Feminist Social Thought

First published in 1998. Feminist Social Thought brings together key articles by prominent feminist thinkers, offering students sophisticated treatment of the theoretical topics central to feminist social thought. This reader highlights salient concerns in contemporary feminist scholarship and the advances feminist philosophers have made. The editor's introduction outlines alternative routes through the text, allowing instructors to easily adapt this reader to their particular courses and the interests of their students. Each article is prefaced with a short introduction by the editor placing it in context, highlighting the principle issues and the conclusions reached. Students will find these headnotes helpful when tackling the challenging theoretical issues addressed. Representing a spectrum of feminist thinking, Feminist Social Thought is organized around seven topics constructions of gender; theorizing diversity; figurations of women; subjectivity, agency and feminist critique; social identity, solidarity and political engagement; care and its critics; and women, equality and justice. Students will be exposed to a wide variety of feminist philosophy and encouraged to think critically about challenging questions around pivotal subjects including * How are gender norms instilled, enforced, and perpetuated? * What are the relationships between gender and other socially demarcated positions such as race, class and sexual orientation? * What resources do women have at their disposal for recognizing their subordination and resisting it? * What goals should feminist politics pursue? * How can social and legal equality be reconciled with difference?

"Feminist Social Thought gives a real insight into the works of six noteworthy feminist thinkers, namely, Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Kate Millett, Shulamith Firestone, Juliet Mitchell and Sheila Rowbotham. The text promises to be the much-needed handbook for teachers and students of feminist thought giving a clear understanding of the classics of second wave feminism. This book offers a comprehensive and coherent guide to second wave feminist thinkers for students of Women's Studies, Sociology, and Social and Literary Theory."

In spite of the double burden of racial and gender discrimination, African-American women have developed a rich intellectual tradition that is not widely known. In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins explores the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals as well as those African-American women outside academe. She provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde. The result is a superbly crafted book that provides the first synthetic overview of Black feminist thought.

Within much contemporary feminist theory there is a tendency to forget or ignore its own historicity and consider itself as primarily oriented towards the present. This book explores the historical roots of some of feminism’s central concepts and debates, examining the philosophical conditions for feminist thought and taking as its point of departure the dynamic relationship between feminist thought and the history of philosophy. With close attention to the genealogy of key concepts such as equality, sex/gender and difference, alongside discussions of contemporary gender equality policy and contextual understandings of central figures including Wollstonecraft, Beauvoir and Irigaray, The Genealogy of Modern Feminist Thinking provides an analysis of feminism from its origins in the Early Modern period to its contemporary, post-modern forms. Shedding light on feminism as a product of Modernity and establishing it as part of the canon of European intellectual development, this book thus corrects the picture of feminism as a phenomenon that lacks historical continuity, revealing a history characterized by breaks, setbacks and forgetting, in which the forgetting itself forms part of a rich genealogy. As such, it will be of interest to philosophers, sociologists, political theorists and intellectual historians alike.

This collection of thirteen life stories recaptures the history of a political and intellectual movement that created feminist sociology as a field of inquiry. As the editors' introduction notes, the life history is a crucial tool for sociological thought. Life histories can be a bridge between individual experience and codified knowledge, between human agency and social structure. Life histories can enhance social theory by revealing categories of meaning usually submerged in the conventions of social science. The authors in this volume, all sociologists who have had great impact upon the field in which they write, show how personal relationships, experiences of inequality, and professional conflict and camaraderie interweave with the formation of social theory, political movements, and intellectual thought. The book makes a powerful impression upon anyone who has struggled with the relationship between social theory and everyday life. -- Accessible, lively articles that combine personal narrative with sociological theory. -- Contributors are some of the leading voices in feminist sociology.

A classic resource on feminist theory, Feminist Thought offers a clear, comprehensive, and incisive introduction to the major traditions of feminist theory, from liberal feminism, radical feminism, and Marxist and socialist feminism to care-focused feminism, psychoanalytic feminism, and ecofeminism. The fifth edition has been thoroughly revised, and now includes a new chapter on Third Wave and Third Space Feminism. Also added to this edition are significantly expanded discussions on women of color feminisms, psychoanalytic and care feminisms, as well as new examinations of queer theory, LGBTQ and trans feminism. Learning tools like end-of-chapter discussion questions and the bibliography make Feminist Thought an essential resource for students and thinkers who want to understand the theoretical origins and complexities of contemporary feminist debates.

First Published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book brings together 14 anti-racist feminists who examine ways in which race and gender interact to shape the lives of women of colour in Canada. This collection of articles covers a broad range of topics such as the impact of colonialism and its associated discourses on First Nations and other groups of colonised women; racism in the Canadian labour movement; the impact of globalisation on women of colour; the ways in which the institution of the nuclear family shapes racism; sexism in communities of colour; and the ways in which the women's movement can create an anti-racist praxis. The book not only provides exciting new insights into how women of colour experience Canadian society, but also provides instructors with a textbook that integrates anti-racist and feminist approaches.