Gender: Psychological Perspectives

Gender is currently a "hot" topic, and almost everyone has an opinion. These opinions are not usually based on research, as most people are not familiar with research findings. Rather, their opinions are strongly influenced by their own experience and by what they have seen on television and in the movies. This book presents what gender researchers have discovered. Sometimes these findings are complex and sometimes contradictory, but they are always based on studies rather than popular opinion and media portrayal. This book critically examines the topic of gender -- the behaviors and attitudes that relate to, but are not entirely congruent with, biological sex. Based on sound research and scholarship, this book attempts an overall picture of gender from a psychological perspective. Including real, personal, narrative accounts of gender-relevant aspects of people's lives, the author offers vivid detail and balanced information. Some of the accounts provide a light-hearted approach to dealing with the frustrations and annoyances of discrimination and gender bias, whereas others reveal sexual harassment, violence and abuse. Psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and professors.