Showing papers on "Gender history published in 2002"

What Women and Men Should Be, Shouldn’t Be, Are Allowed to Be, and Don’t Have to Be: The Contents of Prescriptive Gender Stereotypes

Abstract: This article presents a four-category framework to characterize the contents of prescriptive gender stereotypes. The framework distinguishes between prescriptions and proscriptions that are intensi...

“Doing Gender”—“Doing Drugs”: Conceptualizing the Gendering of Drugs Cultures:

Abstract: Women's illicit drug use has been increasing rapidly in the 1990s in the UK and elsewhere in the developed world. Lifetime prevalence rates show that gender is no longer a significant predictor of, or protector from, illicit drug use. The concentration on lifetime prevalence in the academic debate, however, has been to the detriment of the wider cultural context of drug-related attitudes and behavior in drug-using groups and wider society. This paper considers the socio-cultural context of gender and drug use, and reasserts the central importance of gender to our understanding of drugs cultures. Drug use is not just mediated by gender, but, far more significantly, drug use and the associated leisure, music and style cultures within which drug use is located are themselves ways of accomplishing a gendered identity. Building on Messerschmidt's concept of crime as structured action, the author suggests that gender does not just influence “doing drugs”–drug use itself can be seen as a way of “doing gender.”

Women, Gender and Language in Morocco

Abstract: This volume deals with the complex but poorly understood relationship between women, gender, and language in Morocco, a Muslim, multilingual, multicultural, and developing country. The hypothesis on which the book is based is that an understanding of gender perception and women's agency can be achieved only by taking into account the structure of power in a specific culture and that language is an important component of this power. In Moroccan culture, history, geography, Islam, orality, multilingualism, social organization, economic status, and political system constitute the superstructures of power within which factors such as social differences, contextual differences, and identity differences interact in the daily linguistic performances of gender. Moroccan women are far from constituting a homogeneous group, consequently the choices available to them vary in nature and empowering capacity, thus 'widening' the spectrum of gender beyond cultural limits.

The strengths and limits of ‘doing gender’ for understanding street crime:

Abstract: This paper is an engagement with Messerschmidt’s structured action theory, and more generally with feminist criminologists’ applications of the concept ‘doing gender’ for understanding street crime. Specifically, I investigate the ways in which the attribution of gender difference and the near exclusive emphasis on normative practices has limited our use of the doing gender model in theorizing gender and crime. I discuss several avenues for enhancing this approach, including the imperative to avoid tautology, and suggestions for challenging gender dualism, investigating the import of social hierarchies, and conceptualizing the complexities of agency and social practice.

Reproducing gender? : essays on educational theory and feminist politics

Abstract: 1. Gender Codes and Educational Theory: An Overview 2. Socio-Cultural Reproduction and Women's Education 3. Cultural Reproduction: The Pedagogy of Sexuality 4. Schooling and Reproduction of Class and Gender Relations 5. A Cloud Over Co-education: An Analysis of the Forms of Transmission of Class and Gender Relations 6. Gegemony, Social Class and Women's Education 7. Schools and Families: Gender Contradictions, Diversity and Conflict 8. A Crisis in Patriarchy? State Regulation of Gender and Feminist Educational Politics 9. Sociological Understandings of Contemporary Gender Transformations in Schooling in the UK 1 0. 'Schooling in Capitalist America Revisited': Social Class, Gender and Race Inequalities in the UK 11. Basil Berstein's Sociology of Pedagogy: Female Dialogues and Feminist Elaborations 12. Gender Relations and Schooling in the New Century: Conflicts and Challenges

Gender and the Meaning and Experience of Virginity Loss in the Contemporary United States

Abstract: This article draws on in-depth case studies of 61 women and men of diverse sexual identities to show how gender, while apparently diminishing in significance, continues to shape interpretations and experiences of virginity loss in complex ways Although women and men tended to assign different meanings to virginity, those who shared an interpretation reported similar virginity-loss encounters Each interpretation of virginity—as a gift, stigma, or process—featured unequal roles for virgin and partner, which interacted with gender differences in power to produce interpretation-specific patterns of gender subordination, only one of which consistently gave men power over women

