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 73
... Social - scientific gender - duality theories : Freud and Lévi - Strauss 229 141 Human nature as a harmony of the sexes and genders 247 7. Gender and Procreation The relevance of procreation to gender and human nature 255 The structure ...
... social and epistemological location , and when it comes to gender and sex relations a heterosexual white male author can perhaps see where the coals are awfully hot but still is not standing on those coals . It is all - important that ...
... social constraint or liberty , competition or cooperation , challenge or support , as long as we speak to the aim . Our actual arrangements , governmental or otherwise , are always marked by an element of coercive regulation . Here we ...
... social and individual interests . Questions about generic human differentiations like gender and race , the human kinds , insistently arise because these are in fact salient features in the landscape of everyday life ; yet the questions ...
... social position . In working out the symbolism , are we to take it as a bare positive fact that women are subordinate to men ? No , the fact is not bare ; one can read in it a meaning put in with the order of humanity's creation ...
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 |