Preface

We wrote this book to place the psychology of gender in conversation with the knowledge about gender and sexuality produced in other disciplines. In our view, gender is best understood as a social practice that is embedded in culture. This book illustrates how psychologists can make use of this way of understanding gender in theoretical work, in research projects, and in applied work and clinical practice.

We are teachers and researchers in psychology. We also count ourselves as members of local and international communities of gender studies scholars. Over the past forty years, these multidisciplinary communities have offered trenchant analyses of social life and have pioneered innovative methods of inquiry. One of our goals is to bring this work into the purview of psychology. We also have worked as professional psychologists, engaging issues of gender, sexuality, and social justice in our work. This has brought us face to face with the vicissitudes of mundane and institutional power. Another of our goals is to argue that a psychology of gender must attend to power in its many forms.