It was an unusual move for Westwood's Sisterhood Bookstore to invite sociologist Cynthia Fuchs Epstein to be a recent guest author. Bookstore guests usually promote popular fiction or major biographies.
But Epstein is an academic, and her new book, "Deceptive Distinctions: Sex, Gender and the Social Order" (Yale University Press), is a heavy-duty look at the last two decades of research on the changing roles of men and women in American society. With its sweep of disciplines from anthropology to sociobiology and 48 pages of scholarly references, the book is hardly a candidate for beach reading. Explained Sisterhood's Simone Wallace: "It \o7 is\f7 unusual to focus on an academic book, but she is very well-known in the studies of women's roles. . . . Furthermore, this subject just won't go away."
For one thing, Wallace said, gender studies raise major questions about how men and women live, work and relate to each other. "Are there innate differences between the sexes? Cultural differences? Should we accentuate them? Should we all be the same, or try to be different? How do we develop ourselves fully? It's all very confusing right now."
A Clear Conclusion
Epstein, 55, a professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, is not confused. Quite the contrary. After a career of academic writing and teaching, and an intensive five years of research as a resident scholar at New York's Russell Sage Foundation, she has arrived at a clear conclusion.
"The basic differences between men and women are far more superficial than we have been led to think," she says. "Most differences are created and kept in place by social forces, not by biological design. I think that is big news, it's striking news."
Yale University Press, which is publishing the book, also thinks it is big news, and expects the book to be an academic best seller. "The book is unusual in that she is looking over the entire field," said Yale's Jane Levey. "She immersed herself in research from many different disciplines. She has done an exhaustive overview of the research. You will find the name of everybody who is relevant."
Epstein's Los Angeles visit included a Cable News Network interview and a session with students and faculty at USC's Institute for the Study of Women and Men.
