In this innovative book, a well-known feminist and sociologist-who is also the founding editor of Gender & Society-challenges our most basic assumptions about gender. Judith Lorber argues that gender is wholly a product of socialization, subject to human agency, organization, and interpretation, and that it is a social institution comparable to the economy, the family, and religion in its significance and consequences. Calling into question the inevitability and necessity of gender, she envisions a society structured for equality, where no gender, racial ethnic, or social class group is allowed to monopolize positions of power.

Paradoxes of gender

Publisher Summary
Gender is the information that has not been recovered by archaeologists who lack a theoretical and methodological framework to do so, statements on gender have not been absent in archaeological interpretation. The methodological barriers have not kept many archaeologists from inclusion of assumptions about roles and relationships. The organization of gender behavior relates to and is a part of most other aspects of past cultural systems in which archaeologists have always been interested. Archaeologists have to understand gender dynamics at some level to continue to pursue some research objectives set out for: site functions and uses; subsistence systems that are based on task differentiation; inter- and intra-site spatial phenomena; the power and role of material culture; mechanisms of cultural solidarity and integration; extra-domestic trade and exchange system; and the course of culture change. This chapter stimulates critical awareness of the role of archaeologists in employing and perpetuating gender stereotypes and androcentric perspectives. It is also hoped that archaeologists can realize how the roots of the barriers to elucidating past gender arrangements and ideology lie in two related domains.

1 – Archaeology and the Study of Gender

https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/downloads/sb3978970

Reconstructing Israel: Restoration Eschatology in Early Judaism and Paul's Gentile Mission

Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture

In the social sciences, there is currently no consensus on the mechanism by which cultural elements come and go in human society. For elements that are value-neutral, an appropriate null model may be one of random copying between individuals in the population. We show that the frequency distributions of baby names used in the United States in each decade of the twentieth century, for both males and females, obey a power law that is maintained over 100 years even though the population is growing, names are being introduced and lost every decade and large changes in the frequencies of specific names are common. We show that these distributions are satisfactorily explained by a simple process in which individuals randomly copy names from each other, a process that is analogous to the infinite-allele model of population genetics with random genetic drift. By its simplicity, this model provides a powerful null hypothesis for cultural change. It further explains why a few elements inevitably become highly popular, even if they have no intrinsic superiority over alternatives. Random copying could potentially explain power law distributions in other cultural realms, including the links on the World Wide Web.

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Drift as a mechanism for cultural change: an example from baby names

Preface Notes on Translations, Transcriptions, and Documentation 1. Eve and Israelite Women: Understanding the Task 2. Resources for the Task 3. Setting the Scene: The Ancient Environment 4. Eve in Eden: Genesis 2-3 5. Eve out of Eden: Genesis 3:16 6. Eve's World: The Household 7. Women and Household Maintenance, Part I: Economic, Reproductive, and Socio-Political Activities 8. Women and Household Maintenance, Part II: Religious Activities 9. Excursus: Professional Women 10. Gender and Society: Reconstructing Relationships, Rethinking Systems Epilogue: Beyond the Hebrew Bible Notes

Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context

The modern visitor to ancient Sepphoris sees a large irregular hill rising from the lowlands of Galilee. On its southern and eastern sides a forest of spindly pine trees stretches along the slopes. On the northwestern edge a cluster of buildings, including an orphanage run by Italian nuns and the towering unroofed walls of a never-completed Crusader church, huddles against the scarp. The steep northern slope has discouraged both natural and man-made cover, but the massive remains of an ancient building can be seen where the embankment has eroded away. Only the top of the hill remains barren, with the exception of the ever-present ground cover of thorns and thistles and a towering square citadel. The citadel, which dates in its present form to the end of the nineteenth century, rests on foundations laid during the Byzantine period and possibly renovated in the Crusader period around 1200 C.E. (Strange and Longstaff 1984: 51). It incorporates large ashlar blocks, including several sarcophagi from the Roman period, in its lower courses. The fortress is both a landmark and a lookout point. The roof of this three-story building (10.50 meters high, or more than 30 feet above ground level) offers a commanding view of the great Sepphoris plain known as Sahl el-Battuaf. From nearby Nazareth (four miles to the east) the Sepphoris hill, which rises 115 meters from the surrounding plain, is unmistakable with its citaby

Sepphoris: "Ornament of All Galilee"

Available here for the first time in paperback, Women in Scripture is a landmark one-volume reference work exploring all the women mentioned in the Bible, named and unnamed, well known and heretofore not known at all. The book comprises more than 800 articles, written by the finest scholars in the field, that examine the numerous women who have often been obscured by the androcentric nature of the biblical record and by centuries of translation and interpretation that have paid little or no attention to them. The women of scripture are remarkably varied-from prophets to prostitutes, military heroines to musicians, deacons to dancers, widows to wet nurses, rulers to slaves. Here are familiar faces, such as Eve, Judith, and Mary, seen anew with the full benefit of the most up-to-date biblical scholarship. But the most innovative aspect of the book is the section devoted to the many women who in the scriptures do not even have names. In both scope and accessibility, Women in Scripture is an exceptional work. Combining rigorous scholarship with engaging prose, these articles on women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books, and the New Testament will inform, delight, and challenge all readers interested in the Bible.

Women in scripture : a dictionary of named and unnamed women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books, and the New Testament

Four respected scholars of the Hebrew Bible and early Judaism provide a clear portrait of the family in ancient Israel. Important theological and ethical implications are made for the family today. The Family, Culture, and Religion series offers informed and responsible analyses of the state of the American family from a religious perspective and provides practical assistance for the family's revitalization.

Families in Ancient Israel

During the 1987 excavation season at this site in Galilee, a startling discovery was made: a beautifully preserved mosaic floor dating to around the third century C.E. The excavators introduce us t...

Carol Meyers

Papers

Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context

Sepphoris: "Ornament of All Galilee"

Women in scripture : a dictionary of named and unnamed women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books, and the New Testament

Families in Ancient Israel

Artistry in stone : the mosaics of ancient Sepphoris