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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... persons endorse any of my 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 ...
... person as a " type , " compromising individual authenticity . Thus it can seem to block fulfillment on both of Democ- racy's fronts . If we regard it in this light , we are bound to want the nullification of gender . The converse point ...
... person if the possibility needs to be ruled out that he is , exceptionally or wrongly ( at some distance from what we take for granted about him or want from him ) , a woman - like per- son . The foremost circumstance in which woman ...
... person's identity . Achilles is not remarking a " feminine trait " in Patroclus ; still less does he worry about " effemi- nacy . " The girl simile is ad hoc . Homer is playing with neglected re- semblances among human beings and ...
... person inwardly is a gender specimen - not like women or men in some action or situation , not female or male simply ... person , " is like a woman , but Proust means precisely to rule out these less disturbing possibilities . Womanhood ...
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 |