Gender

This chapter explores some important issues for critical psychologists interested in gender. We consider how complex and changeable sex and gender categorisations are when we try to define them and draw on social constructionist and poststructuralist theoretical frameworks to think through these complexities. Reviewing a shift from thinking about gender as something we are, to something we do, we consider two related bodies of research, on ‘hegemonic masculinity’ and ‘postfeminism’. In the process we consider contemporary gender relations in the globalised West, including issues of equality, sexism, and new consumer-oriented ways of thinking about masculinity and femininity.