Presentations of Gender [Paperback]

Robert J. Stoller M.D. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 29, 1992

How do boys come to perceive of themselves as masculine and girls as feminine? Stoller explores this question by discussing development and disorder in gender identity, demonstrating how aberrant conditions can help to understand gender development in less unusual men and women.

Product Details

• Paperback: 230 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (January 29, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300054742
• ISBN-13: 978-0300054743
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,759,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars EARLY BOOK ON "GENDER DISORDERS", October 6, 2010

By 

James L. Park "James Leonard Park" (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Presentations of Gender (Paperback)

Robert J. Stoller, MD
Presentations of Gender

(New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1985) 219 pages

Continuing the observations contained in his earlier books,
Stoller draws on further years of experience with clients
who came to him with "gender disorders", an expression
that seems to cover any variation from standard sex or gender:
boys who were 'feminine', transsexuals, cross-dressers,
homosexuals, & people with sexual 'fetishes'.

The analysis continues to be basically Freudian,
looking for the smothering mother to explain these variations.
Stoller continues to confuse a number of phenomena
which this reviewer believes are independent. (See James Park's
Variations of Sex and Gender: Six Phenomena Frequently Confused:
[...])

Stoller believes that the close-binding mother is going to make
her sons 'feminine', especially if the father is absent or weak.
Perhaps these beliefs originated with Freud,
but they still have a strong hold on the popular mind.
Stoller seems to put the variations (for boys) on a single continuum:
(1) becoming 'feminine',
(2) cross-dressing,
(3) becoming homosexual,
(4) becoming a male-to-female transsexual.

But these phenomena are probably independent of one another,
arising from different sources:
(1) Femininity is enculturated over years of socialization.
(2) Cross-dressing occurs for several different reasons.
(3) Homosexual sex-scripts (as well as hetero) are imprinted.
(4) And male/female self-designation ("I am a boy." or "I am a girl.")
is imprinted before age 18 months.
If Stoller had lived long enough to use these new hypotheses,
he might have made much better sense of what his clients were experiencing.

If you would like to know about other books along these lines,
search the Internet for the following exact words:
"VARIATIONS OF SEX & GENDER BIBLIOGRAPHY".

James Leonard Park, author of
Variations of Sex & Gender:
Six Phenomena Frequently Confused.