The Subordinated Sex: A History of Attitudes Toward Women

by Vern L. Bullough, Brenda Shelton, Sarah Slavin

The Subordinated Sex traces the enduring, powerful legacy of male attitudes toward women, their sexuality, and their roles as wives and mothers. Traditionally the creators and chroniclers of opinion, men have until recently written a history that reflects only their own convictions and impressions--a history rarely punctuated by a female voice and founded on an almost universal belief in women's inferiority. Acclaimed as a pioneering study when first published in 1973, Vern Bullough's work has since established itself as a standard in historical literature on women. Updated and revised with Sarah Slavin and Brenda Shelton, The Subordinated Sex is a vast survey ranging from prehistoric to contemporary times, examining a diversity of cultures, and taking into account writings from a great variety of sources. From a consideration of Babylonian legal codes to Victorian prescriptive medical pamphlets, medieval clerical treatises to Islamic erotic poetry, Bullough and his coauthors recount not only how men have portrayed women but also how they have justified their subordination of the opposite sex. In recent years, women have successfully challenged males' self-designated role as gatekeepers of written records and have found within the past a more complete view of how women lived, what they thought, and what they achieved. By focusing, however, not on women's history but on the history of men's attitudes toward their female companions, The Subordinated Sex reveals, more than any other single work, the conditions that sparked the feminist movement and the reasons it must inspire a change in the lives of men as well as women.

Genres: History, Feminism, Philosophy, Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Vern Leroy Bullough (July 24, 1928 – June 21, 2006) was an American historian and sexologist.

He was a distinguished professor emeritus at the State University of New York (SUNY), Faculty President at California State University, Northridge, a past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, past Dean of natural and social sciences at the Buffalo State College in Buffalo, New York, one of the founders of the American Association for the History of Nursing, and a member of the editorial board of Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia.

Until her death in 1996 he was married to Bonnie Bullough

Reviews

[Susan Bin · Rating 3 out of 5]

bullough is so thirsty

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this in one of my college courses. Absolutely loved it.

[Idwer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. Very intelligible, even for the general reader, though it deals with so much history. I very much enjoyed the quotes that were interspersed throughout this work.

[Emily Wright]

This book was really interesting and Vern Bullough has done a really good job in writing this book. The way it is written means that you don't want to put it down. As the first Non fiction book I've been able to really get into, I was incredibly impressed.