The Sexual Paradox

After four decades of eradicating gender barriers at work and in public life, why do men still dominate business, politics and the most highly paid jobs? Why do high-achieving women opt out of successful careers? Psychologist Susan Pinker explores the illuminating answers to these questions in her groundbreaking first book. In The Sexual Paradox, Susan Pinker takes a hard look at how fundamental sex differences continue to play out in the workplace. By comparing the lives of fragile boys and promising girls, Pinker turns several assumptions upside down: that the sexes are biologically equivalent; that smarts are all it takes to succeed; that men and women have identical goals. If most children with problems are boys, then why do many of them as adults overcome early obstacles while rafts of competent, even gifted women choose jobs that pay less or decide to opt out at pivotal moments in their careers? Weaving interviews with men and women into the most recent discoveries in psychology, neuroscience and economics, Pinker walks the reader through these minefields: Are men the more fragile sex? Which sex is the happiest at work? What does neuroscience tell us about ambition? Why do some male school drop-outs earn more than the bright, motivated girls who sat beside them in third grade? Pinker argues that men and women are not clones, and that gender discrimination is just one part of the persistent gender gap. A work world that is satisfying to us all will recognize sex differences, not ignore them or insist that we all be the same.

Hard to Get is a powerful and intimate examination of the sex and love lives of the most liberated women in history—twenty-something American women who have had more opportunities, more positive role models, and more information than any previous generation. Drawing from her years of experience as a researcher and a psychotherapist, Leslie C. Bell takes us directly into the lives of young women who struggle to negotiate the complexities of sexual desire and pleasure, and to make sense of their historically unique but contradictory constellation of opportunities and challenges. In candid interviews, Bell’s subjects reveal that, despite having more choices than ever, they face great uncertainty about desire, sexuality, and relationships. Ground-breaking and highly readable, Hard to Get offers fascinating insights into the many ways that sex, love, and satisfying relationships prove surprisingly elusive to these young women as they navigate the new emotional landscape of the 21st century.

Social sciences.

Now available in paperback from psychologist and award- winningcolumnistSusanPinker, the groundbreaking and contro- versial book that is “lively, well- written...important and timely” (The Washington Post). In this “ringing salvo in the sex-difference wars” (The New York Times Book Review), Pinker examines how fundamental sex differences play out over the life span. By comparing fragile boys who succeed later in life with high- achieving women who opt out or plateau in their careers, Pinker turns several assumptions upside down: that women and men are biologically equivalent, that intelligence is all it takes to succeed, and that women are just versions of men, with identical interests and goals. In lively prose, Pinker guides readers through the latest findings in neuro- science and economics while addressing these questions: Are males the more fragile sex? Which sex is the happiest at work? Why do some male college dropouts earn more than the bright girls who sat beside them in third grade? The answers to these questions are the opposite of what we expect. A provocative and illuminating examination of how and why learning and behavioral gaps in the nursery are reversed in the boardroom, this fascinat- ing book reveals how sex differ- ences influence career choices and ambition. Through the stories of real men and women, science, and examples from popular culture, Susan Pinker takes a new look at the differences between women and men.

Secular and religious thinkers agree: the sexual revolution is one of the most important milestones in human history. Perhaps nothing has changed life for so many, so fast, as the severing of sex and procreation. But what has been the result? This ground-breaking book by noted essayist and author Mary Eberstadt contends that sexual freedom has paradoxically produced widespread discontent. Drawing on sociologists Pitirim Sorokin, Carle Zimmerman, and others; philosopher G.E.M. Anscombe and novelist Tom Wolfe; and a host of feminists, food writers, musicians, and other voices from across today's popular culture, Eberstadt makes her contrarian case with an impressive array of evidence. Her chapters range across academic disciplines and include supporting evidence from contemporary literature and music, women's studies, college memoirs, dietary guides, advertisements, television shows, and films. Adam and Eve after the Pill examines as no book has before the seismic social changes caused by the sexual revolution. In examining human behavior in the post-liberation world, Eberstadt provocatively asks: Is food the new sex? Is pornography the new tobacco? Adam and Eve after the Pill will change the way readers view the paradoxical impact of the sexual revolution on ideas, morals, and humanity itself.

Unlocks the keys to the paradox of how sexual selection fertilized the explosion of culture, and the resulting fallout, in sexual dominion of man over woman and nature. How sexuality generates the universe, through symmetry-broken complementarity. The implicit conflict of interests of sexual intrigue, in the prisoners' dilemma, and its ecstatic resolution in the cosmology of love. Sexual dominance as a koan for planetary crises. 560 pages containing 270 illustrations.

A fully revised and updated edition to a classic bestseller, The Macho Paradox is the first book to show how violence against women is a men's issue—and how all genders can come together to stop it. From the #MeToo movement to current discussions about gender norms in schools, sports, politics, and media culture, The Macho Paradox incorporates the voices and experiences of the women, men, and others who have confronted the problem of gender violence from all angles. Bestselling author Jackson Katz is a pioneering educator and activist on the topic of men's violence against women. In this revised edition of his heralded book, Katz outlines the ways in which cultural ideas about "manhood" contribute to men's sexually harassing and abusive behaviors and that men have a positive role to play in challenging and changing the sexist cultural norms that too often lead to gender violence. This important book for abused women covers topics ranging from mental and emotional abuse to sexual harassment to domestic violence and is a vital read for women with controlling partners or as a self-help book for men. Praise for The Macho Paradox: "A candid look at the cultural factors that lend themselves to tolerance of abuse and violence against women."—Booklist "If only men would read Katz's book, it could serve as a potent form of male consciousness-raising."—Publishers Weekly "These pages will empower both men and women to end the scourge of male violence and abuse. Katz knows how to cut to the core of the issues, demonstrating undeniably that stopping the degradation of women should be every man's priority."—Lundy Bancroft, author of Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

In this pathbreaking book, a well-known feminist and sociologist--who is also the Founding Editor of Gender & Society--challenges our most basic assumptions about gender. Judith Lorber views gender as wholly a product of socialization subject to human agency, organization, and interpretation. In her new paradigm, gender is an institution comparable to the economy, the family, and religion in its significance and consequences. Drawing on many schools of feminist scholarship and on research from anthropology, history, sociology, social psychology, sociolinguistics, and cultural studies, Lorber explores different paradoxes of gender: --why we speak of only two "opposite sexes" when there is such a variety of sexual behaviors and relationships; --why transvestites, transsexuals, and hermaphrodites do not affect the conceptualization of two genders and two sexes in Western societies; --why most of our cultural images of women are the way men see them and not the way women see themselves; --why all women in modern society are expected to have children and be the primary caretaker; --why domestic work is almost always the sole responsibility of wives, even when they earn more than half the family income; --why there are so few women in positions of authority, when women can be found in substantial numbers in many occupations and professions; --why women have not benefited from major social revolutions. Lorber argues that the whole point of the gender system today is to maintain structured gender inequality--to produce a subordinate class (women) that can be exploited as workers, sexual partners, childbearers, and emotional nurturers. Calling into question the inevitability and necessity of gender, she envisions a society structured for equality, where no gender, racial ethnic, or social class group is allowed to monopolize economic, educational, and cultural resources or the positions of power.