Bio: (1953-) British sociologist. Sylvia Walby received her Ph.d. from the Queen's University in Belfast and taught at several British universities, including the London School of Economics, and is currently teaching at the City University of London. Walby is, above all, known for her work on patriarchy, gender, and gender equality, as well as domestic violence. For her achievements in those fields in 2008, she was appointed as the first coordinator of the UNESCO Chair in Gender Research. Walby, in the book Patriarchy at Work (1986), explores the role of unions in maintaining patriarchy. In the engineering professions, men directly excluded women from the possibility of employment in those professions, while in the textile and clerical professions, male trade unions used a ranking system to limit women's advancement. She believes that unions are patriarchal institutions that limit women's ability to get good jobs or to find them, at all, which makes women financially dependent on men and forces them to take responsibility for household chores.

                                         Theory of Patriarchy

In her book Theorizing Patriarchy (1990b), Walby argues that patriarchy continues to be an excellent basis for explaining gender inequality. Her view of patriarchy is flexible, as she believes that patriarchy changes, over time, and that it acts differently among different classes or ethnic groups. Walby defines patriarchy "as a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women" (Walby, 1990b). She believes that patriarchy represents the institutional coexistence of both the patriarchal and capitalist modes of production. Throughout history, these two systems go through periods of harmony, but also tension, which is influenced by different historical circumstances. Capitalism has great benefits from patriarchy because the latter creates a gender division of labor.

Walby singles out six structures that are independent but also connected to each other, and which maintain patriarchy. 1) Patriarchal way of production in the household - men appropriate the unpaid work of women that takes place in the home, and also, women bear most of the care of raising children. In the domestic sphere, the patriarchal mode of production is still dominant for the largest number of women. For women, leaving a marriage often means falling into poverty. 2) Paid work - gendered labor market relations serve to exclude women from specific occupations and careers, that is, they are destined for jobs with lower wages and jobs that require fewer skills and education. The patriarchal way of production and discrimination in the sphere of paid workforce women into marriage and isolated life in the household. 3) Patriarchal state - the state, through laws and practical policies, systematically works in the interest of patriarchy. 4) Male violence - this type of violence is not individual, but represents an established and systematic pattern of behavior and includes sexual crimes, physical violence, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse of children. The state has not done enough to prevent violence and rarely prosecutes perpetrators. 5) Patriarchal relationship in sexuality - is reflected in the double standards of acceptable sexual behavior for women and men, as well as in the insistence on "compulsory heterosexuality". 6) Patriarchal cultural institutions - media, religion, and educational system, portray women in ways that suit the patriarchal model, and this practice shapes women's identities and patterns of behavior. Pornography, as part of the culture, increases the freedom of men, while diminishing the freedom of women.

                                Private and Public Patriarchy

Walby distinguishes between private and public patriarchy. Private patriarchy refers to gender relations in the household and family and was most pronounced in earlier periods when women were forbidden to enter the public sphere. Public patriarchy refers to gender relations in the wider society. The state and the labor market are becoming the most important factors of oppression, exploitation, and the subordinate position of women. Although Walby recognizes that there has been a reduction in gender inequalities in Britain, she still believes that all structures and forms of patriarchy continue to exist and function and that women are isolated and subjugated in all areas of public life. She believes that of women from all ethnic groups in Britain, Muslim women are most likely to be oppressed by private patriarchy. In countries of market capitalism, the market plays the biggest role in public patriarchy. In welfare states, the state and the market are equally responsible, while in the former socialist states, the state and its institutions played the greatest role in public patriarchy.

Walby continued to study patriarchy, and in his book Sex Crime in the News (1991), she revealed how the media reported on the dangers of public places, and paid attention to the pathology of rapists, while completely avoiding reporting on marital rape and the patriarchal system that incites sexual violence against women. In the book Gender Transformations (1997), Walby noted some small positive developments but concludes that older women are still subject to domination within private patriarchy. In addition, post-Fordist changes in the economy have led to the emergence of a large number of poorly paid and insecure jobs, most often performed by women. Relatively speaking, women are very underrepresented in the most important positions, both in public jobs and private sector jobs.

                                    Complexity Theory

Since the 2000s Walby began studying feminism, gender inequality, and violence against women on the global level, in the context of globalization, and one of many works on that subject is Gendering the Knowledge Economy: Comparative Perspectives  (2007). Walby, together with her late husband sociologist John Urry, is one of the founders of a transdisciplinary approach known as „complexity theory“. Complexity theory studies the relationship between general theory and specific phenomena; the relationship between micro- and macro-levels of analysis; and theorizes the concept of a system. She applied complexity theory in her analysis of globalization.
 

Main works

Localities, Class, and Gender (1985);

Patriarchy at Work: Patriarchal and Capitalist Relations in Employment (1986);

Gender Segregation at Work (1988); 

Restructuring: Place, Class, and Gender (1990);

Theorizing Patriarchy (1990);

Sex Crime in The News (1991);

Medicine and Nursing: Professions in a Changing Health Service (1994);

Gender Transformations (1997);

European Societies: Fusion or Fission (1999);  

Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Stalking: Findings from the British Crime Survey (2004);

Equity in the Workplace: Gendering Workplace Policy Analysis (2004);

Gendering the Knowledge Economy: Comparative Perspectives (2007);

Globalization and Inequalities: Complexity and Contested Modernities (2009);

The Future of Feminism (2011);

Crisis (2015); 

The Concept and Measurement of Violence Against Women and Men (2017); 

Theorizing Violence (2023).