Mirra Komarovsky ^People

She was a professor of sociology at Barnard College of Columbia University in New York and specialized ni the sociology of the family. In 1935 Komarovsky joined New York's Institute for Social Research. In 1940 she wrote The Unemployed Man and His Family. Through her research and theoretical views, she contributed to an under- standing of the part played by women in modern society.In her 1946 paper Cultural Contradictions and Sex Roles, she sees the role conflict in women as a result of cultural contradictions. Feminine roles traceable to traditional views contradict the modern roles that stem from equalitarian expecta-tions. Her paper Functional Analysis of Sex Roles (1950) provides a general analysis ofthesocial factors that define women's roles. In 1948 she was promoted from instruc- tor at Barnard to associate professor, in 1954 she became a full professor.In 1970 Komarovsky retired from Barnard and was named professor emeritus, continuing to teach part time until 1992. In 1973, in recognition of her pioneering challenge to the functionalist approach in sociology, the American Sociological Association elected her president, an honor previously accorded only one other woman: Dorothy S. Thomas. In 1978-1979 she served as chair of the newly created Women's Studies program at Barnard. In 1991 she received the Distinguished Career Award from the American Sociological Association.