Opposing Ambitions: Gender and Identity in an Alternative Organization

Kleinman, Sherryl

ISBN 10: 0226440052 / ISBN 13: 9780226440057

Published by University of Chicago Press (edition 1), 1996

About this Item

The item might be beaten up but readable. May contain markings or highlighting, as well as stains, bent corners, or any other major defect, but the text is not obscured in any way.

Seller Inventory # 0226440052-7-1-13

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Opposing Ambitions: Gender and Identity in an Alternative Organization
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press (edition 1)
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226440052
• ISBN 13: 9780226440057
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition: 1.
• Condition: Fair

About this title

Synopsis

"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.