Customer Reviews

Paradoxes of Gender

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The first third of Paradoxes of Gender is a brilliant deconstruction of Western society's concept of gender. With the relentlessness and subtlety of a sledgehammer, Judith Lorber points out the illogic in the ways that we "do" gender. Her explanations are lucid, clear, and unarguable (though you may wish to). She also provides compelling rationales for some of the most puzzling aspects of gender and sex relations.

Unfortunately, after she finishes with that, I feel that she's rather uncritical in finding evidence for the history of gender, and starts to ascribe motive to the ways that society subjugates women. This is painful for me, because I largely agree with her assessment of the situation, but think her evidence is poor, and that it's unneccessary for males to be *intentionally* subjugating women for that to be the end result. (Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.) Still, I highly recommend the first three (and perhaps four) chapter as practically *required* reading for understanding the arbitrary nature of gender in our society.

In a book aiming to thresh out the dynamics of gender, Lorber's text seems to demonstrate that she doesn't have exactly the firm grip of the subject that the title suggests she has. While the other chapters which deal with more feminist issues with relation to gender are a bit more sound and solid, and the preceding chapters dealing with the 'nuts and bolts' of gender are somewhat vaguely fresh and readable (although not really saying much new), it is worrisome to see that while Lorber tries her hardest to remain objective, her dated and misunderstood views on transgender (she does not use this already popular term) issues betray her objectivity. All in all, her little inconsistencies and sometimes erroneous reasoning to gender, especially with regard to gender identity, do really show that she might have missed the boat with this one.