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The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality

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I focused on gender and sexuality in college and I have to say that of all the books I own on this subject, this is the book I'm most likely to lend someone. "The Lenses of Gender" is an excellent work for academics and newcomers to the field alike. It is alos a good read for those of us who are deeply mired in gender studies already. Sandra Lipsitz Bem does a great job of stepping back to provide a nice overview, leaving us some useful concepts and tools along the way. I must also thank her for not writing bisexuality out of the picture...one of the many topics still controversial among otherwise open-minded people, the author manages to be inclusive and positive. She doesn't resort to the kind of blustery didactic arguments that mar the writing of so many cultural critics. This is something that I can't praise highly enough. Perhaps that's the most groundbreaking aspect of this book. Take a look at it. "The Lenses of Gender" is good for a wide audience and offers a lot to think about.

This is a great book that details the dynamics that may propagate gender inequality. The three main "lenses" include gender polarization, androcentrism, and biological essentialism. Don't be scared off, it is well written and concisely links the concepts to provide a good look at how gender is constructed.

Sandra Lipsitz Bem
The Lens of Gender:
Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality

(New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1993) 244 pages

A feminist psychologist shows how different sex-roles
emerge from three basic beliefs:
(1) BIOLOGICAL ESSENTIALISM
--that men are naturally better than women in almost every way;
and therefore men naturally must be in charge of everything.
(2) ANDROCENTRISM--that men are the center and criterion of everything,
women being defined as secondary and supportive creatures.
(3) GENDER POLARIZATION--that the sexes are fundamentally opposite,
which puts them at odds with each other.
As these beliefs disappear,
androgyny--the best of both genders--can emerge.
This book seeks to improve the status of women thru
social and cultural change rather than inward, psychological change.
Since the culture causes the inequality, Bem believes,
cultural changes will bring the solutions.

See other books here on the Internet:
"SEX ROLE---Bibliography of books".

If you are interested in how we become 'masculine' or 'feminine',
search the Internet for this bibliography:
"Best Books on Gender-Personality".

James Leonard Park, creator of the Gender-Pattern Chart.