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The Gender Vendors

Sex and Lies from Abraham to Freud

A. L. Jones

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.

Lexington Books

Pages: 272 • Trim: 6½ x 9¼

978-0-7391-9096-8 • Hardback • August 2014 • $142.00 • (£109.00)

978-1-4985-0536-9 • Paperback • August 2016 • $64.99 • (£50.00)

978-0-7391-9097-5 • eBook • August 2014 • $61.50 • (£47.00)

Subjects: Psychology / General, Psychology / Movements / Psychoanalysis, Social Science / Gender Studies, Psychology / History, Social Science / Comparative Cultural Studies, Philosophy / Gender Philosophy, Philosophy / Philosophy of Love and Sex, Social Science / Social Change, Social Science / Social Movements, Social Science / Social Geography

The Gender Vendors

Sex and Lies from Abraham to Freud

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

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.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 272 • Trim: 6½ x 9¼

978-0-7391-9096-8 • Hardback • August 2014 • $142.00 • (£109.00)

978-1-4985-0536-9 • Paperback • August 2016 • $64.99 • (£50.00)

978-0-7391-9097-5 • eBook • August 2014 • $61.50 • (£47.00)

Subjects: Psychology / General, Psychology / Movements / Psychoanalysis, Social Science / Gender Studies, Psychology / History, Social Science / Comparative Cultural Studies, Philosophy / Gender Philosophy, Philosophy / Philosophy of Love and Sex, Social Science / Social Change, Social Science / Social Movements, Social Science / Social Geography

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

Reviews

That we've been fed a pack of lies about sex becomes evident to everyone who has ever sought an intimate relationship. In The Gender Vendors, Al Jones carefully, methodically, unpacks those lies, exposing their origins to be largely a group of frightened little men who were afraid of women's sexuality. If the truth is supposed to set us free, we must first see how we've been imprisoned by sexual fictions.

— Michael Kimmel, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies, Stony Brook University

The Gender Vendors

Sex and Lies from Abraham to Freud

A. L. Jones

The Gender Vendors

Sex and Lies from Abraham to Freud

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