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The Difference: Growing Up Female in America
Explores the cultural link between dominance and gender and its effect on the raising of girls and boys alike, with information from schools, music, texts, and other sources
- GenresNonfictionHistory
317 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 11, 2014
This book is way dated, but it does have some good information in it. I imagine it might be enlightening if I was not a women's studies major who has heard most of this stuff in one of my various classes.
Strangely, I still managed to get riled up by the information in the book while not really enjoying rehashing the facts. A not entirely pleasant experience.
Strangely, I still managed to get riled up by the information in the book while not really enjoying rehashing the facts. A not entirely pleasant experience.
December 28, 2012
Taken from a more personal angle than my last gender inequality title (Woman: an intimate geography by Natalie Angier) Judy Mann connects how differently boys and girls are treated by the world to her own and her daughter’s experiences. Published in 1994, this book is a bit dated but the basic concepts and problems have unfortunately not improved in the last, almost twenty, years. Part 4 was quite enlightening, focusing on “men manipulating religion to achieve gender supremacy.”
Quotable:
Men and women do indeed think and operate differently, and that we reach moral and ethical decisions within two entirely different frameworks about what we believe to be important and what we believe to be right and wrong.
Every time we excuse some dreadful act on the part of boys and men on the grounds that “boys will be boys,” we are in effect letting them cop a genetic plea.
If you are confident that you can use and learn math, you will be inclined to take on a math task and persist at it until you have mastered it, If you think you can do something, you’ll do it. The more competent you feel, the more willing you are to tackle difficult tasks; the more you do this, the more able you become.
In an adolescence that is male-centered, in which learning to get a man is the chief function of a girl and learning to be a macho parody of a man is the chief job of a boy, a girl will learn that she must conform to a set of patriarchal assumptions about women in order to get a man. These patriarchal assumptions are rooted in notions that men are superior, that they know everything, that they are entitled to what they want. To survive that kind of unhealthy climate, an adolescent girl must go through a process of assimilating those notions and setting aside her other beliefs that don’t conform to this worldview, particularly beliefs she might have harbored about the superiority of women.
In the United States the Protestant and Catholic churches formed an unlikely alliance near the end of the nineteenth century to make birth control illegal. It was a transparent backlash to the first wave of the women’s liberation movement that crested in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. A hundred years later, the Catholic Church, still preaching against birth control, formed another unlikely alliance – this time with the fundamentalist evangelicals – to try to outlaw abortion. By forbidding the use of birth control and outlawing abortion, the Catholic Church strove to give men an unlimited ability to control women through childbearing.
Before the Romans sacked Jerusalem in A. D. 70, they allowed a group of rabbis to remove sacred books that they took with them into the Hebrew diaspora. They censored references to women as deities, priests, and powerful secular figures. These censored texts became the Old Testament.
From the beginning, orthodox Christianity was marked by a lack of tolerance for other religions and other Christian and Jewish sects. Unlike paganism, it insisted on strict adherence to dogma and doctrine. While Jesus did not establish a hierarchy of priests within his community, his circle of apostles [Peter] created a prototype of a hierarchy of men who had special knowledge of his teaching.
Religions around the world and across all time have served the need of human beings to explore the spiritual side of themselves and to find a source of spiritual tranquility. This is a powerful yearning, whether it is expressed in the worship of Gaia by an ancient or of God by a modern. At critical and profoundly moving moments in the life cycle – the birth of a baby, the death of a parent – even the most cynical antireligionists are moved to talk of miracles or to wonder if, just possible, there is a life hereafter. Religion touches all of us in varying degrees in our lives. It can comfort us. It can also cripple us.
I understand that we will never create a society in which boys and girls are equal until we challenge the image of god as male, for it is within this image that Christianity legitimizes patriarchy.
“As long as [boys and girls] are segregated, all kinds of sex roles are being reinforced. Boys and girls both need a whole range of experiences to develop leadership, caring, competence, assertiveness…” Jacquelynne Eccles
Girls tolerate violence because they want to hold onto their boyfriends. A boyfriend is their source of self-esteem.
