feminist theory essay titles

334 Feminism Essay Topics & Examples

If you’re looking for original feminist topics to write about, you’re in luck! Our experts have collected this list of ideas for you to explore.

📝 Key Points to Use to Write an Outstanding Feminism Essay

🌟 top feminism title ideas, 🏆 best feminism essay topics & examples, 🥇 most interesting feminist topics to write about, 📌 creative feminist essay titles, ✅ simple & easy feminism essay titles, 🔍 interesting topics to write about feminism, 📑 good research topics about feminism, ❓ feminism questions for essay.

You may find yourself confused by various theories, movements, and even opinions when writing a feminism essay, regardless of your topic. Thus, producing an excellent paper becomes a matter of more than merely knowing your facts.

You should be able to explain difficult concepts while coincidentally touching upon fundamental points of feminist theory. Here are some starter examples of crucial essay-writing points, which can make your work better:

• Research and create a bibliography before beginning to write. There are various book and journal titles available both online and in libraries, and using them defines your essay’s credibility. You may use both books published long ago, such as “The Second Sex” by Simone de Beauvoir, and modern-day publications. Referencing reliable sources throughout your work will help you convince your readers that your approach is factual and in line with the main trends of the academic community.
• Writing a feminism essay outline beforehand will save you precious time. Not only because it is a tool to get your thoughts in order before beginning to write but also because it allows you to judge whether you have covered the subject thoroughly. Furthermore, structuring beforehand enables you to understand possible drawbacks of your previous research, which you can promptly correct.
• Explain the history behind your problem. Doing so allows you to set the scene for your essay and quickly introduce it to an audience, who may not be as well versed in feminism essay topics as you. Furthermore, you can use your historical introduction later as a prerequisite to explaining its possible future effects.
• Be aware of the correct terminology and use it appropriately. This action demonstrates a profound knowledge of your assigned issue to your readers. From women’s empowerment and discrimination to androcentrism and gynocriticism, track the terms you may need to implement throughout your work.
• Do not overlook your title as a tool to gain your readers’ attention. Your papers should interest people from the beginning and making them want to read more of your work. Writing good feminism essay titles is a great start to both catching their attention and explaining what your central theme is.
• Read available feminism essay examples to understand the dos and don’ts that will help you write your own paper. Plagiarism and inspiration are different concepts, and you can get great ideas from others’ work, so long as you do not copy them!

After you have done your research, drafted an outline, and read some sample works, you are ready to begin writing. When doing so, you should not avoid opposing opinions on topics regarding feminism, and use them to your advantage by refuting them.

Utilizing feminist criticism will allow you to sway even those with different perspectives to see some aspects worthy of contemplation within your essay. Furthermore, it is a mark of good academism, to be able to defend your points with well-rounded counterarguments!

Remember to remain respectful throughout your essay and only include trusted, credible information in your work. This action ensures that your work is purely academic, rather than dabbling in a tabloid-like approach.

While doing the latter may entertain your readers for longer, the former will help you build a better demonstration of your subject, furthering good academic practices and contributing to the existing body of literature.

Find more points and essays at IvyPanda!

• 21st Century Patriarchy.
• Third Wave Feminism.
• Men in the Movement.
• Gender Roles in Sports.
• Femininity in Media.
• The History of Feminist Slogans.
• Must-Read Feminist Books.
• Feminist Perspective in Politics.
• Gender Equality in Patriarchal Society.
• Feminism & Contemporary Art.
• Feminism in “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen Nora is referred by her husband as a songbird, a lark, a squirrel, names that suggest how insignificant she is to her.
• Feminism: Benefits over Disadvantages They believe that feminists make the importance of family less critical than it used to be, which affects children’s lives and their psychological state.
• Feminist Approach to Health In general feminist recognize gender as an important aspect and believe that gender inequality essentially exist.
• Feminist Perspective: “My Last Duchess”, “To His Coy Mistress”, and “The Secretary Chant” He thinks such behavior is offensive to his position and his power, this is why this woman is in the past, and the other one is waiting for him downstairs to enlarge Duke’s collection of […]
• Third-World Feminism Analysis Although the primary aim of western feminists is centered on the issues women face, the beliefs of the third world consist of various tenets compared to western feminist interpretations.
• The Great Gatsby: Analysis and Feminist Critique The feminist critique is an aspect that seeks to explore the topic of men domination in the social, economic, and political sectors.
• Feminism in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft expressly makes her stand known in advocating for the rights of the women in her novel, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, but her daughter is a bit reluctant to curve a […]
• Hedda Gabler: Feminist Ideas and Themes Central to the female world was the woman with knowledge.”Think of the sort of life she was accustomed to in her father’s time.
• Feminism in “The Introduction” and “A Nocturnal Reverie” by Finch One of Anne Finch’s poems, “The Introduction,” talks about female writers of her time in the first twenty lines of her text.
• Feminism in “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood Religion in Gilead is the similar to that of the current American society especially, the aspect of ambiguity which has been predominant with regard to the rightful application of religious beliefs and principles.
• Top Themes About Feminism It’s a movement that is mainly concerned with fighting for women’s rights in terms of gender equality and equity in the distribution of resources and opportunities in society.
• Female Characters in Shakespeare’s “Othello”: A Feminist Critique This shows that Desdemona has completely accepted and respected her role as a woman in the society; she is an obedient wife to Othello.
• “We Should All Be Feminists” Adichie’s TED Talk For Adichie, the only thing necessary to qualify as a feminist is recognizing the problem with gender and aspiring to fix it, regardless of whether a person in question is a man or woman. This […]
• Feminist Criticism in Literature: Character of Women in Books Wright The unimportance of women in the play is a critical factor for the women should follow all the things that their men counterparts impose on them.
• Feminist Therapy: Gwen’s Case Study The application of a feminist perspective in Gwen’s case is different from other theoretical frameworks as the approach highlights the impact of gender and associated stressors on the client’s life.
• Feminist Theory of Delinquency by Chesney-Lind One of the core ideas expressed by Chesney-Lind is that girls are highly susceptible to abuse and violent treatment. At the same time, scholars note that girls do not view delinquency as the “rejection of […]
• Metropolis’ Women: Analysis of the Movie’s Feminism & Examples This film is an endeavor to examine the image of the female depicted, the oppression that they have to endure before they are liberated, as well as the expectations of men with regard to the […]
• Race, Class and Gender: Feminism – A Transformational Politic The social construction of difference in America has its historical roots in the days of slavery, the civil war, the civil rights movement, and the various shades of affirmative action that have still not managed […]
• Feminist Connotations in Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” It is a call to reexamine the value of women in a patriarchal society; through their central role in the drama, the female characters challenge traditional notions about women’s perspective and value.
• Feminism in Advertisements of the 1950s and Today In the paper, the author discussed how the whole process of advertising and feminism is depicted in print advertisements. The common characteristic is the advertisements’ illustration of feminism in the media.
• Character Analysis in Pride and Prejudice From the Feminist Perspective Darcy is a character who is able to evolve over the span of the story, and eventually, he recognizes his mistakes.Mr.
• Feminism in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler Hedda Gabler, upon the discovery that her imaginary world of free-living and noble dying lies in shivers about her, no longer has the vitality to continue existence in the real world and chooses self-annihilation. At […]
• Hello Kitty as a Kitsch and Anti-Feminist Phenomenon In this scenario, Hello Kitty is linked to the notion of kitsch because it connects adult men and women that are attached to the cute image to constant consumerism.
• Yves Klein’s Works From a Feminist Perspective The images were painted in the 20th century in the backdrop of the rising pressure in many parts of the globe for the government to embrace gender equality.
• Feminism in the 20th Century: a Literature Perspective. Research Summaries For years, the sphere of political, social and economical life of people all over the world was dominated by men, while women’ were restricted to the household domain; more to the point, women were not […]
• Feminism in “Heart of Darkness” and “Apocalypse Now” However, one realizes that she is voiceless in the novel, which highlights the insignificance of role of women in Heart of Darkness.
