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
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... fact ordinary talk of " feminine " and " masculine " is not necessarily or even most often about any of these things but instead has to do typically with intentional qualities and , indeed , ideals . The intentional realities of gender ...
... fact , fundamentally like the others and at the same time fatefully unique in her or his particularity . So far from being crippled by the contradictions among these ele- ments , Democracy , like a strong metaphor , gets its vitality ...
... fact salient features in the landscape of everyday life ; yet the questions are shaped to fit the familiar equation . Race , for example , appears on our horizon as an issue for the two main given reasons that ( 1 ) racial stereo- types ...
... fact as a transcendental structure , a hinge on which life turns at any given moment rather than an alterable arrangement in life . Gender critics dwell on the variability in gender systems as a proof that no particular form of gender ...
... fact , that we enter sympatheti- cally into the two human conditions of wishfulness , that of the girl and that of Patroclus . Patroclus is , after all , Achilles ' dear friend , as the tenderness of the simile makes us feel . It is ...
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 |