Handbook of the Sociology of Gender

Product Description

During the past three decades, feminist scholars have successfully demonstrated the ubiq uity and omnirelevance of gender as a sociocultural construction in virtually all human collectivities, past and present. Intrapsychic, interactional, and collective social processes are gendered, as are micro, meso, and macro social structures. Gender shapes, and is shaped, in all arenas of social life, from the most mundane practices of everyday life to those of the most powerful corporate actors. Contemporary understandings of gender emanate from a large community of primarily feminist scholars that spans the gamut of learned disciplines and also includes non-academic activist thinkers. However, while in corporating some cross-disciplinary material, this volume focuses specifically on socio logical theories and research concerning gender, which are discussed across the full array of social processes, structures, and institutions. As editor, I have explicitly tried to shape the contributions to this volume along several lines that reflect my long-standing views about sociology in general, and gender sociology in particular. First, I asked authors to include cross-national and historical material as much as possible. This request reflects my belief that understanding and evaluating the here-and-now and working realistically for a better future can only be accomplished from a comparative perspective. Too often, American sociology has been both tempero- and ethnocentric. Second, I have asked authors to be sensitive to within-gender differences along class, racial/ethnic, sexual preference, and age cohort lines.

Review

From the reviews:
“... I find the volume as a whole to offer a broad range of diverse sources and perspectives that are conveniently brought together in a single compendium. For a handbook that necessarily presumes a certain level of disciplinary knowledge, and hence some degree of jargon, it is relatively accessible and clearly written ... This book is a substantial resource ...” (American Journal of Sociology)

From the Back Cover

During the past three decades, feminist scholars in almost all social and behavioral sciences, as well as the humanities, have successfully demonstrated the ubiquity and omnirelevance of gender as a socio-cultural construction in virtually all human collectives, past and present. Gender shapes and is shaped in all arenas of social life, from the most mundane practices of everyday life to those of the most powerful corporate actors.
In this seminal work, the contributors focus on sociological theories and research concerning gender, which are discussed across the full array of social processes, structures and institutions. In each chapter, focus is placed on gender rather than on women alone, and copious cross-national and historical material is utilized in addition to an in-depth focus on contemporary North America.
Sections include:
I: Basic Issues
II: Macrostructures and Processes
III: Microstructures and Processes
IV: Institutions
Each of these viewpoints survey the field in a critical manner, evaluating theoretical models in light of the best available empirical evidence. Distinctively sociological approaches are highlighted by means of explicit comparison to perspectives characterizing related disciplines such as psychology, psychiatry, and anthropology. This volume seeks to record where the field has been, to identify its current location and to plot its course for the future.