The Fate of Gender
Nature, Nurture, and the Human Future
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
Frank Browning takes us into human gender geographies around the world, from gender-neutral kindergartens in Chicago and Oslo to women's masturbation classes in Shanghai, from conservative Catholics in Paris fearful of God and Nature to transsexual Mormon parents in Utah. As he shares specific and engaging human stories, he also elucidates the neuroscience that distinguishes male and female biology, shows us how all parents' brains change during the first weeks of parenthood, and finally how men's and women's responses to age differ worldwide based not on biology but on their earlier life habits. Starting with Simone de Beauvoir's world-famous observation that one is not born a woman but instead becomes a woman, Browning goes on to show equally that no one is born a man but learns how to perform as a man, and that there is no fixed way of being masculine or feminine.
Increasingly, the categories of "male" and "female" and even "gay" and "straight" seem old-fashioned and reductive. Just visible on the horizon is a world of gender and sexual fluidity that will remake our world in fundamental ways. Linking science to culture and behavior, and delving into the lives of individuals challenging historic notions, Browning questions the traditional division of Nature vs. Nurture in everything from plant science to sexual expression, arguing in the end that life consists of an endless waltz between these two ancient notions.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this wide-ranging sociological and cultural survey, Browning (The Monk and the Skeptic), a former NPR correspondent, raises questions about what gender means in the Western world today (though he includes many references to non-Western cultures). Notions of gender have become "ever more complex" and "how we comprehend what it means to be male or female, or both or neither, appear more and more to be infinitely fluid," he writes. As Browning touches upon sexuality, family, gender roles, and politics, it often feels like he's stringing together numerous unrelated threads in order to address an impossibly complex constellation of topics. It's clear from his experiences and personal anecdotes that he's struggling to make sense of a fast-changing world, and that he's searching for answers as much as anyone else. He addresses physiology (excluding intersex traits), the mental and emotional aspects of gender, and the blurred lines that have become more prominent in the West in recent years, but although he's good at putting the pieces together, the book seems oddly lacking in confidence. As he points out, "Gender is rather experiencing an unprecedented proliferation of meanings, forms, and expression." This may not be the most authoritative work on gender issues, but Browning certainly touches on and opens up a number of interesting discussions for general audiences.
