Front cover image for Gender thinking

Gender thinking

A 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? - it considers how gender thinking is interwoven with ideas about human nature.
Print Book, English, 1992
Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1992
xv, 381 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780877229636, 9780877229643, 0877229635, 0877229643
25205370
Preface A Prologue on Democracy 1. The Two Sides of Gender Thinking Positive Gender Thinking * Critical Gender Thinking * Implications for Our Study 2. On Conceiving the Human The "Human" * "Nature" * Following Nature * Gender as an Anthropological Theme 3. Gender and Humanity The Problem: How to Behave * How Gender Qualifies Gender * Gender and Central Human Projects * Gender and Other Human Kinds Compared * Human Nature as an Endowment of Diversities 4. The Sex "Basis" of Gender The Problem of Junction Between Intentional and Descriptive Concepts * The Structure of Embodiment * Qualifications of Intention by Sex * Gender and Biological Facts * Human Nature as Animal Nature: Human Biology and Anthropology * Human Nature as animal nature: The Beast Within * The Case of Sexual Jealousy * Human Nature as Sexual Consistency: The Racial Parallel 5. Gender, Valuation, and Selfhood The Attractions of Gender and "Finer Feelings": Kant * The Structure of Valuing * A Puzzle: How can a Valuer Value a Different Way of Valuing? * The Gendering of Ethics: Gilligan * Pornography and Other Pathologies of Gender Valuation * Androgyny and Perplexity * Gender Character and "True Self" * Gendered Selfhood and the Asymmetry Problem in High Noon * Human Nature as a Set of Gendered Metiers 6. Gender and Duality The Problem: How to Think * Structures of Duality * Metaphysical Gender-Duality Theories: Hegel and Levinas * Theological Gender-Duality Theories: The Shakers and Paul * Social-Scientific Gender-Duality Theories: Freud and Levi-Strauss * Human Nature as a Harmony of the Sexes and Genders 7. Gender and Procreation The Relevance of Procreation to Gender and Human Nature * The Structure of Procreative Activity * Generationality, Potentiation, and Determination * Gender and Issues of Procreative Choice Conclusion: Realizing Sex Realized Imaginatively * Realized Intellectually * Realized Spiritually * Realized Practically Notes Index