Thoroughly updated and revised, the third edition of The Gendered Society explores current thinking about gender, both inside academia and in our everyday lives. Michael S. Kimmel challenges the claim that gender is limited to women's experiences--his compelling and balanced study of gender includes both masculine and feminine perspectives. Part 1 examines the latest work in biology, anthropology, psychology, and sociology; Part 2 provides an original analysis of the gendered worlds of family, education, and work; and Part 3 explores gender interactions, including friendship and love, sexuality, and violence.
Kimmel makes three bold and persuasive statements about gender. First, he demonstrates that gender differences are often extremely exaggerated; in fact, he argues that men and women have much more in common than we think they do. Kimmel also challenges the pop psychologists who suggest that gender difference is the cause of inequality between the sexes; instead, he reveals that the reverse is true--gender inequality itself is the cause of the differences between men and women. Finally, he illustrates that gender is not merely an element of individual identity, but a socially constructed institutional phenomenon.
A new chapter on media examines the portrayal of gender in one of the most powerful--and provocative--social institutions. Of particular interest to students, Kimmel's analysis of this dynamic, image-driven industry makes the study of gender relevant in an immediate and tangible way.
Essential reading for both students and scholars, The Gendered Society is an authoritative, incisive, and lively statement about contemporary gender relations from one of the country's foremost thinkers on the subject. Kimmel's companion text, The Gendered Society Reader, Third Edition (OUP, 2008), provides a perfect complement for classroom use.


"This is the book to use. It will give students a theoretical perspective to analyze and interpret the other readings and materials used in class--and in life."--Jessica B. Greenebaum, Central Connecticut State University
"The text's strengths are its easy-to-read prose and clear explanations of complex theory, making the text highly engaging and easy to employ in introductory level courses."--Abby Ferber, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
"The Gendered Society is a compendium of knowledge, theory, and fact about gender that is by far the best and most comprehensive book on the subject. In refreshingly jargon-free prose, Kimmel offers a penetrating and subtle examination of how the gender difference and inequality that are so much a part of everyday life are socially structured and maintained in both our public and our personal lives."--Lillian B. Rubin, author of The Transcendent Child
"At last! A summary work of decades of recent scholarship on gender which sifts through the huge amount of accumulated data, judiciously weighs the evidence, and brings immense clarity and insight to the major areas of contention. I cannot imagine anyone who would not profit from reading this scrupulous, comprehensive, incisive book."--Martin Duberman, City University of New York Graduate Center



Michael S. Kimmel is Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is author of Manhood in America: A Cultural History, Second Edition (2006); coeditor, with Rebecca F. Plante, of Sexualities: Identities, Behaviors, and Society (OUP, 2005); and coeditor, with Michael A. Messner, of Men's Lives, Sixth Edition (2003).



Preface


1. Introduction


Part 1. Explanations of Gender


2. Ordained by Nature: Biology Constructs the Sexes


3. Spanning the World: Cross-Cultural Constructions of Gender


4. "So That Explains It": Psychological Perspectives on Gender Development


5. Inequality and Difference: The Social Construction of Gender Relations


Part 2. Gendered Identities, Gendered Institutions


6. The Gendered Family


7. The Gendered Classroom


8. The Gendered Workplace


Part 3. Gendered Interactions


9. The Gendered Media


10. Gendered Intimacies: Friendship and Love


11. The Gendered Body


12. The Gender of Violence


Epilogue: A Degendered Society?


Notes


Index

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Distributor: Oxford University Press USA
Publication Date: 09-10-2007
Pages: 416
Measurements: 6.500in X 9.100in X 0.800in X 1.344lb