The Gender Vendors: Sex and Lies from Abraham to Freud
Among numerous ancient Western tropes about gender and procreation, “the seed and the soil” is arguably the oldest, most potent, and most invisible in its apparent naturalness. The Gender Vendors denaturalizes this proto-theory of procreation and deconstructs its contemporary legacy. As metaphor for gender and procreation, seed-and-soil constructs the father as the sole generating parent and the mother as nurturing medium, like soil, for the man’s seed-child. In other words, men give life; women merely give birth.

The Gender Vendors examines seed-and-soil in the context of the psychology of gender, honor and chastity codes, female genital mutilation, the taboo on male femininity, femiphobia (the fear of being feminine or feminized), sexual violence, institutionalized abuse, the early modern witch hunts, the medicalization and criminalization of gender nonconformity, and campaigns against women’s rights. The examination is structured around particular watersheds in the history of seed-and-soil, for example, Genesis, ancient Greece, early Christianity, the medieval Church, the early modern European witch hunts, and the campaigns of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries against women’s suffrage and education.

The neglected story of seed-and-soil matters to everyone who cares about gender equality and why it is taking so long to achieve.
"1119713613"
The Gender Vendors: Sex and Lies from Abraham to Freud
Among numerous ancient Western tropes about gender and procreation, “the seed and the soil” is arguably the oldest, most potent, and most invisible in its apparent naturalness. The Gender Vendors denaturalizes this proto-theory of procreation and deconstructs its contemporary legacy. As metaphor for gender and procreation, seed-and-soil constructs the father as the sole generating parent and the mother as nurturing medium, like soil, for the man’s seed-child. In other words, men give life; women merely give birth.

The Gender Vendors examines seed-and-soil in the context of the psychology of gender, honor and chastity codes, female genital mutilation, the taboo on male femininity, femiphobia (the fear of being feminine or feminized), sexual violence, institutionalized abuse, the early modern witch hunts, the medicalization and criminalization of gender nonconformity, and campaigns against women’s rights. The examination is structured around particular watersheds in the history of seed-and-soil, for example, Genesis, ancient Greece, early Christianity, the medieval Church, the early modern European witch hunts, and the campaigns of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries against women’s suffrage and education.

The neglected story of seed-and-soil matters to everyone who cares about gender equality and why it is taking so long to achieve.
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The Gender Vendors: Sex and Lies from Abraham to Freud

The Gender Vendors: Sex and Lies from Abraham to Freud

by A. L. Jones
The Gender Vendors: Sex and Lies from Abraham to Freud

The Gender Vendors: Sex and Lies from Abraham to Freud

by A. L. Jones

Hardcover

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Overview

Among numerous ancient Western tropes about gender and procreation, “the seed and the soil” is arguably the oldest, most potent, and most invisible in its apparent naturalness. The Gender Vendors denaturalizes this proto-theory of procreation and deconstructs its contemporary legacy. As metaphor for gender and procreation, seed-and-soil constructs the father as the sole generating parent and the mother as nurturing medium, like soil, for the man’s seed-child. In other words, men give life; women merely give birth.

The Gender Vendors examines seed-and-soil in the context of the psychology of gender, honor and chastity codes, female genital mutilation, the taboo on male femininity, femiphobia (the fear of being feminine or feminized), sexual violence, institutionalized abuse, the early modern witch hunts, the medicalization and criminalization of gender nonconformity, and campaigns against women’s rights. The examination is structured around particular watersheds in the history of seed-and-soil, for example, Genesis, ancient Greece, early Christianity, the medieval Church, the early modern European witch hunts, and the campaigns of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries against women’s suffrage and education.

The neglected story of seed-and-soil matters to everyone who cares about gender equality and why it is taking so long to achieve.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780739190968
Publisher: Lexington Books
Publication date: 08/26/2014
Pages: 272
Product dimensions: 6.45(w) x 9.24(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Al Jones is a retired academic and psychologist whose published work includes two nonfiction books and numerous articles in scholarly and literary journals.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Sex and Lies, Seed and Soil
PART 1 SEED AND SOIL: THE GROUNDWORK
Chapter one: History Matters
Chapter two: The Psychology of Selling Gender
PART II SEED AND SOIL: FROM ABRAHAM TO FREUD
Chapter three: Abraham’s Seed
Chapter four: Covering the Field
Chapter five: The Science of Sex: Aristotle’s Seed
Chapter six: The Seeds of Christianity
Chapter seven: Burning Desire: The Witch as Female
Chapter eight: The Nineteenth Century: Less Sex, More Lies
Chapter nine: Freud’s Fantasy
PART III SEED AND SOIL: CONTEMPORARY RAMIFICATIONS
Chapter ten: The Contemporary Legacy
Chapter eleven: Fair’s fair
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

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