Gender and the Science of Difference
Cultural Politics of Contemporary Science and Medicine
How does contemporary science contribute to our understanding about what it means to be women or men? What are the social implications of scientific claims about differences between "male" and "female" brains, hormones, and genes? How does culture influence scientific and medical research and its findings about human sexuality, especially so-called normal and deviant desires and behaviors? Gender and the Science of Difference examines how contemporary science shapes and is shaped by gender ideals and images.
Prior scholarship has illustrated how past cultures of science were infused with patriarchal norms and values that influenced the kinds of research that was conducted and the interpretation of findings about differences between men and women. This interdisciplinary volume presents empirical inquiries into today's science, including examples of gendered scientific inquiry and medical interventions and research. It analyzes how scientific and medical knowledge produces gender norms through an emphasis on sex differences, and includes both U.S. and non-U.S. cases and examples.
This refreshing volume comes at a critical time, lending clarity and intelligence to current issues of gender and biological determinism.
The anthology addresses how contemporary scientific and medical claims about the differences between men and women produce gendered institutions that reflect social and cultural values. An excellent volume that will interest scholars in gender studies, science studies, and the sociology of medicine. Highly recommended.
Sex differences are not hardwired / Lesley J. Rogers
Looking for difference? Methodology is in the eye of the beholder / Bonnie B. Spanier and Jessica D. Horowitz
Evaluating threat, solving mazes, and having the blues : gender differences in brain-imaging studies / Claudia Wassmann
Telling the rat what to do : laboratory animals, science, and gender / Lynda Birke
Why do voles fall in love? Sexual dimorphism in monogamy gene research / Angela Willey and Sara Giordano
What made those penguins gay? Gender and sexuality politics in the zoo / K. Smilla Ebeling and Bonnie B. Spanier
Intersex treatment and the promise of trauma / Iain Morland
The western "lesbian" agenda and the appropriation of non-western transmasculine people / Sel J. Hwahng
Facial feminization and the theory of facial sex difference : the medical transformation of elective intervention to necessary repair / Heather Laine Talley
The proportions of fat in genetics of obesity research / Shirlene Badger
Making male sexuality : hybrid medical knowledge and erectile dysfunction in Mexico / Emily Wentzell
