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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... moral dissatisfaction with the workings of the actual gender system , it nevertheless subjects itself and us to an experience of feminine qualities . Critical gender thinking means to withdraw from this sort of subjection . It moves in ...
... morally and politically symmetri- cal . But femininity and masculinity are not so easily combined ; central to the notion of masculinity is its rejection of everything that is defined by a culture as feminine and its legitimated control ...
... moral force to empirical anthro- pology , for natural facts about ourselves can always be otherwise and thus cannot absolutely bind judgment , as the concept of morality re- quires ; but he wants to include among his formulations of the ...
... moral norm , it no longer provides any reliable clues to right action . Mill can paint nature the way Burke painted the Revolution , red in tooth and claw . " The physical govern- ment of the world being full of the things which when ...
... morality ) ; one doesn't de- cide to have genders in the first place . Genders are not experienced as " roles " in a theatrical or managerial sense , although these dimen- sions are present and may be given priority from a relatively ...
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 |