The Way Arlie Hochschild Became an Academic

The three writers that Hochschild refers to as opening her eyes to sociology were: “Erving Goffman, David Riesman (The Lonely Crowd and Faces in the Crowd), and C. Wright Mills (Power, Politics, and People, and White Collar.)” (http://www.genderonline.cz/view.php?cisloclanku=2007010610). She later tells us that when she got to Berkeley in terms of the feminist movement, it was “Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan; The Second Sex and The Feminist Mystique were important texts, but they were only the match that lit a kind of fire, an intellectual fire, that very much influenced my thinking.” (http://www.genderonline.cz/view.php?cisloclanku=2007010610).
When she first got to Berkeley there was not much to study about on women, so she started thinking, “what if sociology was shaped not around just the lifestyles of men but of women...Are you just comparing father and son or mother to daughter or father to daughter?...” (http://www.genderonline.cz/view.php?cisloclanku=2007010610). This type of thinking got her into a whole new realm of learning and teaching. Although she claims that it was really the first three theorists that were the started her on this path, it was really when she “got to Berkeley and participated in really what was a collective rethinking…that was very influential for me.” (http://www.genderonline.cz/view.php?cisloclanku=2007010610). When asked the question, “When did you become a feminist, do you think?” Hochschild responded by saying, “Oh…age three. I had an older brother who was very much favored in the family.” (http://www.genderonline.cz/view.php?cisloclanku=2007010610). Along with this Hochschild also remembers her mother telling her that, “Well what the girls do is just as important as what the boys do.” (http://www.genderonline.cz/view.php?cisloclanku=2007010610). Hochschild believes that it was this statement that struck a cord within her and began her thinking on sociological level. “I think I was a sociologist already at a very young age-that there were underlying realities that you had to expose to live-to understand what’s happening to you. So very early…” (http://www.genderonline.cz/view.php?cisloclanku=2007010610).