On Gender, from Science to the Possibility of Gender Politics

The book provides the intellectual tools to understand the existential dimensions of what it is to be gendered. Classical phenomenology began qualitative studies, in a self-aware self-critical approach to qualitative appearances of being. This book applies the thought of Husserl and Heidegger and introduces Simone De Beauvoir's analysis of the masculine-feminine balance of power. It understands conceptual meaning as referring to qualitative wholes, in a variety of settings. Simply put, the meaningful space of everyday life is one in which families, culture and society develop the next generation. This is also the space in which qualitative meaning exists. Understanding arises out of sensuality; one example is the way genders arise against the background of everyday social life: gendered expressions of roles and identities exist through identifying with the social type gender. Specifically, in relation to gender, it is argued that trouble cases and inter-gender boundary dynamics show aspects of gender roles. This work is a commentary on a judicious selection of a number of empirical studies in the disciplines of individual psychology, personality theory, social psychology, cultural anthropology, biology, behavioural genetics and neuroscience. It considers a number of reputable empirical sources for understanding gender and inter-gender relating, and explains how nature and nurture co-occur developmentally, in relation to what it is to have an identity and identify with the social type gender. The work also provides findings about natal gender research in unity with empirical studies of transgender experiences. This serves the function of moving towards suitable gender equity as a political outcome. Views from empirical research on gender and transgender research are provided that highlight the large number of similarities and small differences between masculinity and femininity.

About the Author :
Ian Rory Owen, PhD, is a retired graduate member of the British Psychological Society and a retired principal psychotherapist who worked in public service in secondary care community mental health teams in the British National Health Service for 32 years. He is the author of six textbooks and 80 peer reviewed papers in journals. He has previously written on the developmental psychology view of attachment as a means of practising psychotherapy generally, and individual psychotherapy with people with complex psychological problems.