Introduction to Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies

by Miliann Kang, Donovan Lessard, Laura Heston

This textbook introduces key feminist concepts and analytical frameworks used in the interdisciplinary Women, Gender, Sexualities field. It unpacks the social construction of knowledge and categories of difference, processes and structures of power and inequality, with a focus on gendered labor in the global economy, and the historical development of feminist social movements. The book emphasizes feminist sociological approaches to analyzing structures of power, drawing heavily from empirical feminist research.

Genres: Textbooks, Nonfiction, Read For School

ebook

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

The sources were very clearly cherrypicked to fit a narrative. It's a textbook, not a manifesto. At least pretend to touch on ideas that conflict with yours but also have some evidence to them. There was like one part of a chapter that mentioned biological principles and "challenging" was literally in the title. Give me the biggest break.

Still got a 100 in this class. F it we ball.

[Amanda Brockman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great, short, introductory free (OER) text that I used in my undergraduate sociology of gender class. Needs supplementation, but gives a good overview of the basics.

[Megi · Rating 5 out of 5]

მშვენიერი, პოპულარული ენით დაწერილი შესავალი მათთვის, ვინც ნულიდან ან თითქმის ნულიდან იწყებს ამ თეორიების გაცნობას.

[Aziz Abro · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is very biased.

[Gale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved all the new things I learned from this textbook. Great book for this class.

[Hazel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reductive, read this in a gender studies class and there is no insight here, no new information that couldn’t be found with a few minutes search on google

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing for UMass. It defines a lot of terms quickly and, sure, it has opened my brain to new ideas. The amount of whitespace and comical size of the stock images renders the entire 115-page pdf as having roughly 30 pages total of actual, concrete content.

The text badly needs review from outsiders. Here is one utterly insane passage from Unit III:

"Medicine relies on the medical model, which contains a number of assumptions. First, it assumes that the body is governed by laws and processes independent of culture, social life and institutions."

Mind-bendingly, it appears the authors genuinely think that biological mechanisms - i.e. cells? blood? digestion? the immune system? - are not governed by biology. I could see some argument about diet or sedentary jobs as cultural elements which influence medical concerns (I'm acting in really, really good faith here), but to openly write the above quote without added nuance completely loses my faith in the book.

This lack of seriousness made me disregard the book.

[Amelia Arends · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this for a class, just isn’t my go to genre.