Fausto-Sterling - Myths of gender: biological theories about women and men ; includes a new chapter on brain anatomy, sex differences, and homosexuality

THIS PROJECT has taken more than four years to complete. During that time many people have supported the work in many different ways. At the most tangible level, I have received fellowships from the Wellesley Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College and from the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University. The Brown University administration has cooperated in granting me both a sabbatical leave and leaves of absence to utilize these fellowships. Other forms of practical help have come from the librarians at both the Sciences and Rockefeller libraries at Brown University, who went out of their way to deal with my sometimes urgent and often oddball requests. I have deeply appreciated their professional competence and their personal interest in my work. Christina Crosby and Carol Cohen both did extensive library work for me at critical times in the books development, and Carol King typed more than one version of the manuscript with great skill and, perhaps most importantly, with good humor. Her cheerfulness and sense of steadiness often provided balance for my more mercurial self-presentation. Lily Hsieh kept other parts of my professional life going, enabling me to focus on the book.

I have had the extraordinary good fortune to belong to two different extended families, known informally as the Tacky Family and the Alstead Book Society (and Eating Club). The gifts of their individual and collective friendships have on occasion kept me from drowning and have, among many other things, freed me to work on a project so seemingly unending as this book. To two Barbaras, David, Bill, Marlene, Nelson, Harold, Susan, two Elizabeths, Christina, Don, Joan, and Karen: thanks and may our friendship, love, and loyalty sustain us throughout our lives. A special thanks goes to the children of these families for sharing with me their unique and wonderful visions of the world. Daniel, Michael, Luke, Karl, Nathan, Toby, Bryony, and Liz: as you descend into the abyss of adulthood, may you never lose sight of the freshness and openness of childhood.

Many people have offered very particular kinds of help. Karen Romer believed in my ability to write a book long before I did. She constantly encouraged me, finding in the midst of her own busy life the time to read and comment on two manuscript drafts. Joan Scott fulfilled her professional duties as a literary schotkchun by putting me in contact with my editor-to-be, Steve Fraser. In writing this book I was kept fully in touch with the popular press through the devotion of several avid media watchers. My husband, Nelson Fausto, my aunt, Alice Lake, and my mother, Dorothy Sterling, as well as quite a number of students and librarians at Brown University kept me papered with clippings and alerted to the latest relevant magazine articles. Lenny Erickson kept me abreast of the New York Review of Books and lent me his copy whenever necessary. Without their interest and consistent help my job would have been much harder. My father, Philip Sterling, lent his especially keen editorial eye to major parts of the manuscript, and his interest and suggestions have helped considerably in the final shaping of the work. So, too, have the excellent skills of my editor at Basic Books, Steven Fraser. Discussions with him helped put the book in final shape. His prompt and considerate feedback and his quick eye for what does and does not work moved things along.