Customer Reviews

The Psychology of Women (with InfoTrac )

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Sure, this book has a decisive feminist stance, but what do you expect of a book on the psychology of women? Most women have at least some "feminist" thoughts, this book reflects that. It's not a book about militant feminism, though it is mentioned, as it is an aspect of the reality of some women. I've only read about 3 chapters of the book so far, but I have seen it bring up some very valid points, such as "The invisibility of women in history".

If you're completely anti-feminist, you shouldn't be taking a class of this nature, because I suspect that any book approaching this subject is going to have a feminist slant.

This book is not what it says it is. "The Sociology of Women" would be more fitting. "An Introduction to Feminism" would be close to apt.

Dr. Matlin is a familiar breed -- the "I know I'm right so I'll tell others anything in order to get them to believe what I already know to be true" breed.

For instance, there is a page with a drawing of a man and a woman, and Matlin encourages you to show the drawings to a child and ask questions like which one of these people is meek and mild and which one is confident. The problem is, the man is drawn with a confident cowboy body posture and the woman with an unsteady hands-behind-the-back meek stance. The book, of course, implies that the child's response would be solely based on culturally impressed gender stereotypes.

When the book does get around to non-feminist thought, it makes no effort to give the guys a fair shake. Rather than mention any of the perfectly reasonable items on the men's movement agenda (e.g. men shouldn't have to pay more for car insurance or be denied a loan based on gender or be forced to pay child support for a child that isn't their's) Matlin quickly glosses over the idea of the men's movement and portrays it as denying the seriousness of wife-beating.

I'm sure there are many more examples and I'm sure there are much more flagrant examples. I'm not going to find them though, because the five-minute scan that revealed everything you see above was enough to convince me not to take the "Psychology of Women" class at my school.

I use this book for my Psychology of Women class. It is an excellent source for the class but not crazy about the author. It can come off as biased, but I would recommend it for a class as such.

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I was assigned this book for my Psychology of Women class. As another reviewer said, it would be more accurately described as "Sociology of Women", as there is almost no actual psychology in the book. I took the class because I, as a male, was genuinely interested in how women think and perceive the world. While my professor was really great and decidedly neutral, this book is completely one-sided. It paints the white American heterosexual male as the most evil force in society and concentrates solely on pointing out the author's problems with society. While I agreed with many points in the text, the author demonizes males whenever possible and ignores viewpoints that might challenge her view of the world as a socially constructed androcentric nightmare (her dismissal of the ENTIRE field of evolutionary psychology in one paragraph was especially arrogant and ignorant).
Don't buy this book, and if you're a professor, please choose another text to assign to your students. I'm sure there are better ones.

This was my textbook for my Psychology of Women class back in college and it really is a masterpiece. It is well written and completely understandable, full of great examples that you will always remember and that will help you learn the theories and concepts that are presented in it. It has become one of my favorite books and I would not sell it for the world!

I highly recommend this book! This book is very informal and had very interesting personal stories. The explanation was comprehendible, and had very intriguing articles.

Used this book for studying Psych of Women and passed with an "A".

Warning to all students: If you are taking a class requiring this text... run. This is BY FAR the most biased, self-selective, obvious agenda oriented, feminist text you will ever read. The Psychology of Women deals in almost no part with psychology (Other than the "studies" that are over-used citations). Every study in this text is hand selected to prove a biased, man-hating point of view. Matlin often makes radical claims throughout the text with little or no scientific backing to prove her own personal point of view. Furthermore, any claims that men and women experience even the slightest differences in any area of cognition/development are counter argued by very "shady", over-used research studies at best. If you are interested in feminazi propaganda, this is a great read.

This book is very clearly written by a radical feminist. She presents her opinions as facts and frequently contradicts herself. This book's title is misleading because it is predominantly a book on gender bias and sexism. Moreover, it suppresses all biological perspectives on women's behavior. I am reading this book for an undergraduate psychology class and often find it appalling and one-sided.