Gender Roles: A Sociological Perspective by Linda L. Lindsey

Gender Roles: A Sociological Perspective Reviews

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  Jessica

  Required reading for Sociology of Gender class. Very illuminating on several issues though history to 2015 on gender inequality. Rated it high for a textbook because the subject matter was quite interesting and opened my eyes to things I had blindly accepted.
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  Timothy Volpert

  eh, it's a textbook, it did what it said on the tin: provided a fairly thorough overview of the sociological perspective on gender roles. It was in serious need of another pass of copy-editing, though. Lots of grammatical errors, misused or missing punctuation, and even several spelling errors. not just nit-picky stuff either but several places where the errors actually made the meaning unclear. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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  Rachel

  Could use better editing, and a lot of the time it's hard to be sure if what is being presented is done objectively or with a hint of judgement on behalf of the author. I didn't bother to keep it after I finished the class it was required for.
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  WndyJW

  Every woman should have this book. It helped me understand my mother and grandmother who were both victims of the cult of true womanhood.
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  Jeanne

  This is an informative, if rather dry, book about the roles of women and men throughout history. It reads like a scientific study. It would be more interesting if it had some real-life examples added, and if it was organized in such a way that it really taught you something rather than just reporting on things. This was the textbook for an Intro to Women's Studies course I took.
  
  That said, I did have an eye-opening experience about the truth of my own gender. I understand how social constructs based on patriarchal systems have informed the lives of women throughout history. I understand why men are so terrified of women having any power--it's because they fear that we will turn around and do to them what they've done to us for thousands of years.
  
  We might well do that. Their fears may be founded. We used to be in "power" when the governing systems were largely matriarchal, but the men couldn't handle it and took over, and the only way they could do that was by force, through subjugation.
  
  It's interesting to note that in today's modern world, however, there do still exist societies that are not based in patriarchy--societies that function as a matriarchy or as an equal community where every contribution is valued, regardless of how simple or complex. It gives us something to strive for.