Theorizing Gender

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by Rachel Alsop, Annette Fitzsimons and Kathleen Lennon

Polity Press

Due/Published August 2002, 272 pages, paper

ISBN 0745619444

This text gives a theoretical overview of approaches to gender. It discusses the major theories concerned with the ways in which we ‘become engendered', and explains and evaluates naturalist, psychoanalytic, materialist and post-structuralist accounts. 

Tensions between these different approaches are acknowledged , but stark polarities are resisted. Throughout the book it is recognized that becoming gendered implicates and is implicated by other aspects of social becoming. The work of Judith Butler is discussed in detail and its importance and limitations spelt out in key chapters on sexuality, the body, transgendering and political agency. Debates between ‘queer' approaches to gender and those prioritizing sexual difference are also brought to the fore. Theorizing Gender provides a framework for weaving together what are often viewed as opposing directions of thought.

Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter One : Natural Women and Men
Chapter Two: Psychoanalysis and Gender
Chapter Three: The Social Construction of Gender
Chapter Four: Judith Butler; 'The Queen of Queer'
Chapter Five: Gender and Sexuality
Chapter Six: Theorising Men and Masculinities
Chapter Seven: Bodily Imaginaries
Chapter Eight: Sexual Difference
Chapter Nine: Borderlands and Gendered Homes
Chapter Ten: Gender and the Politics of Identity
Notes
Bibliography
Index