Gender, Sex, and Sexualities ― Psychological Perspectives

For decades, the field of gender, sex, and sexualities has been a focal point of increasing interest. This inquiry has been ignited by successive waves of dramatic social change, chief among them: the re-emergence of feminist movements in the U.S. and Europe in the late 1960s; the sustained (and increasingly successful) bids for legal, social, and religious acceptance of non-heterosexual sexualities in many parts of the world; and the burgeoning number of people (whether cisgendered, gender-variant, trans, or questioning) whose individual and collective experiences of gender and sexuality warrant deeper understanding and further progress toward a fuller realization of human potential and civil rights.

In psychology, the intellectual project of understanding gender, sex, and sexualities encompasses a variety of subfields spanning neuroscience and developmental, cognitive, social, and cultural psychology, as well as critical theory. As such, these approaches have inspired new and different psychological questions, as well as increased interest in previously unfamiliar topics of investigation.

Edited by Nancy K. Dess, Jeanne Marecek, and Leslie C. Bell, Gender, Sex, and Sexualties offers both students and scholars the tools they need to consider and approach such questions as: how do children come to embrace (or repudiate) gendered activities and identities; how do people experience intimacy, desire, and sexual arousal; and what strategies can psychologists use to de-center their own points of view and effectively contribute to a decolonial psychology?

As a result, this volume will open new avenues of inquiry as well as cross-disciplinary conversations for readers everywhere.

Nancy K. Dess is Professor of Psychology at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California. Her work on the relationship between emotion and eating, peace, and research ethics has appeared in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. She is a member of the American Psychological Association's Board of Scientific Affairs, has served as APA's Senior Scientist, and is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science.

Jeanne Marecek is William R. Kenan Professor of Psychology Emerita at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. She is a critical feminist psychologist and has worked extensively in Sri Lanka and in the Nordic countries. She is co-author of Making a Difference: Psychology and the Construction of Gender (Yale University, 1990); Gender and Culture in Psychology: Theories and Practices (Cambridge, 2012); and Doing Interview-based Qualitative Research (Cambridge, 2015). She is co-editor of Feminism & Psychology.

Leslie C. Bell is a psychotherapist and sociologist in private practice in Berkeley, California. Her research focuses on young women's experiences of sexuality and relationships, and integrates psychoanalytic and sociological theories and methods. Her work has appeared in various academic and popular publications and has been frequently featured in the news media. She is the author of Hard to Get: Twentysomething Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom (University of California Press, 2013).