Sexuality in general and particularly in India remains an ever enigmatic phenomenon, giving rise to a vast field of academic study across the social and human sciences. Through in-depth theoretical analysis and an array of case studies, this volume establishes a firm analytical framework for sexuality studies in the country.
This book uses the Anglophone Caribbean as its site of critique to explore two important questions within development studies. First, to what extent has the United Nations' call to implement gender-mainstreaming projects resulted in the realization of gender equity for women within developing societies? Second, does gender-mainstreaming have the conceptual, operational, and technical capacities to address the centrality of the body in 21st-century lobbies for gender equity? In answering these questions, Rowley examines such issues as reproductive rights and equity, sexual harassment, and sexual minorities' rights.
A comprehensive overview of the interdisciplinary field of Women's and Gender Studies, featuring original contributions from leading experts from around the world The Companion to Women's and Gender Studies is a comprehensive resource for students and scholars alike, exploring the central concepts, theories, themes, debates, and events in this dynamic field. Contributions from leading scholars and researchers cover a wide range of topics while providing diverse international, postcolonial, intersectional, and interdisciplinary insights. In-depth yet accessible chapters discuss the social construction and reproduction of gender and inequalities in various cultural, social-economic, and political contexts. Thematically-organized chapters explore the development of Women's and Gender Studies as an academic discipline, changes in the field, research directions, and significant scholarship in specific, interrelated disciplines such as science, health, psychology, and economics. Original essays offer fresh perspectives on the mechanisms by which gender intersects with other systems of power and privilege, the relation of androcentric approaches to science and gender bias in research, how feminist activists use media to challenge misrepresentations and inequalities, disparity between men and women in the labor market, how social movements continue to change Women's and Gender Studies, and more. Filling a significant gap in contemporary literature in the field, this volume: Features a broad interdisciplinary and international range of essays Engages with both individual and collective approaches to agency and resistance Addresses topics of intense current interest and debate such as transgender movements, gender-based violence, and gender discrimination policy Includes an overview of shifts in naming, theoretical approaches, and central topics in contemporary Women's and Gender Studies Companion to Women's and Gender Studies is an ideal text for instructors teaching courses in gender, sexuality, and feminist studies, or related disciplines such as psychology, history, education, political science, sociology, and cultural studies, as well as practitioners and policy makers working on issues related to gender and sexuality.
In the past three decades, feminist scholars have produced an extraordinary rich body of theoretical writing in humanities and social science disciplines. This revised and updated second edition of Theorizing Feminism: Parallel Trends in the Humanities and Social Sciences, is a genuinely interdisciplinary anthology of significant contributions to feminist theory.This timely reader is creatively edited, and contains insightful introductory material. It illuminates the historical development of feminist theory as well as the current state of the field. Emphasizing common themes and interests in the humanities and social sciences, the editors have chosen topics that remain relevant to current debates, reflect the interests of a diverse community of thinkers, and have been central to feminist theory in many disciplines.The contributors include leading figures from the fields of psychology, literary criticism, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, art history, law, and economics. This is the ideal text for any advanced course on interdisciplinary feminist theory, one that fills a long-standing gap in feminist pedagogy.
This book chronicles the dawn of the global movement for women's rights in the first decades of the twentieth century. The founding mothers of this movement were not based primarily in the United States, however, or in Europe. Instead, Katherine M. Marino introduces readers to a cast of remarkable Latin American and Caribbean women whose deep friendships and intense rivalries forged global feminism out of an era of imperialism, racism, and fascism. Six dynamic activists form the heart of this story: from Brazil, Bertha Lutz; from Cuba, Ofelia Domingez Navarro; from Uruguay, Paulina Luisi; from Panama, Clara Gonzalez; from Chile, Marta Vergara; and from the United States, Doris Stevens. This Pan-American network drove a transnational movement that advocated women's suffrage, equal pay for equal work, maternity rights, and broader self-determination. Their painstaking efforts led to the enshrinement of women's rights in the United Nations Charter and the development of a framework for international human rights. But their work also revealed deep divides, with Latin American activists overcoming U.S. presumptions to feminist superiority. As Marino shows, these early fractures continue to influence divisions among today's activists along class, racial, and national lines. Marino's multinational and multilingual research yields a new narrative for the creation of global feminism. The leading women introduced here were forerunners in understanding the power relations at the heart of international affairs. Their drive to enshrine fundamental rights for women, children, and all people of the world stands as a testament to what can be accomplished when global thinking meets local action.
Exploring the Lives of Women, 1558-1837' is an engaging and lively collection of original, thought-provoking essays. Its route from Lady Jane Greys nine-day reign to Queen Victorias accession provides ample opportunities to examine complex interactions between gender, rank, and power. Yet the books scope extends far beyond queens: its female cast includes servants, aristocrats, literary women, opera singers, actresses, fallen women, athletes and mine workers.The collection explores themes relating to female power and physical strength; infertility, motherhood, sexuality and exploitation; creativity and celebrity; marriage and female friendship. It draws upon a wide range of primary materials to explore diverse representations of women: illuminating accounts of real womens lives appear alongside fictional portrayals and ideological constructions of femininity. In exploring womens negotiations with patriarchal control, this book demonstrates how the lived experience of women did not always correspond to prescribed social and gendered norms, revealing the rich complexity of their lives.This volume has been published to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Womens Studies Group 1558-1837. The group was formed to promote research into any aspect of womens lives as experienced or depicted within this period. The depth, range and creativity of the essays in this book reflect the myriad interests of its members.
This breathtakingly broad, interdisciplinary reader demonstrates how widely feminist thinking has spread, how deeply it has shaken settled assumptions in the disciplines and how much new light it throws on contemporary controversies. - Myra Marx Ferree, University of Wisconsin-Madison "A timely intervention and highly engaged, thoughtful and scholarly analysis of the state of gender and women′s studies in the West by three eminent feminist scholars... Highly cognisant of the central issues that have fractured, blocked and enhanced western feminism." - Bev Skeggs, Goldsmiths "The comprehensiveness and the interdisciplinary range of themes are impressive, and they make the Handbook into a wonderful tool for teachers and students of women′s and gender studies." - Nina Lykke, Linkoeping University Gender and women′s studies is one of the most challenging fields within the social sciences - the dynamics of gender relations and the social and cultural implications of gender constructions offer a lively forum of debate. The Handbook of Gender and Women′s Studies presents a comprehensive and engaging review of the most recent developments within the field, including the study of masculinity, the feminist implications of postmodernism, the ′cultural turn′ and globalization. The authors review current research and offer critical analyses of women′s and gender studies in work, the welfare state, family, education, religion, violence and war and feminist global politics. Edited by three leading academics from Europe and the United States, and with 25 chapters written by scholars based throughout the world, the Handbook situates the most important debates in the field within a uniquely international and interdisciplinary context. The Handbook is a useful introduction to gender theory and an exciting starting-point for fresh debates.
From Beijing to Seattle, women's movements within academe and in local-global communities are growing at an unprecedented rate, raising pointed questions about paradigms of Western feminism, development, global trade, and scholarship. Despite this growing visibility, the perspectives of far too many women, especially from the Global South, are still excluded from mainstream U.S. scholarship. Presented with the task of preparing students for life in this new and rapidly shrinking world, many scholars have found themselves overwhelmed by the need to cross disciplinary and geographic borders. But some faculty are leading the way -- often in defiance of academic traditions and prejudices -- to a curriculum that reflects consequences of globalization. Encompassing Gender is the long-awaited anthology of more than 40 essays by 60 scholars, many of them working in curriculum-transformation groups that cut across the humanities, the sciences, and the social sciences, all of them committed to an interdisciplinary approach to internationalizing the curriculum.
Researching War provides a unique overview of varied feminist contributions to the study of war through case studies from around the world. Written by well-respected scholars, each chapter explicitly showcases the role of feminist methodological, ethical and political commitments in the research process. Designed to be useful for teaching also, the book provides insight into feminist research practices for students and scholars wanting to further their understanding what it means to study war (and other issues) from a feminist perspective. To this end, every author follows a four-part structure in the presentation of their case study: outlining a research puzzle, explaining the chosen approach, describing the findings and, finally, offering a reflection on the feminist commitments that guided the research. This book: Provides a multi-disciplinary perspective on war by drawing on disciplines such as anthropology, history, literature, peace research, postcolonial theory, queer studies, security studies, and women’s studies; Showcases a multiplicity of experiences with war and violence, emphasizing everyday experiences of war and violence with accounts from around the world; Challenges stereotypical accounts of women, violence, and war by pointing to contradictions and unexpected continuities as well as unexpected findings made possible by adopting a feminist perspective; Teases out linkages between various forms of political violence (against women, but increasingly also by women); Discusses theoretical and methodological innovation in feminist research on war. This book will be essential reading for advanced students and scholars of Security Studies, Gender and Conflict, Women and War, Feminist International Relations and Research Methods.