The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality

By Sandra Lipsitz Bem and Professor Sandra Lipsitz Bem

Book Overview

In this book a leading theorist on sex and gender discusses how hidden assumptions embedded in our cultural discourses, social institutions, and individual psyches perpetuate male power and oppress women and sexual minorities. Sandra Lipsitz Bem argues that these assumptions, which she calls the lenses of gender, shape not only perceptions of social reality but also the more material things--like unequal pay and inadequate daycare--that constitute social reality itself. Her penetrating and articulate examination of these hidden cultural lenses enables us to look at them rather than through them and to better understand recent debates on gender and sexuality.

According to Bem, the first lens, androcentrism (male-centeredness), defines males and male experience as a standard or norm and females and female experience as a deviation from that norm. The second lens, gender polarization, superimposes male-female differences on virtually every aspect of human experience, from modes of dress and social roles to ways of expressing emotion and sexual desire. The third lens, biological essentialism, rationalizes and legitimizes the other two lenses by treating them as the inevitable consequences of the intrinsic biological natures of women and men.

After illustrating the pervasiveness of these three lenses in both historical and contemporary discourses of Western culture, Bem presents her own theory of how the individual either acquires cultural gender lenses and constructs a conventional gender identity or resists cultural lenses and constructs a gender-subversive identity. She contends that we must reframe the debate on sexual inequality so that it focuses not on the differences between men and women but on how male-centered discourses and institutions transform male-female difference into female disadvantage.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300061633
• ISBN13: 9780300061635
• Release Date: August 1994
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Start here!

I focused on gender and sexuality in college and I have to say that of all the books I own on this subject, this is the book I'm most likely to lend someone. "The Lenses of Gender" is an excellent work for academics and newcomers to the field alike. It is alos a good read for those of us who are deeply mired in gender studies already. Sandra Lipsitz Bem does a great job of stepping back to provide a nice overview, leaving us some useful concepts and tools along the way. I must also thank her for not writing bisexuality out of the picture...one of the many topics still controversial among otherwise open-minded people, the author manages to be inclusive and positive. She doesn't resort to the kind of blustery didactic arguments that mar the writing of so many cultural critics. This is something that I can't praise highly enough. Perhaps that's the most groundbreaking aspect of this book. Take a look at it. "The Lenses of Gender" is good for a wide audience and offers a lot to think about.

Take the glasses off quick!

This is a great book that details the dynamics that may propagate gender inequality. The three main "lenses" include gender polarization, androcentrism, and biological essentialism. Don't be scared off, it is well written and concisely links the concepts to provide a good look at how gender is constructed.