ABSTRACT
For whatever reasons, and whether we like it or not, either through nature or nurture, or both together, the world is divided into men and women who are initiated into male or masculine, and female or feminine, roles in life. There are two things to consider here: what men and women are like, and what men and women do, given what they are like. `What we are like' is a reference to the sex/gendering of us as human beings based on what our bodies are like or are perceived to be like, and how they are interpreted by our birth collectives, as our bodies ± and we ± are groomed to be men and women through the social processes of those collectives. It is an indisputable fact that `men rule the world': men are more visible in the public sphere in politics, religions, sport, senior management, business, the arts and sciences as `decision makers and shakers'. Men are glori®ed in violent cultural productions in ®lm and television, in wars and in the authority of their opinions. Their visibility symbolises their power. Lest you think you have just travelled back thirty-®ve years to some feminist consciousnessraising text, watch your television tonight, read your newspapers, see who predominates in the telecasting of sporting events. It is not women you will come across (although they1 may be incidentally important, and even intrinsic to, the grand narrative that persists, in spite of all attempts to dislodge or disavow it). On the other hand, women are visible, yes: but as adornments, as love-struck and then abandoned stars, as unhappy (`real' or pretend) princesses, or `older women who still manage to look young', as failures or successes in high or low culture. Where do these women come from and how are they related to the visibility of men? And what is a woman, and what is a man, anyway? Furthermore, how are individual women and men related to the generalisations we make about them given their differences, cultural diversities and sexual preferences?