Investigating Gender: Contemporary Perspectives in Education

Abstract: Introduction - Part one: Gender as a category in educational research - Gender theory and research in education: modernist traditions and emerging contemporary themes - Obvious, all too obvious?: methodological issues in using sex/gender as a variable in educational research - Part two: Recent developments in gender theory - Using poststructuralist ideas in gender theory and research - Truth is slippery stuff - Beyond postmodernism: feminist agency in educational research - Re-searching, re-finding: exploring the unconsious as a pedagogic and research practice - Part three: Identity constructions revisited - Gender and the post-school experiences of women and men with learning difficulties - Issues of gender and sexuality in schools - Racialisation and gendering: in the (re)production of educational inequalities - 'Ice white and ordinary': new perspectives on ethnicity, gender and youth cultural identities - The paradox of contemporary femininities in education: combining fluidity with fixity - Typical boys? theorizing masculinity in educational settings - Social class, gender and schooling - Conclusion: Gender: school policies and practices - References - Index.

Men, Movements, and Gender Transformation in South Africa

Abstract: Since the ending of Apartheid in 1994, South Africa has passed a constitution that is amongst the most progressive in the world. It forbids discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, race, class, age, and creed. The new policies and laws have understandably not overthrown patriarchy or removed men from their domination of public life, politics, and earnings. But there have nevertheless been shifts in gender power. In parliament, the number of women members stands at just under 30 percent, while half of all the deputy ministers and a quarter of all ministers are women (Zulu 1998). These can legitimately be seen as victories for and of feminism.

Reforming Men and Women: Gender in the Antebellum City

Abstract: Reforming Men and Women: Gender in the Antebellum City. By Bruce Dorsey. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002. Pp. xi, 299. Cloth, $39.95.) Reforming Men and Women is, first of all, a study of reform movements in Philadelphia from roughly 1790 to 1850. If Bruce Dorsey had limited himself to documenting the origins and development of Philadelphia reform his book would have been worth noting since it is, remarkably enough, the first full-length monograph to address this topic. But Reforming Men and Women is much more than an intellectual or social history of Philadelphia reform. This is a careful, complex, and extremely important book. What Dorsey has attempted here, and essentially accomplished, is nothing less than a history of gender in antebellum urban America through the lens of reform. It is also the most thorough and convincing account of the development of male gender ideology in the early republic yet published. The publication of Reforming Men and Women marks an important advance in the historiography of American gender history. There has been no shortage of well-executed and influential accounts of women's reform in the antebellum era, as well as solid studies on each of the individual reform movements Dorsey discusses here: temperance, abolitionism and colonization, nativism, and poverty reform. But studies of manhood in antebellum America have been in short supply, and have focused almost exclusively on the experiences of individual segments of the male population: working men, middle-class men, firemen, bare-knuckle boxers, members of secret societies. Dorsey's contribution is to trace carefully the impact of changing ideals of manhood and womanhood for African Americans as well as white Americans, to show how the experiences of one group influenced the others, and to reveal how gender shaped the responses to perceived problems in urban America. In some sense it seems obvious that changing ideas of manhood shaped ideas of womanhood, and vice versa; but Dorsey is the first person to detail the mechanics of that change-to show, for example, that it was an "uncertainty about manliness and the new goals of humanitarianism" in late eighteenthcentury America, rather than an ideology of "republican motherhood," that presented the opportunity "for women's activism in a masculine arena of voluntary associations" (21). Dorsey's holistic approach leads him to a number of conclusions as dramatic and exciting as this one. With the exception of the opening chapter, which addresses early ideologies of gender and reform in America, this book proceeds topically rather than chronologically. Each chapter focuses on a problem for Americans rather than on reformers or reform movements themselves. In a chapter on slavery, for example, Dorsey de-centers the work of white abolitionists and focuses instead on the ways in which colonization efforts were shaped by ideas of true manhood both by and for black and white men. A chapter on immigration gives the gender ideologies of Irish men equal time with those of nativists without falling into the trap of classifying Irish ideals of manhood as "working class" and nativist ideals as "middle class." The arguments here are complex, subtle, and ultimately convincing. A short summary cannot do them justice. …

