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Women, Men, and Society
This popular text looks at gender and gender inequality, how sexism affects men and women, and how other variables compound the problem of gender inequality. Available June 2008: All tables and graphs have been updated and are available for download on the instructor's resource center. Contact your local representative for more information. Customized reader now available! Suggested TOC available www.readingwomenslives.com
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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105 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 27, 2013
The lack of serious trans-inclusivity makes this text woefully incomplete.
May 4, 2020
Výborný prehľad v jednej knižke, avšak v preklade mi vadilo dominantné postavenie rodovo necitlového jazyka (originál je v angličtine, tak neviem posúdiť, či to bolo zámerne alebo nie). Rovnako meneit dôraz na iné skupiny z LGBTIQ+ než sú gayovia a lesby, ako i nebiele obyvateľstvo, čo sa však odôvodňovalo často nedostatkom výskumov. Odporúčam i jednotlivé kapitoly, hoci sa štatisticky sústreďujú na USA do 90.rokov, avšak veľa z argumentačnej logiky platí nanešťastie i dnes.
June 18, 2008
This is a text. Great foundational understanding of the scientific difference between the sexes. I found this book absolutely fastenating! You have to get through basic "common knowledge" to get to the good stuff, but it's there. How do women's and men's brains function differently? What is the physical process for determining whether a fetus develops as male or female? Etc.
November 8, 2014
This was for a sociology class on gender roles in society. The class itself leaned more towards a feminist argument, but it was an interesting and fun topic and I skewed the grading scale by being an overachiever.
June 4, 2022
[I read the Czech edition that is based on the fourth english edition from 1999.]
In its time this was probably a great book and in many aspects it still is, but there are some severe omissions that just has to be talked about.
1. This book is trying very hard to be inclusive, it understands feminism in the broader way, meaning we can't study one form of oppression without considering others. When it comes to taking that theory in practice though... it's clear that white heterosexual are still the normals, everybody else is kind of still a footnote (if they even made it there, but we'll talk about that later). But they are trying and get some cookies for that.
2. This is a personal thing, but I just want to get it out of the way. Sociology can be SO boring. Like they have such interesting theme and they reduce it tu numbers all the time. Part of my frustration of course is that those numbers are 20 years old... I much prefer Anthropological works, but... yeah, I can't hold that much against them. I also saw that in sixth edition one more anthropological chapter was added, so that makes me happy, I'll check that out soon.
3. I can understand that non-binary folks don't get a mention, but there was NO mention of transgender people and that is just mind-boggling, like... How could you not mention them when you write about gender? Especially since they mention all the chromosomal and hormonal dysfunctions (?) that can cause that people are "something in between", which are extremely rare. This all gets toped by citing transgender woman scholar under her dead name (this is understandable if she published the work under it) in the area for male pro-women feminism, like... yes, she specialized a lot of her research on masculinities, but you know you could have added a note, because this was extremely disrespectful. It would be interesting to check in the newer editions, because since the fourth edition came out Raewyn W. Connell published more books and Anthony Giddens dedicates her an unbelievably big space in his Sociology so... I hope that was remedied here.
4. As a bisexual, I was quite irked by the continuos "gays and lesbians", like... I know we are practically invisible and we get like two mentions, so better than trans people, but... common we have issues to.
5. As most of the white writers mentioning racism, when this books talks about race/ethnicity it mostly talks about black people and the others are mere curiosities. On one hand, this book is long as it is, on the other some parts felt pretty redundant and could have been better spend. An example that stayed in my mind is in Chapter 9, when they talk about the historical involvement of women in the army they don't really mention the experiences of any ethnicities even though this would be a great place to give a bit of deserved attention to Native Americans (the wars gave them an opportunity to gain a citizenship which wasn't a small deal...).
6. Also, let's talk about the bit about pornography, because that stuck with me. I was looking forward to that, because I thought the authors will have something interesting to say. But it was a completely unnuanced discussion of: pornography is bad, it's unrealistic, degrading to women, violent and guys get a wrong idea from it. This is true... about most part of the "traditional pornography" BUT the solution authors present is "let's forbid pornography!" I think it's quite obvious that forbidding something never really solved the issue. Since then the area of "porn for women/queer people" slowly grew and I think that's a great way to go. I'm not saying that I don't find most of the male-oriented porn disgusting, I do and it would be great if we started to change the way the porn most young people got to see looks like, but the concept of the porn itself is not evil and looking at it does not have to be shameful.
