some sense of responsibility, traditional modernist work only ‘looked for’ what it believed existed; in short, it was impossible to discover the unknown. It is significant that much of what has been ‘discovered’ is due in large part to the work of feminists both inside and outside academia. Feminists have, in the main, not felt constrained by traditional theories or ideas and have engaged in free criticism on a wide variety of fronts.