The fight about whether we should allow prayer in the public schools is a phony fight. The real fight should be to have schools teach young people what religions do in various cultures.
Quotable:
Men and women do indeed think and operate differently, and that we reach moral and ethical decisions within two entirely different frameworks about what we believe to be important and what we believe to be right and wrong.
Every time we excuse some dreadful act on the part of boys and men on the grounds that “boys will be boys,” we are in effect letting them cop a genetic plea.
If you are confident that you can use and learn math, you will be inclined to take on a math task and persist at it until you have mastered it, If you think you can do something, you’ll do it. The more competent you feel, the more willing you are to tackle difficult tasks; the more you do this, the more able you become.
In an adolescence that is male-centered, in which learning to get a man is the chief function of a girl and learning to be a macho parody of a man is the chief job of a boy, a girl will learn that she must conform to a set of patriarchal assumptions about women in order to get a man. These patriarchal assumptions are rooted in notions that men are superior, that they know everything, that they are entitled to what they want. To survive that kind of unhealthy climate, an adolescent girl must go through a process of assimilating those notions and setting aside her other beliefs that don’t conform to this worldview, particularly beliefs she might have harbored about the superiority of women.
In the United States the Protestant and Catholic churches formed an unlikely alliance near the end of the nineteenth century to make birth control illegal. It was a transparent backlash to the first wave of the women’s liberation movement that crested in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. A hundred years later, the Catholic Church, still preaching against birth control, formed another unlikely alliance – this time with the fundamentalist evangelicals – to try to outlaw abortion. By forbidding the use of birth control and outlawing abortion, the Catholic Church strove to give men an unlimited ability to control women through childbearing.
Before the Romans sacked Jerusalem in A. D. 70, they allowed a group of rabbis to remove sacred books that they took with them into the Hebrew diaspora. They censored references to women as deities, priests, and powerful secular figures. These censored texts became the Old Testament.
From the beginning, orthodox Christianity was marked by a lack of tolerance for other religions and other Christian and Jewish sects. Unlike paganism, it insisted on strict adherence to dogma and doctrine. While Jesus did not establish a hierarchy of priests within his community, his circle of apostles [Peter] created a prototype of a hierarchy of men who had special knowledge of his teaching.
Religions around the world and across all time have served the need of human beings to explore the spiritual side of themselves and to find a source of spiritual tranquility. This is a powerful yearning, whether it is expressed in the worship of Gaia by an ancient or of God by a modern. At critical and profoundly moving moments in the life cycle – the birth of a baby, the death of a parent – even the most cynical antireligionists are moved to talk of miracles or to wonder if, just possible, there is a life hereafter. Religion touches all of us in varying degrees in our lives. It can comfort us. It can also cripple us.
I understand that we will never create a society in which boys and girls are equal until we challenge the image of god as male, for it is within this image that Christianity legitimizes patriarchy.
“As long as [boys and girls] are segregated, all kinds of sex roles are being reinforced. Boys and girls both need a whole range of experiences to develop leadership, caring, competence, assertiveness…” Jacquelynne Eccles
Girls tolerate violence because they want to hold onto their boyfriends. A boyfriend is their source of self-esteem.
The fight about whether we should allow prayer in the public schools is a phony fight. The real fight should be to have schools teach young people what religions do in various cultures.
August 31, 2010
The library where i bought this book from placed it in the shelf, 'Feminism and Gender Issues'...and, so i picked it up with a great interest after reading its title. But, this book is okay!
It tells us nothing different than Betty Friedan or Erica Jong's books havent told us already!
I find it an okay read. This is more like a survey report book.
It tells us nothing different than Betty Friedan or Erica Jong's books havent told us already!
I find it an okay read. This is more like a survey report book.
November 26, 2013
didnt read the whole thing just certain chapters. but really loved the part about how religion changed the role for women!
October 16, 2009
Nothing earth-shattering but some good solid points.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews