What is Feminist Theory? What is Feminism?

Cheris Kramarae and Paul Treichler, “Feminism” “Feminist” from The Feminist Dictionary (1985)

Alice Walker, “Womanist” from In Search of Our Mothers Gardens (1983)

Charlotte Bunch, “Not by Degrees: Feminist Theory and Education” (1979)

Audre Lorde, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury” (1977) from Sister/Outsider:Essays and Speeches (1984)

Maria Lugones and Elizabeth Spelman, “Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for ‘The Woman’s Voice’” (1983)

* Delmar, Rosalind, “What is Feminism” (1986)

bell hooks, “Theory as Liberatory Practice” from Teaching to Transgress (1994)

1792 through 1920

Introduction

“The Changing Woman” (Navajo Origin Myth)

Mary Wollstonecraft, Chapters II, IX, and XIII from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)

Sarah Grimké, from Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women (1838)

Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments from The History of Women’s Suffrage (1848)

* Harriet Taylor, “The Emancipation of Women” (1851)

Sojourner Truth, "Ain't I a Woman" (1851)

* Florence Nightingale, Cassandra (1852)

Sojourner Truth, “Keep the Thing Going While Things Are Stirring" (1867)

John Stuart Mill, Chapters 2 & 4 from Subjection of Women (1870)

Josephine Butler, "Letter to my Countrywomen Dwelling in Farmsteads and Cottages of England" (1871)

* Susan B. Anthony, Speech at Trial for Voting (1872)

* Victoria Woodhull, “The Elixir of Life” (1873)

* Frederick Douglass, “Why I Became A Women’s Rights Man” (1882)

Frederick Engels, from Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884)

Anna Julia Cooper, "The Status of Women in America" from A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South (1892)

* Elizabeth Cady Stanton,“Solitude of Self” (1892)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Introduction” and “Genesis” The Women's Bible (1895)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Chapter VII and XIV from Women and Economics (1898)

Mary Church Terrell, “The Progress of Colored Women” (1898)

* Ida B. Wells, from Southern Horrors

Emma Goldman, from The Traffic in Women (1910)

Mother (Mary) Jones, “Girl Slaves of the Milwaukee Breweries” (1910)

* Alexandra Kollontai, “Working Woman and Mother” (1914)

Crystal Eastman, “Now We Begin” from On Women and Revolution (1919)

1920 through 1963

Introduction

Margaret Sanger, “Birth Control¿A Parent’s Problem or Woman’s?” from Women and the New Race (1920)

* Mary McLeod Bethune “Southern Negro Women and Race Cooperation” (1921)

Stella Browne, “Studies in Feminine Inversion” (1923)

* Joan Riviére, “Womanliness as Masquerade” (1929)

Virginia Woolf, Chapters 2, 5, and 6 from A Room of One’s Own (1929)

Karen Horney, “The Dread of Women” (1932)

* Eleanor Roosevelt, “What Ten Million Women Want” (1932)

Margaret Mead, “Sex and Temperament” from Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935)

Mary Beard, from “The Haunting Idea: Its Nature and Origin” from Woman as a Force in History: A Study in Traditions and Realities (1946)

Florynce Kennedy, "A Comparative Study: Accentuating the Similarities of the Societal Positions of Women and Negroes" (1946) from Color Me Flo: My Hard Life and Good Times (1976)

* Ruth Herschberger, “Josie Takes the Stand” from Adam’s Rib (1948)

Simone de Beauvoir, “Introduction” and Chapter 12 from The Second Sex (1949)

* Selma James, “A Woman’s Place” (1953)

1963 through 1975

Introduction

Betty Friedan, from The Feminine Mystique (1963)

* Mary Douglas, "Chapter 6" from Purity and Danger (1966)

NOW Statement (1966)

* Joreen [Jo Freeman], “Bitch Manifesto” (1968)

Kate Millet, from Sexual Politics (1969)

Redstockings Manifesto (1969)

Mary Ann Weathers. “An Argument for Black Women’s Liberation as a Revolutionary Force” (1969)

Shulamith Firestone, "The Dialectic of Sex" from The Dialectic of Sex (1970)

* Ann Koedt, “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm” (1970)

Pauli Murray, “The Liberation of Black Women” from Voice of the New Feminism (1970)

Radicalesbians, “The Woman-Identified Woman” (1970)

“Why OWL (Older Women’s League)?” (1970)

* Barbara Burrus and Others, “Fourth World Manifesto” (1971)

Sherry Ortner, “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture” (1974)

* Charlotte Bunch, “Not for Lesbians Only” (1975)

Hélène Cixous, “The Laugh of Medusa” (1975)

* Robin Lakoff, from Language and Woman’s Place

Fatima Mernissi, “Conclusion: Women’s Liberation in Muslim Countries” from Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society (1975)

Gayle Rubin, “The Traffic in Women” (1975)

1975 through 1985

Introduction

* Christine Delphy, “For a Materialist Feminism” from Close to Home (1975)

* Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975)

Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, “The Female World of Love and Ritual” (1975)

* Anna NietoGomez, “Chicana Feminism” (1976)

Elaine Pagels, “What Became of God the Mother? Conflicting Images of God in Early Christianity” (1976)

Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement” (1977)

Luce Irigaray, from "This Sex Which is Not One" from This Sex Which Is Not One (1977)

Nancy Chorodow, “The Sexual Sociology of Adult Life” from The Reproduction of Mothering (1978)

* Mary Daly, “The Metaphysical Journey of Exorcism and Ecstasy” from Gynecology: A Metaetthics of RadicalFeminism (1978)

Frye, Marilyn. “Some Reflections on Separatism and Power” (1978) rptd. in Politics of Reality

Audre Lorde, “Age, Race, Sex and Class: Women Redefining Difference” (1978) rptd. in Sister/Outsider:Essays and Speeches (1984)

Monique Wittig, “The Straight Mind” from The Straight Mind and Other Essays (1978)

Adrienne Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” (1980)

Heidi Hartmann, “The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union” (1981)

Carol Gilligan, “Concepts of Self and Morality” from In a Different Voice (1982)

Chandra Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses.” (1984/1991)

1985 through 1995

Introduction

Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century ” (1985)

Paula Gunn Allen, “Kochinnenako in the Academy” (1986)

Sandra Harding, “The Woman Question in Science to the Science Question in Feminism” form The Science Question in Feminism (1986)

Judith Plaskow, "Jewish Memory from a Feminist Perspective" from Tikkun 1:2 (1986)

Gloria Anzaldúa, “La Consciencia de la mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness” (1987)

Linda Alcoff, “Cultural Feminism and Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory” (1988)

* Denise Riley, “Does Sex Have a History?” Am I that Name: Feminism and the Category of History (1988)

Joan Scott, “Deconstructing Equality -vs.-Difference, or the Uses of Post-structuralist Theory for Feminism” (1988)

* Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988)

Diana Fuss, “The Risk of Essence” from Essentially Speaking (1989)

bell hooks, “Feminism: a Transformational Politic” from Talking Back: Thinking Black, Thinking Feminist (1989)

Ynestra King, “The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology” (1989)

Catherine Mackinnon “Sexuality, Pornography, and Method: ‘Pleasure under Patriarchy’” from Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (1989)

Elizabeth Minnich, “Back to Basics” from Transforming Knowledge (1989)

* Norma Alarcón, “The Theoretical Subject(s) of this Bridge Called My Back and Anglo-American Feminism” (1990)

Judith Butler, from “Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions” from Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)

Patricia Hill Collins, “Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment”from Black Feminist Thought (1990)

Michelle Stanworth, “Birth Pangs: Conceptive Technologies and the Threat to Motherhood” from Conflicts in Feminism (1990)

Angela Davis, “Outcast Mothers and Surrogates: Racism and Reproductive Politics in the Nineties” (1991)

Evelyn Fox Keller, “Making Gender Visible in Pursuit of Nature’s Secrets” (1993)

Jeanne Delombard, “Femmenism” from to be real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism (1995)

Beijing Platform for Action, “Mission Statement,” “Beijing Declaration” (1995)

* Winona LaDuke, “Mothers of Our Nation: Indigenous Women Address the World” (1995)

1995-2002

Introduction

* Bikinikill, “Riot Grrl Philosophy”

* Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Intersectionality and Identity Politics: Learning from Violence Against Women of Color” (1997)

* Uma Narayan, “Contesting Cultures: ‘Westernization,’ Respect for Cultures, and Third World Feminists” from dislocating cultures: Identities, traditions and Third World Feminisms (1997)

* Halberstam, Judith. “Transgender Butch: Butch/FTM Border Wars and the Masculine Continuum” Female Masculinity (1998)

* Cynthia Enloe, “Decisions, Decisions, Decisions” Maneuvers: the International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives (2000)

* Amy Richards and Jennifer Baumgardner, “What is Activism?” from Manifesta (2000)

* Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan, “Global Identities: Theorizing Transnational Studies of Sexuality” (2001)

* Rosemarie Garland-Thompson, “Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory” (2001)

* Rosi Braidotti, “Becoming Woman or Sexual Difference Revisitied” from Metamorphoses: Towards a Materialist Theory of Becoming (2002)

* Kath Weston, from Gender in Real Time: Power and Transience in a Visual Age (2002)

*Indicates a new reading.