Gender

Socialist Review Archive

Gender, sport and capitalism

The shocking treatment of runner Caster Semenya raises questions about what is “fair” in top level sport, but it should also make us re-examine how girls and women are taught to feel about their bodies, writes Sue Caldwell.
02 July 2019
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Letters

Gender: we need more than self-identification

Sally Campbell’s article on the Gender Recognition Act (September SR) raised important issues, but I don’t think accepting self-identification is the answer. Gender reform must seek women’s consent, not their deference. It can take up to five years to go through the process of applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate. This is monstrously long for...
29 September 2017
Reviews & Culture

Testosterone Rex

Testosterone Rex is a firm riposte to the recent book Testosterone: Sex, Power and the Will to Win, which places testosterone as so important that “a simple fact remains: without testosterone there would be no humans to have a history”. This bold claim is challenged by neuroscientist and feminist writer Cordelia Fine, who wrote the...
02 March 2017
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Reviews & Culture

The Politics of Everybody

There is a surge of interest in the politics of gender and sexuality among a new generation of activists. Sympathetic characters that challenge gender stereotypes are emerging in popular culture. The passing of equal marriage legislation signifies a more progressive approach towards homo- and bi-sexuality, yet many LGBT+ teenagers continue to fear being outed at...
06 September 2016
Socialist Review Archive

Freud, sex and the socialist imagination

Freud’s methods may not have been very scientific, but his insights into the social construction of gender and sexual identity were remarkably radical for a middle class man in conservative Vienna a century ago. Socialists can take those radical insights far further, writes Mark O’Brien.
30 November 2015