Women, Politics, Media: Uneasy Relations in Comparative Perspective

Abstract: INTRODUCTION. WOMEN AND POLITICS. HERSTORY. Gender and Political Theory. Forms of Political Engagement. Issues of Representation. Affirmative Actions and Challenging Behaviour. PRACTICAL POLITICS AND THE GENDER TURN. En-gendering Style Politics. Women in a Man's Mad World. Gender Impact Assessment. Style and Substance. Women and Difference: En-gendering Change. FRAMED: WOMEN, POLITICS, AND NEWS DISCOURSE. The Changing Face of Political News. The Political Interview and the Cult of Personality. Gender of the Agenda: Framing Women. Does This Make Her Bottom Look Big? The Gendered Discourse of Politics. ACTING UP: WOMEN AND MEDIA NEGOTIATION. Women-on-Women Relations: Sister Journalists? Proactive Strategies with Journalists-Cultivating Strength. WOMEN, POLITICS, AND NEWS IN AN ELECTION CLIMATE. Moving to a Different Drum-Gender and Campaign Themes. Politics as Biology, Gender as Agency. Political Advertising and the Power of Persuasion, Gender Gap Politics. Media, Voters and Impact. Media, Gender and Effect. CONCLUSIONS. Appendixes. References. Author Index. Subject Index.

Job-Family Trade-offs. The Multidimensional Effects of Gender.

Abstract: This study investigates how several dimensions of gender, including an individual's sex, gender ideology, and the gender composition of an occupation, influence the accommodations people make in reconciling employment and family life. Using data from the 1996 General Social Survey, we find that women and men sometimes make different kinds of job-family trade-offs, that people in male-dominated occupations make more family trade-offs and fewer employment trade-offs than people in other occupations, and that individual gender attitudes have little effect on job-family trade-offs. Our findings illustrate how gender, as an embedded social institution, contributes to the clash between employment and family responsibilities.

‘Men-streaming’ gender? Questions for gender and development policy in the twenty-first century

Abstract: Insofar as gender is still so often equated with women alone, the move from Women in Development to Gender in Development has changed very little. Men as a human category have always been present, involved, consulted, obeyed and disobeyed in development work. Yet men as a gendered category in a feminist sense - involving unequal power relations between men and women and between men - have rarely been drawn into development programmes in any substantial way. This paper addresses conceptual and operational obstacles to men’s involvement in gender and development, drawing on interviews with over 40 representatives of development organizations in Britain and the USA in 1999.

Men, women, gender and cancer.

Abstract: This paper argues for a gender relational approach in the context of cancer care bearing in mind that conceptual problems are intertwined with methodological approaches. Hitherto, research in the field of psycho-oncology has used a positivist methodology that separates sex from 'gender'. Men's and women's biological difference dictates their sexual destiny. Moreover, adjustment to cancer is conceptualized as lying within the patient, usually women. A contextual framework of a person's experience is negated. A 'gender relational' approach to cancer care underpins the ways in which people enter into a set of socially constructed relationships produced and reproduced through actions with each other and in institutions but never in a vacuum. It is suggested that, by using differing methodologies, such an approach will illuminate the similarities and differences within and between men and women with cancer. It may also help to demystify the conceptual stance that often pathologizes and medicalizes people, especially women, as has been the case in mainstream research. This will pave the way for a clearer understanding of how patients experience cancer in terms of gender and how medical institutions may be contributing to that experience as they too, gender their practice.

