Featuring a timely new chapter on gender and politics, the fifth edition ofThe Gendered Societyexplores current thinking about gender, both inside academia and in our everyday lives. Michael Kimmel challenges the claim that gender is limited to women's experiences--his compelling and balanced study of gender includes both masculine and feminine perspectives. Kimmel makes three bold and persuasive statements about gender. First, he demonstrates that gender differences are often extremely exaggerated; in fact, he argues that men and women have much more in common than we think they do. Kimmel also challenges the pop psychologists who suggest that gender difference is the cause of inequality between the sexes; instead, he reveals that the reverse is true--gender inequality itself is the cause of the differences between men and women. Finally, he illustrates that gender is not merely an element of individual identity, but a socially constructed institutional phenomenon. New to this Edition * New chapter (10) on Gender and Politics * New box theme--"Compared to What?"--that introduces global content * New "So What?" boxes, which debunk gender myths Essential reading for both students and scholars,The Gendered Society, Fifth Edition, is an authoritative, incisive, and lively statement about contemporary gender relations from one of the country's foremost thinkers on the subject.