Over the past forty years, feminism and gender studies have become global movements and have produced a wide array of empirical findings, bold concepts, and transformative theories. Due to these successes, it is becoming increasingly difficult to comprehend the breadth and complexity of this burgeoning field. Gendered Worlds responds to the growing need for a text that clarifies and synthesizes the multiple strands of gender research in a way that students can understand. In Gendered Worlds, Judy Root Aulette, Judith Wittner, and Kristin Blakely use the sociological imagination to explore gender relations throughout the world. They look at how concrete forms of gender, race, class, and sexual inequality operate transnationally; examine the impact of globalization on local and everyday life experiences; and identify how local actors re-imagine social possibilities, resist injustice, and work toward change. Integrating theory with empirical studies that are of particular interest to college students--including research on violence, sports, and sexuality--the authors make gender concepts genuinely interesting and accessible. They also demonstrate how students can think critically about gender, both within and beyond the classroom. Incorporating a broad range of pedagogical features, including boxed sections and end-of-chapter sections that focus on social movements, Gendered Worlds is ideal for courses in sociology of gender and sociology of sex roles. Distinct Features BL Each chapter ends with a fascinating look at a relevant social movement BL A keen focus on diversity by race, ethnicity, social class, age, sexuality, and nation BL A consistent exploration of local and global levels of analysis and the connections between them

Table of Contents:
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION; A Few More Inconvenient Truths; Some Ground Rules for Studying Gender; Overarching Theory of Intersectionality; Hegemonic Masculinities and Emphasized Femininities; Making History; Feminist Scholars Seeking Answers; Problems with the Three Waves; Waves of African Feminism; Plan of the Book; CHAPTER 2: BODIES AND GENDERS; The Standard Story; The Interplay of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality; Chromosomes, Hormones, and Genes; Sexed Bodies in Other Times and Other Places; How Many Genders Are There? The Evidence from Other Cultures; Sexuality and Sexual Orientation: Gendering Desire; Intersex; Concluding Thoughts; CHAPTER 3: SOCIALIZATION AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER; The Gender Lenses of Androcentrism, Gender Polarization, and Essentialism; Individual-Level Theories: Social Roles and Social Learning; The Interactionist Theory of Gender: Gender as a Course of Action; Gender Structures: Rosabeth Moss Kanter; Gendered Organizations: Joan Acker; Gendered Institutions; CHAPTER 4: SEXUALITIES; Sex and the City; Comparing Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors Around the Globe; Changing Attitudes Toward Sexuality in the United States; What Is Your Sexuality?; Violent Scripts; Resistance Scripts and The Vagina Monologues; Queer Theory; Sex for Sale; Gendered Porn; The Feminist Censorship Debate; Legal Prostitution; The Feminist Prostitution Debate; Sex Trafficking; CHAPTER 5: EDUCATION; Elementary School Snapshots; Gender in the K-12 Classroom; High School; Higher Education and Gender; Global Rates of Illiteracy; Gender and Teachers; The Correspondence Principle; CHAPTER 6: WORK; Wal-Mart; Paid Work; The Glass Escalator; Emotional Labor; Discrimination; Human Capital Theory; Social Structural Explanations of Pay Gap; Comparable Worth; Unpaid Work through the Life Cycle; Socialization; Rational Choice; Feminist Theory; Globalization and Gender; CHAPTER 7: FAMILIES; Customary Marriage Laws; Marriage; Parenting and Caregiving; Work and Family in Latino and African American Families; Working Mothers and the Mommy Wars; Welfare Mothers; Temporary Aid to Needy Families; Men Balancing Work and Family; The Fatherhood Responsibility Movement; Gendered Styles of Care Work; Grandparents and Care Work; Balancing Work and Family; Divorce; South African Divorce Laws; Covenant Divorce in the United States; Repudiation in Muslim Nations; CHAPTER 8: VIOLENCE; Inhumanities and Human Rights; The Gendered Continuum of Violence; Some Statistics on Violence; Street Harassment: A Geography of Fear; Men's Personal Safety and Gendered Violence; Rape and Domestic Violence; Darwinian Evolution; Individual Psychology; Rape as an Outcome of Gender Inequality; The Discovery of Domestic Violence; State Violence against Men; Gendered Violence in Conflict Zones; What Is to Be Done? CEDAW, the International Criminal Court, and Security Council Resolution 1325; CHAPTER 9: HEALTH AND ILLNESS; Health and Illness as Social Issues; Nation and Life Expectancy; Gender and Life Expectancy; Women's Health; Men's Health; The Health Care System in the United States Is Structured Along Gender, Race, and Class Lines; Care Work: The Paid or Unpaid, But Often Invisible, Foundation of Health Care; Women's Health Movements; Gender and the Global AIDS Pandemic; Fighting Back: Women's Health Movements Around the World; CHAPTER 10: POLITICS AND LAW; Affirmative Action in Spanish Politics; Politics and Government; Gender and Campaigns; Meritocratic Remedies; Affirmative Action Remedies; Radical Remedies; Political Institutions: The Courts and Prisons; Girls, Gangs, and Gender; Political Institutions: The Military; What is Political?; CHAPTER 11: MEDIA AND SPORTS; Feminist Ads from Nike; Mass Media; Symbolic Annihilation; Gender Stereotypes; Men and Beer; Advertising Femininity in Three Nations; G Movies; Resisting Media; Music Videos; The Spectacle of Sport; History of Sport and Manliness; Initiation Rites and Football; Dangers of Masculinity; Time for a Change?; Mexican Baseball Players Challenge Hegemonic Masculinity in Sports; Title IX; International Efforts to Bring Women into Sports; Barriers to Bringing Women into Sports; Women Athletes and Heterosexism; CHAPTER 12: RELIGION; The Promise Keepers; What Is a Religion?; Religious Ideas About Gender: Separate and Unequal; Islam; Fundamentalisms; Fundamentalist Views of Masculinity; Fundamentalist Fathers; Evangelical Feminists; Women in the Pulpit; The DaVinci Code and Ancient Religious Views of Women; Religion as a Free Space in Oppressive Cultures; Religion as a Base of Resistance; Challenging Religion from Within; Feminist Theoretical Models for Understanding the Complex Relationships Between Religion and Gender; CLASSICAL THEORY ON RELIGION: DURKHEIM, MARX, AND WEBER