When Sex Became Gender

by Shira Tarrant

When Sex Became Gender is a study of post-World War II feminist theory from the viewpoint of intellectual history. The key theme is that ideas about the social construction of gender have its origins in the feminist theorists of the postwar period, and that these early ideas about gender became a key foundational paradigm for both second and third wave feminist thought. These conceptual foundations were created by a cohort of extraordinarily imaginative and bold academic women. While discussing the famous feminist scholars--Simone de Beauvoir, Margaret Mead--the book also hinges on the work of scholars who are lesser known to American audiences--Mirra Komarovsky, Viola Klein, and Ruth Herschberger, The postwar years have been an overlooked period in the development of feminist theory and philosophy and Tarrant makes a compelling case for this era being the turning point in the study of gender.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Sociology, Gender

294 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2006

Reviews

[AJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though my inclination is to give this book 3 stars, I think it's good for what it is and deserves 4. The book is very dry, and is written in the language of very academic feminism, so I found it hard to follow at times, and boring at other times. Also, the author tends to repeat herself.

This book was refuting the argument that no gains were made in feminism in the time period after WWII and before the second wave. The author covers five women who wrote about women's issues during this era (Komarovsky, de Beauvoir, Mead, Klein and Herschberger) and who were arguably ahead of their time, as most of them were (and still are) largely unknown, although their ideas were used very generously and were built off of for a lot of second wave feminism philosophy.

I found the most interesting thought of the book to be that post WWII, Europe (the author focuses only on England and France) was in such a state of disarray after the war that most of the focus of government was on creating a welfare-state to help its citizens recuperate. However, in the US, there was such an economic boom, that the government was mostly focused on upholding and preserving this new found economic success and it's new role as a global power. This was carried out socially through tactics such as Red-Baiting, and led to a practice of total conformance and an inflation of "traditional family values" (i.e. submission of women into raising children and keeping house).

Also the author makes a great point at the end of the book that by looking at feminism's progress in waves, and ignoring what comes in between, we do feminism a great disservice by not taking into consideration the great thinkers that have existed, and many feminists are left reinventing the wheel when the next wave arrives.