Explore the origins of sex and gender through a scientific lens and understand social constructionism, its reliance on regressive gender stereotypes, and its pathological doctrines. Social constructionist theory tells us that boys and girls are not born different but are rather made different through socialization. Yet something strange has happened: Across the world's most gender-equal liberal democracies, the differences between men and women have not gone away. Paradoxically, gender differences in personality, interests, and occupational preferences have grown larger. This should not be happening. If men and women are made different through socialization, shouldn't the most gender-equal societies be, after all, gender-equal? Gender, like the Penrose Triangle, is an optical illusion. Many people think they know its properties, but it's wildly deceptive. If we can just find the correct angle, then maybe we can observe gender's actual properties, and with it, perhaps we can solve The Gender Paradox.

Binary is the ultimate guide for understanding and dismantling the sex spectrum, the new cultural belief that sex exists on a continuum and that male and female are social constructs. By analyzing its ten most popular arguments, Zachary Elliott reveals how the tenets of the sex spectrum deny evolution, development, and genetics. Using the primary biology literature, the book provides the reader with a comprehensive scientific understanding of how the two sexes are universal phenomena and how complex genetic networks consistently result in a simple yet profound outcome: male or female. Zachary Elliott is the founder of the Paradox Institute, a research group that specializes in teaching the biology of sex and sex differences to the public. Zach has been researching, reading, and writing about sex differences since 2017 and has written two other books on the subject—Sex Differences: A Land of Confusion and The Gender Paradox: Discrimination and Disparities in the Postmodern Era. He is also a writer and producer of more than twenty animated videos on the biology of sex, using his expertise in motion graphics and design to effectively communicate biological concepts.

This engaging study examines diverse genders and sexualities in a wide range of contemporary fiction for children and young people. Mallan's insights into key dilemmas arising from the texts' treatment of romance, beauty, cyberbodies, queer, and comedy are provocative and trustworthy, and deliver exciting theoretical and social perspectives.

As a field of scholarship, gender and politics has exploded over the last fifty years and is now global, institutionalized, and ever expanding. The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics brings to political science an accessible and comprehensive overview of the key contributions of gender scholars to the study of politics and shows how these contributions produce a richer understanding of polities and societies. Like the field it represents, the handbook has a broad understanding of what counts as political and is based on a notion of gender that highlights masculinities as well as femininities, thereby moving feminist debates in politics beyond the focus on women. It engages with some of the key aspects of political science as well as important themes in gender and feminist research (such as sexuality and body politics), thereby forging a dialogue between gender studies in politics and mainstream political science. The handbook is organized in sections that look at sexuality and body politics; political economy; civil society; participation, representation and policymaking; institutions, states and governance as well as nation, citizenship and identity. The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics contains and reflects the best scholarship in its field.

It's the 21st century, and we are still being told that there are no differences between men and women, and that any differences we think exist are simply the result of social constructs--to claim otherwise is considered sexist and misogynistic. Sociologists point to disparities in the workforce, claiming these inequalities are the result of a patriarchal society. Yet what if these disparities could be explained through men and women's own choices and inclinations? What if, instead of simply resulting from the patriarchy, sexism, or societal-imposed gender roles, these differences can be explained through a multitude of factors--a mix of complex and interconnected variables? A look at the current scientific literature on sex differences and their origins, this paper reviews data from the fields of biology, psychology, evolutionary behavioral science, neuroendocrinology, and neurology, showing the complicated and nuanced nature of average sex differences between males and females.

In this pathbreaking book, a well-known feminist and sociologist--who is also the Founding Editor of Gender & Society--challenges our most basic assumptions about gender. Judith Lorber views gender as wholly a product of socialization subject to human agency, organization, and interpretation. In her new paradigm, gender is an institution comparable to the economy, the family, and religion in its significance and consequences. Drawing on many schools of feminist scholarship and on research from anthropology, history, sociology, social psychology, sociolinguistics, and cultural studies, Lorber explores different paradoxes of gender: --why we speak of only two "opposite sexes" when there is such a variety of sexual behaviors and relationships; --why transvestites, transsexuals, and hermaphrodites do not affect the conceptualization of two genders and two sexes in Western societies; --why most of our cultural images of women are the way men see them and not the way women see themselves; --why all women in modern society are expected to have children and be the primary caretaker; --why domestic work is almost always the sole responsibility of wives, even when they earn more than half the family income; --why there are so few women in positions of authority, when women can be found in substantial numbers in many occupations and professions; --why women have not benefited from major social revolutions. Lorber argues that the whole point of the gender system today is to maintain structured gender inequality--to produce a subordinate class (women) that can be exploited as workers, sexual partners, childbearers, and emotional nurturers. Calling into question the inevitability and necessity of gender, she envisions a society structured for equality, where no gender, racial ethnic, or social class group is allowed to monopolize economic, educational, and cultural resources or the positions of power.