| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 154 words from this article are provided below; about 382 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Mysteries of Sex: Tracing Women and Men through American History. By Mary P. Ryan. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. 432 pp. $37.50, ISBN 978-0-8078-3062-8.)

Mysteries of Sex is, despite its somewhat lurid title, a sober analysis of the role of gender through the broad sweep of American history. It is in part a synthesis based on wide reading in the literature on American women and gender. Its forty-seven-page bibliography is valuable in its own right. It also provides a framework for making sense of the various approaches, subjects, and theoretical insights in that large, rapidly growing body of work. The mystery, according to Mary P. Ryan, is the "process whereby American popular culture became so obsessed with feminine domesticity" (p. 3). The book is also a series of explorations of the processes by which sex difference—that is, reproductive function—becomes an elaborated and often nonsensical regime of gender difference.

. . .

There are about 382 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.