Seeing Straight: An Introduction to Gender and Sexual Privilege

(Hardback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Seeing Straight introduces students to key concepts in gender and sexuality through the lens of privilege and power. After an accessible overview, the book asks students to examine the privilege inherent in approaching heterosexual and cisgender identities as normal, as well as the problems of treating queer gender and sexuality as abnormal. Compelling real-life examples illustrate theory and empirical research, revealing phenomena that shape not only students own lives, but also their communities, their country, and the field of gender studies itself. The book addresses tough topics like hate, violence, and privilege, and it also considers institutionalized heteronormativity through the military, law, religion, and more. The book ends with a chapter called Its Getting Better that presents evidence for queer hope and courage. Filled with compelling true stories, this book is an ideal introduction to gender and sexuality that encourages students to question their own assumptions.

Reviews

Seeing Straight is a rewardingand challengingbook designed to take the young adult from passive acceptance of gender norms and sex roles, through the long and exciting history of awakening of identity, sexuality, dissent, freedom, and into adult respect for the variety of humanity. The volume covers stereotyping and prejudice, sex and gender, queer theory, gender privilege and heteronormativity, what is normal, what is deviant, what is queer and what is courage. The authors emphasize opportunity, empowerment, sex positivity, and the costs of gender and sexual oppression. This book will improve the lives of the students who read it. -- Chris Crandall, University of Kansas
At a moment when sexual politics are playing out in radically new and often contradictory ways, Jean Halley and Amy Eshleman offer us a wonderfully accessible work that centers our attention on the persistent and pervasive entanglements of gender, sexuality, and power. Drawing on real life examples and using an interdisciplinary lens, they have produced a very engaging text that could be used in many undergraduate courses. -- Rafael de la Dehesa, City University of New York
A beautifully written handbook on understanding how systems of power and privilege warp, cloud, and distort human sexual and gender experience. I think the concluding section will save many lives, as the authors offer realistic hopes based on existing social progress. -- Peggy McIntosh, Wellesley College, author of White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Author Bio

Jean Halley is associate professor of sociology at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. She served as the advisor for the Gay-Straight Alliance while at Wagner College and has taught extensively in womens, gender, and sexuality studies. She is the author of several books, including Boundaries of Touch: Parenting and Adult-Child Intimacy and The Parallel Lives of Women and Cows: Meat Markets. Amy Eshleman is professor of psychology at Wagner College, where she regularly teaches courses on gender, sexuality, race, social class, and prejudice. Together, Jean Halley and Amy Eshleman are the authors of Seeing White: An Introduction to White Privilege and Race, with Ramya Mahadevan Vijaya.