Handbook of the Sociology of Gender

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. Theoretical and Epistemological Context

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Introduction: New Developments in Gender Research: Multidimensional Frameworks, Intersectionality, and Thinking Beyond the Binary

      • William J. Scarborough

      Pages 3-18

   3. Gender as a Social Structure

      • Barbara J. Risman

      Pages 19-43

   4. Feminist Epistemology, Feminist Methodology, and the Study of Gender

      • Joey Sprague

      Pages 45-55

   5. Gender Theory as Southern Theory

      • Pallavi Banerjee, Raewyn Connell

      Pages 57-68

   6. Intersectionality and Gender Theory

      • Zandria F. Robinson

      Pages 69-80

3. The Individual Level of Analysis in the Gender Structure

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 81-81

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   2. Becoming Gendered

      • Heidi M. Gansen, Karin A. Martin

      Pages 83-93

   3. Gendered Embodiment

      • Katherine Mason

      Pages 95-107

   4. Does Biology Limit Equality?

      • Shannon N. Davis, Alysia Blake

      Pages 109-118

   5. Gender Identities

      • Natalie N. Castañeda, Carla A. Pfeffer

      Pages 119-130

   6. Mental Health: An Intersectional Approach

      • Verna M. Keith, Diane R. Brown

      Pages 131-142

   7. Multiple Masculinities

      • James W. Messerschmidt

      Pages 143-153

4. The Interactional Level of Analysis

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 155-155

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   2. Framing Gender

      • Susan R. Fisk, Cecilia L. Ridgeway

      Pages 157-171

   3. Interactional Accountability

      • Jocelyn A. Hollander

      Pages 173-184

   4. Racializing Gendered Interactions

      • Koji Chavez, Adia Harvey Wingfield

      Pages 185-197

   5. Gendered Interactions in School

      • Kristen Myers

      Pages 199-214

5. The Macro Level of Analysis

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 215-215

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This handbook provides a comprehensive view of the field of the sociology of gender. It presents the most important theories about gender and methods used to study gender, as well as extensive coverage of the latest research on gender in the most important areas of social life, including gendered bodies, sexuality, carework, paid labor, social movements, incarceration, migration, gendered violence, and others. Building from previous publications this handbook includes a vast array of chapters from leading researchers in the sociological study of gender. It synthesizes the diverse field of gender scholarship into a cohesive theoretical framework, gender structure theory, in order to position the specific contributions of each author/chapter as part of a complex and multidimensional gender structure. Through this organization of the handbook, readers do not only gain tremendous insight from each chapter, but they also attain a broader understanding of the way multiple gendered processes are interrelated and mutually constitutive. While the specific focus of the handbook is on gender, the chapters included in the volume also give significant attention to the interrelation of race, class, and other systems of stratification as they intersect and implicate gendered processes.

• Cultural Studies
• Gender Structure Theory
• Feminist Epistemology
• Gender and the Global South
• Individual-Dimension Theory
• Gender essentialism and Self-Expressive Values
• Developing Gendered Identities
• Gender Bias in Modern Workplaces
• Racializing Gendered Interactions
• Gender Interactions at Schools
• Gender and Social Communities
• Gender and Organizational Theory
• Sexuality on College Campuses
• Gender Bodies and Intimate Relationships
• Sexual Practices across the Life Course
• Gendered Socialization of Emotions

• University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, USA

  Barbara J. Risman, William J. Scarborough

• University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, USA

  Carissa M. Froyum

Barbara J. Risman is currently a College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. During 2018, she is a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study in Durham University, U.K.  She was previously Alumni Distinguished Research Professor at North Carolina State University. Professor Risman is mostly recently the author of Where the Millennials Will Take Us: A New Generation Wrestles with the Gender Structure (Oxford University Press, 2018) and with Virginia Rutter, Families As They Really Are (Norton, 2010, 2015).  Professor Risman has served the profession in a variety of roles, as President of the Southern Sociological Society, Vice-President of the American Sociological Association, President of the Board of Directors for the Council on Contemporary Families, and President of Sociologists for Women in Society. In 2005, Dr. Risman received the Katherine Jocher Belle Boone Award from the Southern Sociological Society for lifetime contributions to the study of gender. In 2011, Dr. Risman received the American Sociological Association’s Award for the Public Understanding of Sociology. She has also received mentoring awards from Sociologists for Women in Society and from the University of Illinois at Chicago.    


Carissa Froyum is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Northern Iowa. She is co-editor of Inside Social Life (Oxford) and Creating and Contesting Inequalities (Oxford) and former deputy editor of The Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. Her work on how identities and emotions reproduce inequality appears in Qualitative Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, and is forthcoming in Symbolic Interaction.


William J. Scarborough is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research focuses on the economic and cultural determinants of gender wage gaps across labor markets in the U.S. He has published multiple journal articles and book chapters on issues related to gender and race inequality.