feminist theory presentation

• Table of Contents
• Random Entry
• Chronological
• Editorial Information
• About the SEP
• Editorial Board
• How to Cite the SEP
• Special Characters
• Advanced Tools
• Support the SEP
• PDFs for SEP Friends
• Make a Donation
• SEPIA for Libraries
• Entry Contents

Bibliography

Academic tools.

• Friends PDF Preview
• Author and Citation Info
• Back to Top

Feminist Philosophy

This entry provides an introduction to the feminist philosophy section of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP). Overseen by a board of feminist philosophers, this section primarily takes up feminist philosophy of the twentieth and twenty-first century. It has three subsections of entries (as can be seen in Table of Contents under “feminist philosophy”): (1) approaches to feminist philosophy, (2) feminist interventions in philosophy, and (3) feminist philosophical topics. By “approaches to feminist philosophy” we mean the main philosophical approaches such as analytic, continental, psychoanalytic, pragmatist, and various intersections. We see these as methodologies that can be fruitfully employed to engage philosophically isssues of feminist concern. The second group of entries, feminist interventions in philosophy, includes entries on how feminist philosophers have intervened in and begun to transform traditional philosopical areas such as aesthetics, ethics, the history of philosophy, metaphysics, and political philosophy. Entries in the third group, feminist philosophical topics, take up concepts and matters that traditional philosophy has either overlooked or undertheorized, including autonomy, the body, objectification, sex and gender, and reproduction. In short, this third group of entries shows how feminist philosophers have rendered philosophical previously un-problematized topics, such as the body, class and work, disability, the family, human trafficking, reproduction, the self, sex work, and sexuality. Entries in this third group also show how a particularly feminist lens refashions issues of globalization, human rights, popular culture, race and racism, and science. Following a brief overview of feminism as a political and intellectual movement, we provide an overview of these three parts of the feminist section of the SEP.

In addition to the feminist philosophy section of the SEP, there are also a number of entries on women in the history of philosophy, for example, on Mary Wollstonecraft , Mary Astell , Jane Addams , Rosa Luxemburg , Simone de Beauvoir , Iris Murdoch , and others. Additionally, dozens of other entries throughout the SEP discuss facets of feminist philosophy, including, to name just a handful, the entries on global justice , respect , contemporary Africana philosophy , multiculturalism , privacy , and Latinx philosophy .

• 1. Introduction
• 2. What is Feminism?

3. Approaches to Feminism

4. interventions in philosophy, 5. topics in feminism, other internet resources, related entries, 1. what is feminism.

Broadly understood, feminism is both an intellectual commitment and a political movement that seeks an end to gender-based oppression. Motivated by the quest for social justice, feminist inquiry provides a wide range of perspectives on cultural, economic, social, and political phenomena. It identifies and evaluates the many ways that some norms have been used to exclude, marginalize, and oppress people on the basis of gender, as well as how gendered identities have been shaped to conform and uphold the norms of a patriarchal society. In so doing, it tries to understand the roots of a system that has been prevalent in nearly all known places and times. It also explores what a just society would look like.

While less frequently than one would think, throughout history women have rebelled against repressive structures. It was not until the late 19th century that feminism coalesced into a movement. In the mid-1800s the term feminism was still used to refer to “the qualities of females.” After the First International Women’s Conference in Paris in 1892, the term feminism , following the French term féministe , was used regularly in English for a belief in and advocacy of equal rights for women based on the idea of the equality of the sexes. Hence the term feminism in English is rooted in the mobilization for women’s suffrage in Europe and the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

As a term, feminism has many different uses and its meanings are often contested. For example, some writers use the term to refer to a historically specific political movement in the United States and Europe; other writers use it to refer to the belief that there are injustices against women, though there is no consensus on the exact list of these injustices. Some have found it useful, if controversial, to think of the women’s movement in the United States as occurring in “waves.” The wave model has some virtues, but it also tends to overlook a great deal of heterogeneity of thought in any given moment. It works well enough for what is thought of as the first wave, identified as the period from the mid-nineteenth century until the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. This first wave focused on the struggle to achieve basic political rights. According to the wave model, feminism in the United States waned after women achieved voting rights, to be revived in the late 1960s and early 1970s as “second wave” feminism. In this second wave, the model holds, feminists pushed beyond the early quest for political rights to fight for greater equality across the board, e.g., in education, the workplace, and at home. But in actuality, many feminists during this time were focusing on more than equality. Like the first wave, many of the leaders of the second wave of feminism were white women seeking equal rights. But also, as in the first wave, other voices emerged, broadening the movement. The second wave came to include women of different identities, ethnicities, and orientations. In addition to calling for equal political rights, they called for greater equality across the board, e.g., in education, the workplace, and at home. Transformations of feminism beginning in the 1990s have resulted in a “third wave.” Third Wave feminists often critique earlier feminists for their lack of attention to the differences among women due to class, ethnicity, nationality, religion, and race (see Breines 2002; Springer 2002), and emphasize “identity” as a site of gender struggle. (For more information on the “wave” model and each of the “waves,” see the subsection on Waves of Feminism in the Other Internet Resources section.)

Some feminist scholars object to identifying feminism in terms of waves on the grounds that doing so eclipses differences within each wave as well as continuity of feminist resistance to male domination throughout history and across cultures. In other words, feminism is not confined to a few (white) women in the West over the past century or so. Moreover, even considering only relatively recent efforts to resist male domination in Europe and the United States, the emphasis on “First” and “Second” Wave feminism ignores the ongoing resistance to male domination between the 1920s and 1960s and the resistance outside mainstream politics, particularly by women of color and working class women (Cott 1987). The wave model also cannot account for theoretical work taking place between waves, for example, of the tremendous work done by Simone de Beauvoir in her groundbreaking book of 1949, The Second Sex . Because of these many limitiations of the wave model, the feminist section of the SEP makes little use of it.

Although the term feminism has a history in English linked with women’s activism from the late nineteenth century to the present, it is useful to distinguish feminist ideas or beliefs from feminist political movements, for even in periods where there has been no significant political activism around women’s subordination, individuals have been concerned with and theorized about justice for women. So, for example, it makes sense to ask whether Plato was a feminist, given his view that some women should be trained to rule ( Republic , Book V), even though he was an exception in his historical context (see, e.g., Tuana 1994). Overall, feminism can be understood as not only a social movement but also a set of beliefs, concepts, and theories that seek to analyze, diagnose, and identify solutions to the manifold injustices that people suffer on account of gendered norms. Broadly understood, this is feminism as a intellectual movement. The SEP feminist section aims to chronicle and explain the various theories, concepts, and philosophical tools that feminist philosophers have developed.

Much has been made of the methodological differences or “divides” between various philosophical traditions, namely analytic and continental, but also pragmatist and psychoanalytic. But throughout these entries the reader will find a continuity of descriptions on the meaning of feminism, even with the heterogeneity of the philosophical methodologies these entries’ authors employ. The entry on feminist ethics, written by the analytic feminist philosopher Kathryn Norlock, describes that field in a way that is agreeable to almost any feminist philosopher:

Feminist Ethics aims “to understand, criticize, and correct” how gender operates within our moral beliefs and practices (Lindemann 2005, 11) and our methodological approaches to ethical theory. More specifically, feminist ethicists aim to understand, criticize, and correct: (1) the binary view of gender, (2) the privilege historically available to men, and/or (3) the ways that views about gender maintain oppressive social orders or practices that harm others, especially girls and women who historically have been subordinated along gendered dimensions including sexuality and gender-identity. (entry on feminist ethics , introduction)

Likewise, the entry on feminist perspectives on power, written by the critical theorist Amy Allen, proposes the idea that “although any general definition of feminism would no doubt be controversial, it seems undeniable that much work in feminist theory is devoted to the tasks of critiquing gender subordination, analyzing its intersections with other forms of subordination such as racism, heterosexism, and class oppression, and envisioning prospects for individual and collective resistance and emancipation.” (entry on feminist perspectives on power , introduction)

Even with general overall shared commitments about the meaning of feminism, numerous differences among feminist philosophers do show up in the array of arenas outlined in this section of the SEP. Some of these may be due to different methodological approaches (whether, for example, continental or analytic), but others show up because of different ontological commitments (such as the category of woman) and beliefs about what kind of political and moral remedies should be sought.

Nonetheless, over the decades there has been a lot of frustration, perhaps because as philosophers these feminist theorists often want to get to the (one) truth of the matter, for example, what is “a woman”? What is freedom? What is autonomy? Yet so far any search for a unified or unifying theory of feminism has yet to bear fruit. Consider the seemingly unproblematic claim that feminism is a commitment to women’s equal rights. Perhaps it is, but framing it this way comes with its own presuppositions. The first is that feminism is committed to a liberal model of politics. Although most feminists would probably agree that there is some sense of rights on which achieving equal rights for women is a necessary condition for feminism to succeed, most would also argue that this would not be sufficient. This is because women’s oppression under male domination rarely if ever consists solely in depriving women of political and legal rights, but also extends into the structure of our society and the content of our culture, and the workings of languages and how they shape perceptions and permeate our consciousness (e.g., Bartky 1988, Postl 2017). A second presupposition is that there is some clear and universal definition of what it is to be a woman. The SEP entry, Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender, gives a rich overview of what is problematic about this supposition. Any attempt to define “woman,” according to Judith Butler, is also an attempt to exclude some from that category. More recently this debate shows up in discussions about nonbinary and trans people. Previously, it showed up in suppositions that the typical subject of feminism was white and middle class. While feminism would be easier to theorize if it were clear who its subject is, any attempt to define it runs into trouble. (see the entry on feminist perspectives on trans issues )

Is there any point, then, in asking what feminism is? Rather than looking for a unified field theory of feminism, perhaps feminism can be identified as an engagement precisely where there are contradictions over questions of freedom, identity, and agency. These contradictions are not just logical ones but also historical ones. For example, the question of women’s political equality to men arose precisely at those historical moments when “all men” came to be deemed as equal (McAfee 2021). During the French Revolution, the French settled the matter by saying that “men” meant men and not women. In the American Revolution, “men” was not so clearly gendered but it was certainly raced as white. Equality becomes an issue precisely where there is a disjunct between what seems to be the case normatively and what is happening empirically. Questions about the category of women arise in the context of political diversity and biological malleability, where peoples of many cultures mingle and sexual or gender identity can be altered. Feminist debates over pornography and sex work become heated in the context, respectively, of a free press and economic precarity. In short, feminist inquiry arises in the context of disagreement and contradiction and it produces new ways of approaching issues and asking questions. Thus, that it lacks a cohesive set of answers may be beside the point.

In sum, “feminism” is an umbrella term for a range of views about injustices against women. There are disagreements among feminists about the nature of justice in general and the nature of sexism, in particular, the specific kinds of injustice or wrong women suffer; and the group who should be the primary focus of feminist efforts. Nonetheless, feminists are committed to bringing about social change to end injustice against women, in particular, injustice against women as women.

2. Feminist Scholarship

Contemporary feminist philosophical scholarship emerged in the 1970s as more women began careers in higher education, including philosophy. As they did so, they also began taking up matters from their own experience for philosophical scrutiny. These scholars were influenced both by feminist movements in their midst as well as by their philosophical training, which generally was anything but feminist. Until about the 1990s, one could not go to graduate school to study “feminist philosophy.” While students and scholars could turn to the writings of Simone de Beauvoir or look back historically to the writings of “first wave” feminists like Mary Wollstonecraft, most of the philosophers writing in the first decades of the emergence of feminist philosophy brought their particular training and expertise to bear on analyzing issues raised by the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s, such as abortion, affirmative action, equal opportunity, the institutions of marriage, sexuality, and love. Additionally, feminist philosophical scholarship increasingly focused on the very same types of issues taken up by mainstream philosophers.

Feminist philosophical scholarship begins with attention to women, and to limitations on their roles and locations and the ways they were valued or devalued. It developed further by considering gender in less binary terms as well as recognizing that gender is only one fact of the complex interactions among class, race, ability, and sexuality. Feminist scholarship asks how attention to these might transform feminist philosophy itself. From here we move to the realm of the symbolic and how it constructs “the feminine.” How is the feminine instantiated and constructed within the texts of philosophy? What role does it play in forming, either through its absence or its presence, the central concepts of philosophy?

