"Conceptually sophisticated yet clear and accessible, this book is a must-have text for students exploring feminist and gendered approaches to the urgent issues of our time."
Ruth Holliday, University of Leeds
"Lennon and Alsop have put paid to the idea that gender theory is remote from the social and political concerns of global feminisms. With measured analyses but no fence-sitting, the authors are reliable guides to the gender-race-trans-queer controversies that animate our everyday lives."
Stella Sandford, Kingston University
"This is a rare book of theory that speaks as effectively to a new student of gender as to the well-read feminist scholar. By weaving their critique of essentialism throughout their eloquent and fair-minded summaries of major thinkers, Lennon & Alsop have created a masterpiece rich in concrete, contemporary examples. This is intersectional theorizing at its interdisciplinary best."
Myra Marx Feree, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Preface
Introduction
Chapter One. The Data of Biology
Chapter Two. Gendered Psyches: Psychoanalysis and Sexual Difference
Chapter Three. Historical Materialism
Chapter Four. Simone de Beauvoir: Becoming Woman
Chapter Five. Intersectionality
Chapter Six. Judith Butler: Performativity, Precariousness and Queering
Chapter Seven. Making Sense of our (Gendered) Selves
Conclusion. The 'Truth about Gender'
Questions for Further Reflection
Notes
Bibliography
Kathleen Lennon is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hull
Rachel Alsop is Lecturer in Gender Studies at the University of York