Opposing Ambitions: Gender and Identity in an Alternative Organization

by Sherryl Kleinman

"Renewal" is a holistic health center run by baby boomers whose political ideals were shaped by the counterculture movements of the 1960s. Through interviews and observation, Sherryl Kleinman takes us inside Renewal and shows us how its members struggled to maintain a view of themselves as progressive and alternative even as they sought conventional legitimacy.

In Opposing Ambitions we meet the members of Renewal as individuals; learn about the differences in power, prestige, and respect they are accorded; why they talked endlessly about money; and how they related to each other. Kleinman shows how members' attempts to see themselves as unconventional, but also as serious operators of a legitimate health care organization, led them to act in ways that undermined their egalitarian goals. She draws out the lessons Renewal offers for understanding the problems women face in organizations, the failure of social movements to live up to their ideals, and how it is possible for progressives to avoid reproducing the inequalities they claim to oppose.

Genres: Sociology

160 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 1996

Reviews

[Canton Winer · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting case study into how we must examine wider cultural frames and structures of power in order to truly work toward progressive/radical change.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kleinman argues that moral identities can keep people from seeing how their behavior contradicts their ideals (p. 11). Data she collected as an ethnographer at a holistic health center (Renewal) is used to illustrate and support this conclusion. Even though the individuals see the organization and themselves as alternative, progressive, and egalitarian, Kleinman’s observations and analysis suggest otherwise. Kleinman’s examples center mainly on the pervasive gender inequalities within the center. She concludes that members at Renewal, and progressive organizations in general, fail to see these contradictions because they feel good about their special identity and the community they have created and do not want to loose these things by calling them into question (139).
Kleinman’s analysis shows the strong impact of culture and how difficult it is for people to distance themselves from it. Renewal provides a unique case in point because the group proclaims to be alternative or different from other organizations and through Kleinman’s analysis we see that they clearly are not. A large reason for this is that culture is not something that is easy for one to remove one's self from. In fact, as members of Renewal attempted to do this through their individualistic philosophy (employed during alternative rituals), it became even more difficult for them to see how conventional cultural gender expectations and inequalities permeated their own organization. In turn, this kept the women from recognizing themselves as a class (p. 89). She also introduces the idea of people having a moral identity that they seek to preserve and how this can actually influence people to act in ways that run counter to their ideals.
Kleinman makes the point that staff women at Renewal had a high opinion of men in the organization (in particular) but a low opinion of men in general but just the opposite of women; they had a low opinion of women at Renewal and a high opinion of women in general (p. 119). Do you think this is a common trend even outside the organization? If so, why? If not, why was this the case at Renewal? Also, Kleinman argues that we fail to see the hurtful consequences of our behavior because we are so invested in our moral identities (p. 11); apart from those mentioned by Kleinman, what might the consequence(s) be if we were less invested in them? Kleinman favors continual, critical self-reflection as a way to counter this problem and notes how this could threaten solidarity (p. 139), do you think it is worth it?