Overview
The Gendered Society examines current thinking about gender, both inside academia and in our everyday lives. Through an examination of current work in biology, anthropology, psychology, and sociology (in Part I), an original analysis of the gendered worlds of family, education, and work (in Part II), and the gendered interactions of friendship and love, sexuality, and violence (in Part III), Kimmel makes three claims about gender. First, he argues that the differences between men and women are not as great as we often imagine, and that in fact women and men have far more in common with one another than we think they do. Second, he challenges the notions of many pop psychologists who suggest that gender difference is the cause of the dramatic observable inequality between the sexes. Instead, Kimmel reveals that the reverse is true: gender inequality is the cause of the differences between women and men. Third, Kimmel argues that gender is not simply an aspect of individual identity but is also an institutional phenomenon, embedded in the organizations and institutions in which we interact daily. Kimmel concludes with a brief Epilogue looking ahead to gender relations in the new century. The Gendered Society is a well-reasoned, authoritative, and keenly animated statement about gender relations today, written by one of the country's foremost thinkers on the subject. It is an essential text for both scholars and students alike. Kimmel's companion book, The Gendered Society Reader (OUP, 1999), provides a perfect complement for classroom use.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Frustrated at the dearth of materials available for him to assign to students in his courses on the sociology of gender, Kimmel, a sociology professor at State University of New York, Stony Brook, has written an up-to-date survey of the academic literature that should serve his purposes nicely, although this book will be heavy going for anyone for whom it is not assigned reading. His secondary motivation is to counter the "fictitious pseudoscientific claims" of popular writers who preach that men and women are from different planets: "We're not opposite sexes," writes Kimmel, "but neighboring sexes." In chapters that will clearly serve as units on a syllabus, Kimmel (Manhood in America; Changing Men) reviews, from a feminist-friendly perspective, current research on how gender affects biology, sexuality, the family, parenting, marriage, the workplace, the classroom and violence. His thesis that "gender difference is the product of gender inequality, and not the other way around" leads to the conclusion that "the society of the third millennium will increasingly degender traits and behaviors without degendering people." Although Kimmel's emphasis is frequently on the necessity of transforming masculinity--the unfinished second half of the gender revolution of the 20th century--he is scrupulous in maintaining balance and comprehensiveness, discussing the lives of both women and men in a variety of cultural contexts. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|Library Journal
Kimmel (sociology, SUNY at Stony Brook; Manhood in America) critiques beliefs about gender in society. Despite popular thinking on the topic, Kimmel finds great similarities between women and men and reproaches popular writers who claim that "women are from Venus and men are from Mars." He convincingly argues that the differences between men and women are not as vast as those among men or among women, and he proposes that gender differences are the result of gender inequality, not vice versa. Utilizing a social constructionist viewpoint, he further argues that gender difference and gender inequality are not inevitable facets of society; the differences we see result from variables in social position or situation. Kimmel also explores how gender inequality lays the groundwork for presumptions of gender variations, and he considers its effects on our lives. Kimmel, who has an exemplary record in the field of men's studies and gender studies alike, makes a strong case here, conclusively drawing much of his statements from research data without bias or manipulation. What results is a topical treatment well versed in academic research and theoretical analysis. Recommended for larger public and academic gender study collections.--Michael A. Lutes, Univ. of Notre Dame Lib., IN Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\Laura Ciolkowski
By putting his eloquence in the service of an intensely optimistic vision of the future in which men and women will be able to appreciate their differences but will be "unwilling to use those differences as the basis of discrimination," Kimmel makes it possible for even the most cynical among us to envision a radically transformed society.—The Boston Book Review