7. There was also a piece that was on a verge of islamophobia - not that they said something incorrect, but it was seen through a western lenses, without really dedicating part to own voices and nuance. If you only talk about extremist then of course the conclusions will be extreme.
8. Overall, from the nature of this book, it was a bit too shallow for my tastes. I didn't really learn much new, though it pointed me to some areas of interest. But yeah, sometimes I wanted more, sometimes less... I'm not sure if I would really recommend this book to anyone, but I don't know about a good newer book on this theme (they surely exist, but I didn't come across it). I'm way too happy to be done with it for it to be a great read.
In its time this was probably a great book and in many aspects it still is, but there are some severe omissions that just has to be talked about.
1. This book is trying very hard to be inclusive, it understands feminism in the broader way, meaning we can't study one form of oppression without considering others. When it comes to taking that theory in practice though... it's clear that white heterosexual are still the normals, everybody else is kind of still a footnote (if they even made it there, but we'll talk about that later). But they are trying and get some cookies for that.
2. This is a personal thing, but I just want to get it out of the way. Sociology can be SO boring. Like they have such interesting theme and they reduce it tu numbers all the time. Part of my frustration of course is that those numbers are 20 years old... I much prefer Anthropological works, but... yeah, I can't hold that much against them. I also saw that in sixth edition one more anthropological chapter was added, so that makes me happy, I'll check that out soon.
3. I can understand that non-binary folks don't get a mention, but there was NO mention of transgender people and that is just mind-boggling, like... How could you not mention them when you write about gender? Especially since they mention all the chromosomal and hormonal dysfunctions (?) that can cause that people are "something in between", which are extremely rare. This all gets toped by citing transgender woman scholar under her dead name (this is understandable if she published the work under it) in the area for male pro-women feminism, like... yes, she specialized a lot of her research on masculinities, but you know you could have added a note, because this was extremely disrespectful. It would be interesting to check in the newer editions, because since the fourth edition came out Raewyn W. Connell published more books and Anthony Giddens dedicates her an unbelievably big space in his Sociology so... I hope that was remedied here.
4. As a bisexual, I was quite irked by the continuos "gays and lesbians", like... I know we are practically invisible and we get like two mentions, so better than trans people, but... common we have issues to.
5. As most of the white writers mentioning racism, when this books talks about race/ethnicity it mostly talks about black people and the others are mere curiosities. On one hand, this book is long as it is, on the other some parts felt pretty redundant and could have been better spend. An example that stayed in my mind is in Chapter 9, when they talk about the historical involvement of women in the army they don't really mention the experiences of any ethnicities even though this would be a great place to give a bit of deserved attention to Native Americans (the wars gave them an opportunity to gain a citizenship which wasn't a small deal...).
6. Also, let's talk about the bit about pornography, because that stuck with me. I was looking forward to that, because I thought the authors will have something interesting to say. But it was a completely unnuanced discussion of: pornography is bad, it's unrealistic, degrading to women, violent and guys get a wrong idea from it. This is true... about most part of the "traditional pornography" BUT the solution authors present is "let's forbid pornography!" I think it's quite obvious that forbidding something never really solved the issue. Since then the area of "porn for women/queer people" slowly grew and I think that's a great way to go. I'm not saying that I don't find most of the male-oriented porn disgusting, I do and it would be great if we started to change the way the porn most young people got to see looks like, but the concept of the porn itself is not evil and looking at it does not have to be shameful.
7. There was also a piece that was on a verge of islamophobia - not that they said something incorrect, but it was seen through a western lenses, without really dedicating part to own voices and nuance. If you only talk about extremist then of course the conclusions will be extreme.
8. Overall, from the nature of this book, it was a bit too shallow for my tastes. I didn't really learn much new, though it pointed me to some areas of interest. But yeah, sometimes I wanted more, sometimes less... I'm not sure if I would really recommend this book to anyone, but I don't know about a good newer book on this theme (they surely exist, but I didn't come across it). I'm way too happy to be done with it for it to be a great read.
