"Feminism, Theory and the Politics of Difference" looks at the question of difference across the full spectrum of feminist theory from liberal, radical, lesbian ...

Feminist theory is a central strand of cultural studies. This book explores the history of feminist cultural studies from the early work of Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, through the 1970s Women's Liberation Movement. It also provides a comprehensive introduction to the contemporary key approaches, theories and debates of feminist theory within cultural studies, offering a major re-mapping of the field. It will be an essential text for students taking courses (...) within both cultural studies and women's studies departments. (shrink)

Bonnie Honig invigorates debate over the politics of refusal by insisting that withdrawal from unjust political systems be matched with collective action to change them. Historical and fictional characters from Muhammad Ali to the Bacchants of ancient Greek tragedy teach us how to turn rejection into transformative efforts toward self-governance.

Feminist Theory and Pop Culture (Second Edition) synthesizes feminist theory with modern portrayals of gender in media culture. This updated text provides comprehensive and interdisciplinary scholarship focused on topics related to: - Historical examination of feminist theory - Application of feminist research methods - Feminist theoretical perspectives such as the male gaze, feminist standpoint theory, Black feminist thought, queer theory, masculinity theory, theories of feminist activism, and (...) postfeminism. - Contributor chapters cover a range of topics from Western perspectives on belly dance to television shows such as Girls, Scandal, and Orange is the New Black. - Feminist theory and the wave of feminism, including a discussion of the fourth wave - Pedagogical features - Suggestions for further reading and discussion questions for classroom use Feminist Theory and Pop Culture was designed for classroom use and has been written with an eye toward engaging students in discussion. The book's polished perspective on feminist theory juxtaposes popular culture with theoretical perspectives which have served as a foundation for the study of gender. This interdisciplinary text can serve as a primary or supplemental reading. (shrink)

In this rewarding book, Laurie A. Finke challenges assumptions about gender, the self, and the text which underlie fundamental constructs of contemporary feminist theory. She maintains that some of the key concepts structuring feminist literary criticism need to be reexamined within both their historical context and the larger framework of current theory concerning language, representation, subjectivity, and value.

Feminist Theory After Deleuze addresses the encounter between one of the 20th century's most important philosophers, Gilles Deleuze, and one of its most significant political and intellectual movements, feminism. Feminist theory is a broad, contradictory, and still evolving school of thought. This book introduces the key movements within feminist theory, engaging with both Anglo-American and French feminism, as well as important strains of feminist thought that have originated in Australia and other parts of (...) Europe. Mapping both the feminist critique of Deleuze's work and the ways in which it has brought vitality to feminist theory, this book brings Deleuze into dialogue with significant thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir, Rosi Braidotti, Judith Butler, Elizabeth Grosz and Luce Irigaray. It takes key terms in feminist theory such as, 'difference', 'gender', 'bodies', 'desire' and 'politics' and approaches them from a Deleuzian perspective. (shrink)

This book presents the current feminist critique of science and the philosophy of science in such a way that students of philosophy of science, philosophers, feminist theorists, and scientists will find the material accessible and intellectually rigorous.Contemporary feminist debate, as well as the debate brought on by the radical critics of science, assumes—incorrectly—that certain movements in philosophy of science and science-driven theory are understood in their dynamics as well as in their details. All too often, labels (...) such as “Kuhnian” or “positivistic” are taken for granted, and much of the contemporary postmodern or post-structuralist feminist theory that sets out to criticize science does little to alleviate the reader’s lack of knowledge with regard to such movements.Unlike other texts, Philosophies of Science: Feminist Theories provides a student-oriented framework so that, for example, positivism is given a thorough grounding before the feminist critique of such epistemological theory is given. Other movements discussed include the Kuhnian turn, sociology of science, and the radical critique of science. Feminist theory and critique are interwoven throughout, with one chapter devoted to feminist thought, which includes the work of such thinkers as Longino, Hararway, Hubbard, Nelson, Harding, and Keller. (shrink)

In a recent essay — “How Can Feminist Theories of Evidence Assist Clinical Reasoning and Decision-making?” — Maya Goldenberg discusses criticisms of evidence-based medicine (or EBM) (Goldenberg 2013). She is particularly interested in those criticisms that make use of an epistemic appeal to the underdetermination of theory by evidence...