Feminist philosophers brought their philosophical tools to bear on these questions. Since these feminist philosophers employed the philosophical tools they knew best and found most promising, feminist philosophy began to emerge from all the traditions of Western philosophy prevalent at the end of the twentieth century, including analytic, continental, and classical American philosophy. While the thematic focus of their work was often influenced by the topics and questions highlighted by these traditions, the larger shared feminist concerns often create as much commonality as difference. Hence, a given question could be taken up and addressed from an array of views in ways that are sometimes divergent and at other times complementary.

As an historically male discipline, many of the leading philosophical journals and societies did not recognize much feminist scholarship as properly philosophical. In response, feminist scholars began founding their own journals and organizations. The first leading feminist journal, Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy , was founded in 1982 as a venue for feminist philosophical scholarship. It embraced a diversity of methodological approaches in feminist philosophy, publishing work from a variety of traditions. Feminist scholarship in each of these traditions is also advanced and supported though scholarly exchange at various professional societies, including the Society for Women in Philosophy, founded in the United States in 1972. Additionally, the Society for Analytical Feminism, founded in 1991, promotes the study of issues in feminism by methods broadly construed as analytic, to examine the use of analytic methods as applied to feminist issues, and to provide a means by which those interested in analytical feminism can meet and exchange ideas. The journal philo SOPHIA was established in 2005 to promote continental feminist scholarly and pedagogical development. The Society for the Study of Women Philosophers was established in 1987 to promote the study of the contributions of women to the history of philosophy. Similar organizations and journals on many continents continue to advance scholarship in feminist philosophy. Often a feminist philosophical society will publish its own journal, just as the International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics publishes the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics. While the discipline of philosophy in the West remains predominantly white and male, feminist journals and scholarship continues to proliferate.

Important feminist philosophical work has emerged from all the current major philosophical traditions, including analytic philosophy, continental philosophy, and American pragmatist philosophy. It is also emerging from other new areas of inquiry, such as Latin American thought, which arises out of the context of colonialism. Entries in the SEP under the heading “approaches to feminism” discuss the impact of these traditions and constellations of thought on feminist scholarship. The subsection also addresses how some work, such as psychoanalytic feminism, bridges two or more traditions. The editors of the feminist section of the SEP see these different traditions as a rich array of methodologies rather than “continental divides.” The array reflects a variety of beliefs about what kinds of philosophy are both fruitful and meaningful. The different methodologies bring their own ways of asking and answering questions, along with constructive and critical dialogue with mainstream philosophical views and methods and new topics of inquiry.

As the SEP continues to grow, we anticipate that this subsection on approaches to feminism will expand to address other traditions, including Black feminism. But for now, here are links to entries in this subsection:

• analytic feminism
• continental feminism
• Latin American feminism
• pragmatist feminism
• intersections between pragmatist and continental feminism
• intersections between analytic and continental feminism
• psychoanalytic feminism

Though not included along with these in the table of contents, another relevant approach can be found in the entry on gender in Confucian philosophy .

All these approaches share a set of feminist commitments and an overarching criticism of institutions, presuppositions, and practices that have historically favored men over women. They also share a general critique of claims to universality and objectivity that ignore male-dominated theories’ own particularity and specificity. Feminist philosophies of almost any philosophical orientation will be much more perspectival, historical, contextual, and focused on lived experience than their non-feminist counterparts. Unlike mainstream philosophers who can seriously consider the philosophical conundrums of brains in a vat, feminist philosophers always start by seeing people as embodied. Feminists have also argued for the reconfiguration of accepted structures and problems of philosophy. For example, feminists have not only rejected the privileging of epistemological concerns over moral and political concerns common to much of philosophy, they have argued that these two areas of concern are inextricably intertwined. Part 2 of the entry on analytic feminism lays out other areas of commonality across these various approaches. For one, feminist philosophers generally agree that philosophy is a powerful tool for, as Ann Garry states in that entry, “understanding ourselves and our relations to each other, to our communities, and to the state; to appreciate the extent to which we are counted as knowers and moral agents; [and] to uncover the assumptions and methods of various bodies of knowledge.” As such, philosophy is also a powerful tool for understanding how gender itself has been constructed, that is, why and to whose benefit it is to construct some people as lesser and less capable than others. Along these lines, feminist philosophers are keenly attuned to male biases at work in the history of philosophy, such as those regarding “the nature of woman” and supposed value neutrality, which on inspection is hardly neutral at all. Claims to universality, feminist philosophers have found, are usually made from a very specific and particular point of view, contrary to their manifest assertions. Another orientation that feminist philosophers generally share is a commitment to normativity and social change; they are never content to analyze things just as they are but instead look for ways to overcome oppressive practices and institutions.

Such questioning of the problems of mainstream approaches to philosophy has often led to feminists using methods and approaches from more than one philosophical tradition. As Ann Garry notes in Part 3 of the entry on analytic feminism (2017), it is not uncommon to find analytic feminists drawing on non-analytic figures such as Beauvoir, Foucault, or Butler; and because of their motivation to communicate with other feminists, they are more motivated than other philosophers “to search for methodological cross-fertilization.” Moreover, feminist philosophers are generally inclined to incorporate the perspectives of all those who have been oppressed.

Even with their common and overlapping orientations, the differences between the various philosophical approaches to feminism are significant, especially in terms of styles of writing, influences, and overall expectations about what philosophy can and should achieve. Analytic feminist philosophy tends to value analysis and argumentation, though anyone trained in philosophy does so as well. Continental feminist theory puts more emphasis on interpretation and deconstruction, and pragmatist feminism values lived experience and exploration. Coming out of a post-Hegelian tradition, both continental and pragmatist philosophers usually suspect that “truth,” whatever that is, emerges and develops historically. They tend to share with Nietzsche the view that truth claims often mask power plays. Yet where continental and pragmatist philosophers are generally wary about notions of truth, analytic feminists tend to argue that the way to “counter sexism and androcentrism is through forming a clear conception of and pursuing truth, logical consistency, objectivity, rationality, justice, and the good.” (Cudd 1996: 20).

These differences and intersections play out in the ways that various feminists engage topics of common concern. One key area of intersection, noted by Georgia Warnke, is the appropriation of psychoanalytic theory, with Anglo-American feminists generally adopting object-relations theories and continental feminists drawing more on Lacan and contemporary French psychoanalytic theory, though this is already beginning to change as it becomes clearer that continental psychoanalytic theory is also interested, via Julia Kristeva and Melanie Klein, in object-relations theory (see the entry on intersections between analytic and continental feminism ). The importance of psychoanalytic approaches is also underscored in Shannon Sullivan’s entry on intersections between pragmatist and continental feminism . Given the importance of psychoanalytic feminism for all three traditions, a separate essay on this approach to feminist theory is included in this section.

No topic is more central to feminist philosophy than sex and gender, but even here many variations on the theme flourish. Where analytic feminism, with its critique of essentialism, holds the sex/gender distinction practically as an article of faith (see the entry on feminist perspectives on sex and gender and Chanter 2009), continental feminists tend to suspect either (1) that even the supposedly purely biological category of sex is itself socially constituted (Butler 1990 and 1993) or (2) that sexual difference itself needs to be valued and theorized (see especially Cixous 1976 and Irigaray 1974).

Despite the variety of different approaches, styles, societies, and orientations, feminist philosophers’ commonalities are greater than their differences. Many will borrow freely from each other and find that other orientations contribute to their own work. Even the differences over sex and gender add to a larger conversation about the impact of culture and society on bodies, experience, and pathways for change.

Philosophers who are feminists have, in their work in traditional fields of study, begun to change those very fields. The Encyclopedia includes a range of entries on how feminist philosophies have intervened in conventional areas of philosophical research, areas in which philosophers often tend to argue that they are operating from a neutral, universal point of view (notable exceptions are pragmatism, poststructuralism, and some phenomenology). Historically, philosophy has claimed that the norm is universal and the feminine is abnormal, that universality is not gendered, but that all things feminine are not universal. Not surprisingly, feminists have pointed out how in fact these supposed neutral enterprises are in fact quite gendered, namely, male gendered. For example, feminists working on environmental philosophy have uncovered how practices disproportionately affect women, children, and people of color. Liberal feminism has shown how supposed universal truths of liberalism are in fact quite biased and particular. Feminist epistemologists have called out “epistemologies of ignorance” that traffic in not knowing. Across the board, in fact, feminist philosophers are uncovering male biases and also pointing to the value of particularity, in general rejecting universality as a norm or goal.

Entries under the heading of feminist interventions include the following:

• feminist aesthetics
• feminist bioethics
• feminist environmental philosophy
• feminist epistemology and philosophy of science
• feminist ethics
• feminist history of philosophy
• liberal feminism
• feminist metaphysics
• feminist moral psychology
• feminist philosophy of biology
• feminist philosophy of language
• feminist philosophy of law
• feminist philosophy of religion
• feminist political philosophy
• feminist social epistemology

Feminist critical attention to philosophical practices has revealed the inadequacy of dominant philosophical tropes as well as the need to turn philosophical attention to things that had previously gone unattended. For example, feminists working from the perspective of women’s lives have been influential in bringing philosophical attention to the phenomenon of care and care-giving (Ruddick 1989; Held 1995, 2007; Hamington 2006), dependency (Kittay 1999), disability (Wilkerson 2002; Carlson 2009), women’s labor (Waring 1999; Delphy 1984; Harley 2007), the devaluation of women’s testimonies (see the entry on feminist epistemology and philosophy of science ), and scientific bias and objectivity (Longino 1990). In doing so they have revealed weaknesses in existing ethical, political, and epistemological theories. More generally, feminists have called for inquiry into what are typically considered “private” practices and personal concerns, such as the family, sexuality, and the body, in order to balance what has seemed to be a masculine pre-occupation with “public” and impersonal matters. Philosophy presupposes interpretive tools for understanding our everyday lives; feminist work in articulating additional dimensions of experience and aspects of our practices is invaluable in demonstrating the bias in existing tools, and in the search for better ones.

Feminist explanations of sexism and accounts of sexist practices also raise issues that are within the domain of traditional philosophical inquiry. For example, in thinking about care, feminists have asked questions about the nature of the self; in thinking about gender, feminists have asked what the relationship is between the natural and the social; in thinking about sexism in science, feminists have asked what should count as knowledge. In some such cases, mainstream philosophical accounts provide useful tools; in other cases, alternative proposals have seemed more promising.

In the sub-entries included under “feminism (topics)” in the Table of Contents to this Encyclopedia , authors survey some of the recent feminist work on a topic, highlighting the issues that are of particular relevance to philosophy. These entries are:

• feminist perspectives on argumentation
• feminist perspectives on autonomy
• feminist perspectives on class and work
• feminist perspectives on disability
• feminist perspectives on globalization
• feminist perspectives on objectification
• feminist perspectives on power
• feminist perspectives on rape
• feminist perspectives on reproduction and the family
• feminist perspectives on science
• feminist perspectives on sex and gender
• feminist perspectives on sex markets
• feminist perspectives on the body
• feminist perspectives on the self
• feminist perspectives on trans issues

See also the entries in the Related Entries section below.

