Gender ThinkingTemple University Press, 2010 M04 30 - 384 pages How can we accept the gender system in view of its ills? Yet, are we really at liberty to abolish gender differences, "when the gender system gives us benchmarks of personal identity and worth along with primary channels in which to pursue the rewards of love?" With this double question, Steven G. Smith introduces his inquiry into the idea of gender and how it is implicated in love, respect, equality, and personal character. Gender Thinking is the first comprehensive philosophical exploration of the concept of gender Asking the question, what is gender?—that is, what sort of thing do we take femininity and masculinity to be?—Smith considers how gender thinking is interwoven with ideas about human nature. He suggests ways in which ideas about race, class, culture age, temperament, and sexual orientation can be understood from clues found in gender thinking. And he calls for a renegotiated procreative partnership between women and men as the key to the redemption of gender. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 40
... arguments . I am grateful for additional help with the project to Walter Lowe , Andrew Tallon , and Edith Wyschogrod , and to Millsaps College for summer research grants and special leave arrangements in 1990-91 . And I would like to ...
... arguments try to rationalize women's subordination . There is a play on head that suggests that the open dis- play of ... argument , and how to talk about everyday experience . For the propriety of longer hair and modesty for women , and ...
... argument succeeds in proportion to her audience's unwilling- ness to say right out that women are less than human . Her trump card is the principle that any human being must be maimed by the lack of any genuinely important human ...
... arguments . Much can be seen in ourselves , without every- thing being seen ; much can be said about us , despite the absence of a clinching judgment ; and our living cannot but realize our form , even if we are continually changing it ...
... arguments that human engineering is the ultimate principle of order in this uni- verse ; if we learn to manage our atmosphere and ecosphere differently than by relying on forests , that will only prove that all merely found orders are ...
Contents
1 | |
5 | |
23 | |
41 | |
4 The Sex Basis of Gender | 85 |
5 Gender Valuation and Selfhood | 139 |
6 Gender and Duality | 205 |
7 Gender and Procreation | 254 |
Realizing Sex | 303 |
Notes | 321 |
Index | 375 |