Gender selection in China: Its meanings and implications

Abstract: With the advancement of assisted reproduction technologies, people are offered wider choices to choose the gender of their offspring and to construct 'ideal-typed' families with specific gender structure. Gender selection is welcomed by many societies with gender-specific preference, especially those patriarchal societies such as Chinese communities. It is not only a medical procedure but also a social orientation, which reveals much of the underlying preference towards gender. This paper explores the cultural dimensions to gender selection and its psychosocial meanings and implications in Chinese societies, especially after the establishment of One Child Policy in China. Problems associated with son preference in the culture with strong gender stereotyping are addressed. We believe that gender selection for social reasons should not be allowed since undesirable outcomes will be resulted under such strict population control program.

Studying Men and Masculinity

Abstract: Feminism has challenged existing gender arrangements and intellectual orthodoxies. However, there is a strong tendency to assume that "gender" issues are issues about women. Feminist thought has sometimes reinforced this tendency, because feminist research has focussed on the lives of women. We must also examine men's gender practices, and the ways the gender order defines, positions, empowers and constrains men. Men in gender relations For a generation, the new feminism has challenged existing gender arrangements and intellectual orthodoxies. The challenge has led, inevitably, to questions about men in gender relations. The inevitable has not always been obvious. Indeed, there is a strong tendency in many discussions to assume that "gender" issues are issues about women. Most politicians, bureaucrats and journalists assume that men are the norm, and that "gender" is about the way women differ from this norm. Thus gender issues in the public realm often in practice boil down to questions about the special needs of women. Feminist thought has sometimes reinforced this drift, because feminist research has, by and large, focussed on the lives of women. There have been good reasons for this, given the historic exclusion of women's experience from patriarchal culture. Yet gender is inherently relational. Even if our understanding of gender is no more than "sex differences," there are always two terms in a difference. And a closer look at gender shows much more complex patterns than simple difference. Gender is also about relationships of desire and power, and these must be examined from both sides. In understanding gender inequalities it is essential to research the more privileged group as well as the less privileged. This requires more than simply an examination of men as a statistical category (though it is useful to do that, too). We must examine men's gender practices, and the ways the gender order defines, positions, empowers and constrains men. The gender positions that society constructs for men may not correspond exactly with what men actually are, or desire to be, or what they actually do. It is therefore necessary to study masculinity as well as men. By "masculinity" I mean the pattern or configuration of social practices linked to the position of men in the gender order, and socially distinguished from practices linked to the position of women. (For discussions of this concept, see Clatterbaugh, 1998; Connell, 2000.) Masculinity, understood as a configuration of practices in everyday life, is substantially a social construction. Masculinity refers to male bodies (sometimes symbolically and indirectly), but is not determined by male biology. It is, thus, perfectly logical to talk about "masculine" women, when women behave or present themselves in a way their society regards as distinctive of men (Halberstam, 1998). Conceptions of gender Masculinities are necessarily defined within a conception of gender. Approaches to gender in terms of sex roles, sex categories, and gender relations, yield different views of masculinity, which I will now briefly examine. (For further discussion of these frameworks, see Connell, 2002.) Role theory is an approach to social analysis based on the power of custom and social conformity. People learn their roles, like actors, and then perform them under social pressure. "Sex role" theory explains gender patterns by appealing to the social customs that define proper behaviour for women and for men. Applied to men, sex role theory emphasizes the way expectations about proper masculine behaviour are conveyed to boys as they grow up, by parents, schools, mass media, and peer groups. This theory emphasizes the "role models" provided by sportsmen, military heroes, etc; and the social sanctions (from mild disapproval to violence) that are applied to boys and men who do not live up to the role norms. This is a plausible approach to some issues about masculinity. …

Trying on Gender, Gender Regimes, and the Process of Becoming Women

Abstract: This article uses two concepts—trying on gender and local gender regime—to examine adolescent gendering processes for 26 girls from two northeastern communities. Based on a four-year study, the author found that the process of becoming a woman is much more provisional than previously thought. Adolescent girls resist, experiment, and practice gender in a trying-on process; gender, race, and class structures in the communities mutually reinforce particular kinds of femininities. This article describes the gender regime of each community and examines how the gender regimes differentially shape the process of trying on gender as these girls make the transition to womanhood.

