TY - JOUR

T1 - Intersectional Individuality: Georg Simmel's Concept of “The Intersection of Social Circles” and the Emancipation of Women

AU - Stoetzler, Marcel

N1 - This is the peer reviewed version of the following article 'Intersectional Individuality: Georg Simmel's Concept of “The Intersection of Social Circles” and the Emancipation of Women' which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/soin.12110/full. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving."

PY - 2016/4/18

Y1 - 2016/4/18

N2 - Georg Simmel's “The intersection of social circles,” a chapter in his 1908 Sociology, contains discussions of class, religion, ethnic, and gender relations that are highly relevant to contemporary sociological concerns. Simmel's argument is based on a notion of historical dynamic that interprets increasingly complex intersectionality as a sign of progressing civilization. The article establishes how Simmel describes “the intersection of social circles” and then looks at Simmel's account through the concept of “intersectionality” as developed in contemporary feminist theory. The article suggests that although some aspects of Simmel's account of women in modernity are incompatible with contemporary feminism, the shared use of the same image, “intersection,” in Simmel and in contemporary feminist theory is the symptom of a shared concern with a particular aspect of the complexity of modern society. In Simmel, the increasing density of the intersections of social circles points to the increasingly complex individuality of modern subjects, whereas the use of the same image in contemporary feminist theory is part of a critique of inequality and oppression in the same modern society whose advent Simmel celebrated. Intersectionality is a characteristic of modern society that first became visible more than a century ago and has meanwhile become ever the more a signature of modernity.

AB - Georg Simmel's “The intersection of social circles,” a chapter in his 1908 Sociology, contains discussions of class, religion, ethnic, and gender relations that are highly relevant to contemporary sociological concerns. Simmel's argument is based on a notion of historical dynamic that interprets increasingly complex intersectionality as a sign of progressing civilization. The article establishes how Simmel describes “the intersection of social circles” and then looks at Simmel's account through the concept of “intersectionality” as developed in contemporary feminist theory. The article suggests that although some aspects of Simmel's account of women in modernity are incompatible with contemporary feminism, the shared use of the same image, “intersection,” in Simmel and in contemporary feminist theory is the symptom of a shared concern with a particular aspect of the complexity of modern society. In Simmel, the increasing density of the intersections of social circles points to the increasingly complex individuality of modern subjects, whereas the use of the same image in contemporary feminist theory is part of a critique of inequality and oppression in the same modern society whose advent Simmel celebrated. Intersectionality is a characteristic of modern society that first became visible more than a century ago and has meanwhile become ever the more a signature of modernity.

U2 - 10.1111/soin.12110

DO - 10.1111/soin.12110

M3 - Article

VL - 86

SP - 216

EP - 240

JO - Sociological Inquiry

JF - Sociological Inquiry

SN - 0038-0245

IS - 2

ER -