ABSTRACT
Social theory has always been a contested arena with competing discourses around most significant social issues. One of the areas of greatest debate has emerged around what is sometimes called ‘the individualization’ thesis or what is referred to by social theorists as the ‘reflexive modernization theorists’ (Bauman 2000; Beck et al. 1994; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1996; Giddens 1991, 1992 and Lash 1994). These theorists presented an optimistic picture of social life in late modernity. This optimism surrounded emancipatory claims regarding gender, including, the explosion of reflexivity leading to a de-traditionalization of gender, and the ‘transformation of intimacy’ signaling greater equality and democratization in traditional heterosexual relationships. Such claims are based on what Giddens calls ‘a revolution in female sexual autonomy’ and the ‘flourishing of homosexuality’ (Giddens 1992: 28). Initially these theorists appeared to offer significant choices to individuals
and a far greater understanding of gender relations. However, divisions began to emerge when feminist and gender theorists such as McNay (1999, 2000, 2003, 2004), Adkins (2002a, 2002b, 2003, 2004) Skeggs (1997), and Plummer (2003), among others, raised doubts about the relevance of the categories drawn on by these theorists as gender-neutral. This chapter examines the theoretical assumptions underlying these frameworks and conceptualization of ‘individualization’ within these models of reflexive modernization. It is to the theoretical assumptions and supposed gender-neutral frame-
works and conceptualization of ‘individualization’ within these models of reflexive modernization that this chapter is addressed. The questions this chapter seeks to answer include: What is the relationship between gender and ‘the social’ in the theoretical assumptions of the reflexive modernization theorists? Are assumptions about individualization and reflexivity, as developed by the reflexive modernization theorists, fundamentally incompatible with gender and feminist theorizing? Is a model of ‘contested intimacies’ (Plummer 2003) as opposed to ‘the transformation of intimacy’ (Giddens 1992) more relevant to understanding relationships of intimacy?