• Ahmed, Sara, 2006, Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others , Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Alaimo, Stacy and Susan Hekman, 2007, Material Feminisms , Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
• Alanen, Lily and Charlotte Witt (eds.), 2004, Feminist Reflections on the History of Philosophy , Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Alcoff, Linda Martín, 2005, Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Allen, Amy, 2008, The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory , New York: Columbia University Press.
• Alexander, M. Jacqui and Lisa Albrecht(eds.), 1998, The Third Wave: Feminist Perspectives on Racism , New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.
• Anderson, Elizabeth S., 1999, “What is the Point of Equality?” Ethics , 109(2): 287–337. doi:10.1086/233897
• Anzaldúa, Gloria (ed.), 1990, Making Face, Making Soul: Haciendo Caras , San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.
• Atherton, Margaret (ed.), 1994, Women Philosophers of the Early Modern Period , Indianapolis: Hackett.
• Baier, Annette C., 1994, Moral Prejudices: Essays on Ethics , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Barker, Drucilla and Edith Kuiper (eds.), 2010, Feminist Economics , New York: Routledge.
• Barrett, Michèle, 1991, The Politics of Truth: From Marx to Foucault , Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
• Bartky, Sandra Lee, 1988, “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power”, in Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance , Irene Diamond and Lee Quimby (eds), Northeastern University Press, pp. 61–86. Reprinted in in her 1990 Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression , New York: Routledge, 63–82.
• Basu, Amrita, 1995, The Challenge of Local Feminisms: Women’s Movements in Global Perspective , Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• Battersby, Christine, 2007, The Sublime, Terror and Human Difference , New York: Routledge.
• Baumgardner, Jennifer and Amy Richards, 2000, Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future , New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
• Beauvoir, Simone de, 1949, Le Deuxième Sexe , 2 volumes, Paris: Gallimard. Printed in English 1953 as The Second Sex by H.M. Parshley (trans. and ed.), New York: Knopf. Retranslated 2009 by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, London: Jonathan Cape.
• Bell, Linda, 2003, Beyond the Margins: Reflections of a Feminist Philosopher , New York: SUNY Press.
• Benhabib, Seyla, 1992, Situating the Self: Gender, Community, and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics , New York: Routledge.
• Bergmann, Barbara, 2002, The Economic Emergence of Women , second edition, New York: Palgrave, St. Martin’s Press.
• Bergoffen, Debra B., 1996, The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Gendered Phenomenologies, Erotic Generosities , New York: SUNY Press.
• Breines, Wini, 2002, “What’s Love Got to Do with It? White Women, Black Women, and Feminism in the Movement Years”, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society , 27(4): 1095–1133. doi:10.1086/339634
• Butler, Judith, 1990, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity , New York: Routledge.
• –––, 1993, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” , New York: Routledge.
• Calhoun, Cheshire, 2000, Feminism, the Family, and the Politics of the Closet: Lesbian and Gay Displacement , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0199257663.001.0001
• –––, 1989, “Responsibility and Reproach”. Ethics , 99(2): 389–406. doi:10.1086/293071
• Campbell, Sue, Letitia Meynell and Susan Sherwin (eds.), 2009, Embodiment and Agency , University Park, PA: Penn State Press.
• Carlson, Licia, 2009, The Faces of Intellectual Disability: Philosophical Reflections , Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
• Chanter, Tina (ed.), 2009, Rethinking Sex and Gender , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Cimitile, Maria, 2007, Returning to Irigaray: Feminist Philosophy, Politics, and the Question of Unity , Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
• Cixous, Hélène, “The Laugh of the Medusa,” translated, Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen, Signs , Summer 1976, pp. 875–893.
• Code, Lorraine, 2006, Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location , New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0195159438.001.0001
• –––, 1991, What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Cott, Nancy, 1987, The Grounding of Modern Feminism , New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Collins, Patricia Hill, 1990, Black Feminist Thought , Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman.
• Crasnow, Sharon L. and Anita M. Superson (eds.), 2012, Out from the Shadows: Analytical Feminist Contributions to Traditional Philosophy , New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199855469.001.0001
• Crenshaw, Kimberlé, 1991, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color”. Stanford Law Review , 43(6): 1241–1299. doi:10.2307/1229039
• Crenshaw, Kimberlé, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas, 1995, “Introduction”, in Critical Race Theory , Kimberlé Crenshaw, et al. (ed.), New York: The New Press, xiii–xxxii.
• Crow, Barbara, 2000, Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader , New York: New York University Press.
• Cudd, Ann E., 1996, “Analytic Feminism”, in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy Supplement , Donald M. Borchert (ed.), New York: Macmillan Reference, pp. 20–21.
• –––, 2006, Analyzing Oppression , New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0195187431.001.0001
• Cudd, Ann E. and Robin O. Andreasen (eds.), 2005, Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology , Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
• Davis, Angela, 1983, Women, Race and Class , New York: Random House.
• Davis, Lennard J., 2010, The Disability Studies Reader , third edition, New York: Routledge.
• Delmar, Rosalind, 1986, “What is Feminism?” Juliet Mitchell and Ann Oakley (eds), What is Feminism? , New York: Pantheon Books. Reprinted in Herrmann and Stewart 1994: 5–28.
• Delphy, Christine, 1984, Close to Home: A Materialist Analysis of Women’s Oppression , Diane Leonard (trans.), Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
• Deutscher, Penelope, 1997, Yielding Gender: Feminism, Deconstruction, and the History of Philosophy , London: Routledge.
• Duplessis, Rachel Blau, and Ann Snitow (eds), 1998, The Feminist Memoir Project: Voices from Women’s Liberation , New York: Random House (Crown Publishing).
• Dutt, Malika, 1998, “Reclaiming a Human Rights Culture: Feminism of Difference and Alliance”, in Talking Visions: Multicultural Feminism in a Transnational Age , Ella Shohat (ed.), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 225–246.
• Dykeman, Therese Boos (ed.), 1999, The Neglected Canon: Nine Women Philosophers First to the Twentieth Century , Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Echols, Alice, 1990, Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967–75 , Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
• Engels, Friedrich, 1845 [1972], The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State , New York: International Publishers.
• Enloe, Cynthia, 2007, Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link , Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
• Farr, Kathryn, 2004, Sex Trafficking: The Global Market in Women and Children , New York: Worth Publishing.
• Findlen, Barbara, 2001, Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation , second edition, Seattle, WA: Seal Press.
• Fine, Michelle and Adrienne Asch (eds.), 1988, Women with Disabilities: Essays in Psychology, Culture, and Politics , Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
• Firestone, Shulamith, 1970, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution , New York: Bantam.
• Folbre, Nancy, 2010, Greed, Lust, and Gender: A History of Economic Ideas , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Fraser, Nancy, 1989, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory , Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
• Fraser, Nancy and Linda Nicholson, 1990, “Social Criticism without Philosophy: An Encounter Between Feminism and Postmodernism”, in Feminism/Postmodernism , Linda Nicholson (ed.), New York: Routledge.
• Fricker, Miranda and Jennifer Hornsby, 2000, The Cambridge Companion ot Feminism in Philosophy , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CCOL0521624517
• Friedan, Betty, 1963, The Feminine Mystique , New York: Norton.
• Frye, Marilyn, 1983, The Politics of Reality , Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press.
• Garavaso, Pieranna (ed.), 2018, The Bloomsbury Companion to Analytic Feminism , London: Bloomsbury.
• Gardner, Catherine Villanueva, 2000, Rediscovering Women Philosophers: Philosophical Genre and the Boundaries of Philosophy , Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie, 1997, Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature , New York: Columbia University Press.
• Garry, Ann, “Analytic Feminism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/femapproach-analytic/ >.
• Garry, Ann, Serene J. Khader, and Alison Stone (eds.), 2017, The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy , New York: Routledge.
• Gould, Carol and Marx Wartofsky (eds.), 1976, Women and Philosophy: Toward a Theory of Liberation , University Park, PA: Penn State Press.
• Grasswick, Heidi (ed.), 2011, Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science: Power in Knowledge , New York: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-6835-5
• Green, Joyce (ed.), 2007, Making Space for Indigenous Feminism , London: Zed Books.
• Grewal, Inderpal, 1998, “On the New Global Feminism and the Family of Nations: Dilemmas of Transnational Feminist Practice”, in Talking Visions: Multicultural Feminism in a Transnational Age , Ella Shohat (ed.), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 501–530.
• Grosz, Elizabeth, 1994, Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporal Feminism , Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
• Hall, Kim Q. and Ásta (eds.), 2021, The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Philosophy , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Hamington, Maurice, 2004, Embodied Care: Jane Addams, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Feminist Ethics , Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
• –––, 2006, Socializing Care: Feminist Ethics and Public Issues , Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
• Hamington, Maurice and Celia Bardwell-Jones (eds.), 2012, Contemporary Pragmatist Feminism , New York: Routledge.
• Hampton, Jean, 1993, “Feminist Contractarianism”, in Louise M. Antony and Charlotte Witt (eds) A Mind of One’s Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity , Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• Harding, Sandra, 1986, The Science Question in Feminism , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Harley, Sharon (ed.) 2007. Women’s Labor in the Global Economy: Speaking in Multiple Voices , New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
• Haslanger, Sally, 2004, “Oppressions: Racial and Other”, in Racism, Philosophy and Mind: Philosophical Explanations of Racism and Its Implications , Michael Levine and Tamas Pataki (eds), Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• –––, 2012, Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199892631.001.0001
• Held, Virginia, 1993, Feminist Morality: Transforming Culture, Society, and Politics , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• –––, 1995, Justice and Care: Essential Readings in Feminist Ethics , Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• –––, 2007, The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, Global , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0195180992.001.0001
• Heldke, Lisa and Peg O’Connor (eds.), 2004, Oppression, Privilege, and Resistance: Theoretical Perspectives on Racism, Sexism, and Heterosexism , New York: McGraw Hill.
• Hernandez, Daisy and Bushra Rehman (eds.), 2002, Colonize This! Young Women of Color in Today’s Feminism , Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.
• Herrmann, Anne C. and Abigail J. Stewart (eds.), 1994, Theorizing Feminism: Parallel Trends in the Humanities and Social Sciences , Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• Heyes, Cressida J., 2007, Self-Transformations: Foucault, Ethics, and Normalized Bodies , New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195310535.001.0001
• Heywood, Leslie and Jennifer Drake (eds.), 1997, Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism . Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
• Hillyer, Barbara, 1993, Feminism and Disability , Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
• Hoagland, Sarah L., 1989, Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Values , Palo Alto, CA: Institute for Lesbian Studies.
• hooks, bell, 1981, Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism , Boston, MA: South End Press.
• –––, 1984, Feminist Theory from Margin to Center , Boston, MA: South End Press.
• –––, 1989, Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black , Boston, MA: South End Press.
• Hurtado, Aída, 1996, The Color of Privilege: Three Blasphemies on Race and Feminism , Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
• Irigaray, Luce, 1974 [1985], Speculum de l’autre femme , Les Editions de Minuit. Translated as Speculum of the Other Woman , Gillian C. Gill (trans.), Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Jaggar, Alison M., 1983, Feminist Politics and Human Nature , Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
• –––, 1994, Controversies within Feminist Social Ethics , Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• James, Susan, 1998, “Feminism”, in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Vol. 10, London: Routledge, p. 576.
• Kempadoo, Kamala (ed.), 2005, Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work, and Human Rights , Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.
• Kiss, Elizabeth, 1995, “Feminism and Rights”, Dissent , 42(3): 342–347
• Kittay, Eva Feder, 1999, Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality and Dependency , New York: Routledge.
• Kofman, Sarah, 1980 [1985], L’énigme de la femme: La femme dans les textes de Freud , Paris: Galilée. Translated as The Enigma of Woman: Women in Freud’s Writings , Catherine Porter (trans.), Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985.
• –––, 1989 [1998], Socrate(s) . Translated as Socrates: Fictions of a Philosopher , Catherine Porter (trans.), Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.
• Kourany, Janet, 1998, Philosophy in a Feminist Voice , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Le Dœuff, Michèle, 1980 [1989], Recherches sur l’imaginaire philosophique , Paris: Payot. Translated as The Philosophical Imaginary , Colin Gordon (trans.), Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989.
• Lloyd, Genevieve, 1984, The Man of Reason: ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ in Western Philosophy , Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
• –––, 2001, Feminism and the History of Philosophy , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Kymlicka, Will, 1989, Liberalism, Community and Culture , Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Longino, Helen, 1990, Science as Social Knowledge , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Lugones, María, 2003, Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition against Multiple Oppressions , Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
• Mackenzie, Catriona and Natalie Stoljar(eds.), 2000, Relational Autonomy: Feminist perspectives on Autonomy, Agency and the Social Self , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• MacKinnon, Catharine, 1987, Feminism Unmodified , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• –––, 1989, Towards a Feminist Theory of the State , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Mann, Bonnie, 2006, Women’s Liberation and the Sublime: Feminism, Postmodernism, Environment , New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0195187458.001.0001
• May, Vivian M., 2007, Anna Julia Cooper, Visionary Black Feminist: A Critical Introduction , New York: Routledge.
• McRuer, Robert and Abby Wilkerson (eds.), 2003, “Desiring Disability: Queer Theory Meets Disability Studies”, Special Issue Gay and Lesbian Quarterly , 9(1–2).
• McAfee, Noëlle, 2003, Julia Kristeva , New York: Routledge.
• –––, 2021, Feminism: A Quick Immersion , New York: Tibidabo Publishing, Inc.
• McWhorter, Ladelle, 2009, Racism and Sexual Oppression in Anglo-America: A Genealogy , Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
• Millett, Kate, 1970, Sexual Politics , Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
• Moghadam, Valentine M., 2005, Globalizing Women: Transnational Feminist Networks , Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins.
• Mohanty, Chandra, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres (eds), 1991, Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism , Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
• Molyneux, Maxine and Nikki Craske (eds.), 2001, Gender and the Politics of Rights and Democracy in Latin America , Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan.
• Moody-Adams, Michele, 1997, Fieldwork in Familiar Places: Morality, Culture and Philosophy , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Moraga, Cherríe, 1983, “From a Long Line of Vendidas: Chicanas and Feminism”, in her Loving in the War Years: Lo que nunca pasó sus labios , Boston, MA: South End Press, pp. 90–144.
• Moraga, Cherrie and Gloria Anzaldúa (eds), 1981, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings of Radical Women of Color , Watertown, MA: Persephone Press.
• Oliver, Kelly, 2004, Colonization of Psychic Space: A Psychoanalytic Theory of Oppression , Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
• Narayan, Uma, 1997, Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third World Feminism , New York: Routledge.
• Narayan, Uma and Sandra Harding (eds.), 2000, De-centering the Center: Philosophy for a Multicultural, Postcolonial, and Feminist World , Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
• Nussbaum, Martha C., 1995, “Human Capabilities, Female Human Beings”, in Women, Culture and Development: A Study of Human Capabilities , Martha Nussbaum and Jonathan Glover (eds), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 61–104.
• –––, 1999, Sex and Social Justice , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• O’Brien, Mary, 1979, “Reproducing Marxist Man”, in The Sexism of Social and Political Theory: Women and Reproduction from Plato to Nietzsche , Lorenne M. G. Clark and Lynda Lange (eds), Toronto: Toronto University Press, 99–116. Reprinted in Tuana and Tong 1995: 91–103.
• O’Connor, Peg, 2008, Morality and Our Complicated Form of Life: Feminist Wittgensteinian Metaethics , University Park, PA: Penn State Press.
• Okin, Susan Moller, 1979, Women in Western Political Thought , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• –––, 1989, Justice, Gender, and the Family , New York: Basic Books.
• Ong, Aihwa, 1988, “Colonialism and Modernity: Feminist Re-presentation of Women in Non-Western Societies”. Inscriptions , 3(4): 90. Reprinted in Herrmann and Stewart 1994.
• Pateman, Carole, 1988, The Sexual Contract , Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
• Postl, Gertrude, 2017, “Language, Writing, and Gender Differences”, in Garry et al. 2017: 293–302.
• Reagon, Bernice Johnson, 1983, “Coalition Politics: Turning the Century”, in Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology , Barbara Smith (ed.), New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 356–368.
• Robinson, Fiona, 1999, Globalizing Care: Ethics, Feminist Theory, and International Affairs , Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• Rowe, C., 2012, Plato, Republic , translated, with an introduction and notes, New York: Penguin Books.
• Rubin, Gayle, 1975, “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ’Political Economy’ of Sex”, in Towards an Anthropology of Women , Rayna Rapp Reiter (ed.), New York: Monthly Review Press, 157–210.
• Ruddick, Sara, 1989, Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace , Boston: Beacon Press.
• Salamon, Gayle, 2010, Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Mutuality , New York: Columbia University Press.
• Scheman, Naomi, 1993, Engenderings: Constructions of Knowledge, Authority, and Privilege , New York: Routledge.
• Schneir, Miriam, 1972, Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings , New York: Vintage Books.
• ––– (ed.), 1994, Feminism in Our Time: The Essential Writings, World War II to the Present , New York: Vintage Books.
• Schott, Robin May, 2003, Discovering Feminist Philosophy , Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
• Schwartzman, Lisa H., 2006, Challenging Liberalism: Feminism as Political Critique , University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
• Scott, Joan W., 1988, “Deconstructing Equality-Versus-Difference: Or the Uses of Poststructuralist Theory for Feminism”. Feminist Studies , 14(1): 33–50. doi:10.2307/3177997
• Seigfried, Charlene Haddock, 1996, Feminism and Pragmatism: Reweaving the Social Fabric , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Shrage, Laurie J., 2009, You’ve Changed: Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Silvers, Anita, David Wasserman, Mary Mahowald, 1999, Disability, Difference, Discrimination: Perspectives on Justice in Bioethics and Public Policy , Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
• Simpson, J. A. and E. S. C. Weiner (ed.), 1989, Oxford English Dictionary , second edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press. OED Online. Oxford University Press. “feminism, n1” (1851).
• Snitow, Ann, 1990, “A Gender Diary”, in Conflicts in Feminism , M. Hirsch and E. Fox Keller (eds), New York: Routledge, 9–43.
• Spelman, Elizabeth, 1988, Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought , Boston: Beacon Press.
• Springer, Kimberly, 2002, “Third Wave Black Feminism?” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society , 27(4): 1060–1082. doi:10.1086/339636
• Stone, Alison, 2005, Luce Irigaray and the Philosophy of Sexual Difference , New York: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511617287
• Sullivan, Shannon, 2006, Revealing Whiteness: The Unconscious Habits of Racial Privilege , Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
• Superson, Anita M., 2009, The Moral Skeptic , New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195376623.001.0001
• Tanner, Leslie B. 1970 Voices from Women’s Liberation , New York: New American Library (A Mentor Book).
• Taylor, Vesta and Leila J. Rupp, 1996, “Lesbian Existence and the Women’s Movement: Researching the ‘Lavender Herring’”, in Feminism and Social Change , Heidi Gottfried (ed.), Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
• Tessman, Lisa, 2005, Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles , New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0195179145.001.0001
• Tong, Rosemarie, 1993, Feminine and Feminist Ethics , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
• Tougas, Cecile T., and Sara Ebenrick (eds.), 2000, Presenting Women Philosophers , Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
• Tuana, Nancy (ed.), 1992, Woman and the History of Philosophy , New York: Paragon Press.
• Tuana, Nancy (ed.), 1994, Feminist Interpretations of Plato, University Park: Penn State Press.
• Tuana, Nancy and Rosemarie Tong (eds), 1995, Feminism and Philosophy , Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• 1987, Ancient Women Philosophers, 600 B.C.–500 A.D. , volume 1. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-3497-9
• 1989, Medieval, Renaissance, and Enlightenment Women Philosophers, 500–1600 , volume 2. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-2551-9
• 1990, Modern Women Philosophers, 1600–1900 , volume 3. doi:10.1007/978-94-011-3790-4
• 1994, Contemporary Women Philosophers, 1900–Today , volume 4. doi:10.1007/978-94-011-1114-0
• Walker, Alice, 1990, “Definition of Womanist”, in Making Face, Making Soul: Haciendo Caras , Gloria Anzaldúa (ed.), San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 370.
• Walker, Margaret Urban, 1998, Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics , New York: Routledge.
• ––– (ed), 1999, Mother Time: Women, Aging, and Ethics , Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
• Walker, Rebecca (ed.), 1995, To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism , New York: Random House (Anchor Books).
• Ward, Julia, 1996, Feminism and Ancient Philosophy , New York: Routledge.
• Ware, Cellestine, 1970, Woman Power: The Movement for Women’s Liberation , New York: Tower Publications.
• Waring, Marilyn, 1999, Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women Are Worth , second edition, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Weisberg, D. Kelly (ed.) 1993. Feminist Legal Theory: Foundations , Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
• Wendell, Susan, 1996, The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability , New York and London: Routledge.
• Wilkerson, Abby L., 2002, “Disability, Sex Radicalism, and the Problem of Political Agency”. NWSA Journal , 14(3): 33–57. doi:10.1353/nwsa.2003.0018
• Whisnant, Rebecca, 2010, Global Feminist Ethics , Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
• Winnubst, Shannon, 2006, Queering Freedom , Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
• Young, Iris M., 1985 [1990], “Humanism, Gynocentrism and Feminist Politics”, Women’s Studies International Forum , 8(3): 173–183. Reprinted in Young 1990a: 73–91. doi:10.1016/0277-5395(85)90040-8
• –––, 1990a, Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and Social Theory , Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
• –––, 1990b, Justice and the Politics of Difference , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• –––, 2011, Responsibility for Justice , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195392388.001.0001
• Zophy, Angela Howard, 1990, “Feminism”, in The Handbook of American Women’s History , Angela Howard Zophy and Frances M. Kavenik (eds), New York: Routledge (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities).

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

Resources listed below have been chosen to provide only a springboard into the huge amount of feminist material available on the web. The emphasis here is on general resources useful for doing research in feminist philosophy or interdisciplinary feminist theory, e.g., the links connect to bibliographies and meta-sites, and resources concerning inclusion, exclusion, and feminist diversity. The list is incomplete and will be regularly revised and expanded. Further resources on topics in feminism such as popular culture, reproductive rights, sex work, are available within each sub-entry on that topic.

• Feminist Theory Website
• Women and Social Movements in the US: 1600–2000
• The Path of the Women’s Rights Movement: Detailed Timeline 1848–1997
• Documents from the Women’s Liberation Movement (Duke Univ. Archives)
• Documenting Difference: An Illustrated & Annotated Anthology of Documents on Race, Class, Gender & Ethnicity in the United States
• Race, Gender, and Affirmative Action Resource Page

Associations

• The Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP)
• Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory (FEAST)
• Feminist Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Science Studies (FEMMSS) http://femmss.org/
• Feminist Theory Website (Introduction)
• philoSOPHIA: A Feminist Society
• Society for Analytical Feminism
• The Society for the Study of Women Philosophers

“Waves” of Feminism

• “Waves of Feminism” by Jo Freeman (1996).
• Winning the Vote (Western NY Suffragists).
• Amendments to the US Constitution: 13th, 14th, 15th, 18th, 19th, 21st
• NOW’s 1966 Statement of Purpose
• “The Women’s Liberation Movement: Its Origins, Structures, and Ideals” by Jo Freeman (1971).

Feminism and Class

Marxist, socialist, and materialist feminisms.

• WMST-L discussion of how to define “Marxist feminism” Aug 1994)
• Marxist/Materialist Feminism (Feminist Theory Website)
• A Marxist Feminist Critique

Feminist Economics

• Feminist Economics (Feminist Theory Website)
• International Association for Feminist Economics
• International Center for Research on Women

Women and Labor

• Rights for Working Women
• United States Department of Labor
• United States Department of Labor: Audience – Women , a shortcut to information and services the Department of Labor (DOL) offers for women.

Feminism and Disability

• Center for Research on Women with Disabilities (CROWD)

Feminism, Human Rights, Global Feminism, and Human Trafficking

• Global Feminism (Feminist Majority Foundation)
• NOW and Global Feminism
• Sisterhood is Global Institute
• Polaris Project
• Not For Sale Campaign
• Human Trafficking Search website

Feminism and Race/Ethnicity

General resources.

• Office of the Gender and Women’s Studies Librarian (U. Wisconsin)
• Women of Color Web Sites (WMST-L)

African-American/Black Feminisms and Womanism

• Feminism and Black Womanist Identity Bibliography (Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library)
• Black Feminist/Womanist Works: A Beginning List (WMST-L)

Asian-American and Asian Feminisms

• American Women’s History: A Research Guide (Asian-American Women)
• South Asian Women’s Studies Bibliography (UC Berkeley)
• Journal of South Asia Women’s Studies

Chicana/Latina Feminisms

• Chicano/a Latino/a Movimientos

American Indian, Native, Indigenous Feminisms

• Native American Studies Program (Dartmouth College)

Feminism, Sex, Sexuality, Transgender, and Intersex

• Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture (Duke Special Collections)

affirmative action | communitarianism | contractarianism | discrimination | egalitarianism | equality | equality: of opportunity | exploitation | feminist philosophy, approaches: Latin American feminism | feminist philosophy, interventions: epistemology and philosophy of science | feminist philosophy, interventions: ethics | feminist philosophy, interventions: history of philosophy | globalization | homosexuality | identity politics | justice: as a virtue | justice: distributive | legal rights | liberalism | Mill, Harriet Taylor | Mill, John Stuart | multiculturalism | parenthood and procreation | race

Acknowledgments

Over many revisions, thanks go to Ann Garry, Heidi Grasswick, Elizabeth Harman, Elizabeth Hackett, Serene Khader, Ishani Maitra, Ásta Sveinsdóttir, Leslee Mahoney, and Anita Superson.

