Click on the links below for extra information
Part One : What is Sociology?
1. Sociology in an age of insecurity
Part Two: Identity
6. Ourselves: Myself, yourself
8. Being young: Age and identity
11. Identity, multiculturalism and imagined community
Part Three: Globalisation
13. Confronting class and inequality
15. Education in a period of crisis
16. Health and illness in an unequal society
Chapter 9: Sex in Australia
In this chapter, we suggest ways of thinking about sex as a key marker of identity. Today, there are more questions than there are settled answers about what it means to be a man or a woman. What is gender, and is it different from sex? How much are sex and gender natural phenomena and to what extent are they social or cultural? What is sexism? Are women and men becoming more equal, and how important is it that men and women be different? Have gender identities and relations changed in recent years, and if so in what ways?
Further reading
Masculinities 2nd edition
R.W. Connell
(click on the title for more information)
Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2005, pp45-66
Download excerpt (PDF)
Women in a Restructuring Australia
edited by Anne Edwards & Susan Magarey
(Click on the title for more information)
Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1995, pp. 38-59.
Download excerpt (PDF)
Performance Anxieties: Re-producing Masculinities
by David Buchbinder
(Click on the title for more information)
Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1998, pp. 1-28.
Download excerpt (PDF)
Fashioning the Feminine
by Pam Gilbert & Sandra Taylor
(Click on the title for more information)
Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1991, pp. 5-25.
Download excerpt (PDF)
Living Out Loud
by Graham Willett
(Click on the title for more information)
Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2000, pp. 238-265.
http://www.allenandunwin.com/academic/loud.pdf
Useful links
The Gender Centre, Sydney
http://www.gendercentre.org.au/index1.htm
Theory.org.uk - Directory to online resources on sexuality
http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-que6.htm