The century of sex? gender, bodies, and sexuality in the long eighteenth century

Abstract: The past two decades have witnessed a burgeoning of the history of the body and sexuality. Seeking to historicize sex differences, historians have widely incorporated the study of the body and sexuality into the history of women and gender. This review considers the place of the body and sexuality in women's and gender history. Recent work posits the long eighteenth century as the century of change in the ways in which bodies were understood, sexuality constructed, and sexual activity carried out. Yet in turn, the incorporation of such new topics also reinvigorates older narratives of economic and political transformation. This historiographical review assesses this recent work, arguing that key facets of the historiography need to be reconsidered. Explanatory models of historical change need to incorporate issues such as life-cycle changes and historical persistence. Approaches to cultural exchange have to develop which can accommodate cultural diversity, and the complexities of cultural transmission. Finally, analyses of the material contexts of the body and sexuality – both corporeal and textual – need to be undertaken.

Under Construction: The Gendering of Modernity, Class, and Consumption in the Republic of Korea

Abstract: Since the late 1960s, the lives of South Koreans have been reconstructed on the shifting ground of urbanization, industrialization, military authoritarianism, democratic reform, and social liberalization. Class and gender identities have been modified in relation to a changing modernity and new definitions of home and family, work and leisure, husband and wife. "Under Construction" provides a portrait of south Koreans in the 1990s - a decade that saw a return to civilian rule, a loosening of censorship and social control, and the emergence of a full-blown consumer culture. It shows how these changes impacted the lives of Korean men and women and the very definition of what it means to be "male" and "female" in Korea. In a series of provocative essays written by Korean and Western scholars, we see how Korean women and men actively engage, and at times openly contest, the limitations of gender. "Under Construction" is part of a turn in the anthropology of gender - from its early quest for the causes of female subordination to a finely tuned analysis of the historical, cultural, and class-based specificities of gender relations and the tension between gender as an ideological construct and as a lived experience. Grounded in the political and economic history of south Korea, this volume fills a gap in Korean studies and East Asia gender studies in English.

Politics of the Possible: Essays on Gender, History, Narratives, Colonial English

Abstract: The essays in this volume speak of Indians British American Latin American narratives with an emphasis on forms ideologies and class relations.

Towards understanding gender and talk-in-interaction:

Abstract: Feminist language researchers typically assume that gender is relevant to any interaction. Conversation analysis offers an interesting challenge for feminists to show how and that the pervasiveness of gender is achieved in talk-in-interaction. The aim of this article is to make a step towards understanding the interactional mechanisms underling the omnirelevance of gender in daily life. The present study draws upon the practices and principles of conversation analysis, particularly the notions of repair and membership categorization devices, to examine recordings of children's interactions. Evidence that supports the claim that the organization of repair may be implicated in the (re)production of gender is presented.

Yes, but is it gender?

Abstract: About the book: Gender and discourse interface in many more epistemological sites than can be represented in one collection. Gender Identity and Discourse Analysis therefore focuses on a principled diversity of key sites within four broad areas: the media, sexuality, education and parenthood. The different chapters together illustrate how taking a discourse perspective facilitates understanding of the complex and subtle ways in which gender is represented, constructed and contested through language. The book engages critically with long-running and on-going debates, but also reflects and develops current understandings of gender, identity and discourse, particularly the shift from 'gender differences' to the discoursal shaping of gender. Gender Identity and Discourse Analysis thus offers not only insights and methodologies of new empirical studies but also careful theorisations, in particular of discourse, text, identity and gender. The collection is a valuable resource for researchers, postgraduates and advanced undergraduates working in the area of gender and discourse.

