What Gender Is, What Gender Does

Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Cultural Studies, Popular Culture, Gender Studies, Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy
Cover of the book What Gender Is, What Gender Does by Judith Roof, University of Minnesota Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Judith Roof ISBN: 9781452949994
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press Publication: April 1, 2016
Imprint: Univ Of Minnesota Press Language: English
Author: Judith Roof
ISBN: 9781452949994
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Publication: April 1, 2016
Imprint: Univ Of Minnesota Press
Language: English

What Gender Is, What Gender Does provides a forceful new paradigm for considering genders. With depth and insight, Judith Roof argues that genders are much more than binary. And they are constantly morphing: they are conscious and unconscious, simultaneously conventional and idiosyncratic. At any moment, more than one gender dynamic is at work in any individual.

Roof’s interpretation of genders isn’t content with either biological duality or endlessly open performativity, and what results is a nuanced and surprising representation of gender—an account that captures the complexities of lived experience as well as lived ideology. For Roof, genders are interacting sets of operations that link individual desires to multiple, shifting manifestations of sociocultural positioning and self-presentation. Thus, “to gender” is to signal, mask, suggest, mislead, and simplify the uncontainable chaos of desires characteristic of subjects but roundly contained by society.

Drawing illustrative material from contemporary popular culture productions, including My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Spider-Man, Shrek, Shallow Hal, Sex and the City, Bridesmaids, Bond films, and “bromance” movies, What Gender Is, What Gender Does demonstrates how the persistent conflation of gender and sexual difference is, on the one hand, a simple taxonomic urge and, on the other, a cover that offers the security of identity in place of the frustrations and fears of the real asymmetries of personal power dynamics.


View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

What Gender Is, What Gender Does provides a forceful new paradigm for considering genders. With depth and insight, Judith Roof argues that genders are much more than binary. And they are constantly morphing: they are conscious and unconscious, simultaneously conventional and idiosyncratic. At any moment, more than one gender dynamic is at work in any individual.

Roof’s interpretation of genders isn’t content with either biological duality or endlessly open performativity, and what results is a nuanced and surprising representation of gender—an account that captures the complexities of lived experience as well as lived ideology. For Roof, genders are interacting sets of operations that link individual desires to multiple, shifting manifestations of sociocultural positioning and self-presentation. Thus, “to gender” is to signal, mask, suggest, mislead, and simplify the uncontainable chaos of desires characteristic of subjects but roundly contained by society.

Drawing illustrative material from contemporary popular culture productions, including My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Spider-Man, Shrek, Shallow Hal, Sex and the City, Bridesmaids, Bond films, and “bromance” movies, What Gender Is, What Gender Does demonstrates how the persistent conflation of gender and sexual difference is, on the one hand, a simple taxonomic urge and, on the other, a cover that offers the security of identity in place of the frustrations and fears of the real asymmetries of personal power dynamics.


More books from University of Minnesota Press

Cover of the book A Short History of Indians in Canada by Judith Roof
Cover of the book Lemon Jail by Judith Roof
Cover of the book Take Back the Economy by Judith Roof
Cover of the book George Cukor by Judith Roof
Cover of the book Mark My Words by Judith Roof
Cover of the book Disidentifications by Judith Roof
Cover of the book Japanese Counterculture by Judith Roof
Cover of the book Beautiful Wasteland by Judith Roof
Cover of the book Terror and Territory by Judith Roof
Cover of the book The Quay Brothers by Judith Roof
Cover of the book Decolonization and the Decolonized by Judith Roof
Cover of the book Blackwater Ben by Judith Roof
Cover of the book René Magritte by Judith Roof
Cover of the book Survival Schools by Judith Roof
Cover of the book The Wedding Heard 'Round the World by Judith Roof
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy