Focusing on the ways in which female novelists have, in their creative work, challenged or scrutinised contemporary assumptions about their own sex, this book's critical interest in women's fiction shows how mid-nineteenth-century women writers confront the conflict between the pressures of matrimonial ideologies and the often more attractive alternative of single or professional life. In arguing that the tensions and dualities of their work represent the honest confrontation of their own ambivalence rather than attempted conformity to convention, it calls for a fresh look at patterns of imaginative representation in Victorian women's literature. Making extensive use of letters and non-fiction, this study relates the opinions expressed there to the themes and methods of the fictional narratives. The first chapter outlines the social and ideological framework within which the authors were writing; the subsequent five chapters deal with the individual novelists, Craik, Charlotte Bronte, Sewell, Gaskell, and Eliot, examining the works of each and also pointing to the similarities between them, thus suggesting a shared female 'voice'. Dealing with minor writers as well as better-known figures, it opens up new areas of critical investigation, claiming not only that many nineteenth-century female novelists have been undeservedly neglected but also that the major ones are further illuminated by being considered alongside their less familiar contemporaries.

Women's Lives integrates the most current research and social issues to explore the psychological diversity of girls and women varying in age, ethnicity, social class, nationality, immigrant experience, sexual orientation, gender identity, ableness and body size and shape. The text embeds a lifespan perspective within each topical chapter and has an intersectional approach that integrates women's diverse identities. It includes rich coverage of women with disabilities and on middle-aged and older women throughout. Taking a deeper transnational focus, it also examines the impact of social, cultural, and economic factors in shaping women's lives around the world. This edition explores the latest areas of research and tackles important contemporary topics such as: feminization of immigration media portrayals of LGBTQ individuals and immigrants regulating testosterone levels in women's sports the effects of social media on body image menstrual equity and the "tampon tax" immigrant women as transnational mothers academic environment for low-income, ethnic minority, and immigrant women effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on women's employment the dilemma of unpredictable work hours effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on work-family balance issues healthcare barriers experienced by immigrant women and LGBTQ individuals #MeToo movement the fourth wave of feminism the role of immigrant women in grassroots feminist activism men's support of feminist issues and more. Boasting a new full-color design and rich with pedagogy, the book includes several boxed elements in each chapter. "In The News" boxes present current news items designed to engage students in thinking critically about current gender-focused events and issues. The "What You Can Do" boxes give students examples of applied activities that they can engage in to promote a more egalitarian society. "Get Involved" boxes ask students to collect data and to critically think about the explanations and implications of the activity's findings. "Learn About the Research" boxes expose students to a variety of research methods and highlight the importance of diversity in research samples by including studies of underrepresented groups. At the end of each chapter, "What Do You Think" questions foster skills in critical thinking, synthesis, and evaluation by asking the student to apply course material or personal experiences to provocative issues from the chapter. The "If You Want to Learn More" feature provides names of the most current books available on various topics that are discussed in the chapter. Combining up-to-date research with an approachable and engaging writing style, Women's Lives is an invaluable resource for all students of gender from psychology, women's studies, gender studies, sociology, and anthropology.

This volume illuminates the encounter of feminist activism with scholarship in political science, cultural studies, sociology, ethnic studies, and economics. The essays contribute images of the forces that lead to the development of many different kinds of feminisms and women??'s movements across the globe in the 20th century and recently. They explore the cultural constructions and legitimations of sustainability during the processes through which various agents interpret the relevance of feminisms for their social and political initiatives. The volume offers new dimensions on the relationships across time and place among activisms and scholarships, as ways to contemplate how feminisms are sustainable and whether there is a future beyond sustainability.
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* Gives a genealogical account of various different kinds of feminisms.
* Offers new dimensions on the relationships across time and place among activisms and scholarships.
* Investigates and discusses howfeminisms are sustainable.

This innovative collection of contemporary essays in feminist literary criticism provides a spectrum of approaches and positions, united by their common focus on writing by and about women. Spanning the novel, poetry, drama, film and criticism, the contributors emphasise some of the problems of theory and practice posed by writing as a woman and by women's representation in literature. The subjects of individual essays range from the nineteenth and twentieth century novel to avant-garde film, and from Victorian women poets to Russian women poets of today. Drawing on disciplines as diverse as structuralism, psychoanalysis, semiotics, socio-linguistics and Marxist analyses of literature, the essays suggest the variety and vigour of contemporary feminist literary criticism, as well as representing some of the debates currently animating it. Topics of common concern range from the nature of a women's tradition in literature to the scope and method of feminist literary criticism itself. Successfully bridging the gap between literary criticism and literary production, the scope of this collection will be of considerable interest to those concerned with current developments in literary criticism as well as to those in the field of women's studies.

This book explores how deans of women actively fostered feminism in the mid-twentieth century through a study of the career of Dr. Emily Taylor, the University of Kansas dean of women from 1956-1974. Sartorius links feminist activism by deans of women with labor activism, the New Left movement, and the later rise of women's studies as a discipline.

This collection of new feminist essays represents the work of young critics researching and teaching in British Universities. Aiming to set the agenda for feminist criticism in the nineties, the essays debate themes crucial to the development of feminist thought: among them, the problems of gendered knowledge and the implications of accounts of gendered language, cultural restraints on the representation of sexuality, women's agency, cultural and political change, a feminist aesthetics and new readings of race and class. This variety is given coherence by a unity of aim - to forge new feminist discourses by addressing conceptual and cultural questions central to problems of gender and sexual difference. The topics of discussion range from matrilinear thought to seventeenth-century prophecy; the poetry of Amelia Lanyer to Julia Margaret Cameron's photographs; from Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf to eighteenth-century colonial painting of the South Pacific; from medieval romance to feminist epistemology. The essays utilise and question the disciplines of literary criticism, art history, photography, psychoanalysis, Marxist history and post-structuralist theory.

A systematic and original study of feminist issues, The Sceptical Feminist fights a battle on two fronts: against the view that little or nothing is wrong with women's position, and at the same time against much current feminist dogma. It is written by a philosopher who, in the tradition of John Stuart Mill's classic The Subjection of Women, avoids the psychological and sociological speculation characteristic of much recent feminism and concentrates on the analysis of arguments. By these means she constructs a powerful and often unexpected case for radical change in the position of women, as well as for a change of attitude among many feminists. From her analysis, Janet Radcliffe Richards argues that positive discrimination in favour of women is essential for justice, that traditional sexual roles never had anything to do with beliefs about each sex's capabilities, that current abortion practice reflects a disguised wish to punish women's sexual activity, that 'women's work' is rightly little valued, and that traditional ideals of femininity are inherently pernicious. But she also argues that a movement for sexual justice cannot 'take the woman's side in everything', that feminism should not be thought of as the primary struggle, that dismissing 'male' logic and science will undermine feminists' own intentions, that the state should not subsidise motherhood, that ever available creches would be disastrous for women, that there is no inherent degradation in prostitution, and that contempt for beauty and adornment has nothing to do with feminism. This is a book for feminists, for their critics, and for students of moral, political and social philosophy.

Dissatisfaction with the present can cause people to gaze nostalgically back to an idealized past; that nostalgia pervades contemporary rhetoric. In lamenting the 'degeneracy' of present-day America, social and literary critics as well as contemporary novelists often choose as their scapegoat the women's movement and its increasing influence. Doane and Hodges show us how these social observers seek to 'reinstate' America and American values in ways that, overtly or covertly, do battle with the feminist movement for control of rhetoric, the power of language.

Routledge Library Editions: Feminist Theory brings together as one set, or individual volumes, a series of previously out-of-print classics from a variety of academic imprints. With titles ranging from The Liberation of Women to Feminists and State Welfare, from Married to the Job to Julia Kristeva, this set provides in one place a wealth of important reference sources from the diverse field of gender studies.

What are men doing in feminist discourse? Although many feminists have commented on the relation, actual or possible, of men to feminist thinking and practice, and although some male academics have written about feminism, there has so far been little shared discussion. Men in Feminism is the first substantial attempt to produce a dialogue between feminists and their male allies. This lively book, comprised of essays by both men and women, is a controversial sally in the current debate over the future of feminist theory. Its focus is one seemingly direct and yet surprisingly prickly question: the actual and potential relationship of men to the now impressive and widely recognized body of feminist writing. Each essay attempts to assess the benefits or damage of male participation in feminism; several of the contributions stand in direct dialogue with others. The editors present, mediate and reflect upon the agreements and arguments in the book, as well as between themselves as editors. Their dialogue-afterword draws together the questions at the heart of the volume. Offering few comfortable answers, Men in Feminism will open up discussion of this theoretical and thoroughly political issue.

The phrase 'feminist pedagogy' couples the contemporary and the traditional, joining current political movements with a concern for the transmission of knowledge more ancient than the Greek word for teaching. Now, two decades after the first Women's Studies courses appeared on campuses, their place in higher education happily needs little demonstration. Gendered Subjects combines a number of classic statements on feminist pedagogy from the 1970s with recent original essays making significant and original contributions to the field. As the new scholarship on women has changed the content and structure of knowledge in every field, so this collection aims to mirror this impact on feminist pedagogy, with articles ranging from broad theoretical perspectives on the realities of the classroom to international explorations on how race, gender and class, and political orientation inform feminist enquiry.

Science and the Construction of Women is a multi-disciplinary exploration of the major questions currently challenging feminist scholars of science. The authors ask key questions: What constitutes science? How have feminists investigated it? How does science 'construct' women? How can we create a feminist discourse of science? Are the current developments to women's advantage or disadvantage? Their answers draw on material from a wide range of natural scientific, humanities and social science sources, critically examining theoretical approaches from the postmodern to the materialist to the cyborgian. A key argument of the book is that there are strong intellectual and pragmatic reasons - the rapid development of information technology, advances in fertility treatment and genetic engineering, feminist concern for environmental issues - why feminism must rigorously engage with issues of a scientific and technological nature. Science and the Construction of Women provides an important contribution to the opening-up and broadening of debate in the field. This book will be an important text for students of gender and women's studies, and science studies. It is also designed to be read by feminists both inside and outside the academy and to appeal to all those with interests in the sociology of knowledge and the history of ideas.

As paid work becomes increasingly central in women's lives, the history of their labor struggles assumes more and more importance. This volume represents the best of the new feminist scholarship in twentieth-century U.S. women's labor history. Fourteen original essays illuminate the complex relationship between gender, consciousness and working-class activism, and deepen historical understanding of the contradictory legacy of trade unionism for women workers. The contributors take up a wide range of specific subjects, and write from diverse theoretical perspectives. Some of the essays are case studies of women's participation in individual unions, organizing efforts, or strikes; others examine broader themes in women's labor history, focusing on a specific time period; and still others explore the situation of particular categories of women workers over a longer time span. This collection extends the scope of current research and interpretation in women's labor history, both conceptually and in terms of periodization - emphasis is placed on the post-World War I period where the literature is sparse. This book will be valuable for scholars, students and general readers alike.

This important new collection considers Jurgen Habermas's discourse theory from a variety of feminist vantage points. Habermas's theory represents one of the most persuasive current formulations of moral and political notions of subjectivity and normativity. Feminist scholars have been drawn to his work because it reflects a tradition of emancipatory political thinking rooted in the Enlightenment and engages with the normative aims of emancipatory social movements. The essays in Feminists Read Habermas analyze various aspects of Habermas's theory, ranging from his moral theory to political issues of identity and participation. While the contributors hold widely different political and philosophical views, they share a conviction of the potential significance of Habermas's work for feminist reflections on power, norms and subjectivity.

First published in 1977, Women, Crime and Criminology presents a feminist critique of classical and contemporary theories of female criminality. It addresses the issue that criminology literature has, throughout history, been predominantly male-oriented, always treating female criminality as marginal to the 'proper' study of crime in society. Carol Smart explores a new direction in criminology, and the sociology of deviance, by investigating female crime from a committed feminist position. Examining the types of offences committed by female offenders, Smart points to the fallacies inherent in a reliance on official statistics and shows the deficiencies of the popular argument that female emancipation has caused an increase in female crime rates. She deals with studies of prostitution and rape and considers the treatment of women - as offenders and victims - by the criminal law, the police and courts, and the penal system. Particular attention is given to the question of lenient treatment for female offenders with the conclusion that women and girls are, in some important instances, actually discriminated against in our legal and penal systems. The relationship between female criminality and mental illness is discussed and the author concludes by dealing with some of the problems inherent in developing a feminist criminology.