• Feminism in The Yellow Wallpaper In an attempt to free her, she rips apart the wallpaper and locks herself in the bedroom. The husband locks her wife in a room because of his beliefs that she needed a rest break.
• The Fraternal Social Contract on Feminism and Community Formation The contract was signed by men to bring to an end the conditions of the state of nature. Life was anarchic and short lived which forced men to sign a social contract that could bring […]
• Gender Issues: Education and Feminism These experiences in many times strongly affects the individual’s understanding, reasoning, action about the particular issue in contention In this work two issues of great influence and relevance to our societies are discussed.
• Feminism in the “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath This piece of writing reveals the concept of gender in general and “the role of female protagonists in a largely patriarchal world” in particular. In Plath’s novel, the bell jar is a metaphor used to […]
• Feminist Research Methods The study of methods and methodology shows that the unique differences are found in the motives of the research, the knowledge that the research seeks to expound, and the concerns of the researchers and the […]
• Mary Rowlandson’s Feminism and View on Women’s Role The sort of power developed by Rowlandson was such that it set her apart from the traditional roles of the Puritan women in her time and within her culture.
• Shifting the Centre: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing About Motherhood The author is very categorical in that it is necessary to put the role of the woman of color in the same position as that of the white one since this ensures that cultural identity […]
• Feminist View of Red Riding Hood Adaptations The Brothers Grimm modified the ending of the story, in their version the girl and her grandmother were saved by a hunter who came to the house when he heard the wolf snoring.
• Feminist Approach: Virginia Woolf In “A room of ones own” Virginia Woolf speaks about the problems of women, gender roles, and the low social position of women writers in society.
• Maya Angelou and Audre Lorde: The Black Feminist Poets The themes of double discrimination are developed in the poems “Woman Work” and “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou and poems “A Meeting of Minds” and “To the Poet Who Happens to Be Black and […]
• Feminism in Canadian Literature First of all, the female author of the article considered by Cosh is evidently a supporter of the equality of rights for men and women, and her account on the women liberation movement in the […]
• Feminist Ethics Concept This point of view therefore leaves the patriarchal society as the only repairable institution and this is where radical feminist concurs with the fact that feminist ethics are centered on changing the social perceptions of […]
• Feminism Builds up in Romanticism, Realism, Modernism Exploring the significance of the theme as well as the motifs of this piece, it becomes essential to understand that the era of modernism injected individualism in the literary works.
• A Feminist Life Lesson in “Sula” by Toni Morrison This essay is going to review gender and love and sexuality as the key themes that intertwined with Nel and Sula’s friendship, while also explaining how these influenced each of the two main characters. On […]
• Feminism in the Past and Nowadays The definition of liberal feminism is the following: “a particular approach to achieving equality between men and women that emphasizes the power of an individual person to alter discriminatory practices against women”.
• Feminist Critique of Jean Racine’s “Phedre” Racine view Phedre as in a trap by the anger of gods and her destiny due to the unlawful and jealous passion that resulted into the deaths of Hippolytus and Oenone.
• Feminist Theory and Postmodern Approaches It seems to me that such technique can be quite helpful because it helps to get to the root of the problem.
• Charlotte Gilman’s feminism theory Because of the many issues that women face, feminism movements’ seeks equality between men and women in the society. Throughout, the paper will discuss Gilman’s feminism theory and relate it to the issues of women […]
• Feminist Theory in “A Family Thing” Movie Discrimination and disregard of someones basic rights are one of the central causes for the emergence of significant psychological problems and the gradual deterioration of the quality of life.
• Third World Feminism and Its Challenges As a conclusion, Sa’ar states that “it is rooted in the code of familial commitment, which is primarily masculine and includes women only secondarily,” which makes it difficult for women to commit to the family, […]
• Willa Cather and Feminism Ability to work and/or supervise oneself as a woman is also quietly depicted through the girl who is able to work in the absence of her father. Cather depicts most of the women in her […]
• Emotion and Freedom in 20th-Century Feminist Literature The author notes that the second layer of the story can be found in the antagonism between the “narrator, author, and the unreliable protagonist”.
• Importance of Feminism in Interpersonal Communication in “Erin Brockovich” In this presentation, the theme of feminism in interpersonal communication will be discussed to prove that it is a good example of how a woman can fight for her rights.
• Feminist Theory of Family Therapy The purpose of this paper is to review and evaluate the feminist theory based on its model, views on mental health, goals, and the role of the counselor in the process.
• “Frida Kahlo: A Contemporary Feminist Reading” by Liza Bakewell The purpose of this action was to bring her closer to the revolution and identify her with it. Kahlo’s rise to iconic status was due to her experiences and occurrences of the time.
• The Picture of Arabic Feminist Najir’s father’s taking of her sexually excludes her from chances at a marriage of her own, because she is deprived of her virginity, and exposes the young woman to the risk of a pregnancy which […]
• The Adoption of Structuralism and Post-Structuralism Basics in Feminist Cultural Theory On the contrary, post structuralism is opposite to such an assumption and uses the concept of deconstruction in order to explain the relations and the position of women in the society.
