Paradoxes of Gender

Judith Lorber

Published by Yale University Press 2008

Paradoxes of Gender

Judith Lorber

https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300153446

Overview
Contents

About this book

In this pathbreaking book, a well-known feminist and sociologistwho is also the Founding Editor of Gender & Societychallenges our most basic assumptions about gender. Judith Lorber views gender as wholly a product of socialization subject to human agency, organization, and interpretation. In her new paradigm, gender is an institution comparable to the economy, the family, and religion in its significance and consequences.

Drawing on many schools of feminist scholarship and on research from anthropology, history, sociology, social psychology, sociolinguistics, and cultural studies, Lorber explores different paradoxes of gender:
why we speak of only two "opposite sexes" when there is such a variety of sexual behaviors and relationships;
why transvestites, transsexuals, and hermaphrodites do not affect the conceptualization of two genders and two sexes in Western societies;
why most of our cultural images of women are the way men see them and not the way women see themselves;
why all women in modern society are expected to have children and be the primary caretaker;
why domestic work is almost always the sole responsibility of wives, even when they earn more than half the family income;
why there are so few women in positions of authority, when women can be found in substantial numbers in many occupations and professions;
why women have not benefited from major social revolutions.

Lorber argues that the whole point of the gender system today is to maintain structured gender inequalityto produce a subordinate class (women) that can be exploited as workers, sexual partners, childbearers, and emotional nurturers. Calling into question the inevitability and necessity of gender, she envisions a society structured for equality, where no gender, racial ethnic, or social class group is allowed to monopolize economic, educational, and cultural resources or the positions of power.

Author / Editor information

Judith Lorber is professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and the Graduate School, City University of New York.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. Producing Gender Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
Part II. Gender in Practice Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
Part III. The Politics of Gender Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	303
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	335
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	413
Other titles of interest from Yale University Press Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	425

Language: English
Publisher: Yale University Press
Pages
- Main content: 436

eBook

Published: October 1, 2008
ISBN: 9780300153446