Gender Reversals and Gender Cultures : Anthropological and Historical Perspectives

Abstract: Gender reversals and gender cultures (an introduction), Sabrina Petra Ramet traversing gender - cultural context and gender practices, Anne Bolin gender, gender roles, gender role reversals, Judith Ochshorn cross dressing and cross purposes - gender possibilities in the acts of Thecla, J.L. Welch martyrs, ascetics and gnostics - gender crossing in early Christianity, Karen Jo Torjensen cross dressing, gender errors and sexual taboos in Renaissance literature, Winfred Schleiner Elena alias Eleno - genders, sexualities, and "race" in the mirror of natural history in 16th-century Spain, Israel Burshatin becoming male - salvation through gender modification in Hinduism and Buddhism, Cynthia Ann Humes gender, power and spectacle in late-imperial Chinese theatre, Sophie Volpp eroticism, sexuality and gender revearsal in Hungarian culture, Laszlo Kurti sacred genders in Siberia - shamans, bear festivals and androgyny, Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer there is more than Just women and men - gender variance in North American Indian cultures, Sabine Lang the procreactive and ritual constitution of female, male, and other - androgynous beings in the cultural imagination of the Bimin-Kuskusmin of Papua New Guinea, Fitz John Porter Poole.

Tracing Differentiation in Gendered Leadership: An Analysis of Differences in Gender Composition in Top Management in Business, Politics and the Civil Service

Abstract: The aim of this article is to discuss the relationship between the gendering of leadership positions and sector-specific structures within politics, business and the civil service in Denmark in the context of differences between the Nordic countries and other western countries. The analysis is based on data from a survey of top male and female leaders within the three sectors. The theoretical point of departure of this article is constructivist. It looks at gender as constituted by actions in social space, orchestrated by structural processes and a symbolic order of gender. This constitutes a cultural discourse on gender reflected in gender conventions in society and in a range of possibilities of gender positioning. Expressions of this are discussed in the analysis of the patterns of difference in structural conditions for women and men in leadership positions to be found within the three sectors. The structural conditions encompass access conditions and conditions for gendered positioning and are analysed on the basis of data on social background, education, career course, family, children and distribution of housework. The analysis shows that there is a correlation between gender composition of leadership and possibilities of gendered positioning within a sector. The results are finally discussed as possible expressions of an egalitarian culture.

The Gender Gap and the Changing Woman Voter in Canada

Abstract: The realignment thesis on gender voting in postindustrial societies argues that traditional voting patterns, where women compared to men were more supportive of center-right parties, are being replaced by a modern gender gap, where women are more likely than men to support parties of the left. Although this transformation is said to be driven by both structural and cultural factors, findings suggest value changes are the more important element. This article explores the realignment thesis in the Canadian context where realignment has been complicated by a multi-party system, brokerage politics, and differences between Quebec and the rest of Canada. Voting patterns from 1965 to 1997 suggest women's realignment from right to left has not been straightforward. However, in the 1990s we find more indication of a modern gender gap in Canada outside Quebec and findings that support the value thesis. In Quebec, gender differences did not conform to the modern gender gap model and overall, variability across elections in the pattern and correlates of gender voting illustrate the contingent character of this phenomenon.

Revisiting Gender Role Stereotyping in the Sales Profession

Abstract: This paper revisits the issue of gender stereotypes in sales professions given new views of what makes for effective sales performance and sales management. Women's continued disadvantaged position in the sales profession is documented, and the role of gender role stereotypes in sustaining this situation in the profession is examined. The paper then turns to the newly emerging, ostensibly "pro-female", view of sales. This emphasises the importance of building and sustaining relationships – qualities that women have traditionally been stereotyped as "good" at. Despite the positive emphasis accorded to women's skills in this new sales landscape, the ethical problems which arise from constructing this debate around the issue of gender are explored. In particular, the extent to which the view of women as "good at relationships" constitutes a stereotype is examined, and the value of this stereotype for redressing women's disadvantaged position from the perspectives of justice and utility is set out. In the final part of the paper we look at potential avenues for future theory and research which may help bring into focus a new view of gender role stereotypes in sales.

Political History as Women's History: Toward a More Inclusive Curriculum.

