Lillian Rubin's Thoughts on the Future of her Disciplines

Lillian Rubin recognizes and appreciates where the feminist movement has come from. She has seen it grow and progress and believes it is well off. She thanks the women that have come before her who have helped feminism to get underway, and initiate this movement. She is unsure of where the movement is going, or even of how vital of a movement it is in the present day. She agrees that there are many problems that need resolutions, but does not see a vital reawakening of a new type of feminism.

I read her article entitled “What Am I Going to Do With the Rest of My life?” featured in the fall 2006 edition of the Dissent. Although I am not at the point in my life when I wonder what I will be doing with it, I found this article to be encouraging as well as warm hearted. I found great comfort in knowing that Rubin felt as though women who are aging and feeling as though they have parts missing from their lives because they have retired, or just slowed their pace still serve a purpose. She speaks from an experienced point of view. Lillian Rubin explains in the article that with her older years she got out and experienced things she’d never done before. She sold her first painting at the age of 82. She shows compassion and comfort for those who may feel weary with themselves and adjusting to this new age and life of their own.

Rubin is disappointed that in the discipline of sociology, the “big ideas of the earlier sociologists have given way too often to number crunchers and statistical analyses.” She explains that she does respect survey research and that it provides rates of behavior but fails to explain why people behave the way in which they do. Because of this, she believes it has lead to limiting the utility for offering and finding solutions to the large social problems that exist. She believes that the discipline would benefit from qualitative research methods that would allow “for a broadening scope of inquiry”.

Sources:
1. Rubin, Lillian B. "What Am I Going to Do with the Rest of My Life?" Dissent 53 (2006): 88-94.

2. Rubin, Lillian. E-Mail interview. 26 Feb. 2007.