Copyright © 2023 by Noëlle McAfee < noelle . c . mcafee @ emory . edu > Ann Garry Anita Superson Heidi Grasswick Serene Khader

• Accessibility

Support SEP

Mirror sites.

View this site from another server:

• Info about mirror sites

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright © 2024 by The Metaphysics Research Lab , Department of Philosophy, Stanford University

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

• Search Menu

Sign in through your institution

• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Urban Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Numismatics
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Social History
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Emotions
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Acquisition
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature
• Bibliography
• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Religion
• Music and Media
• Music and Culture
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Meta-Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Politics
• Law and Society
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Legal System - Costs and Funding
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Restitution
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Toxicology
• Medical Oncology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Medical Ethics
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Security
• Computer Games
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business Strategy
• Business Ethics
• Business History
• Business and Government
• Business and Technology
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Social Issues in Business and Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic Systems
• Economic History
• Economic Methodology
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Research Methodology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Social Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Sustainability
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• Ethnic Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• International Political Economy
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Political Theory
• Politics and Law
• Politics and Religion
• Politics of Development
• Public Administration
• Public Policy
• Qualitative Political Methodology
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Disability Studies
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory

Lisa Disch is Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Michigan.

Mary Hawkesworth, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers University.

• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

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. The chapters offer innovative analyses of the central topics in social and political science (e.g. civilization, development, divisions of labor, economies, institutions, markets, migration, militarization, prisons, policy, politics, representation, the state/nation, the transnational, violence); cultural studies and the humanities (e.g. affect, agency, experience, identity, intersectionality, jurisprudence, narrative, performativity, popular culture, posthumanism, religion, representation, standpoint, temporality, visual culture); and discourses in medicine and science (e.g. cyborgs, health, intersexuality, nature, pregnancy, reproduction, science studies, sex/gender, sexuality, transsexuality) and contemporary critical theory that have been transformed through feminist theorization (e.g. biopolitics, coloniality, diaspora, the microphysics of power, norms/normalization, postcoloniality, race/racialization, subjectivity/subjectivation). The Handbook identifies the limitations of key epistemic assumptions that inform traditional scholarship and shows how theorizing from women’s and men’s lives has profound effects on the conceptualization of central categories, whether the field of analysis is aesthetics, biology, cultural studies, development, economics, film studies, health, history, literature, politics, religion, science studies, sexualities, violence, or war.

Signed in as

Institutional accounts.

• GoogleCrawler [DO NOT DELETE]
• Google Scholar Indexing

Personal account

• Sign in with email/username & password
• Get email alerts
• Save searches
• Purchase content
• Activate your purchase/trial code
• Add your ORCID iD

Institutional access

Sign in with a library card.

• Sign in with username/password
• Recommend to your librarian
• Institutional account management
• Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

• Click Sign in through your institution.
• Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
• When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
• Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

• Click Sign in through society site.
• When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

• View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
• View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Rights and permissions
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

• Science, Tech, Math ›
• Social Sciences ›
• Sociology ›
• Key Concepts ›

Feminist Theory in Sociology

An Overview of Key Ideas and Issues

Illustration by Hugo Lin. ThoughtCo.

• Key Concepts
• Major Sociologists
• News & Issues
• Research, Samples, and Statistics
• Recommended Reading
• Archaeology

Feminist theory is a major branch of sociology that shifts its assumptions, analytic lens, and topical focus away from the male viewpoint and experience toward that of women.

In doing so, feminist theory shines a light on social problems, trends, and issues that are otherwise overlooked or misidentified by the historically dominant male perspective within social theory .

Feminist Theory Key Takeaways

Key areas of focus within feminist theory include:

• discrimination and exclusion on the basis of sex and gender
• objectification
• structural and economic inequality
• power and oppression
• gender roles and stereotypes

Feminist Theory Overview

Many people incorrectly believe that feminist theory focuses exclusively on girls and women  and that it has an inherent goal of promoting the superiority of women over men.

In reality, feminist theory has always been about viewing the social world in a way that illuminates the forces that create and support inequality, oppression, and injustice, and in doing so, promotes the pursuit of equality and justice.

That said, since the experiences and perspectives of women and girls were historically excluded for years from social theory and social science, much feminist theory has focused on their interactions and experiences within society to ensure that half the world's population is not left out of how we see and understand social forces, relations, and problems.

While most feminist theorists throughout history have been women , people of all genders can work in this discipline today. By shifting the focus of social theory away from the perspectives and experiences of men, feminist theorists have created social theories that are more inclusive and creative than those that assume the social actor is always a man.

Part of what makes feminist theory creative and inclusive is that it often considers how systems of power and oppression interact , which is to say it does not just focus on gendered power and oppression, but on how this might intersect with systemic racism , a hierarchical class system, sexuality , nationality , and (dis)ability, among other things.

Gender Differences

Some feminist theory provides an analytic framework for understanding how women's location and experience of social situations differ from men's.

For example, cultural feminists look at the different values associated with womanhood and femininity as a reason why men and women experience the social world differently. Other feminist theorists believe the roles assigned to women and men within institutions better explain gender differences, including the sexual division of labor in the household .

Existential and phenomenological feminists focus on how women have been marginalized and defined as  “other”  in patriarchal societies . Some feminist theorists focus specifically on how masculinity is developed through socialization, and how its development interacts with the process of developing femininity in girls.

Gender Inequality

Feminist theories that focus on gender inequality recognize that women's location in and experience of social situations is not only different but also unequal to men's.

Liberal feminists argue that women have the same capacity as men for moral reasoning and agency, but that patriarchy , particularly the sexist division of labor, has historically denied women the opportunity to express and practice this reasoning.

These dynamics serve to shove women into the  private sphere  of the household and exclude them from full participation in public life. Liberal feminists point out that gender inequality exists for women in a heterosexual marriage and that women do not benefit from being married.

Indeed, these feminist theorists claim that married women have higher levels of stress than unmarried women and married men. Therefore, the sexual division of labor in both the public and private spheres needs to be altered for women to achieve marriage equality.

Gender Oppression

Theories of gender oppression go further than theories of gender difference and gender inequality by arguing that not only are women different from or unequal to men, but that they are actively oppressed, subordinated, and even abused by men .

Power is the key variable in the two main theories of gender oppression: psychoanalytic feminism and  radical feminism .

Psychoanalytic feminists attempt to explain power relations between men and women by reformulating Sigmund Freud 's theories of human emotions, childhood development, and the workings of the subconscious and unconscious. They believe that conscious calculation cannot fully explain the production and reproduction of patriarchy.

Radical feminists argue that being a woman is a positive thing in and of itself, but this is not acknowledged in  patriarchal societies  where women are oppressed. They identify physical violence as being at the base of patriarchy and think patriarchy can be defeated if women recognize their value and strength, establish a sisterhood of trust with other women, confront oppression critically, and form female-based separatist networks in the private and public spheres.

Structural Oppression

Structural oppression theories posit that women's oppression and inequality are a result of capitalism , patriarchy, and racism .

Socialist feminists agree with  Karl Marx  and Friedrich Engels that the working class is exploited as a consequence of capitalism and seek to extend this exploitation not just to class but also to gender.

Intersectionality theorists seek to explain oppression and inequality across several variables, including class, gender, race, ethnicity, and age. They offer the important insight that not all women experience oppression in the same way and that the same forces that work to oppress women and girls also oppress people of color and other marginalized groups.

One way structural oppression of women, specifically the economic kind, manifests in society is in the gender wage gap , which shows that men routinely earn more for the same work than women.

An intersectional view of this situation shows that women (and men) of color are even further penalized relative to the earnings of white men.

This strain of feminist theory in the late 20th century was extended to account for the globalization of capitalism and how its methods of production and accumulating wealth center on the exploitation of women workers.

Kachel, Sven, et al. "Traditional Masculinity and Femininity: Validation of a New Scale Assessing Gender Roles." Frontiers in Psychology , vol. 7, 5 July 2016, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00956

Zosuls, Kristina M., et al. "Gender Development Research in  Sex Roles : Historical Trends and Future Directions." Sex Roles , vol. 64, no. 11-12, June 2011, pp. 826-842., doi:10.1007/s11199-010-9902-3

Norlock, Kathryn. "Feminist Ethics." Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . 27 May 2019.

Liu, Huijun, et al. "Gender in Marriage and Life Satisfaction Under Gender Imbalance in China: The Role of Intergenerational Support and SES." Social Indicators Research , vol. 114, no. 3, Dec. 2013, pp. 915-933., doi:10.1007/s11205-012-0180-z

"Gender and Stress." American Psychological Association .

Stamarski, Cailin S., and Leanne S. Son Hing. "Gender Inequalities in the Workplace: The Effects of Organizational Structures, Processes, Practices, and Decision Makers’ Sexism." Frontiers in Psychology , 16 Sep. 2015, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01400

Barone-Chapman, Maryann . " Gender Legacies of Jung and Freud as Epistemology in Emergent Feminist Research on Late Motherhood." Behavioral Sciences , vol. 4, no. 1, 8 Jan. 2014, pp. 14-30., doi:10.3390/bs4010014

Srivastava, Kalpana, et al. "Misogyny, Feminism, and Sexual Harassment." Industrial Psychiatry Journal , vol. 26, no. 2, July-Dec. 2017, pp. 111-113., doi:10.4103/ipj.ipj_32_18

Armstrong, Elisabeth. "Marxist and Socialist Feminism." Study of Women and Gender: Faculty Publications . Smith College, 2020.

Pittman, Chavella T. "Race and Gender Oppression in the Classroom: The Experiences of Women Faculty of Color with White Male Students." Teaching Sociology , vol. 38, no. 3, 20 July 2010, pp. 183-196., doi:10.1177/0092055X10370120

Blau, Francine D., and Lawrence M. Kahn. "The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations." Journal of Economic Literature , vol. 55, no. 3, 2017, pp. 789-865., doi:10.1257/jel.20160995

• Understanding Critical Theory
• What Is Symbolic Interactionism?
• Sociological Definition of Popular Culture
• What Is Social Order in Sociology?
• Definition of Intersectionality
• Definition of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in Sociology
• An Overview of Labeling Theory
• What Is Convergence Theory?
• Understanding Functionalist Theory
• The Major Theoretical Perspectives of Sociology
• Definition of Base and Superstructure
• Understanding Conflict Theory
• Assessing a Situation, in Terms of Sociology
• What Is the Resource Mobilization Theory?
• Overview of Sociobiology Theory
• How Expectation States Theory Explains Social Inequality

• My presentations

Auth with social network:

Download presentation

We think you have liked this presentation. If you wish to download it, please recommend it to your friends in any social system. Share buttons are a little bit lower. Thank you!

Presentation is loading. Please wait.

Feminist Theory.

Published by Loren Inlow Modified over 9 years ago

Similar presentations

Presentation on theme: "Feminist Theory."— Presentation transcript:

Literary Theories in very brief summary.

Feminist Theory A way of looking at literature through the Critical Perspective of Feminist Literary Critical Theory.

Illusions of Reality. First Things First… The essential question… –How does an individual’s illusion of reality influence the choices one makes?

Please turn in your Marxist lit crit practice 7 May 2013.

Sexuality in Children’s Literature

Critical Approaches to Literature

Intro to Feminist Literary Theory Also Known as: “Gender Criticism” Sociological Approach.

The paradigms and the possibilities…

Feminist Criticism The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, "It's a girl." ~Shirley Chisholm.

Introduction to Literary Theory, Feminist and Gender Criticism

Feminist Literary Criticism. Origin Grew out of the women’s movements following WWII.

CRITICAL APPROACHES TO LITERATURE Literary Theory.

F EMINIST A PPROACHES TO M AXINE H ONG K INGSTON ’ S N O N AME W OMAN Canby High School Literature 120 Dr. Amy Berry and Mrs. Barrie Citrowske 15 February.

Feminist Criticism  The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, "It's a girl." ~Shirley Chisholm ~Shirley.

FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM

Feminism Friday!.

Feminist Criticism. A feminist critic sees 1) cultural and economic disabilities in a "patriarchal" society that have hindered or prevented women from.

Literary Theory Source - and

LITERARY THEORIES An Introduction to Literary Criticism.

 Just like there are movie critics, there are also literature critics. A literature critic’s job is to evaluate a piece of literature in order to derive.

