O

A sociologist, Ann Oakley has focused on the social production of health and on women's productive and reproductive work. Her interrogation of the label 'housewife' situates it as a gendered role that services the family and the economy and is predicated upon women's economic dependence and disregard for their own economic contribution. Having published over eighteen scholarly volumes, six novels, an autobiography and a biography, Oakley has contributed significantly to the development of feminist social science in both theoretical and methodological arenas. Since the 1970s, Oakley and Juliet Mitchell have edited a series of three volumes whose goal is to position feminism in each ensuing decade. Objectifying techniques position viewers voyeuristically, overemphasising fragmented and fetishised body parts, and/or social attributes. In empiricist and positivistic epistemologies, objective knowers are disinterested in and separate from objects of knowledge. Knowledge emerges from, and serves, no specific interests or agendas.