Gender and Everyday Life

Why are we so insistent that women and men are different? This book provides a fascinating and highly readable look at how society divides people into feminine women and masculine men. It will explore gender as a way of seeing women and men as not just biological organisms but people shaped by their everyday social world. The book examines how gender has been understood and lived in the past (history), how it is understood and done differently by different cultures and groups within cultures (comparison), and what might be the strengths and limitations of different ways of thinking and doing gender (critical analysis).Key sociological and feminist ideas about gender will be illustrated with a range of examples dealing with everything from nineteenth century fashions in China and Britain, to discussions of what Barbie can tell us about gender in America, to the lives of working women in Japan.Holmes, Mary is the author of 'Gender and Everyday Life', published 2008 under ISBN 9780415423489 and ISBN 0415423481.