About project

© 2024 SlidePlayer.com Inc. All rights reserved.

Feminist Theories: Knowledge, Method, and Practice

• First Online: 08 November 2022

Cite this chapter

• Katherine R. Allen 5 ,
• Abbie E. Goldberg 6 &
• Ana L. Jaramillo-Sierra 7  

2880 Accesses

2 Citations

Feminist theorizing in family science is an intellectual and a political project, where feminist theorists engage the world through critical intersectional perspectives to know it (knowledge), understand it (method), and change it (practice). Feminist family theories offer a fierce and flexible framework that is contentious and political, encompassing a vast enterprise of intellectual scholarly work, collective engagement, and constant agitation for social change. In this chapter, we examine the history of feminist thinking in family science across four eras of academic and activist feminist movements. We define key feminist concepts, including the social construction of gender, intersectionality, patriarchy, privilege, power, praxis, and reflexivity. We consider feminist theorizing in relation to related, though not synonymous, ways of critically theorizing about inequality, power, and the need for social change, including intersectionality theory, queer theory, and global and transnational feminisms. We analyze tensions, controversies, and limitations of feminist theorizing, and offer empirical examples of feminist-informed family research. Finally, we address future directions for feminist theorizing about families.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save.

• Get 10 units per month
• Download Article/Chapter or eBook
• 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
• Cancel anytime
• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Compact, lightweight edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info
• Durable hardcover edition

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Feminist Perspectives on Family Relationships: Part 3

Feminist theory and research on family relationships: pluralism and complexity, feminist perspectives advance four challenges to transform family studies.

Acosta, K. L. (2018). Queering family scholarship: Theorizing from the borderlands. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 10 , 406–418.

Google Scholar  

Ahmed, S. (2017). Living a feminist life . Duke University Press.

Alexander-Floyd, N. G. (2012). Disappearing acts: Reclaiming intersectionality in the social sciences in a post-black feminist era. Feminist Formations, 24 , 1–25.

Allen, K. R. (2000). A conscious and inclusive family studies. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62 , 4–17.

Allen, K. R. (2016). Feminist theory in family studies: History, biography, and critique. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 8 , 207–224.

Allen, K. R., & Henderson, A. C. (2017). Family theories: Foundations and applications . Wiley.

Allen, K. R., & Jaramillo-Sierra, A. L. (2015). Feminist theory and research on family relationships: Pluralism and complexity. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 73 , 93–99.

Article   Google Scholar  

Allen, K. R., & Lavender-Stott, E. S. (2020). Preparing the educators who teach about families: Engaging family science in the university setting. Family Relations, 69 , 442–460.

Allen, K. R., Lloyd, S. A., & Few, A. L. (2009). Reclaiming feminist theory, methods, and practice for family studies. In S. A. Lloyd, A. L. Few, & K. R. Allen (Eds.), Handbook of feminist family studies (pp. 3–17). Sage.

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Allen, K. R., Walker, A. J., & McCann, B. R. (2013). Feminism and families. In G. W. Peterson & K. R. Bush (Eds.), Handbook of marriage and the family (3rd ed., pp. 139–158). Springer.

Anderson, K. L. (2005). Theorizing gender in intimate partner violence research. Sex Roles, 52 , 853–865.

Anderson, K. L. (2008). Is partner violence worse in the context of control? Journal of Marriage and Family, 70 , 1157–1168.

Atkinson, M. P., Greenstein, T. N., & Monahan, M. (2005). For women, breadwinning can be dangerous: Gendered resource theory and wife abuse. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67 , 1137–1148.

Baber, K. M., & Allen, K. R. (1992). Women and families: Feminist reconstructions . Guilford.

Bell-Scott, P., Guy-Sheftall, B., Royster, J. J., Sims-Wood, J., DeCosta-Willis, M., & Fultz, L. (Eds.). (1991). Double stitch: Black women write about mothers and daughters . Beacon Press.

Bermudez, J. M., Muruthi, B. A., & Jordan, L. S. (2016). Decolonizing research methods for family science: Creating space at the center. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 8 , 191–206.

Blood, R. O., Jr., & Wolfe, D. M. (1960). Husbands and wives: The dynamics of family living . Free Press Glencoe.

Chevrette, R. (2013). Outing heteronormativity in interpersonal and family communication: Feminist applications of queer theory “beyond the sexy streets”. Communication Theory, 23 , 170–190.

Chiu, T. Y. (2017). Marriage migration as a multifaceted system: The intersectionality of intimate partner violence in cross-border marriages. Violence Against Women, 23 , 1293–1313.

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Cho, S., Crenshaw, K. W., & McCall, L. (2013). Toward a field of intersectionality studies: Theory, applications, and praxis. Signs, 38 , 785–810.

Choo, H. Y., & Ferree, M. M. (2010). Practicing intersectionality in sociological research: A critical analysis of inclusions, interactions, and institutions in the study of inequalities. Sociological Theory, 28 , 129–149.

Collins, P. H. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment . Unwin Hyman.

Collins, P. H., & Bilge, S. (2016). Intersectionality . Polity Press.

Combahee River Collective. (1977). The Combahee River Collective statement. In B. Smith (Ed.), Home girls: A Black feminist anthology (pp. 264–274). Rutgers University Press.

Connell, R. (2015). Meeting at the edge of fear: Theory on a world scale. Feminist Theory, 16 , 49–66.

Couture-Carron, A. (2017). One size doesn’t fit all: Dating abuse against women from the perspective of south Asian Muslim youth in Canada. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 32 , 3626–3647.

Cowdery, R. S., Scarborough, N., Knudson-Martin, C., Seshadri, G., Lewis, M. E., & Mahoney, A. R. (2009). Gendered power in cultural contexts: Part II. Middle class African American heterosexual couples with young children. Family Process, 48 , 25–39.

Craven, C. (2019). Reproductive losses: Challenges to LGBTQ family-making . Routledge.

Book   Google Scholar  

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43 , 1241–1299.

Crossman, K. A., & Hardesty, J. L. (2018). Placing coercive control at the center: What are the processes of coercive control and what makes control coercive? Psychology of Violence, 8 , 196–206.

De Reus, L. A. (2015). In pursuit of feminist accountability: Disempowering “feelings of fraudulence” through praxis and resistance: In pursuit of feminist accountability. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 7 , 328–332.

De Reus, L. A., Few, A. L., & Blume, L. B. (2005). Multicultural and critical race feminisms: Theorizing families in the third wave. In V. L. Bengtson, A. C. Acock, K. R. Allen, P. Dilworth-Anderson, & D. M. Klein (Eds.), Sourcebook of family theory & research (pp. 447–468). Sage.

Dill, B. T. (1988). Our mothers’ grief: Racial ethnic women and the maintenance of families. Journal of Family History, 13 , 415–431.

Donegan, M. (May 11, 2018). How #MeToo revealed the central rift within feminism today. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/11/how-metoo-revealed-the-central-rift-within-feminism-social-individualist .

Ferguson, K. (2017). Feminist theory today. Annual Review of Political Science, 20 , 269–286.

Ferree, M. M. (1990). Beyond separate spheres: Feminism and family research. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 52 , 866–884.

Ferree, M. M. (2010). Filling the glass: Gender perspectives on families. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72 , 420–439.

Ferree, M. M., & Tripp, A. M. (Eds.). (2006). Global feminism: Transnational women’s activism, organizing, and human rights . NYU Press.

Few, A. L. (2007). Integrating black consciousness and critical race feminism into family studies research. Journal of Family Issues, 28 , 452–473.

Few-Demo, A. L. (2014). Intersectionality as the “new” critical approach in feminist family studies: Evolving racial/ethnic feminisms and critical race theories. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 6 , 169–183.

Few-Demo, A. L., & Allen, K. R. (2020). Gender, feminist, and intersectional perspectives on families: A decade in review. Journal of Marriage and Family, 82 , 326–345.

Few-Demo, A. L., Humble, A. M., Curran, M. A., & Lloyd, S. A. (2016). Queer theory, intersectionality, and LGBT-parent families: Transformative critical pedagogy in family theory. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 8 , 74–94.

Few-Demo, A. L., Lloyd, S. A., & Allen, K. R. (2014). It’s all about power: Integrating feminist family studies and family communication. Journal of Family Communication, 14 , 85–94.

Freedman, E. B. (2002). No turning back: The history of feminism and the future of women . Ballantine.

Gabb, J. (2018). Unsettling lesbian motherhood: Critical reflections over a generation (1990-2015). Sexualities, 21 , 1002–1020.

Goldberg, A. E. (2012). Gay dads: Transitions to adoptive fatherhood . New York University Press.

Goldberg, A. E., Allen, K. R., Black, K., Frost, R., & Manley, M. (2018). “There is no perfect school…”: The complexity of school decision-making among lesbian and gay adoptive parents. Journal of Marriage and Family, 80 , 684–703.

Goldberg, A. E., Beemyn, G., & Smith, J. Z. (2018). What is needed, what is valued: Trans’ students’ perspectives on trans-inclusive policies and practices in higher education. Journal of Educational & Psychological Consultation, 29 , 27–67.

Goldberg, A. E., Black, K., Manley, M., & Frost, R. (2017). “We told them that we are both really involved parents”: Sexual minority and heterosexual adoptive parents’ engagement in school communities. Gender & Education, 5 , 614–631.

Goldberg, A. E., & Kuvalanka, K. A. (2018). Navigating identity development and community belonging when “there are only two boxes to check”: An exploratory study of trans nonbinary college students. Journal of LGBT Youth, 15 , 106–131.

Goldberg, A. E., Kuvalanka, K. A., & Dickey, L. (2018). Transgender graduate students’ experiences in higher education: A mixed-methods exploratory study. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 15, 38–51.

Graham-Kevan, N., & Archer, J. (2008). Does controlling behavior predict physical aggression and violence to partners? Journal of Family Violence, 23 , 539–548.

Hamby, S. (2014). Intimate partner and sexual violence research: Scientific progress, scientific challenges, and gender. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 15 , 149–158.

Hardesty, J. L., Crossman, K. A., Haselschwerdt, M. L., Raffaelli, M., Ogolsky, B. G., & Johnson, M. P. (2015). Toward a standard approach to operationalizing coercive control and classifying violence types. Journal of Marriage and Family, 77 , 833–843.

Haselschwerdt, M. L., Hlavaty, K., Carlson, C., Schneider, M., Maddox, L., & Skipper, M. (2019). Heterogeneity within domestic violence exposure: Young adults’ retrospective experiences. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 34 , 1512–1538.

Herdt, G. H. (Ed.). (1996). Third sex, third gender: Beyond sexual dimorphism in culture and history . Zone Books.

Hines, S. (2019). The feminist frontier: On trans and feminism. Journal of Gender Studies, 28 , 145–157.

Hooks, B. (2015). Feminism is for everybody: Passionate politics (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Hull, G. T., Bell Scott, P., & Smith, B. (Eds.). (1982). But some of us are brave: All the women are white, all the blacks are men: Black women’s studies . Feminist Press.

Hust, S. J., Rodgers, K. B., & Bayly, B. (2017). Scripting sexual consent: Internalized traditional sexual scripts and sexual consent expectancies among college students. Family Relations, 66 , 197–210.

Jaramillo-Sierra, A. L., Barberena-Arango, A., Suárez-Baracaldo, L. C., & González-Viveros, M. C. (2016, June). Power and control in Colombian professionals explanations of intimate partner violence . Paper presented at the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships Annual Conference. Edinburgh.

Jaramillo-Sierra, A. L., Kaestle, C. E., & Allen, K. R. (2016). Daughters’ anger towards mothers and fathers in emerging adulthood. Sex Roles, 75 , 28–42.

Ji, Y., Wu, X., Sun, S., & He, G. (2017). Unequal care, unequal work: Toward a more comprehensive understanding of gender inequality in post-reform urban China. Sex Roles, 77 , 765–778.

Johnson, M. P. (2008). A typology of domestic violence: Intimate terrorism, violence resistance, and situational couple violence . Northeastern University Press.

Johnson, M. P. (2011). Gender and types of intimate partner violence: A response to an anti-feminist literature review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 16 , 289–296.

Kaestle, C. E. (2016). Feminist perspectives advance four challenges to transform family studies. Sex Roles, 75 , 71–77.

Karaian, L. (2013). Pregnant men : Repronormativity , critical trans theory and the re(conceive)ing of sex and pregnancy in law . Social & Legal Studies, 22, 211–230.

