Gender Roles

This valuable and unique reference surveys and synthesizes information on gender roles in more than thirty countries from around the world. Each chapter is devoted to a single country, and the chapters are arranged in alphabetical order for ease of use. All of the chapters are written from the perspective of experts who have lived and worked in the countries profiled. To foster cross-national comparisons, each chapter follows the same format, including an introduction and contextual overview; gender roles in infancy and childhood, school years, young adulthood, adulthood, and old age; and a summary and conclusions. The design of the chapters traces the development of gender roles across the life-cycle and affords an additional opportunity for comparing data. This reference will be of interest to anyone concerned with gender issues, psychology, sociology, and anthropology.

Specialists combine efforts to present an overall picture of current thinking and research on sex roles, sex differences, and sex role development. With its emphasis on psychological antecedents and concomitants underlying sex roles and sex typing, this volume will definitely appeal to developmental and educational psychologists. Those involved in women's studies, sociology, and anthropology will also find it useful.

"Beere has produced a new edition of her Women and Women's Issues: A Handbook of Tests and Measurements. Based largely on a search of the PsychLIT and ERIC databases from January 1978 to December 1988, the volume includes information on 211 tests and measures pertaining to gender roles and attitudes towards gender. . . . Particularly useful are chapter reviews of the literature in which the author reviews the quality of available research. Recommended for college and university libraries." Choice

They say that we come from different planets (men from Mars, women from Venus), that we have different brain chemistries and hormones, and that we listen, speak, and even define our morals differently. How is it then that men and women live together, take the same classes in school, eat the same food, read the same books, and receive grades according to the same criteria? In The Gendered Society, Michael S. Kimmel examines our basic beliefs about gender, arguing that men and women are more alike than we have ever imagined. Kimmel begins his discussion by observing that all cultures share the notion that men and women are different, and that the logical extension of this assumption is that gender differences cause the obvious inequalities between the sexes. In fact, he asserts that the reverse is true--gender inequality causes the differences between men and women. Gender is not simply a quality inherent in each individual--it is deeply embedded in society's fundamental institutions: the family, school, and the workplace. The issues surrounding gender are complex, and in order to clarify them, the author has included a review of the existing literature in related disciplines such as biology, anthropology, psychology and sociology. Finally, with an eye towards the future, Kimmel offers readers a glimpse at gender relations in the next millennium. Well-written, well-reasoned and authoritative, The Gendered Society provides a thorough overview of the current thinking about gender while persuasively arguing that it is time to reevaluate what we thought we knew about men and women.

Not only do men and women reflect different gender roles through communication, but they are also impacted by communication about gender, especially from the media. Issues of sexual harassment and political correctness have raised the subject of gender differences in communication to an unprecedented level of political importance, influencing our value systems along the way. This study examines the changes that have occurred between men and women and how the sexes relate to one another from social, political, and ethical perspectives. Payne argues that religious ideology is an important aspect of gendered development and that biological, psychological, social, and cultural phenomena also affect sex roles.

The gender and racial composition of the American workforce is rapidly changing. As more women in particular enter the workforce and as they enter jobs that have traditionally been dominated by men, issues related to sex and gender in work settings have become increasingly important and complex. Research addressing sex and gender in the workplace is conducted in several distinct disciplines, ranging from psychology and sociology to management and economics. Further, books on gender at work often reflect either a more traditional management perspective or a more recent feminist perspective; rarely however, are these two orientations on women and work acknowledged within the same text. Thus, the principle goal of the book is to communicate a variety of social psychological literatures and research on gender issues that affect work behaviors to upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in applied psychology and business.

This work explores, through case studies and critical analyses, how media depictions affect the social construction of gender, sexuality, and identity. Through a combination of historical and contemporary topics, scholars examine the stereotypical portrayal of women and men and the contexts within which these stereotypes are illustrated. The studies also discuss the sociopolitical implications of symbols and images associated with these gender representations. Concrete references to particular media support both the methodological and theoretical approaches of the different essays. These quantitative and qualitative studies expose the myriad ways in which the media intervenes in our perception of popular culture.