Human sexuality is a very important subject, especially in a cultural context such as ours, in which social and work transformations offer behavioral models that are characterized by a remarkable sexual indeterminacy. In Transcending Gender Ideology, Antonio Malo tries to rethink sexuality with equilibrium and intellectual rigor, using a philosophical approach, since sexuality does not only affect biological aspects or social conditioning, but above all the same essence of the relationship between man and woman. Malo’s reflections begin with the historical evolution of the concept of sexuality: the naturalistic conception, which sees the difference between man and woman as something biological and absolute, and the postmodern conception, which criticizes it by judging human sexuality as a socio-cultural construction or gender. According to Malo, the limitation of the gender approach is to deny the relationship of human sexuality to the body and to the differences between man and woman. In fact, by rejecting these aspects, they end up sustaining a limitless creativity of freedom, which transforms the body into something that is used at will, and relationships as something fluid. Faced with these extremes, Malo proposes a vision of sexuality as a personal condition or sexed condition, received at the time of birth, but which develops, grows and matures through family models, experiences and relationships. Even if based on an original sexual difference, sexed condition covers many other aspects: physical, psychological, social and cultural, as well as behavioral patterns and, above all, the personal integration of sexuality through the gift of oneself in marriage or in celibacy.

This volume compares and contrasts concepts of gender from a wide range of perspectives drawn from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. The contributors examine the complex process of sexual differentiation in an attempt to determine how feminine and masculine are defined and how these definitions contribute to and influence perceptions of social reality in various disciplines. Their essays explore how gender roles are created and how they influence the American way of life in such embedded cultural mores as the romance novel, images of the Virgin Mary, male inmates, the American wedding, contemporary art and architecture, 19th-century patriarchy, economics, and natural science. This is a timely, important, and, above all, useful book that will provide students in women's studies and cultural studies with a solid introduction to central concepts and texts in gender studies, and give them an equally important sense of the multiplicity of methodologies. Angelika Bammer, Emory University This volume breaks important new ground in the rapidly growing field of gender studies by comparing and contrasting concepts of gender from a wide range of perspectives drawn from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. The contributors--each a specialist in his or her discipline as well as in the area of gender studies--examine the complex processes of sexual differentiation to determine how feminine and masculine are defined and how these definitions contribute to and influence perceptions of social reality in various disciplines. United by an overall focus on the importance of gender constructs in shaping cultural ideology and social interaction, the essays explore how gender roles are created and how they influence the American way of life in such embedded cultural mores as the romance novel, images of the Virgin Mary, male inmates, the American wedding, contemporary art, nineteenth-century patriarchy, economics, and natural science. The essays are arranged so that disciplines and themes interralate--each essay enhances the previous work and introduces the next. Overall, the book is arranged into three systematic approaches to gender studies. Four papers explore the way art, literature, and ritual reflect gender beliefs and act as vehicles for their reinvention through time. Another set of essays more explicitly concerns the power that ideology has in recreating gender and associated beliefs and practices. Essays on nineteenth century patriarchy and on prison gender identities emphasize that both men and women must be viewed as products of their culture. A final group of essays deal with gender and prestige or power structures as they have influenced the intellectual development of various disciplines and the individuals who are trained in those disciplines. This section includes essays on the relationship between gender and science, gender roles in economics, feminist roles in religious studies, and the emergence of women in architecture. Taken together, these papers offer an important new focus for students and scholars involved in studying the pervasive influence of gender across disciplines.

The classic manifesto of the liberated woman, this book explores every facet of a woman's life.

The first comprehensive presentation of an explicitly transgender theory. This theory goes beyond feminist and queer theory by incorporating the idea of fluid embodiment and lived experience in conceptualizing gender and sexual identity. Beyond developing a formulation of transgender theory that incorporates the socially constructed, embodied, and self-constructed aspects of identity in the narrative of lived experiences, the authors discuss the implications of this “trans-identity theory” for theory, research, and practice.

This new edition of Genevieve Lloyd's classic study of the maleness of reason in philosophy contains a new introduction and bibliographical essay assessing the book's place in the explosion of writing and gender since 1984.

After war, social conditions are often regarded as more open for changes and international organisations are therefore encouraged to promote women's equal rights, utilising gender mainstreaming tools. These - sometimes inadvertently - affected the demobilisation program implemented after the civil war in Sierra Leone. On this program's background, the book examines the conceptualisation of women as combatants and victims. Being marginalised but far from passive, they engage with these concepts and strategise to socially (re-)construct gendered identities in order to take part in the benefits of the programs. (Series: Spektrum. Berliner Reihe zu Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft und Politik in Entwicklungsl���¤ndern/Berlin Series on Society, Economy and Politics in Developing Countries - Vol. 94)

In Transcending the Talented Tenth, Joy James provocatively examines African American intellectual responses to racism and the role of elitism, sexism and anti-radicalism in black leadership politics throughout history. She begins with Du Bois' construction of "the Talented Tenth" as an elite leadership of race managers and takes us through the lives and work of radical women in the anti-lynching crusades, the civil rights and black liberation movements, as well as explores the contemporary struggles among black elites in academe.