"Feminism and Migration: Cross-Cultural Engagements" is a rich, original, and diverse collection on the intersections of feminism and migration in western and non-western contexts. This book explores the question: does migration empower women? Through wide-ranging topics on theorizing feminism in migration, contesting identities and agency, resistance and social justice, and religion for change, well-known and emerging scholars provide in-depth analysis of how social, cultural, political, and economic forces shape new modalities and perspectives among women upon migration. It highlights the centrality of the various meanings and interpretations of feminism(s) in the lives of immigrant and migrant women in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Eastern Europe, France, Greece, Japan, Italy, Mexico, Morocco, Papua New Guinea, Spain, and the United States. The well-researched chapters explore the ways in which feminism and migration across cultures relate to women's experiences in host societies --- as women, wives, mothers, exiles, nuns, and workers---and the avenues of interactions for change. Cross-cultural engagements point to the convergence and even disjunctures between (im)migrant and non-immigrant women that remain unrecognized in contemporary mainstream discourses on migration and feminism. "

What is the relationship between feminist critical theory and literature? This book deals with the relationship between women and writing, mothers and daughters, the maternal and history. It addresses the questions about language, writing and the relations between women which have preoccupied the three most influential French feminists and three important contemporary British women novelists. Treating both fiction and theory as texts, she traces the connections between the theorists - Helene Cixious, Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva - and the novelists - Doris Lessing, Angela Carter and Muriel Spark. This reading of the work of these six major women writers explores new forms of women's identity, subjectivity and narrative and demonstrates how theoretical and literary texts can illuminate each other to bridge the gap between theory and literary criticism.

Materialist Feminism and the Politics of Discourse confronts the impasses in materialist feminist work on rethinking 'woman' as a discursively constructed subject. The book looks at the problem of examining critically the social dimensions on which theories of discourse are premised: how such theories understand 'materiality'; the relation between 'women's experience' and feminist politics, and that between history and discourse. Rosemary Hennessy considers the work of Kristeva, Foucault, Laclau and Mouffe, and argues for a materialist feminist re-articulation of discourse as ideology. Concerns over identity and difference are incorporated into a rewriting of materialist feminism's analysis of women's oppression across capitalist and patriarchal structures. In adapting postmodernist theories in this way, Hennessy develops a project of social change, where feminism, while maintaining its specificity, is necessarily aligned with other emancipatory movements.

The essays collected in this volume reflect the upsurge of interest in the research and writing of feminist history in the 1970s/80s and illustrate the developments which have taken place - in the types of questions asked, the methodologies employed, and the scope and sophistication of the analytical approaches which have been adopted. Focusing on women in nineteenth-century Britain and America, this book includes work by scholars in both countries and takes its place in a long history of Anglo-American debate. The collection adopts 'the doubled vision of feminist theory', the view that it is the simultaneous operation of relations of class and of sex/gender that perpetuate both patriarchy and capitalism. This view informs a wide variety of contributions from 'Class and Gender in Victorian England', to 'Servants, Sexual Relations and the Risks of Illegitimacy', 'Free Black Women', 'The Power of Women's Networks', and 'Socialism, Feminism and Sexual Antagonism in the London Tailoring Trade'. Both the vigour and the urgency of scholarship infused with social aims can be clearly felt in the essays collected here.

This unusual book traces the development of the feminist movement in America and, to a lesser extent, in England. The comparison between the movements is enlightening. Professor O'Neill starts with Mary Wollstonecraft and traces the development of the attack on Victorian institutions right up to the 1920s and on to the 'permissive' society in which we live. But the story covers all facets of the movement: the struggle for enfranchisement, for property rights, and education, for working women in industry, for temperance and social reform. These remarkable women leaders live in these pages, but even more in the Documents which form the second part of the book. Here their own voices come to us across the years with a sincerity which gives life to the language of a past age.

