Ann Oakley

This article is about the sociologist and writer. For the sharpshooter, see Annie Oakley.

Ann Rosamund Oakley
Born	Ann Rosamund Titmuss (1944-01-17) 17 January 1944
Pen name	Rosamund Clay
Occupation	Professor and Founder-Director of the Social Science Research Unit at the Institute of Education, University of London
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Bedford College, University of London, Somerville College, Oxford
Genre	Fiction (novelist) and non-fiction sociology and feminism
Subject	Sociology and feminism
Notable works	The Men's Room (adapted for BBC television)
Relatives	Professor Richard Titmuss (father)
Literature portal

Ann Rosamund Oakley (née Titmuss; born 17 January 1944) is a British sociologist, feminist, and writer. She is professor and founder-director of the Social Science Research Unit at the UCL Institute of Education of the University College London, and in 2005 partially retired from full-time academic work to concentrate on her writing, especially on new novels.

Biography

Oakley is the only daughter of Professor Richard Titmuss and wrote a biography of her parents as well as editing some of his works for recent re-publication. Her mother Kathleen, née Miller, was a social worker.

Ann Oakley was born in London in 1944. She was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls and Somerville College, Oxford University taking her Bachelor of Arts in 1965, having married fellow future academic Robin Oakley the previous year. In the next few years Oakley wrote scripts for children's television, wrote numerous short stories and had two novels rejected by publishers. Returning to formal education at Bedford College, University of London, she gained a PhD in 1969; the qualification was a study of women's attitudes to housework, from which several of her early books were ultimately derived. Much of her sociological research focused on medical sociology and women's health. She has also made important contributions to debates about sociological research methods.

In 1985, Oakley moved to work at the Institute of Education in London where she set up the Social Science Research Unit (SSRU).

Ann Oakley has written numerous academic works, many focusing on the lives and roles of women in society as well as several best-selling novels, of which the best-known is probably The Men's Room, which was adapted by Laura Lamson for BBC television in 1991, and which starred Harriet Walter and Bill Nighy. She has also written an early partial autobiography. She divides her life between living in London and in a rural house where she does most of her fiction writing. She is a mother and grandmother.

Publications

Non-fiction

The grave of Ann Oakley's parents, Richard and Kay Titmuss, in Highgate Cemetery.

• Titmuss, Richard (1997) [1972]. Oakley, Ann; Ashton, John (eds.). The gift relationship: from human blood to social policy. London: LSE Books. ISBN 9780753012017. OCLC 59584491.
• Oakley, Ann (1993) [1972]. Sex, gender and society. Aldershot: Arena, published in association with New Society. ISBN 9781857421712. OCLC 919620585.
• Oakley, Ann (1990) [1974]. Housewife (2nd ed.). London: Penguin. ISBN 9780140135237. OCLC 495472105.
• Oakley, Ann (1985) [1974]. The Sociology of Housework. Oxford (England) / New York: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 9780631139249. OCLC 924848490. (also translated into German, Dutch, Japanese, and Chinese).
• Oakley, Ann (1976). Woman's work: the housewife, past and present. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 9780394719603. OCLC 780658245. (Re-titled version of Housewife – 1974)
• Oakley, Ann; Mitchell, Juliet (1976). The rights and wrongs of women. Harmondsworth (England) / New York: Penguin. ISBN 9780140216165. OCLC 471591152.
• Oakley, Ann (1980). Becoming a mother. New York: Schocken Books. ISBN 9780805237351. OCLC 757264967.

Reprinted as: Oakley, Ann (1981). From here to maternity: becoming a mother. Harmondsworth (England): Penguin. ISBN 9780140222562. OCLC 1050037773.