Karr, J. E. (2017). Where’s my dad? A feminist approach to incentivized paternity leave. Hastings Women’s Law Journal, 28 , 225–263.

Knudson-Martin, C. (2013). Why power matters: Creating a foundation of mutual support in couple relationships. Family Process, 52 , 5–18.

Komter, A. (1989). Hidden power in marriage. Gender & Society, 3 , 187–216.

Kuvalanka, K., Weiner, J., Munroe, C., Goldberg, A. E., & Gardner, M. (2017). Trans and gender-nonconforming children and their caregivers: Gender presentations, peer relations, and Well-being at baseline. Journal of Family Psychology, 31 , 889–899.

Lewis, E. A. (2015). On listening as an integral element of praxis in feminist and womynist research. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 7 , 324–327.

Lewis, R., & Marine, S. (2015). Weaving a tapestry, compassionately: Toward an understand of young women’s feminisms. Feminist Formations, 27 , 118–140.

Lorber, J. (2012). Gender inequality: Feminist theories and politics (5th ed.). Oxford University Press.

Lorde, A. (1984). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches . Crossing Press.

Louie, K. (2002). Theorising Chinese masculinity: Society and gender in China . Cambridge University Press.

Louie, K. (2014). Chinese masculinity studies in the twenty-first century: Westernizing, Easternizing and globalizing wen and wu . NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 9 , 18–29.

Magalhaes, S. I., & Cerqueira, C. (2015). Our place in history: Young feminists at the margins. Feminism & Psychology, 25 , 39–44.

Marinucci, M. (2016). Feminism is queer: The intimate connection between queer and feminist theory (2nd ed.). Zed Books.

McCall, L. (2005). The complexity of intersectionality. Signs, 30 , 1771–1800.

McNabb, C. (2018). Nonbinary gender identities: History, culture, resources . Rowman & Littlefield.

Moghadam, S., Knudson-Martin, C., & Mahoney, A. R. (2009). Gendered power in cultural contexts: Part III. Couple relationships in Iran. Family Process, 48 , 41–54.

Mohanty, C. T. (2003). Feminism without borders: Decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity . Duke University Press.

Moore, M. R. (2011). Invisible families: Gay identities, relationships, and motherhood among Black women . University of California Press.

Moraga, C., & Anzaldua, G. (Eds.). (1981). This bridge called my back: Writings by radical women of color . Persephone Press.

Muruthi, B. J., Bermúdez, M., Bush, K. R., McCoy, M., & Stinson, M. A. (2016). Afro-Caribbean mothers in the U.S.: An exploratory study from a transnational feminist perspective. Women & Therapy, 39 , 413–431.

Nicolazzo, Z. (2016). ‘It’s a hard line to walk’: Black non-binary trans* collegians’ perspectives on passing, realness, and trans*-normativity. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 29 , 1173–1188.

Ortner, S. B. (2014). Too soon for post-feminism: The ongoing life of patriarchy in neoliberal America. History and Anthropology, 25 , 530–549.

Osmond, M. W. (1987). Radical-critical theories. In M. B. Sussman & S. K. Steinmetz (Eds.), Handbook of marriage and the family (pp. 103–124). Plenum Press.

Osmond, M. W., & Thorne, B. (1993). Feminist theories: The social construction of gender in families and society. In P. Boss, W. Doherty, R. LaRossa, W. Schumm, & S. Steinmetz (Eds.), Sourcebook of family theories and methods: A contextual approach (pp. 591–623). Plenum.

Oswald, R., Kuvalanka, K., Blume, L., & Berkowitz, D. (2009). Queering “the family”. In S. A. Lloyd, A. L. Few, & K. R. Allen (Eds.), Handbook of feminist family studies (pp. 43–55). Sage.

Patil, V. (2013). From patriarchy to intersectionality: A transnational feminist assessment of how far we’ve really come. Signs, 38 , 847–867.

Pfeffer, C. A. (2017). Queering families: The postmodern partnerships of cisgender women and transgender men . Oxford University Press.

Potter, E. C., & Potter, D. J. (2020). Methods, recruitment, and sampling in research with LGBTQ-parent families. In A. E. Goldberg & K. R. Allen (Eds.), LGBTQ-parent families: Innovations in research and implications for practice (2nd ed., pp. 507–533). Springer.

Purcell, J. B., Oldham, C. R., Weiser, D. A., & Sharp, E. A. (2017). Lights, camera, activism: Using a film series to generate feminist dialogue about campus sexual violence. Family Relations, 66 , 139–153.

Quek, K. M., & Knudson-Martin, C. (2006). A push toward equality: Processes among dual-career newlywed couples in collectivist culture. Journal of Marriage and Family, 68 , 56–69.

Richardson, D., McLaughlin, J., & Casey, M. E. (2006). Intersections between feminist and queer theory . Palgrave.

Riggs, D. W. (2013). Transgender men’s self-representations of bearing children posttransition. In F. J. Green & M. Friedman (Eds.), Chasing rainbows: Exploring gender fluid parenting practices (pp. 62–71). Demeter Press.

Risman, B. J. (2018). Where the millennials will take us: A new generation wrestles with the gender structure . Oxford University Press.

Rozee, P. D., & Koss, M. P. (2001). Rape: A century of resistance. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 25 , 295–311.

Ryan, M. (2009). Beyond Thomas Beatie: Trans men and the new parenthood. In R. Epstein (Ed.), Who’s your daddy? And other writings on queer parenting (pp. 139–150). Sumach Press.

Sharp, E. A., & DeCesaro, G. D. (2015). Modeling innovative methodological practices in a dance/family studies transdisciplinary project. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 7 , 367–380.

Sharp, E. A., & Weaver, S. E. (2015). Feeling like feminist frauds: Theorizing feminist accountability in feminist family studies research in a neoliberal, postfeminist context. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 7 , 299–320.

Sollie, D. L., & Leslie, L. A. (Eds.). (1994). Gender, families, and close relationships: Feminist research journeys . Sage.

Sprague, J. (2016). Feminist methodologies for critical researchers: Bridging differences (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield.

Thompson, L., & Walker, A. J. (1989). Gender in families: Women and men in marriage, work, and parenthood. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 51 , 845–871.

Tichenor, V. (2005). Maintaining men’s dominance: Negotiating identity and power when she earns more. Sex Roles, 53 , 191–205.

Two Spirits . (2009). Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/two-spirits_map-html/ .

van Eeden-Moorefield, B., & Benson, K. E. (2014). A conditional process model explaining partnered gay men’s perceived relationship stability. Family Relations, 63 , 469–481.

Walker, A. J. (1999). Gender and family relationships. In M. Sussman, S. K. Steinmetz, & G. W. Peterson (Eds.), Handbook of marriage and the family (pp. 439–474). Plenum.

Walker, A. J. (2009). A feminist critique of family studies. In S. A. Lloyd, A. L. Few, & K. R. Allen (Eds.), Handbook of feminist family studies (pp. 18–27). Sage.

Walker, A. J., & Thompson, L. (1984). Feminism and family studies. Journal of Family Issues, 5 , 545–570.

Zhang, J., & Allen, K. R. (2018). Constructions of masculinity and the perception of interracial relationships among young male Chinese international students and scholars in the United States. Journal of Family Issues, 40 , 340–362.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Human Development and Family Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

Katherine R. Allen

Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA

Abbie E. Goldberg

Department of Psychology, University de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia

Ana L. Jaramillo-Sierra

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Katherine R. Allen .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

Kari Adamsons

Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

April L. Few-Demo

Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, College of Education and Human Development University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA

Christine Proulx

Department of Family Science, School of Public Health, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Allen, K.R., Goldberg, A.E., Jaramillo-Sierra, A.L. (2022). Feminist Theories: Knowledge, Method, and Practice. In: Adamsons, K., Few-Demo, A.L., Proulx, C., Roy, K. (eds) Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methodologies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92002-9_27

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92002-9_27

Published : 08 November 2022

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-030-92001-2

Online ISBN : 978-3-030-92002-9

eBook Packages : Behavioral Science and Psychology Behavioral Science and Psychology (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

Feminist Theory

Nov 19, 2014

830 likes | 1.39k Views

Feminist Theory. By: Melanie Lord, Anthony Greiter &amp; Zuflo Tursunovic. Feminism. Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. The movement organized around this belief. Feminism. Feminist Theory is an outgrowth of the general movement to empower women worldwide.

Share Presentation

• sandra harding
• feminist theory
• black women
• women created equal
• black women clarifying standpoint

Presentation Transcript

Feminist Theory By: Melanie Lord, Anthony Greiter & Zuflo Tursunovic

Feminism • Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. • The movement organized around this belief.

Feminism • Feminist Theory is an outgrowth of the general movement to empower women worldwide. • Feminism can be defined as a recognition and critique of male supremacy combined with efforts to change it.

Feminism • The goals of feminism are: • To demonstrate the importance of women • To reveal that historically women have been subordinate to men • To bring about gender equity.

Feminism • Simply put: Feminists fight for the equality of women and argue that women should share equally in society’s opportunities and scare resources.

History • You tube video • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq_9wu-KjTk&feature=related

History • The origins of the feminist movement are found in the abolitionist movement of the 1830’s. • Seneca Falls, New York is said to be the birthplace of American feminism.

History • Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott spearheaded the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848. • The convention brought in more than 300 people. • The discussion was focused on the social, civil, and religious condition of women.

History • The convention lead to the Declaration of Sentiments. • Modeled after the Declaration of Independence. • All men and women created equal. • Spoke of the supremacy of man in regards to divorce and education

History • The convention marked a 22 year battle to gain women the right to vote in the United States. • In 1920 women won the right to vote.

History • In Germany the feminists were fighting for the right of women to engage in sexual relations regardless of marital and legal consideration. • Marianne Weber (the wife of Max Weber) was a feminist

History • Weber thought that women should be treated equally in the social institution of marriage, along with all the other social institutions. • She made it clear that marriage was between a man and a woman

History • The contemporary feminism movement began in the 1960’s. • Free love helped escape the sexual double standard. • Divorce became commonplace • Women were “happy housewives” no more • Higher level employment and fulfillment outside the home were becoming the norm

Liberal Feminism • All people are created equal and should not be denied equality of opportunity because of gender • Liberal Feminists focus their efforts on social change through the construction of legislation and regulation of employment practices

Liberal Feminism • Inequality stems from the denial of equal rights. • The primary obstacle to equality is sexism.

Marxist Feminism • Division of labor is related to gender role expectations. • Females give birth. Males left to support family • Bourgeoisie=Men • Proletariat=Women

Radical Feminism • Male power and privilege is the basis of social relations • Sexism is the ultimate tool used by men to keep women oppressed

Radical Feminism • Women are the first oppressed group • Women's oppression is the most widespread • Women’s oppression is the deepest

Radical Feminism • Women’s oppression causes the most suffering • Women’s oppression provides a conceptual model for understanding all other forms of oppression

Radical Feminism • Men control the norms of acceptable sexual behavior • Refusing to reproduce is the most effective way to escape the snares • Speak out against all social structures because they are created by men

Socialist Feminism • Views women’s oppression as stemming from their work in the family and the economy • Women’s inferior position is the result of class-based capitalism • Socialist believe that history can be made in the private sphere (home) not just the public sphere (work)

Socialist Feminism • Arguments: • An increased emphasis on the private sphere and the role of women in the household • Equal opportunities for women in the public sphere

Postmodern Feminism • Attempts to criticize the dominant order. • All theory is socially constructed. • Rejects claim that only rational, abstract thought and scientific methodology can lead to valid knowledge.

Postmodern Feminism • The basic idea is that looking to the past is no longer the way to go. We are a global economic world highlighted by technology. Looking to the past no longer applies.

Dorothy E. Smith

Dorothy E. Smith(1926- ) • Earned BA from London School of Economics • Earned PhD in sociology from University of California at Berkeley • Husband left her with two children • Worked at Berkeley (where most professors were male) and in England as a lecturer

Dorothy E. SmithMethods • Concept of bifurcation • “conceptual distinction between the world as we experience it and the world as we know it through he conceptual frameworks that science invents” • Believes mainstream sociology has not touched on women’s experiences

Dorothy E. SmithMethods • Suggested a reorganization that is a sociology for, rather than about, women • Leads to a bifurcated consciousness or an actual representation • States that a subjective reality is the only way to know human behavior • Interviewing, recollection of work experience, use of archives, observation, etc.