First published in 1978, Feminism and Socialism in China explores the inter-relationship of feminism and socialism and the contribution of each towards the redefinition of the role and status of women in China. In her history of the women's movement in China from the late nineteenth century onwards, Professor Croll provides an opportunity to study its construction, its ideological and structural development over a number of decades, and its often ambiguous relationship with a parallel movement to establish socialism. Based on a variety of material including eye witness accounts, the author examines a wide range of fundamental issues, including women's class and oppression, the relation of women's solidarity groups to class organisations, reproduction and the accommodation of domestic labour, women in the labour process, and the relationship between women's participation in social production and their access to and control of political and economic resources. The book includes excerpts from studies of village and communal life, documents of the women's movement and interviews with members of the movement.

Until about 1986, feminists generally considered modernism a reactionary, misogynist, and hegemonic mire not worth investigating. Since then enough studies of modernism have appeared that 17 feminist critics can now review and debate their treatment of the period. They evaluate the progress and goals of the new era of modernist scholarship. As the authors in this volume suggest, instead of condemning writers for not practicing or portraying an acceptable politics of gender, we ought instead to show how their assumptions about the nature of the sexes inform their texts, both in their creation and in their reception. This also allows examination of the complex and changing relationship between human subjectivity and aesthetics. This volume is a highly reflective dialogue, introspective and evaluative, at a moment of crisis within modernist studies and feminist studies. The analysis of critical work on early-twentieth-century literature not only helps reread and redefine a definition of modernism; it also intends to redirect and reintegrate feminist theory.

The bestselling classic that redefined our view od the relationship between beauty and female identity.

In today's world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women's movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife. It's the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society's impossible definition of "the flawless beauty."

The Routledge Queer Studies Reader provides a comprehensive resource and textbook for students and scholars working in this vibrant and interdisciplinary field. The volume traces the emergence and development of Queer Studies, presenting reproductions of the key critical essays crucial for any study, alongside more recent essays, exploring exciting new directions. Each section is individually edited and introduced by a prominent scholar, contextualizing the work within its historical, disciplinary and theoretical boundaries. Section subject areas include 'Genealogies', 'Sex', 'Temporalities', 'Kinship', 'Affect', 'Bodies and Borders'. The book is edited by two of the leading scholars in the field and features valuable pedagogical tools, including discussion questions, an annotated bibliography and a glossary. The Routledge Queer Studies Reader is a field-defining volume and presents an illuminating guide for established scholars and also those new to Queer Studies.

This book challenges a contemporary postfeminist sensibility grounded not only in assumptions that gender and sexual equality has been achieved in many Western contexts, but that feminism has gone 'too far' with women and girls now overtaking men and boys - positioned as the new victims of gender transformations. The book is the first to outline and critique how educational discourses have directly fed into postfeminist anxieties, exploring three postfeminist panics over girls and girlhood that circulate widely in the international media and popular culture. First it explores how a masculinity crisis over failing boys in school has spawned a backlash discourse about overly successful girls; second it looks at how widespread anxieties over girls becoming excessively mean and/or violent have positioned female aggression as pathological; third it examines how incessant concerns over controlling risky female sexuality underpin recent sexualisation of girls' moral panics. The book outlines how these postfeminist panics over girlhood have influenced educational policies and practices in areas such as academic achievement, anti-bullying strategies and sex-education curriculum, making visible the new postfeminist, sexual politics of schooling. Moving beyond media or policy critique, however, this book offers new theoretical and methodological tools for researching postfeminism, girlhood and education. It engages with current theoretical debates over possibilities for girls' agency and empowerment in postfeminist, neo-liberal contexts of sexual regulation. It also elaborates new psychosocial and feminist Deleuzian methodological approaches for mapping subjectivity, affectivity and social change. Drawing on two UK empirical research projects exploring teen-aged girls' own perspectives and responses to postfeminist panics, the book shows how real girls are actually negotiating notions of girls as overly successful, mean, violent, aggressive and sexual. The data offers rich insight into girls' gendered, raced and classed experiences at school and beyond, exploring teen peer cultures, friendship, offline and online sexual identities, and bullying and cyberbullying. The analysis illuminates how and when girls take up and identify with postfeminist trends, but also at times attempt to re-work, challenge and critique the contradictory discourses of girlhood and femininity. In this sense the book offers an opportunity for girls to 'talk back' to the often simplistic either wildly celebratory or crisis-based sensationalism of postfeminist panics over girlhood. This book will be essential reading for those interested in feminism, girlhood, media studies, gender and education.