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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.
List of contents
I: Basic Issues. 1. The Varieties of Gender Theory in Sociology.- 2. A Feminist Epistemology.- 3. Similarity and Difference: The Sociology of Gender Distinctions; II: Macrostructures and Processes.- 4. Comparative Gender Stratification.- 5. Third World Women and Global Restructuring.- 6. Gender and Migration.- 7. The Feminization of Poverty: Past and Fugure.- 8. Gender Movements.- 9. Gender and Organizations.- 10. The Study of Gender in Culture: Feminist Studies/Cultural Studies; III: Microstructures and Processes.- 11. Gender Socialization.- 12. Gender and Social Roles.- 13. Gender and Interaction.- 14. Gender, Violence, and Harassment; IV: Institutions.- 15. Gender and Paid Work in Industrial Nations.- 16. Sex, Race, and Ethnic Inequality in United States Workplaces.- 17. Gender and Unpaid Work.- 18. Gender and Family Relations.- 19. Gender and Education in Global Perspective.- 20. Gender, Hierarchy, and Science.- 21. Gender and Health Status.- 22. Health Care as a Gendered System.- 23. Gender and Politics.- 24. Gender, Crime, and Criminal Justice.- 25. Gender and the Military.- 26. Gender and Sport.- 27. Gender and Religion.- Epilogue.- Index.
Summary
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.
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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)
