The Gendered Society Reader

Having read works by one of the editor's of the book, I expected it to be very good. It wasn't. Parts of it were very good, but it was way too long, and none of the articles were written by the editor of interest, who writes well and is interesting. Many of these authors featured did not meet those criteria. In addition, there were a number of studies that were extremely weak in their construction, leading one to realize (if they did not know it already) that sociology accepts a much lower standard of research than science. In addition, several of the studies appeared to be interpreted in such a way as to ignore misogyny and find a "rational reason" for hating women for men in non-Western or non-white cultures. In fact, in a couple of show more the articles along these lines, the idea that they were being jerks to women was not even considered in the rush to find a justification for treating women badly. Overall, most of the articles were worthwhile and well done, even when the research was a bit weak (often the authors noted that; it is the ones that did not recognize that, about three or four, to which I object). A couple of articles were quite strong in their findings, their methods, and their interpretations, and made a point of noting the limitations of their research and suggesting follow ups. A book of some limited worth, but rather out of date now. show less