Preface
1. Moving beyond Stereotypes
2. Sex, Gender, and Emotion
3. Communicating Intimacy
4. Communicating Control
5. Division of Household Labor
6. Toward an Activity-Based View of Gender
Daniel J. Canary, PhD, is Professor of Speech Communication at
The Pennsylvania State University, University Park campus. Dr.
Canary has written several books, book chapters, and journal
articles on interpersonal communication and relationships.
Tara M. Emmers-Sommer, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Communication
at the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Emmers-Sommer's research focuses
on relational development and de-escalation; her interests also
include the portrayal of women in the media.
Sandra L. Faulkner is a PhD candidate in the Department of Speech
Communication at The Pennsylvania State University. Her research
interests include topics related to women's health, such as safe
sex talk and practices, and she teaches in the women's studies
program at Penn State.
An informative, thought-provoking, and much-needed addition to the
literature, this book carefully critiques and takes us beyond
outdated stereotypic views of men and women in personal
relationships. It provides an excellent synthesis of the
scholarship on gender and the experience and expression of emotion,
the communication of intimacy and control, and the division of
labor in relationships. The book broadens and reframes our
understanding of gender by carefully examining both gender
similarities and differences and how they are constructed through
activities. This is an important book that should be read by
everyone with an interest in better understanding relationships
between the sexes. --Elizabeth J. Aries, PhD, Professor of
Psychology, Amherst College
This book is comprehensive and fair in its treatment of gender.
Rather than putting forth an overly simplistic and stereotypical
view of gender, or arguing that there are no differences between
men and women, this book explores the complexities and constraints
on the dynamics of gender in personal relationships. It would make
an excellent text for a graduate seminar on gender, and is also
necessary reading for professionals in the areas of communication,
gender, and/or personal relationships. --Kathryn Dindia, PhD,
Professor and Chair, Department of Communication, University of
Wisconsin Milwaukee
Canary, Emmers-Sommer, and Faulkner explore the dynamics of gender
in personal relationships. The authors provide a comprehensive
review of the social scientific literature on sex/gender
differences in the areas of emotions, relational dimensions of
intimacy and control, division of household labor, and play-leisure
activities in the context of personal relationships. Additionally,
the authors present an activity-based model of sex/gender
differences/similarities in personal relationships. Specifically,
the authors argue that gender is socially/relational constructed
and reconstructed in personal relationships through men's and
women's different (but sometimes similar) activities, most notably,
division of labor and play/leisure activities. According to this
perspective, gender emerges from activities which can change over
time, that is, as men's and women's activities shift historically
and developmentally their gender changes. The authors also discuss
the structural and relational constraints on activities engaged in
which in turn define gender.
The authors demonstrate that gender stereotypes do not adequately
or accurately represent men's and women's interaction in personal
relationships. The authors present compelling evidence that a more
complex view of gender is required to explain gendered interaction
in personal relationships.
'This book is comprehensive and fair in its treatment of gender.
Rather than portraying an overly simplistic and stereotypical view
of gender, or arguing that there are no differences between men and
women, this book explores the complexities and constraints on the
dynamics of gender in personal relationships.
This book would be an excellent text for a graduate seminar on
gender as well as necessary reading for professionals in the areas
of communication, gender, and/or personal relationships. --Kathryn
Dindia, PhD, Professor and Chair, Department of Communication
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
This book is outstanding. Compared to other books on sex, gender
and communication, it blows away the competition. This book is
better researched, more balanced, less biased, and more current
than any other on the topic. It focuses on both similarities and
differences, both biology and culture, both perception and reality,
both scientific and humanistic views. If students and scholars want
the state of the art, this is it. I fully intend to use it in my
class on sex, gender, and communication. --Peter A. Andersen,
Professor, San Diego State University
Deluged by an ever-growing body of social psychological literature
in sex and gender differences, we nonetheless remain unenlightened.
Scholars and teachers are inundated by confusing, conflicting, and
incomplete social scientific research findings; lay readers have
been fed simplistic pap about women and men hailing from different
planets. Canary, Emmers-Sommer, and Faulkner do not profess to have
a seminal understanding of the complex and convoluted nature of
gender differences in personal relationships--they pose no easy
answers. Yet, through a comprehensive examination of contemporary
gender research, they develop a bold, new approach to looking at
gender. Canary, Emmers-Sommer, and Faulkner view differences AND
similarities between the sexes as a continuously developing process
that emerges from women's and men's interactions with each other
and from their various goal-directed behaviors, or activities.
Their 'activity based' perspective captures their belief that
gender cannot be adequately explained by biological differences or
by sociological stereotypes; rather, gender roles emerge and are
created within everyday interaction and activity, including the
division of labor between the sexes. This approach is innovative,
yet also intelligent. It does not insult the reader by suggesting
that men's and women's relational differences are so profound that
they might as well attempt to communicate with aliens. In scholarly
yet highly readable prose, this book offers the hope that
activities and contexts that foster gender equity will minimize
gender differences, foreground gender similarities, and promote
more satisfying relationships between the sexes. --Sandra Ragan,
PhD, University of Oklahoma
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