Do men and women perceive cybercrime types differently? This article draws on the distinction between socio-economic and psychosocial cybercrime proposed by Lazarus (2019) to investigate whether men and women hold different perceptions of digital crimes across these two dimensions. Informed by the synergy between feminist theory and the Tripartite Cybercrime Framework (TCF), our survey examined respondents’ differential perceptions of socio-economic cybercrime (online fraud) and psychosocial cybercrime (cyberbullying, revenge porn, cyberstalking, online harassment) among men and women in the United (...) Kingdom. The results revealed that women considered psychosocial cybercrime worse than men. Conversely, we found no differences between men and women with regard to socio-economic cybercrime. The article concludes that psychosocial cybercrimes are more gendered than socio-economic cybercrime, suggesting problems with the meaning of ‘cyber-enabled crimes’, and substantiating the synergy between the TCF and feminist perspectives. (shrink)

Philosophy's traditional "man of reason"—independent, neutral, unemotional—is an illusion. That's because the "man of reason" ignores one very important thing—the woman. Representing Reason: Feminist Theory and Formal Logic collects new and old essays that shed light on the underexplored intersection of logic and feminism.

From divorce and property law to (more) equal pay and the recognition of reproductive rights, feminist theory and practice –– and sweat, risk, ...

A feminist theory of content allows us to appreciate the nuanced role that historical and socio-cultural forces play in shaping the content of many of our terms. In this chapter, Maitra first shows how the classic articulation of externalism in literature is ineffective for feminist purposes. She then identifies two important ingredients that a feminist theory of content requires, namely, accounts of how the social and physical world shape content and what is required to transform (...) that content. The final part of her argument develops the first approximation of a feminist theory of content drawing from Ruth Millikan’s “consumer” account of meaning and mental representation. Using as an example José Jorge Mendoza’s analysis of how the history of U. S. immigration and citizenship law has shaped the term ‘whiteness,’ this chapter argues that feminist theorizing and activism stand to benefit from the possibility of a feminist theory of mental content that makes explicit how the contents of many terms with social and political import are determined and held stable. (shrink)

How can we think about identities in the wake of feminist critiques of identity and identity politics? Allison Weir rethinks conceptions of individual and collective identities in relation to freedom.

Traditionally inscribed at the margins of moral and political theory, it is time, after centuries of ongoing debates originated and grounded in Modernity’s values, to reflect on the status of Feminist Theory. Defined basically as critical theory —apostille of the mainstream theory—, feminist thought can be defined as theory tout court, in so far as the egalitarian discourses are central parts of moral and political thought and feminism is philosophical. This paper addresses the (...) ambivalent relation between feminist theory and moral-political theory with a critical view that upholds an integral vision that incorporates the dimension of care into the male-stream, and takes into account gender differences as well as the division between the public and private spheres. (shrink)

This article describes the connection between feminist theory and the canon of political thought. It explains that feminist approaches to the canon of political theory are characterized by deep ambivalence and the majority of canonical authors have mostly dismissed women as political beings in their own right and casted them instead as mere appendages to citizen man. The article suggests that the question of how to make political judgments about other cultures and practices that deeply affect (...) women is particularly important for feminist theory today. Globalization and the weakening of nation states have also pressed feminists to raise political demands with an eye to their multicultural and transnational significance. (shrink)

At no point in recorded history has there been an absence of intense, and heated, discussion about the subject of how to conduct relations between women and men. This Handbook provides a comprehensive guide to these omnipresent issues and debates, mapping the present and future of thinking about feminist theory. The chapters gathered here present the state of the art in scholarship in the field, covering: epistemology and marginality; literary, visual and cultural representations; sexuality; macro and microeconomics of (...) gender; conflict and peace. The most important consensus in this volume is that a central organizing tenet of feminism is its willingness to examine the ways in which gender and relations between women and men have been (and are) organized. The authors bring a shared commitment to the critical appraisal of gender relations, as well as a recognition that to think 'theoretically' is not to detach concerns from lived experience but to extend the possibilities of understanding. With this focus on theory and theorizing about the world in which we live, this Handbook asks us, across all disciplines and situations, to abandon our taken-for-granted assumptions about the world and interrogate both the origin and the implications of our ideas about gender relations and feminism."--Publisher description. (shrink)

The "Feminist Theory Reader" provides a revolutionary new approach to anthologizing the important works in feminist theory by incorporating the voices of women ...

Progress -- Loss -- Return -- Amenability -- Citation tactics -- Affective subjects.

