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The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality, by Sandra Lipsitz Bem. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. 244 pp. $28.50 cloth. ISBN: 0-300-05676-1.
Sandra Bem is a leading psychologist of gender identity who transformed that field by conceptualizing identities as more or less gender schematic rather than masculine versus feminine. Now she has taken on an even bigger project. With this book, she seeks an analysis of the reproduction of male dominance in society that can transform social debate in a manner that clarifies the path to effective social change. As this suggests, the book is addressed to a broad intellectual audience, not a narrow academic one. Several substantial strengths of the book flow from this choice of audience and stance, but there is a trade-off in some weaknesses as well.
Bem argues that gender inequality is maintained by three cultural "lenses" embodied in the institutions, social practices, and discourses of our society. The lens of biological essentialism legitimates observed social differences and...