Gender and Everyday Life

ISBN-13: 9780415423489 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008 / 162 str.

Mary Holmes

Opis

Women and men are more alike than we might think. In this accessible and enthusiastic introduction Mary Holmes explains how sociological approaches to gender can help us understand how and why everyday life is often so different for women and men, despite their similarities.

Why are we so insistent that women and men are different? This introduction to gender provides a fascinating and genuinely readable exploration of how society divides people into feminine women and masculine men. It explores gender as a way of seeing women and men as not just biological organisms, but as people shaped by their everyday social world. Examining how gender has been understood and lived in the past; how it is understood and done differently by different cultures and groups within cultures; Mary Holmes considers the strengths and limitations of different ways of thinking and learning to ‘do’ gender.

Key sociological and feminist ideas about gender are covered from Christine Pisan to Mary Wollstonecraft; from symbolic interactionism to second wave feminism through to the work of Judith Butler. The book illustrates gender with a range of familiar and contemporary examples: everything from nineteenth century fashions in China and Britain, to discussions of what Barbie can tell us about gender in America, to the lives of working women in Japan. This book will be of great use and interest to students to gender studies, sociology and feminist theory.

Recenzje

'Holmes provides an excellent overview of understanding of gender through a sociological lens and encourages readers to recognize the importance of reflecting and critically thinking about the impact gender has on their lives - recommended.' – Choice, August 2009

Spis treści

Introduction: Gender and Everyday Life  1.  Sexed Bodies?  2.  Learning and Doing Gender in Everyday Life  3. Gendered Relationships in Everyday Life  4. Resisting Gender in Everyday Life  5. The Future of Gender  Conclusion: Gender, Everyday Life and Degendering

O autorze

Mary Holmes is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Flinders University, Australia.  Currently she is co-writing a book called Adventures in Heterosexuality (with Chris Beasley and Heather Brook) and is the author of What is Gender?  She is coeditor of Critical Concepts: The Sociology of the Body (also published by Routledge).