This authoritative and lively exploration of the theories of contemporary feminism covers all the major variants of feminist political thought from the "traditional" schools of the women's movement-particularly radical, liberal, and socialist-to today's postmodern texts. Feminist Theory Today examines the epistemological challenge from critical legal theory and postmodernist thought; the divergences within, as well as between, feminist schools; and the protests from women marginalized by the feminist movement, including those who are lesbian and those (...) who are black. It also interrogates the dialectic equality and difference and reconceptualizes this pervasive tenet of feminist thought. Author Judith Evans documents the changes in socialist feminism from its revolutionary origins to its current focus on modifying liberal democratic forms. Students and teachers of women's studies, sociology, and political theory will find this an authoritative and lively exploration of the theories of contemporary feminism. It is also essential reading for anyone seeking to understand why the women's movement is as it is today. (shrink)

This first major study of feminist theory, which has been revised and completely reset, now takes the reader into the twenty-first century.

Reading Feminist Theory: From Modernity to Postmodernity interweaves classical and contemporary writings from the social sciences and the humanities to represent feminist thought from the late eighteenth century to the present. Editors Susan Archer Mann and Ashly Suzanne Patterson pay close attention to the multiplicity and diversity of feminist voices, visions, and vantage points by race, class, gender, sexuality, and global location. Along with more conventional forms of theorizing, this anthology points to multiple sites of (...) class='Hi'>theory production--both inside and outside of the academy--and includes personal narratives, poems, short stories, zines, and even music lyrics. Offering a truly global perspective, the book devotes three chapters and more than thirty readings to the topics of colonialism, imperialism and globalization. It also provides extensive coverage of third-wave feminism, poststructuralism, queer theory, postcolonial theory, and transnational feminisms. (shrink)

Contemporary feminist theory is at an impasse: the project of reformulating concepts of self and social identity is thwarted by an association between identity and oppression and victimhood. In Sacrificial Logics, Allison Weir proposes a way out of this impasse through a concept of identity which depends on accepting difference. Weir argues that the equation of identity with repression and domination links "relational" feminists like Nancy Chodorow, who equate self-identity with the repression of connection to others, and poststructuralist (...) feminists like Judith Butler, who view any identity as a repression of nonidentity and difference. Through readings of Chodorow, Butler, Jessica Benjamin, Luce Irigaray, Jacqueline Rose and Julia Kristeva, Weir analyzes the relation of theories of self-identity to theories of women's identity, social identity, the identity of meaning in language and feminist solidarity. Drawing particularly on the work of Julia Kristeva, she argues for a reformulation of self-identity as a capacity to participate in a social world, and sketches a model of a self-identity which depends on a capacity to accept nonidentity, difference and connections to others. (shrink)

This book evaluates the major debates around which the discipline of international relations has developed in the light of contemporary feminist theories. The three debates (realist versus idealist, scientific versus traditional, modernist versus postmodernist) have been subject to feminist theorising since the earliest days of known feminist activities, with the current emphasis on feminist, empiricist standpoint and postmodernist ways of knowing. Christine Sylvester shows how feminist theorising could have affected our understanding of international relations had (...) it been included in the three debates. She elaborates a feminist method of empathetically cooperative conversation which challenges the identity politics of IR, and illustrates that method with reference to the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp and the efforts of Zimbabwean women to negotiate international funding for their local producer cooperatives. (shrink)

First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Attending to the rich entanglements of scientific and critical theory, contributors to this issue scrutinize phenomena in nature to explore new territory in feminist science studies. With a special focus on relating theory to method, these scholars generate new feminist approaches to scientific practice. Contributors probe this relationship by way of topics from poetics of human-jellyfish interactions to a feminist reconsideration of a well-known thought experiment in thermodynamics. Two contributors analyze plant-insect encounter research to spin (...) their own symbiotically inflected account of “affective ecologies.” Technologies of human memory storage and retrieval lead one writer to interrogate how our understandings of memory and amnesia are currently under revision. Another contributor tracks the lively evolutionary and morphological theories that textile artisans manifest in material models of sea creatures. What emerges from these diverse essays is an approach to critical thinking that inhabits, elaborates, and feeds upon scientific theory, holding feminist theory accountable to science and vice versa. _Sophia Roosth_ is Assistant Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University. _Astrid Schrader_ is Visiting Assistant Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Sarah Lawrence College. _Contributors_: Karen Barad, Lina Dib, Eva Hayward, Carla Hustak, Vicki Kirby, Natasha Myers, Sophia Roosth, Astrid Schrader. (shrink)

