Gender and Social Change

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Societies broadly explores the complex and contested relationship between gender and social change. Classic sociological questions are: How is social order maintained? How does social change occur? And who benefits? Gender is deeply interwoven into these questions. It is paradoxical that social order, cultural norms and values, and stratification are seemingly obdurate, timeless, and rigid, while massive and significant alterations affect technology, climate, medicine, and recreation, for example. This paradox is also relevant to studies of gender. At the same time that social theorists deconstruct foundational ideas about gender, sex, and sexuality, we inhabit a world that produces, reproduces, and relies on gender binaries. These binaries often fuel enormous gender inequality, with girls and women systematically disadvantaged across many social contexts. This issue aims to showcase work that explores paradoxes of social change (both progressive and regressive) as change specifically relates to gender. Additionally, the issue is meant to highlight the possibilities for creating a decolonized feminist approach that takes account of gender and social change from the perspective of minority groups (LGBTQI) and non-Western cultures, broadly defined as cultures beyond Western Europe and North America.

Potentially relevant questions include, but are not limited to:

• What are some examples of micro-sociological and/or macro-sociological social changes and how do these changes affect gender, identity performance, and/or structures?
• How do classic and contemporary social theories of social change integrate (or not) gender?
• What are some of the consequences of an engaged practice and theory of social change for gendered institutions, gendered people, and gendered representations?

Possible Topics:

• Interaction, Micro-aggressions and Gender
• Geopolitical Changes and Gender
• Financial Collapse and Gender
• Climate Change and Gender
• War and Gender
• Activism, Social Movements and Gender
• Performance Art and Gender
• Violence and Resistance and Gender

Societies welcomes papers from scholars and advanced doctoral candidates of history, political science, ethnic studies, science studies, media studies, animal studies, anthropology, philosophy, sociology, geography, women’s and gender studies, queer theory, criminology, psychology, and law. We are particularly interested in work that takes an interdisciplinary approach and in work that considers gender and sexuality’s intersections with matters of race, ethnicity, disability, nation, gender identity, sexuality, region, class, and religion.

Prof. Dr. Lisa Jean Moore
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• gender
• femininity
• masculinity
• social change
• globalization
• neoliberalism
• intersectionality