Abstract: The secondary school history curriculum, with its emphasis on political history, tends to relegate women to the margins or to interpret their accomplishments according to a patriarchal framework. The author argues that by adapting theoretical developments in the field of women's history, women can be seen as political agents in history, thereby bringing about a more inclusive history in the schools that meets women on their own terms. Using the phase model designed by historians of women and educational researchers, the author shows how existing curriculum and educational research favors political history that either excludes women or overemphasizes the importance of the suffrage movement. Then, using the example of women's clubs and associations prior to the Nineteenth Amendment, she demonstrates how women's political activism influenced public education. Viewing women as political beings who were not merely limited to a private sphere, she argues, will advance the agenda of women's history in t...

Something is Missing from Teacher Education: Attention to Two Genders:

Abstract: Assumptions about gender roles continue to limit children's aspirations and achievements. If we are to overcome those limitations, Ms. Sanders argues, gender equity must become a standard part of the curriculum of preservice teacher education. EDUCATORS may have noticed the recent disputes between Christina Hoff Sommers, author of The War Against Boys, and such advocates of gender equity as David Sadker and Carol Gilligan about whether boys or girls are being more shortchanged in the classroom. If it achieves nothing else, the debate should remind us that we need to talk about the educational well-being of both sexes, not either one separately. For example, here is a sampling of what's going on in our schools today that affects both girls and boys: * There were more than nine boys for every girl who took the highest- level Advanced Placement test in computer science last year.1 * Eighty-five percent of eighth- through 11th-grade girls report having been sexually harassed at school; for boys, the figure was 76%.2 * All but one of the fatal school shootings reported in recent years were committed by boys -- in fact, by white boys.3 * The average 11th-grade boy writes at the same level as the average eighth-grade girl, and boys read worse than girls at all grade levels. Moreover, these data have been unchanged for the past 30 years.4 In addition, there are still plenty of gross imbalances among adult men and women: * Women make up 18% of the U.S. Senate and 13% of the U.S. House of Representatives. * According to a recent study by Catalyst, women fill just 11% of the seats on the boards of Fortune 500 companies. Fourteen percent of the companies have no female board members at all.5 * More than 93% of inmates in our prisons and jails are men.6 * The life expectancy of men is 73 years, as opposed to 79 years for women.7 Where do these peculiar imbalances come from? Let me answer with a few more questions. Why is it considered masculine to be violent and aggressive? Why is it considered feminine to be nurturant and intuitive? Why are art, languages, and music considered feminine subjects in school, while math, science, and technology are considered masculine subjects? How many of our assumptions about gender are truly essential? All these imbalances -- dilemmas, problems, tragedies, limitations, injustices -- have a developmental history that starts with notions of femininity and masculinity learned by everyone, beginning with the pink and blue receiving blankets still used in hospitals today. In other words, these assumptions concern gender (what we learn about the proper ways for the sexes to behave) not sex (what we're born with). So, for example, it is correct to speak of gender roles and of single-sex education. Moreover, it is increasingly apparent that our traditional gender roles have not served us all that well. While it is obvious that men and women and boys and girls have gender roles, properly understood, gender equity is a human issue, not a women's issue. Given the reality evident in the facts I've cited above, we might assume that teacher educators would be preparing their preservice education students to teach equitably in their classrooms. Certainly, we would reason, because awareness of gender issues has been on a front burner in society for three decades, gender equity must be a hot topic in the preparation of teachers. But if we made these assumptions, we would be wrong. In response to several decades of societal concern about inequities facing racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups, multicultural education has become a thriving component of teacher education nationwide. Gender equity, however, is in the earliest stages of consideration. Several studies carried out in the 1990s confirm that gender equity is in its infancy in teacher education. …

Gender in modern Britain

Abstract: 1. Theorizing Gender 2. Gender at Work 3. Families and Households 4. Gendered Parenting 5. Schooling - it's a Girl's World 6. Young Men and the Crisis of Masculinity 7. Sexuality, Power and Gender 8. Gendering Politics 9. Britain in International Context