Feminism is Queer is an introduction to the intimately related disciplines of gender and queer theory. While guiding the reader through complex theory, the author develops the original position of "queer feminism," which presents queer theory as continuous with feminist theory. While there have been significant conceptual tensions between second wave feminism and traditional lesbian and gay studies, queer theory offers a paradigm for understanding gender, sex, and sexuality that avoids the conflict in order (...) to develop solidarity among those interested in feminist theory and those interested in lesbian and gay rights. This accessible and comprehensive textbook carefully explains nuanced theoretical terminology and includes extensive suggested further reading to provide the reader with a full and thorough understanding of both disciplines.--Publisher information. (shrink)

The book argues that the category of mother is distinct from the category of woman and that many of the problems mothers face-socially, economically, politically, culturally, and psychologically-are specific to women's work and identity as mothers. Indeed, mothers, arguably more so than women in general, remain disempowered despite forty years of feminism. Mothers, thus, need a feminism of their own, one that positions mothers' concerns as the starting point for a theory and politic of empowerment. O'Reilly terms this new (...) mode of feminism matricentic feminism and the book explores how it is represented and experienced in theory, activism, and practice. The chapter on maternal theory examines the central theoretical concepts of maternal scholarship to include Adrienne Rich's distinction between mothering and motherhood, Sara Ruddick's model of maternal thinking and practice and Patricia Hill Collins' concept of othermothering while the chapter on activism considers the 21st century motherhood movement. Feminist mothering is likewise examined as the specific practice of matricentric feminism and this chapter discusses varies theories and strategies on and for maternal empowerment. Matricentric feminism is also examined in relation to the larger field of Feminist Theory and Women's Studies; here O'Reilly persuasively shows how matricentric feminism has been marginalized in feminist scholarship and considers the reasons for such exclusion and how such may be challenged and changed. (shrink)

"The Ontological Commitments of Feminist Theory," a paper co-sponsored by the Center for Advanced Feminist Studies and the Department of Philosophy, the University of Minnesota, June 1991; and delivered to the Philosophy Department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, November 1991. A rewritten version of this was delivered at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, June 1993; also at Miami University of Ohio, February 1994.

Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology addresses seven philosophically significant questions regarding feminism, its central concepts of sex and gender, and the project of centering women’s experience. Topics include the nature of sexist oppression, the sex/gender distinction, how gender-based norms influence conceptions of rationality, knowledge, and scientific objectivity, feminist ethics, feminst perspectives on self and autonomy, whether there exist distinct feminine moral perspectives, and what would comprise true liberation. Features an introductory overview illustrating the development of feminism as (...) a philosophical movement Contains both classic and contemporary sources of feminist thought, including selections by Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Simone de Beauvior, Kate Millett, bell hooks, Marilyn Frye, Martha Nussbaum, Louise Antony, Sally Haslanger, Helen Longino, Marilyn Friedman, Catharine MacKinnon, and Drucilla Cornell. (shrink)

Feminist epistemologists who attempt to refigure epistemology must wrestle with a number of dualisms. This essay examines the ways Lorraine Code, Sandra Harding, and Susan Hekman reconceptualize the relationship between self/other, nature/culture, and subject/object as they struggle to reformulate objectivity and knowledge.

Reading feminist theory as a complex imaginative achievement, Feminist Imagination considers feminist commitment through the interrogation of its philosophical, political and affective connections with the past, and especially with the `race' trials of the twentieth century. The book looks at: the 'directionlessness' of contemporary feminist thought; the question of essentialism and embodiment; the racial tensions in the work of Simone de Beauvoir; the totalitarian character in Hannah Arendt; the 'mimetic Jew' and the concept of mimesis (...) in the work of Judith Butler. Vikki Bell provides a compelling rethinking of feminist theory as bound up with attempts to understand oppression outside a focus on 'women'. She affirms feminism as a site and mode of making these connections. What emerges is a profound work brimming with insight that will be required reading for anyone who is seriously interested in feminist theory and, more generally, contemporary social theory. (shrink)

The changing face of feminist discourse as reflected by the career of one of its preeminent scholars Figures of Resistance brings together the unpublished lectures and little-seen essays of internationally renowned theorist Teresa de Lauretis, spanning over twenty years of her finest work. Thirty years after the height of feminist theory, this collection invites us to reflect on the history of feminism and take a hard look at where it stands today. Selected essays include "Sexual Indifference and (...) Lesbian Representation," "The Lure of the Mannish Lesbian," "Eccentric Subjects," "Habit Changes," "The Intractability of Desire," and the unpublished article "Figures of Resistance." An introduction from feminist film scholar Patricia White provides an overview of the development of de Lauretis's thought and of feminist theory over past decades. (shrink)

