Hughes, Katie (2012) The Uses of Gender. In: Australian Sociology : A Changing Society. 3rd edition. Pearson Australia, Frenchs Forest, N.S.W., pp. 105-127.

Abstract

Sociologists are interested in gender because, like class and ethnicity, it is a key determinant of life chances. If you are born female, it is almost inevitable that you will have a very different life from the one you would have had if you had been born male. The differences you experience will involve income, education, health, personal relationships and sexuality, among other things. Although both the person on the street and the sociologist might agree that there are gender differences, what is much less clear is why there are gender differences, and why contemporary societies are so emphatically organised along gendered lines. Given that men's life chances, on the whole, are so much more extensive than women's, is there anything we can do about gender to make the world a more equal place, and is this a battle worth fighting?

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