Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality
by Anne Fausto-Sterling
from Basic Books
Anyone who has been following the new brain science in the popular press--and even those whose casual reading includes journals along the lines of Psychoneuroendocrinology--will be fascinated by the puckish observations of Brown University biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling, whose provocative and erudite essays easily establish the cultural biases underlying current scientific thought on gender. She goes on to critique the science itself, exposing inconsistencies in the literature and weaknesses in the rhetorical and theoretical structures that support new research. "One of the major claims I make in this book," she explains, "is that labeling someone a man or a woman is a social decision. We may use scientific knowledge to help us make the decision, but only our beliefs about gender--not science--can define our sex. Furthermore, our beliefs about gender affect what kinds of knowledge scientists produce about sex in the first place." Whether discussing genital surgery on intersex infants or the amorous lives of lab rats, the author is unfailingly clear and convincing, and manages to impart humor to subjects as seemingly unpromising as neuroanatomy and the structure of proteins. --Regina Marler
The Descent of Man (Great Minds Series)
by Charles Darwin
from Prometheus Books
Digit Ratio: A Pointer to Fertility, Behavior, and Health (A volume in the Rutgers Series in Human Evolution, edited by Robert Trivers.)
by John T. Manning
from Rutgers University Press
Sex and the Brain
from The MIT Press
This collection of foundational papers on sex differences in the brain traces the development of a much-invoked, fast-growing young field at the intersection of brain and behavior. The reader is introduced to the meaning and nature of sexual dimorphisms, the mechanisms and consequences of steroid hormone action, and the impact of the field on interpretations of sexuality and gender.
Building on each other in point-counterpoint fashion, the papers tell a fascinating story of an emerging science working out its core assumptions. Experimental and theoretical papers, woven together by editor's introductions, open a window onto knowledge in the making and a vigorous debate between reductionist and pluralist interpreters.
Five major sections include papers on conceptual and methodological background, central nervous system dimorphisms, mechanisms for creating dimorphisms, dimorphisms and cognition, and dimorphisms and identity. Each section builds from basic concepts to early experiments, from experimental models to humans, and from molecules to mind. Papers by such leading scholars as Arthur Arnold, Frank Beach, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Patricia Goldman-Rakic, Doreen Kimura, Simon LeVay, Bruce McEwen, Michael Merzenich, Bertram O'Malley, Geoffrey Raisman, and Dick Swaab, illustrate a rich blend of perspectives, approaches, methods, and findings.
Sex and the Brain will show students how a scientific paper can be analyzed from many perspectives, and supply them with critical tools for judging a rapidly emerging science in a contentious area.
Androgens in Childhood: Biological, Physiological, Clinical, and Therapeutic Aspects (Pediatric and Adolescent Endocrinology)
Genetic Disorders of Human Sexual Development (Oxford Monographs on Medical Genetics, 38)
by Leonard Pinsky
from Oxford University Press, USA
There have been many exciting advances in our understanding of mammalian sex determination and differentiation in the last decade. Using these advances to elucidate clinical conditions of abnormal sexual development, the authors bring together great expertise in molecular endocrinology, molecular genetics, and dysmorphology. The text begins with a discussion of normal gonadal and sexual development that presents enough embryology, biochemistry, and endocrinology to make the remaining chapters easy to assimilate. Then the authors discuss overarching clinical issues that are common to genetic abnormalities of gonadal and sexual development, providing a detailed account of genetic causes of gonadal maldevelopment, followed by a compendium of the singular, syndromal, endocrinologic, and systemic-metabolic genetic causes of sexual maldevelopment. The final section describes genetic forms of gamete failure.
Seldom dogmatic, this unconventional textbook frequently presents alternatives, highlights speculation, raises questions, and attempts to provide answers. Yet it will be a uniquely valuable reference on an area of genetic medicine where much has happened in recent years. This book will be welcomed by medical geneticists, genetic counselors, endocrinologists, gynecologists, urologists, and students who need fully-referenced information about the genetic aspects of humans sexual maldevelopment in order to better manage their patients and their patients families.
Descent of Man and His Selection in Relation to Sex (The Works of Charles Darwin, V. 9)
Queering Freedom
by Shannon Winnubst
from Indiana University Press
In Queering Freedom, Shannon Winnubst examines contemporary categories of difference—sexuality, race, gender, class, and nationality—and how they operate within the politics of domination. Drawing on the work of Georges Bataille, Michel Foucault, and others, Winnubst engages feminist theory, race theory, and queer theory as she sheds light on blind spots that have characterized thinking about freedom. Winnubst turns away from the language of rights, identity politics, and liberation toward bodies and experiences to calibrate normative ideas of time and space. Her views operate at the very limits of freedom, which contain individuals within strict boundaries that they are forbidden to cross. Winnubst develops strategies of "queering freedom" to undo the more subtle spatial and temporal norms and shatter structures of domination. This thoughtful and provocative work challenges the cornerstones of contemporary philosophies about the body and its politics.
Sexing the Body
Man & Woman, Boy & Girl: Gender Identity from Conception to Maturity (Master Work Series)
In Man and Woman, Boy and Girl, John Money and Anke Ehrhardt offer a comprehensive account of sexual differentiation using genetics, embryology, endocrinology and neuro-endocrinology, psychology, and anthropology. Their multidisciplinary approach to gender identity avoids the old arguments over nature versus nurture. Money and Ehrhardt focus instead on the interaction of hereditary endowment and environmental influence. Money and Ehrhardt's work will lead many readers to the conclusion that the differences between man and man, or woman and woman, can be as great as between man and woman.
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