• Oakley, Ann (1980). Women confined: towards a sociology of childbirth. Oxford (England): M. Robertson. ISBN 9780855202118. OCLC 493259989.
• Oakley, Ann (1982) [1981]. Subject women. London: Fontana. ISBN 9780006860594. OCLC 12972093.
• Oakley, Ann (1984). The captured womb: a history of the medical care of pregnant women. Oxford (England) / New York: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 9780631149712. OCLC 10924942.
• Oakley, Ann (1985) [1984]. Taking it like a woman. London: Flamingo. ISBN 9780006545118. OCLC 27217573.
• Oakley, Ann; Mitchell, Juliet (1986). What is feminism?. Oxford (England): Basil Blackwell. ISBN 9780631148432. OCLC 1110738020.
• Oakley, Ann; Houd, Susanne (1990). Helpers in childbirth: midwifery today. New York: Hemisphere Pub. Corp. ISBN 9781560320364. OCLC 299448341.
• Oakley, Ann (1992). Social support and motherhood: the natural history of a research project. Oxford (England) / Cambridge (United States): Blackwell. ISBN 9780631182740. OCLC 231538886.
• Oakley, Ann (1993). Essays on women, medicine and health. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748604500. OCLC 924787520.
• Oakley, Ann; Williams, A. Susan (1994). The politics of the welfare state. London: UCL Press. ISBN 9781857282061. OCLC 1082488380.
• Oakley, Ann (1996), "Sexuality", in Jackson, Stevi; Scott, Sue (eds.), Feminism and sexuality: a reader, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 35–39, ISBN 9780231107082, OCLC 802151001.
• Oakley, Ann (1997) [1996]. Man and wife: Richard and Kay Titmuss: my parents' early years. London: Flamingo. ISBN 9780006550136. OCLC 39103232.
• Oakley, Ann; Mitchell, Juliet (1997). Who's afraid of feminism?: seeing through the backlash. New York: New Press: Distributed by W.W. Norton. ISBN 9781565843851. OCLC 1078656940.
• Oakley, Ann; Williams, Fiona; Popay, Jennie (1999). Welfare research: a critical review. London: UCL Press. ISBN 9781857282702. OCLC 924483030.
• Oakley, Ann (2000). Experiments in knowing: gender and method in the social sciences. Cambridge (England): Polity Press. ISBN 9780745622576. OCLC 758209469.
• Titmuss, Richard (2001). Oakley, Ann; Alcock, Peter; Glennerster, Howard; Sinfield, Adrian (eds.). Welfare and wellbeing: Richard Titmuss's contribution to social policy. Bristol (England): Policy Press. ISBN 9781861342997. OCLC 5104775528.
• Oakley, Ann (2002). Gender on planet Earth. New York: The New Press: Distributed by W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9781565847682. OCLC 187766124.
• Titmuss, Richard (2004). Oakley, Ann; Barker, Jonathan (eds.). Private complaints and public health: Richard Titmuss on the National Health Service. Bristol (England): Policy Press. ISBN 9781861345608. OCLC 538212726.
• Oakley, Ann (2007). Fracture: adventures of a broken body. Bristol (England): Policy Press. ISBN 9781861349378. OCLC 1170080065.
• Oakley, Ann (2011). A critical woman: Barbara Wootton, social science and public policy in the twentieth century. London: Bloomsbury Academic. doi:10.5040/9781849664769. ISBN 9781283149068. OCLC 745368911.
• Oakley, Ann (2014). Father and Daughter: Patriarchy, gender and social science. Bristol (England): Policy Press. ISBN 9781447318101. OCLC 924827444.

Fiction

• Oakley, Ann (1986). Telling the truth about Jerusalem: a collection of essays and poems. Oxford (England) / New York: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 9780631149514. OCLC 924851336.
• Oakley, Ann (1988). The men's room. London: Virago. ISBN 9780860688853. OCLC 246867129. (televised)
• Clay, Rosamund [nom de plume of Oakley] (1990). Only angels forget. London: Virago. ISBN 9781853811272. OCLC 20935151.
• Oakley, Ann (1990). Matilda's mistake. London: Virago. ISBN 9781853812118. OCLC 21676207.
• Oakley, Ann (1993). The secret lives of Eleanor Jenkinson. London: Flamingo. ISBN 9780006545507. OCLC 475372511.
• Oakley, Ann (1993). Scenes originating in the Garden of Eden. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 9780002243032. OCLC 473047928.
• Oakley, Ann (2012) [1996], "Where the bee sucks", in Williams, A. Susan; Jones, R. G. (eds.), The Penguin book of erotic stories by women, London: Penguin, pp. 384–397, ISBN 9780241965450, OCLC 823688999
• Oakley, Ann (1995), "Death in the egg", in Williams, A. Susan; Jones, Richard Glyn (eds.), The Penguin book of modern fantasy by women, Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 525–532, ISBN 9780670859078, OCLC 317528903
• Oakley, Ann (1996). A proper holiday. London: Flamingo. ISBN 9780006550143. OCLC 43175697.
• Oakley, Ann (2000) [1999]. Overheads. London: Flamingo. ISBN 9780006512189. OCLC 44058209.

Journal articles

• Oakley, Ann (March–April 1998). "Science, gender, and women's liberation: an argument against postmodernism". Women's Studies International Forum. 21 (2): 133–146. doi:10.1016/S0277-5395(98)00005-3.
• Oakley, Ann (1 November 1998). "Gender, methodology and people's ways of knowing: some problems with feminism and the paradigm debate in social science". Sociology. 32 (4): 707–731. doi:10.1177/0038038598032004005.

References

• Blain, Virginia; Clements, Patricia; Grundy, Isobel, eds. (1990). The feminist companion to literature in English: women writers from the middle ages to the present. London: Batsford. ISBN 978-0-7134-5848-0. OCLC 908195284.
• Tuttle, Lisa (1986). Encyclopedia of feminism. London: Longman. ISBN 978-0-582-89346-7. OCLC 966249335.

External links

• Official website
• The Social Science Research Unit at the Institute of Education of the University College London
• Ann Oakley at "Pioneers of Qualitative Research" from the Economic and Social Data Service