Review by Choice Review
Why are men more aggressive than women? That question posed by Campbell forms the central inquiry in this study. The author argues that gender differences lie in the social psychology of socialization and in how men and women form opinions about their own aggression. Data used by Campbell to answer this question include many interviews with men and women, gang members, juveniles and adults awaiting trial, and a review of the research literature. In a unique manner, Campbell analyzes both aggression and gender differences. Although the book has many strong points, one overarching strength is the impressive range of literature covered by Campbell and her ability to maintain a tight focus on the assumptions and conclusions regarding her thesis. The reader may gain much from Campbell's argument and from the supporting evidence that women believe their aggression results from a loss of self-control, while men see their behavior as gaining control over others. Highly recommended for gaining insight into the relationship between gender differences and aggression. Undergraduate; graduate; faculty. P. J. Venturelli; Valparaiso University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Like Deborah Tannen in her best-selling You Just Don't Understand, Campbell finds differences between men and women affecting how each gender perceives situations. Setting out to uncover why there is such difference between the sexes in levels of aggression, she explored men's and women's feelings about anger and its manifestations. She found that the sexes perceive anger in fundamentally different ways: women associate expressions of anger and aggression with "losing control" and being powerless, while men see them as ways of taking control of a situation and regaining self-esteem. In conclusion, she suggests that the sexes start listening to each other--in particular that men start listening to women's anger--in order to facilitate understanding. Only then, she believes, can our society reconstruct expressions of anger according to a model that encompasses sexually different perceptions of aggression. By taking such a cultural-sociological approach to her material (which encompasses a concern for how society perceives the angry woman--viz., as a dysfunctional, evil misfit), Campbell brings new balance into the current thinking on the biological basis of levels of aggression. ~--Mary Ellen Sullivan
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In her concise exploration of male and female attitudes toward anger and aggression, Campbell ( Girls in Gangs ), a British psychologist and criminologist, claims that women view aggression as a ``temporary loss of control caused by overwhelming pressure and resulting in guilt,'' while men regard it as a means of imposing control over others. Campbell argues that patriarchal society considers women's aggression ``evil or irrational,'' and that women are obliged to conceal, deny or redefine their anger. The notion of ``premenstrual syndrome,'' she suggests, is just such a redefinition. Discussing battered women, she states that those who strike back at their attackers are treated unjustly because they have supposedly violated natural as well as criminal law. With compelling, sometimes chilling examples, Campbell also explores the impact of male and female styles of aggression on the nuclear family as well as on criminal behavior. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Campbell begins by asking ``How do most women avoid fighting?'' She concludes that the reason lies not in biology but in social representations, i.e., how people think about aggression and express its meaning through behavior. Men view aggression as instrumental, a tool divorced from emotion that is used to control the behavior of others. Women, on the other hand, view aggression as expressive, an eruption of emotion that breaks relationships. In exploring instrumental versus expressive uses of aggression, Campbell compares the behavior of ``ordinary'' men and women, gang members, and perpetrators of domestic violence. According to Campbell, those women who react in normal female aggression patterns are labeled as ``mad'' or ``bad'' by our social, medical, and legal systems, which are based on instrumental (i.e., male) patterns of aggression. Her provocative and well-written book is highly recommended for public and academic libraries.-- Lucy Patrick, Florida State Univ. Lib., Tallahassee (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A karate course and a key chain with a Mace backup are not enough to bridge the gap between men's and women's capacity for aggression, according to the author of this intriguing study. Campbell (ed., The Opposite Sex, 1989; Health, Social and Policy Studies/Teesside University) has for years studied and written about women gang members and female delinquents. Further tweaking the idea of the female aggressor, Campbell finds major differences between men and women's aggressiveness--differences based primarily, she believes, on socialization, not on testosterone or other hormonal differences. Women view aggression- -getting angry, attacking verbally or physically--as a loss of control. To them, it is ``expressive,'' often of feelings of anger and frustration restrained until the breaking point. The resulting explosion may manifest itself as verbal or physical violence, frequently followed by feelings of shame and guilt. But for men, Campbell contends, violence is ``instrumental''--a strategy for taking control, learned early on, when, for instance, teachers acknowledge boys' aggression (although not necessarily approving it) while ignoring girls who fight back. Women target their anger most frequently against men ``because it is [men] who impose their will most strongly over women''--but women's anger is more often concealed, denied, or ``redefined'' (meaning that the anger of women who strike back against abuse or a lifetime of frustration is called ``craziness'' rather than ``rage''). Of additional interest here are the chapters on young boys cut off from gender experimentation by being labelled ``sissies'' (``tomboy'' girls are okay at least until puberty), and on PMS as the excuse for ``erratic'' behavior that might be more appropriately expressed as ``I'm angry.'' With the advent of Hillary Rodham Clinton as President manquée, some of the ``second-sex'' discussion here seems dated. But, overall, this is a clearly stated volume on why men and women differ in their aggressive behavior: It owes more--at least according to Campbell--to the imperatives of the schoolyard than to DNA.
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Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