February 27, 2018
Women, Men, and Society (Paperback)
by Claire M. Renzetti
ILL
makes a point of not recognizing the role of Quaker women, by naming a few women as if they had nothing beyond being female
from the WorldCat computer:
Contents:
Studying gender: an overview --
Biology, sex, and gender: the interaction of nature and environment -- good enough for some generalizations.....do yourself a favor and get yourself a real biology book....learn more in fewer pages IMHO
Ancestors and neighbors: social constructions of gender at other times, in other places --
for a supposedly feminist themed book this section could hardly be less feminist- unless you can justify just plain leaving out the feminist research, publications, and theorizing altogether. So they didn't leave that information out altogether; they just wrote about it too little too late and dismissively. Tell me what you really think!! IMHO
Early childhood gender socialization --
When is Freud, which is largely untestable and when tried to be researched is demonstrably untrue, going to stop being presented FIRST in discussions of gender socialization. Since when is history of a topic more important than actual education. my suggestion is to skip the 3 1/2 pages of Freud until you get to the end of the chapter. Then you won't need it but reading it will make you a more well rounded person.
Schools and gender --
The great communicators: language and the media --
Gender and intimate relationships --
Gender, employment, and the economy --
Gender, crime, and justice --
Gender, politics, government, and the military --
Gender and spirituality --
Gender and health.
by Claire M. Renzetti
ILL
makes a point of not recognizing the role of Quaker women, by naming a few women as if they had nothing beyond being female
from the WorldCat computer:
Contents:
Studying gender: an overview --
Biology, sex, and gender: the interaction of nature and environment -- good enough for some generalizations.....do yourself a favor and get yourself a real biology book....learn more in fewer pages IMHO
Ancestors and neighbors: social constructions of gender at other times, in other places --
for a supposedly feminist themed book this section could hardly be less feminist- unless you can justify just plain leaving out the feminist research, publications, and theorizing altogether. So they didn't leave that information out altogether; they just wrote about it too little too late and dismissively. Tell me what you really think!! IMHO
Early childhood gender socialization --
When is Freud, which is largely untestable and when tried to be researched is demonstrably untrue, going to stop being presented FIRST in discussions of gender socialization. Since when is history of a topic more important than actual education. my suggestion is to skip the 3 1/2 pages of Freud until you get to the end of the chapter. Then you won't need it but reading it will make you a more well rounded person.
Schools and gender --
The great communicators: language and the media --
Gender and intimate relationships --
Gender, employment, and the economy --
Gender, crime, and justice --
Gender, politics, government, and the military --
Gender and spirituality --
Gender and health.
December 31, 2020
Přečteno na popud splnění univerzitního předmětu "společenskovědní paradigmata". Pro danou esej jsem si zvolil paradigma sociálního konstruktivismu pohlaví a tudíž se musel zaobírat biologickými a sociálními vlivy na odlišný gender (=sociální chování a smýšlení) podle pohlaví a dalších sociálních znaků. I přesto, že mě tyto sociologické teorie a paradigmata zkoumat nebaví, bylo to méně abstraktní a aspoň o tématu, které je veřejně známe a v dnešní době "žhavé". Kniha se na její vědeckost příjemně četla.
April 3, 2022
je to asi nejvíc informací v jedné knize na téma genderu v různých odvětvích společnosti - a čte se to fakt dobře, jednoduše.
jediné nevýhody: pro dnešní dobu už relativně zastaralé (vyšlo 2005, odkazuje hlavně na výzkumy a studie z 90. let), zaměřuje se na primárně na USA a tamější podmínky, což se na Evropu moc dobře uplatnit nedá a ne moc dobře je v knize pojato téma genderu u sexuálních menšin - ale zase, dáno dobou kdy kniha byla napsaná.
jediné nevýhody: pro dnešní dobu už relativně zastaralé (vyšlo 2005, odkazuje hlavně na výzkumy a studie z 90. let), zaměřuje se na primárně na USA a tamější podmínky, což se na Evropu moc dobře uplatnit nedá a ne moc dobře je v knize pojato téma genderu u sexuálních menšin - ale zase, dáno dobou kdy kniha byla napsaná.
July 3, 2016
Poskytuje zakladni, ale komplexni vhled do problematiky. Neni to samozrejme zadna zabavna literatura, spis ucebnice plna cisel a suchych faktu. Cteni proto neni vzdycky zazivne, zalezi na tom, jak moc vas dane podtema zajima. Toto ovsem nema byt zabavna literatura a podobne rozsahle shrnuti problematiky povazuji za skoro az uctyhodne.
March 25, 2009
a bit dry and outdated but interesting nonetheless. I definitely gained a broader perspective on sex and gender and their roles in society.
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October 4, 2013305.3 R424 2012
July 3, 2016
Outdated textbook. It was required reading for my Sociology of Gender course. The funny thing was that I ended up teaching my peers more than the textbook did about gender.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews