When it is said that women have been “written out” of sociology’s history it means that women were simply not allowed or weren’t accepted in Sociology’s History. There were many women that have had many same ideas and findings as other male Sociologist, but were not good enough at the time, or didn’t mean anything. They were looked at as inferiors. Many did work with the founders of Sociology and still were omitted. This happened because women from the beginning of history have never been accepted as equals to men.
Many of these women sociology founders had issues or ideas in common. Most of them focusing on gender, class, race, ethnicity, age, and more. They found a balance between research and theory and made many valid points of racism, feminism, and more through many published works. Also many of these founders were involved in the sociological community. Such as Addams, a member of the ASA and founded the Hull House.
The importance today of recognizing the contributions of sociology’s women founders is that these women have had many of the same ideas and published great works as the male founders. Also I think it would be good to see these women’s views on the issues that they have researched in the past. This mostly because in Sociology, the science of human social behavior, we look to see how society influences people. How are we supposed to do this only from a man’s point of view? It is simply not possible.
I do not think the issue involved is whether women sociologist’s were accepted in their own time. Many of the women mentioned in the book were members of academic and research institutions along with male colleagues. They published along with men both in collaboration with and in criticism of their male contemporaries. At the time these women were influential. It is retrospectively that they have come to not be accepted. It is probably true that these women were not viewed as equal with men. However, their contributions were recognized. Being written out of historical accounts reflects much more about the prejudices and biases of the historians rather than the figure’s contemporaries.