Dorothy E. SmithFamily • North American family – legally married couple sharing a household • Male earns the primary income and female cares for family and household • Ideals reinforced by Martha Stewart, Home and Gardens, etc. • Today’s family presents many variations • Found that many women get caught up in the role that society expects of them

Dorothy E. SmithSchooling • Found a lack of interest in issues concerning girls and women in schooling • Universities and colleges have incorporated successful programs, but public schools have not • Would like to see a change to allow girls a larger say in school dynamics

Sandra Harding

Sandra Harding(1935- ) • Professor of women’s studies at UCLA • Directs Center for the Study of Women • Author or editor of ten books • Given over 200 lectures at universities and conferences • Written in such areas as feminist theory, sociology of knowledge, and methodological issues related to objectivity and neutrality

Sandra HardingFeminist Theory • Criticizes all sociological theories claiming they are all gender-biased • Criticizes feminist theory as well • Western, bourgeois, heterosexual, white women • Does not believe in a universal theory • Theory is possible so long as “normal” science is not used • Promotes “good science” instead of that produced by a masculine bias – “science as usual”

Sandra HardingFeminist Theory • Ignores empirical data • Believes all males and whites benefit from ascribed status • Invisible knapsack • No man can renounce gender privilege as no white can renounce racist privilege • Social theory must be created by women and include issues central to women

Sandra HardingSociology of Knowledge • Knowledge was created from a male’s standpoint and is biased • Sexist distortions must be rooted out if an accurate sociology of knowledge is to exist • History should be herstory to reflect ignored and trivialized women’s contributions to science • Lack of women in academia does not exist today – sign of growing power

Sandra HardingNeutrality and Objectivity • Sciences confronted with demise of objectivism and threat of relativism • Objectivist methods encouraged to eliminate social and political values • Academia is affected by subjectivity interfering with “good science” • Encourages women to stop disagreeing among themselves and enter science

Patricia Hill Collins

Patricia Hill Collins(1948- ) • BA from Brandeis, MA from Harvard, and PhD from Brandeis • Associate professor of sociology and African American studies at University of Cincinnati • Outsider within – one is part of a group but feels distant from that group

Patricia Hill CollinsFeminist Theory and Methodology • Focus of sociological theory should be the “outsider” groups • Especially those that lack a “voice” • Promotes using subjective analysis of the concrete experiences • Agrees with Harding on white/male interest • Believes emotional concepts are important • Individuals have their own reality constructs that are linked to the groups to which they belong

Patricia Hill CollinsBlack Feminism • Outside within status of black slaves • Black feminist though consists of ideas produced by black women clarifying standpoint for and of black women • Three key themes in black feminism: • The Meaning of Self-Definition and Self-Valuation • The Interlocking Nature of Oppression • The Importance of African-American Women’s Culture

Patricia Hill CollinsBlack Feminism • The Meaning of Self-Definition and Self-Valuation • Self-Definition – Challenging the political knowledge validation process bringing stereotypical images of Afro-American womanhood • Self-Valuation – stresses the content of Black women’s self-definitions

Patricia Hill CollinsBlack Feminism • The Interlocking Nature of Oppression • Gender, race, and class are interconnected • Society has attempted to teach black women that racism, sexism, and poverty are inevitable • Keep black women oppressed • Awareness will help black women unite their fight against oppression and discrimination

Patricia Hill CollinsBlack Feminism • The Importance of African-American Women’s Culture • Efforts to redefine and explain importance of Black women’s culture • Uncovered new Black female experience • Identified social relations where Afro-American women pass on essentials to coping with oppression

Patricia Hill CollinsBlack Feminism • Sociological significance in two areas: • Content of ideas has been influenced by on-going dialogue in many sociological societies • Process by which these ideas were produced • Women are gaining more of a “voice” • Black women are still more accepted as authors in the classroom, than as teachers

Carol Gilligan

Carol Gilligan(1936- ) • Psychologist and feminist thinker • Influenced by Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, and Lawrence Kohlberg • AB in English Lit from Swarthmore College • AM in Clinical Psych from Radcliffe College • PhD from Harvard University • Taught at University of Chicago, and Harvard University

Carol GilliganDevelopmental Theory • Masculine bias is prevalent • Human moral development comes in stages directly influenced by Piaget: • Sensorimotor Stage (birth to 2yrs) – physical contact, out of sight, out of mind • Preoperational Stage (2 to 7) – object permanence, egocentrism • Concrete Operational Stage (7-12) – intellectual development, lacks skills of abstractness • Formal Operation Stage (12+) – think abstractly and perceive analogies, uses complex language

Carol GilliganDevelopmental Theory • Work with Kohlberg • Noticed males were reluctant to discuss feelings • Assessed as morally undeveloped • Men and women do have differences in moral reasoning • Justice v. Care orientation • Justice – attention to problems of inequality and holds equal respect • Care – attention to problems of detachment and holds response to need • Moral injustices – do not treat others unfairly or turn on those in need

Carol GilliganStages of Moral Development for Women • Orientation to Individual Survival (Preconventional Morality) • Individual survival – no feeling of should • Goodness as Self-Sacrifice (Conventional Morality) • Defined by ability to care for others • Responsibility for Consequences of Choice (Postconventional Morality) • Choice and willingness to take responsibility for that choice = moral decision

Carol GilliganGiving Voice to Women • Freud and Piaget’s theories treat women like men • Different voice needs to be heard • Adolescent girls’ voices • When quiet in relationships, depression and eating disorders enter • When outspoken in relationships, others find it difficult to remain in the relationship

• More by User

Introduction to Feminist Theory

Some common misconceptions of Feminists. Feminists are scary, angry man-hatersFeminists don't wear bras or shave their legsFeminists don't want to get married or stay at home and raise childrenFeminists are only concerned with giving more power to womenAll Feminists are lesbians. What do Feminis

264 views • 15 slides

Feminist Literary Theory

Feminist Literary Theory. What is Feminism?. In the simplest terms, feminism is the theory that women and men should be equal politically, economically, and socially. But are they??. % WOMEN IN THE LABOUR FORCE. % OF WOMEN IN SENIOR MANAGEMENT OCCUPATIONS. Male Dominated Occupations.

1.14k views • 67 slides

The Second Sex. Feminist Literary Theory . The Second Sex. Feminist Literary Theory . SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR (1908-1986) The Second Sex Questioned the “othering” of women by Western philosophy Rediscovery of forgotten women’s literature Revolutionary advocate of sexual politics

743 views • 26 slides

Feminist Legal Theory

Feminist Legal Theory. LSJ 362 Autumn 2007. The law’s apparent neutrality masks its real nature: the law is male . First Wave Feminism: EQUALITY. This ‘wave’ of feminism dates from the enlightenment (eighteenth-century) and stresses equality, rights, liberation and emancipation.

1.77k views • 14 slides

Feminist theory

A quick reminder... ..........My Videosfeminism.wmv. Feminist theory. Feminist theory. Ali G interviews Sue Lees. Recap from last year. Do you consider yourself a feminist? How do you define the term ‘feminist’? Has feminism made life in the UK better?.

608 views • 29 slides

Feminist Theory. The Taming of the Shrew. Feminism. feminism |ˈ feməˌnizəm | noun the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men. Patriarchy. patriarchy |ˈ pātrēˌärkē | noun ( pl. patriarchies )

312 views • 7 slides

Hamlet Feminist theory

Hamlet Feminist theory. By: Angie Ellison, Jenny Torres, Minerva Dominguez, and Paulo Fonseca. Feminist theory: is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical discourse; it aims to understand the nature of gender. Women: can’t live with them, Can’t live without them….

564 views • 17 slides

FEMINIST THEORY

FEMINIST THEORY.

586 views • 5 slides

Introduction to Feminist Theory. Moon Hinga 2014. So what is it?. Feminist theory is one of the major contemporary sociological theories, which analyzes the status of women and men in society with the purpose of using that knowledge to better women's lives . . Basically….

2.55k views • 13 slides

Feminist Literary Theory. ENG 4U. Diversity. Feminist literary theory is difficult to define because feminism itself is difficult to define.

6.47k views • 35 slides

Feminist Literary Theory. A brief introduction. Interpret this poem:. Possibilities: You can’t have ‘she ’ without ‘he ’ Her thoughts revolve around him He is trapped by her He breaks up her thoughts She holds him together. By Pedro Xisto. What is Feminism?.

364 views • 6 slides

Feminist Theory. Notes on the Feminist Approach. Feminism is an evolving philosophy . The basis of the movement, both in literature and society, is that the Western world is fundamentally patriarchal(created by men, ruled by men, viewed through the eyes of men, and judged by men).

828 views • 4 slides

Feminist theory. Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical , or philosophical discourse , it aims to understand the nature of gender inequality . .

977 views • 15 slides

Feminist Theory. AP Literature and Composition Unit 3: The Awakening. Friday, December 14. Aim: What is feminist theory and how is it applied to literature? Do now: What is feminism in your own words? Homework: Wordly Wise Lesson 6 (Quiz on Tuesday). What is Feminist Theory?.

849 views • 23 slides

Feminist Theory. Gender based Two distinct ways of looking at feminism Fundamental Similarities-(egalitarian) Emphasis on fundamental similarities between men and women that exist before any artificial social roles

1.67k views • 11 slides

Introducing Feminist Theory

Introducing Feminist Theory. ERSH 7400 Kathy Roulston The University of Georgia. Focus. “Re-visionizing the man-made world” (Crotty) Critique of patriarchy Struggle for equity and liberation for women

400 views • 16 slides

Feminist Literary Theory. British Literature on November 4, 2014. Please take out your journals. Objectives. Students will be able to understand the foundations of Feminist literary theory. HOW? “Male Gaze” Postmodern Feminism Queer Theory. THE MALE GAZE. Laura Mulvey

393 views • 14 slides

Feminist Rhetorical Theory

Feminist Rhetorical Theory. Defining the Key Terms: Feminism: equity or more? Rhetoric: symbol usage and influence Theory: framing a communication event. Our Journey Together

137 views • 9 slides

Feminist Theory:

Feminist Theory:. Historicism, Psychoanalysis, &amp; Queer Theory. Philosophy to Historicism. “To the extent that Foucault fits into the philosophical tradition, it is the critical tradition of Kant, and his project could be called A Critical History of Thought. ”

147 views • 4 slides

Feminist Literary Theory. Ms. A. Stephens Benjamin E. Mays High School. Quotes for comments:.

345 views • 13 slides

Feminist Theory. “My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it’s very open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do.” By Ani Difranco. By Heather, Jen, Katie, Holly, Steph, and Sam!. What do you think the feminist theory is?.

436 views • 12 slides

Got any suggestions?

We want to hear from you! Send us a message and help improve Slidesgo

Top searches

Trending searches

20 templates

christmas lights

9 templates

thanksgiving

60 templates

86 templates

career planning

41 templates

12 templates

The Power of Feminism

It seems that you like this template, the power of feminism presentation, free google slides theme, powerpoint template, and canva presentation template.

Feminism is a trending topic that advocates for the equality of women and men. This simple, versatile and effective template is great to explain any sort of detail or research about this social, political and cultural movement. The different graphs, reviews, charts, maps and illustrations of women will support in a visual way your discourse.

Features of this template

• 100% editable and easy to modify
• 32 different slides to impress your audience
• Contains easy-to-edit graphics such as graphs, maps, tables, timelines and mockups
• Includes 500+ icons and Flaticon’s extension for customizing your slides
• Designed to be used in Google Slides, Canva, and Microsoft PowerPoint
• 16:9 widescreen format suitable for all types of screens
• Includes information about fonts, colors, and credits of the free resources used

How can I use the template?

Am I free to use the templates?

How to attribute?

Combines with:

This template can be combined with this other one to create the perfect presentation:

Attribution required If you are a free user, you must attribute Slidesgo by keeping the slide where the credits appear. How to attribute?

Register for free and start downloading now

Related posts on our blog.

How to Add, Duplicate, Move, Delete or Hide Slides in Google Slides

How to Change Layouts in PowerPoint

How to Change the Slide Size in Google Slides

Related presentations.

Create your presentation Create personalized presentation content

Writing tone, number of slides.

Premium template

Unlock this template and gain unlimited access

Register for free and start editing online