Despite decades of activism, resistance, and education, both feminists and gender rebels continue to experience personal, political, institutional, and cultural resistance to rights, recognition, and respect. In the face of these inequalities and disparities, Transgressing Feminist Theory and Discourse seeks to engage with, and disrupt the long-standing debates, unquestioned conceptual formations, and taboo topics in contemporary feminist studies. The first half of the book challenges key concepts and theories related to feminist scholarship by advocating new approaches (...) for theorizing interdisciplinarity, intersectionality, critical race theory, trans studies, and genetics. The second half of the book offers feminist critiques or explorations of timely topics such as the 2017 Women's March and Donald Trump's election as well as non-Western perspectives of family and the absence of women's perspectives in healthcare. Contributors comprise of leading scholars and activists from disciplines including gender and sexuality studies, African American studies, communication studies, sociology, political science, and media. Transgressing Feminist Theory and Discourse is a compelling examination of some of the most high-profile feminist issues today. It hopes to infuse future and current debates and conversations around feminism and feminist theory with intersectional, imaginative, provocative, and evocative ideas, inspiring bold cross-fertilizations of concepts, principles, and practices. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Feminist ethical theory Application of ethical theories Feminist research methods Application of research methods Conclusion.

Power is clearly a crucial concept for feminist theory. Insofar as feminists are interested in analyzing power, it is because they have an interest in understanding, critiquing, and ultimately challenging the multiple array of unjust power relations affecting women in contemporary Western societies, including sexism, racism, heterosexism, and class oppression. In "The Power of Feminist Theory," Amy Allen diagnoses the inadequacies of previous feminist conceptions of power, and draws on the work of a diverse group (...) of theorists of power, including Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Hannah Arendt, in order to construct a new feminist conception of power. The conception of power developed in this book enables readers to theorize domination, resistance, and solidarity, and, perhaps more importantly, to do so in a way that illuminates the interrelatedness of these three modalities of power. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory provides an overview of the analytical frameworks and theoretical concepts feminist theorists have developed to challenge established knowledge. Leading feminist theorists, from around the globe, provide in-depth explorations of a diverse array of subject areas, capturing a plurality of approaches. The Handbook raises new questions, brings new evidence, and poses significant challenges across the spectrum of academic disciplines, demonstrating the interdisciplinary nature of feminist theory.

Details developments in feminist theory since 1970, with chapters on aspects such as feminist social theory, political theory, and jurisprudence, black feminisms, post-colonial feminist theory, lesbian theory, and feminist linguistic theories. Other topics include psychoanalytic feminist theory, postmodernism and feminism, feminist literary theory, feminist media and film theory, and women's studies. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

This comprehensive reader represents the history, intellectual breadth and diversity of feminist theory.

Feminist theory, broadly construed, lacks a comprehensive theory of misogyny. While there has been a great deal of feminist work dedicated to analysing the social, cultural, political, and institutional effects of misogyny, the ancillary theories of misogyny these analyses produce are only ever partial, fragmented, vague or conceptually inconsistent. This article engages and critiques these theories by focusing on three separate but related issues within existing feminist scholarship on misogyny: the conflation of misogyny with sexism, (...) the elision of misogyny's affective elements and the supplanting of misogyny with gendered violence. Through my identification and critique of these issues, I argue that misogyny should be understood as a profoundly complicated and emotional social dynamic. Moreover, I argue that to attempt to cleanse misogyny of its affective/emotional complexity or conflate misogyny with sexism and/or violence is to rob theorists of possible loci of apprehension and intervention. My hope is that this article will stimulate feminist theorists to work collectively towards a more comprehensive feminist understanding of misogyny – one that grapples with the interpersonal and affective complexities of how misogyny emerges, circulates and self-perpetuates. (shrink)

Recent feminist critiques of development have questioned some fundamental assumptions of feminist political theory; such critiques have also been successful in subverting long-held assumptions of conventional economic development. Viewed in the context of women’s subordination in third world countries, a redefinition of development must not only be about economic growth, but ensure a redistribution of resources, challenge the gender-based division of labour and also seek to provide for an egalitarian basis in social arrangements. Further, as this article (...) argues, any starting point for feminist critiques of development must also seek to link the end of gender oppression to multiple theories of justice – a justice not juridical but one that recognises the cultural membership of women in the community. (shrink)