The Gendered Society

Featuring a timely new chapter on gender and politics, the fifth edition ofThe Gendered Societyexplores current thinking about gender, both inside academia and in our everyday lives. Michael 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. 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. New to this Edition * New chapter (10) on Gender and Politics * New box theme--"Compared to What?"--that introduces global content * New "So What?" boxes, which debunk gender myths Essential reading for both students and scholars,The Gendered Society, Fifth Edition, is an authoritative, incisive, and lively statement about contemporary gender relations from one of the country's foremost thinkers on the subject.

Michael Kimmel is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University, State University of New York. A leading researcher and writer on gender and men and masculinity, he is the author of numerous books and articles including The Gendered Society Reader, Fifth Edition (with Amy Aronson, OUP, 2013), Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men (2009), and Manhood in America: A Cultural History, Third Edition (OUP, 2012).

1. Introduction: Human Beings: An Engendered Species

Part 1: E xplanations of Gender

2. Ordained by Nature: Biology Constructs the Sexes
3. Spanning the World: Culture Constructs Gender Difference
4. "So, That Explains It": Psychoanalytic and Developmental Perspectives on Gender
5. The Social Construction of Gender Relations

Part 2: Gendered Identities, Gendered Institutions

6. The Gendered Family: Biology Constructs the Sexes
7. The Gendered Classroom
8. Gender and Religion
9. Separate and Unequal: The Gendered World of Work
10. The Gendered Media

Part 3: Gendered Interacions

11. Gendered Intimacies: Friendship and Love
12. The Gendered Body
13. The Gender of Violence

Epilogue: "A Degendered Society"?