Best of
Gender-Studies

1990

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment


Patricia Hill Collins - 1990
    In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins explores the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals as well as those African-American women outside academe. She provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde. The result is a superbly crafted book that provides the first synthetic overview of Black feminist thought.

Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color


Gloria E. Anzaldúa - 1990
    New thought and new dialogue: a book that will teach in the most multiple sense of that word: a book that will be of lasting value to many diverse communities of women as well as to students from those communities. The authors explore a full spectrum of present concerns in over seventy pieces that vary from writing by new talents to published pieces by Audre Lorde, Joy Harjo, Norma Alarcón and Trinh T. Minh-ha."At one level or another, all the work in the collection seeks to find ways to understand and articulate our multiple identities and senses of place….Making Face/Making Soul is an exciting collection of dynamic, important writings that all women of color and white feminists will learn from, enjoy, and return to again and again and again."—Sojourner"...the pieces are stunning in what they risk and reveal..."—The San Francisco Chronicle

Epistemology of the Closet


Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick - 1990
    What is at stake in male homo/heterosexual definition? Through readings of Melville, Nietzsche, Wilde, James and Proust, the author argues that the vexed imperatives to specify straight and gay identities have become central to every important form of knowledge of the 20th century.

Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion


Caroline Walker Bynum - 1990
    It is also a study of gender, that is, a study of how sex roles and possibilities are conceptualized by both men and women, even though asymmetric power relationships and men's greater access to knowledge have informed the cultural construction of categories such as "male" and "female," "heretic" and "saint." Finally, these essays are about the creativity of women's voices and women's bodies.Bynum discusses how some women manipulated the dominant tradition to free themselves from the burden of fertility, yet made female fertility a powerful symbol; how some used Christian dichotomies of male / female and powerful / weak to facilitate their own imitatio Christi, yet undercut these dichotomies by subsuming them into humanitas. Medieval women spoke little of inequality and little of gender, yet there is a profound connection between their symbols and communities and the twentieth-century determination to speak of gender and "study women."

On Female Body Experience: Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays


Iris Marion Young - 1990
    Drawing on the ideas of several twentieth century continental philosophers--including Simone de Beauvoir, Martin Heidegger, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty--Young constructs rigorous analytic categories for interpreting embodied subjectivity. The essays combine theoretical description of experience with normative evaluation of the unjust constraints on their freedom and opportunity that continue to burden many women.The lead essay rethinks the purpose of the category of "gender" for feminist theory, after important debates have questioned its usefulness. Other essays include reflection on the meaning of being at home and the need for privacy in old age residences as well as essays that analyze aspects of the experience of women and girls that have received little attention even in feminist theory--such as the sexuality of breasts, or menstruation as punctuation in a woman's life story. Young describes the phenomenology of moving in a pregnant body and the tactile pleasures of clothing.While academically rigorous, the essays are also written with engaging style, incorporating vivid imagery and autobiographical narrative. On Female Body Experience raises issues and takes positions that speak to scholars and students in philosophy, sociology, geography, medicine, nursing, and education.

Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle


Elaine Showalter - 1990
    This book ranges over the trial of Oscar Wilde, the public furore over prostitution and syphilis, moral outrage over the breakdown of the family, abortion rights and AIDS. High and low culture, from male quest romances to contemporary male bonding movies, Freud to Fatal Attraction, are all included in his study.

Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective


Judith Plaskow - 1990
    A feminist critique of Judaism as a patriarchal tradition and an exploration of the increasing involvement of women in naming and shaping Jewish tradition.

Struggle to Be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women's Theology


Hyun Kyung Chung - 1990
    After describing the historical and social context of Asian women's theology, Chung Hyun Kyung considers the questions with which Asian women are concerned. Who is Jesus for Asian women? Who is Mary for Asian women? What form should spirituality take for Asian women? Indeed what should their theology be?

A Lot to Ask: The Life of Barbara Pym


Hazel Holt - 1990
    Enriched by the novelist's private papers, it is a sharp, clear, sensitive portrait of a woman whose work won critical acclaim and international attention. 8-page photo insert.

Lesbian Texts and Contexts: Radical Revisions


Karla Jay - 1990
    This book is the first anthology to discuss the subject of lesbianism as it relates to the critical interaction among readers, writers, and literary critics. It explores lesbian texts in terms of identification, meaning, and interpretation, and examines the complex entanglements of identity, voice, intersubjectivity, textualities, and sexualities. A wonderful exploration of the varieties of life choices lesbians can and do make. This book once again proves that telling the truth aboutyourself is a revolutionary act.--Rita Mae Brown They will probably drum Karla Jay and Joanne Glasgow out of the academy for this one...A college text that is witty, literate, interesting, and can be read for fun. What's the world coming to? Lesbian Texts and Contexts: dry title, wonderful book.--Barbara Grier, Editor Naiad Press To call this collection much-needed or eagerly awaited would be the understatement of the year. It's thrilling ot think of the new readings of classic texts, the new directions for theory, and--maybe best of all--the new range of literary encounters in the classroom, that will be enabled by this radical intervention on the critical scene.--Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Duke University Excellent, ...challenging, sexy, ...never boring.--Outweek.

At Home: The American Family 1750-1870


Elisabeth Donaghy Garrett - 1990
    Book by Donaghy Garrett, Elisabeth

Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book


Miriam Robbins Dexter - 1990
    

The Safe Sea of Women: Lesbian Fiction 1969-1989


Bonnie Zimmerman - 1990
    A collection of essays about lesbian literature since the emergence of the gay rights movement in 1969.

Naked by the Window: The Fatal Marriage of Carl Andre and Ana Mendieta


Robert Katz - 1990
    The mystery of Ana's death and its cicumstances has never been resolved -- until now. Illustrated.

Dreams of an Insomniac: Jewish Feminist Essays, Speeches and Diatribes


Irena Klepfisz - 1990
    Klepfisz casts out her words with passion and lucidity."--Sojourner¶"A stirring, thought-provoking collection."--Publishers Weekly

Reading Black, Reading Feminist: A Critical Anthology


Henry Louis Gates Jr. - 1990
    Here, leading literary critics--both male and female, black and white--look at fiction, nonfiction, poetry, slave narratives, and autobiographies in a totally new way. In essence, they reconstruct a literary history that documents black women as artists, intellectuals, symbol makers, teachers, and survivors. Important writers whose work and lives are explored include Toni Morrison, Gloria Gaynor, Maya Angelou, and Alice Walker, and the fascinating list of essays range from Nellie Y. McKay's "The Souls of Black Women Folk in the Writings of W. E. B. Du Bois" to Jewelle L Gomez's very personal tribute to Lorraine Hansberry as a dramatist and crusader for social justice. Henry Louis Gates Jr., the editor of this anthology and a noted authority on African-American literature, has provided a thought-provoking introduction that celebrates the experience of "reading black, reading feminist." A penetrating look at women's writing from a unique perspective, this superb collection brings to light the rich heritage of literary creativity among African-American women."Why is the fugitive slave, the fiery orator, the political activist, the abolitionist always represented as a black man? How does the heroic voice and heroic image of the black woman get suppressed in a culture that depended on her heroism for survival?"--Mary Helen Washington, from her essay in Reading Black, Reading Feminist

America and I: Short Stories by American Jewish Women Writers


Joyce Antler - 1990
    From Anzia Yezierska and Edna Ferber to Cynthia Ozick, Grace Paley, and Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, these writers reveal a rich, vital, and innovative tradition.

A History of Women in the West. Vol 1. From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints


Georges Duby - 1990
    It offers fresh insight into more than twenty centuries of Greek and Roman history and encompasses a landscape that stretches from the North Sea to the Mediterranean and from the Pillars of Hercules to the banks of the Indus. The authors draw upon a wide range of sources including gravestones, floor plans, papyrus rolls, vase paintings, and literary works to illustrate how representations of women evolved during this age. They journey into the minds of men and bring to light an imaginative history of women and of the relations between the sexes.

In Whose Image: God & Gender


Jann Aldredge Clanton - 1990
    Our concepts of God profoundly influence our self-concepts and thus have far-reaching implications for ourselves and our church.

Gender & Grace: Love, Work & Parenting in a Changing World


Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen - 1990
    Yet today those questions are harder and harder to answer. Traditions about the "real man" and the "woman's place" have been challenged. Scientists debate what nature actually dictates for male and female. And theologians engage in heated controversy over what the Bible really says about female submission and male headship.

Words On Fire: One Woman's Journey Into The Sacred


Vanessa L. Ochs - 1990
    Armed with the names of women who teach these sacred texts, she set out on a journey of discovery, eventually reconciling her feminist views with the sexist views of traditional Judaism. A National Jewish Book Award nominee.

Carnal Acts: Essays


Nancy Mairs - 1990
    Acclaimed personal writing from one of our most out-spoken essayists, on disability, on family, on being an impolite woman, and on the opporunities and "gifts" of a difficult life.

On Her Own: Growing Up in the Shadow of the American Dream


Ruth Sidel - 1990
    Noted sociologist and social critic Ruth Sidel examines the mixed messages of popular culture, the status of women and work, some of the crucial issues of child-rearing, and the meaning of the American Dream for women today--a dream that will be out of reach for many of these women without positive changes in society.