Women and Gender: A Feminist Psychology

by Rhoda Unger, Mary Crawford

This revision of the best-selling text for undergraduate courses offered by departments of Psychology in the Psychology of Women, Sex and Gender, or Sex Roles draws on research from sociology, anthropology, communication, biology, history, and literature. Known for its engaging, never oversimplified style, WOMEN AND GENDER features an integrated thematic organization throughout the book that is synthesized in its final chapter.

The authors, well-known, active scholars in the field, take a social constructionist perspective (i.e., gender is a social system of meanings, status, and power, not just a personality characteristic of individuals). The text takes a feminist point of view, advocating basic equality of women and men social, economical, and political while objectively reporting research findings. Information on race, age, class, and sexual orientation, is included and integrated into all text chapters. Four themes are woven throughout the book: Gender is more than just sex; Language and naming are a source of power; Women are a diverse group; and Psychology should be related to social change

In the third edition, the short introductory chapter is now immediately followed by the popular chapter about women stereotypes and the harm they do, while the more theoretical chapter on personality has been integrated into other appropriate chapters and linked to current research and issues in the news. More attention is paid to the role of the media in defining girls and women of all ages. The chapter shows how images of women continue to differ from those of men, examines how the media sees women and men world-wide, and looks at the similarities of these depictions cross-culturally. Each chapter now ends with “Connecting Themes,” summary of how the book’s four themes are played out in the topics of the chapter. Much more material is included in each chapter on the cultural and ethnic diversity of women with added new findings on ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, social class, women of color, international issues, and women from around the world. In each chapter, a new “Making a Difference” boxed feature spotlights a woman activist who has changed society. A new chapter four on the meanings of difference asks, “How different are men and women really?” and answers this question in terms of contrasting feminist perspectives, presented in the context of concrete social problems. A new concluding chapter 15, “Making a Difference: Toward a Better Future for Women,” ties together the four themes of the book and presents an optimistic view of both how the women's movement has changed changed society and how students can continue to change society positively in response to the women’s movement.

Other new topics include: analysis of the backlash against feminism (chapter 1); the role of sexism in the schools (chapters 3 and 8); media images of women athletes and the representation of women in rap and music videos (chapter 4); pornography, race, and hostility toward women (chapters 4 and 14); factors influencing women’s perception of their leadership abilities (chapter 5); biological determinism in the media (chapters 3 and 6); the “silencing” of adolescent girls (chapter 8); differences among diverse groups of women in the meaning of sexuality and body image, and implications for therapeutic treatment (chapters 9 and 15); the new reproductive technology and the medical, ethical, and legal issues it raises; woman-headed households; and socially created obstacles to mothering (all in chapter 11); a new synthesis of the costs and benefits of juggling work, family, and relationship roles (chapter 12); changing cultural views of menopause, and achievement in mid- and later life (chapter 13).

A companion reader, In Our Own Words: Readings on the Psychology of Women and Gender, provides thorough coverage of and commitment to the diversity of the female experience in 45 readings that are brief, engaging, and fun to read.

Genres: Psychology, Gender, Feminism, Textbooks, Female Authors, Womens Studies, Womens

706 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Jessica Zu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I totally love this book. The research is both deep and broad and it sure opened my heart and my mind. Intersectionality is the key to understand all beings and the themes of this textbook certainly reflect this. Amazingly it also helped to heal lots of wounds, because knowledge is power. Simply knowing what you are up to is already very empowering and very encouraging. After all life is a never ending challenge, we are all in it struggling, being able to connect with all others who have been through similar challenges are not only comforting but also transforming.

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lucid, excellent, compelling and very complete introduction to the cultural constructions about women from a feminist perspective on psychology and sociology. It was written as a college textbook and makes for fascinating reading as the authors not only review relevant research but also critically analyze the gaps and biases in that research. It includes well chosen cartoon strips from Lynn JohnstonFor better or worse , Greg Howard's Sally Forth, Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes and G. B. Trudeau's Doonesbury, magazine illustrations, testimonial quotes and poems to underline several key points humourously or poignantly.

Even though I read the 1996 edition of this book twenty years after it was published, the book has aged well and is still very timely and eye-opening -unfortunately most of the problems encountered by women in the U.S. and in Latinamerica persist with very little change, as the U.S. presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump clearly evidences.

The 1996 edition is very US centered, very infrequently straying across its borders to pick up a statistic or an example from Canada, Mexico, Britain or Scandinavia. There is very little on women and religion:some scattered commentaries on women within Christian tradition, a throwaway, almost stereotypical remark on Jewish mothers, nothing on Islam. The authors criticize the fact that most studies, at least in the US up to 1996 had focused on white, middle-class, educated women and seem to do a thorough job in reporting research outside these narrow confines -it is to be hoped that in the twenty years since the 1996 edition, this gap has somewhat narrowed.

On the plus side, I found most chapters enlightening and insightful, and some chapters, like chapter 14, Violence against Women, particularly powerful, from the two poems heading the chapters onwards, one by Ntozake Shange (1978) and the other, quoted below, by Marge Piercy (1976):

There is no difference between being raped
and being pushed down a flight of cement steps
except that wounds also bleed inside.

There is no difference between being raped
and being run over by a truck
except that afterward men ask if you enjoyed it.

There is no difference between being raped
and being bitten on the ankle by a rattlesnake
except that people ask if your skirt was short
and why were you out alone anyway.

There is no difference between being raped
and going head first through a windshield
except that afterward you are afraid
not of cars
but of half the human race.

The authors' Afterword on the effectiveness of the book in the setting of a college course is well worth mentioning:

For the first three chapters [Introduction to a feminist psychology of women, Approaches to understanding girls and women, The meanings of sex difference: sex, gender and cognitive abilities], students perceive the psychology of women and gender as just another college course. They are skeptical about the amount of sexism described and argue with their instructors a lot. Chapter 4 -images of women- gets them involved and angry. They become progressively angrier and more depressed as they read chapters 5 through 8 [ Doing gender: sex, status and power, Biological aspects of sex and gender, Becoming gendered: childhood, Becoming a woman: puberty and adolescence]. Chapter 9 -on sex, love, and romance- is another turning point. This chapter and the following four [Commitments: women and long-term relationships, Mothering, Work and achievement, Midlife and beyond ] produce positive feelings and motivate students to examine th structures around them as they look to the future or reexamine their pasts.Chapters 14 [Violence against women] and 15 [Gender and psychological disorders] induce both positive and negative emotions. Many students “come out” as survivors of various forms of violence and psychological disorders. They may find strong bonds with others who are also resisting the gendering process.

The sensitivity, empathy, critical sense and pragmatic optimism brought by both authors to this outstanding textbook should do much to dispel the reader's possible prejudices and blanket condemnations against women studies or feminist perpectives and show why the feminist perspective is so focused on the use and abuse of socially condoned power as a key factor in the construction of gender for women.

[Wenjing · Rating 4 out of 5]

个人不太喜欢心理学的角度探讨女性/性别这个话题。书本身没什么问题。