Gendered Lives

Rating:
Summary: A positive addition to the field of gender studies
Review: Wood does a superb job presenting the research on gender as it stands, while striving to keep her own personal bias out. She presents arguments from both left and right, fortifying them with excerpts from student journals. While some of the chapters were difficult to plow through because of subject matter-such as the section on gendered violence-the book itself was a surprisingly easy read.
In presenting the arguments as they stand in the research, Wood chooses not to involve less critical ethical or moral viewpoints. Though this enhances her unbiased approach, it would be interesting to view the varying facets of gender through the lens of the world's most predominant religions or widely accepted ethical viewpoints. However, Wood does do us the great favor of including a section devoted to men's movements-a topic often overlooked in the study of gender.
The text sparks a great many thoughts about the way we, as a society, accept the inequalities of gender (both male and female biases), and is a significant addition to the field that would enhance any study of the topic.