• A Feminist Reading of “Wild Nights” and “Death Be Not Proud” From the feminist perspective, the key feature of the speaker’s stance in “Death Be Not Proud” that sets it apart from “Wild Nights” is the speaker’s persona, which is openly and unequivocally male.
• Feminism and Nationalism: The Western World In this case, we find that feminism has been a different that all the time and therefore, it is impossible to predict the trend of feminism in future.
• Feminism in ‘Trifles’ by Susan Glaspell The Feminist Movement, also called the Women’s Movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement, includes a series of efforts by women in the world to fight for the restoration of gender equality.
• “Feminism and Religion: The Introduction” by R. Gross Gross critically in order to see the essence of the book and the competence of the author in the current issue.
• Black Feminism: A Revolutionary Practice The Black Feminist Movement was organized in an endeavor to meet the requirements of black women who were racially browbeaten in the Women’s Movement and sexually exploited during the Black Liberation Movement.
• Popular Culture From the Fifties to Heroin Chic: Feminism The women have become aware of their legal rights and disabilities as a consequence of the inclusion of educated women in movements to repair the legal disabilities.
• Empowerment and Feminist Theory Therefore, it can be concluded that the song “Unstoppable,” which is performed by Sia, transfers the main ideas of empowerment and feminist theory.
• Feminist Perspective: “The Gender Pay Gap Explained” Another issue that needs to be discussed is that it is suggested that the elimination of the wage gap would help to enhance the economy and living conditions of many families.
• Feminism: “The Second Sex” by Simone de Beauvoir According to post-structural feminism structures in society still hold the woman back.de Beauvoir states that this is because structures still exist in the minds of people as to the place of women in society.
• Feminism and Roles in “A Raisin in the Sun” Play These are such questions as: “What does Beneatha’s conduct reveal about her intentions?”, “How does the character treat female’s role in society?”, “How does Beneatha regard poor people?”, “How does the heroine explain her choice […]
• “First Wave” Feminist Movement The reading explicitly details the pathways used by women and men in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries to advocate for the realization of equality of rights across a wide spectrum of […]
• Feminist Analysis of Gender in American Television The analysis is guided by the hypothesis that the media plays a role in the propagation of antagonistic sexual and gender-based stereotypes.
• Feminism and Respect for Culture A crucial gender aspect that continues to trouble the unity of the people across the world is gender bias, which seems to encourage the formation of the feminist campaigns.
• “Othello” Through the Lens of Feminist Theory It depicts female characters in a state of submission and obedience and shows the disbalance in the distribution of power between men and women.
• The Feminist Theory in Nursing Since nursing has traditionally been a women’s profession, it is important to understand the oppression of women to gain insight into some of the most pressing issues in nursing.
• Historical Development of Feminism and Patriarchy Women in the United States have always encountered challenges that interfere with their individual fulfillment in society.
• Feminist Theory in Psychotherapy This theory puts women at the first place, and this place is reflected in three aspects: the first is its main object of study – the situation and difficulties faced by women in society, and […]
• The Concept of Feminist Epistemology The analysis starts with an overview of the evolutions process of standpoint epistemology; then, the philosophical movement is defined and the major ideas and arguments embedded into the theory are discussed.
• A Feminist Analysis on Abu Ghraib Moreover, these tortures were intended to become public with the help of demonstrations at Abu Ghraib and taking photographs that accentuated the loss of prisoners’ masculine power.[4] According to Foucault’s views, public torture is an […]
• Feminist Perspective in “Ruined” Play by Nottage This is a story about the issues of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo during the civil war. The comments of ‘Anonymous’ published as a response to the review of Jill Dolan, demonstrate the […]
• Ecological Feminism and Environmental Ethics Because of the effects that the process of globalization has had on the environment, including the increase in the speed of global warming and the scope of its outcomes, environmental ethics has gained significance.
• “Feminism and Modern Friendship” by Marilyn Friedman Individualism denies that the identity and nature of human beings as individuals is a product of the roles of communities as well as social relationships.
• Women’s Health and Feminism Theory For a woman to be in charge of her reproductive health, she has to know some of the stages and conditions in her life.
• Feminist Pro-Porn During Sex Wars In particular, this group was determined to fight for the rights of the lesbians as they realised that the arguments of the anti-porn feminists were against their freedom.
• Comparing Views on the Feminism of Wollstonecraft and Martin Luther King This means that if women are given and encouraged to have the same level of education as the men than the society would be a much better place as both the female and male genders […]
• Comparing Mainardi and Kollantai on Housework and Women’s Oppression Mainardi and Kollantai argue that women should be liberated from chores for the sake of the future. Nonetheless, the two feminists have different views on the way liberation can be achieved.
• Bell Hooks’ Article Analysis With Regard to Women and Minorities Feminism is meant to stop sexist oppression. The major aim of these movements has not yet been achieved. Bell Hooks promotes the knowledge of feminist theory as essential portion of the development of self-actualization.
• Equal Society: Antebellum Feminism, Temperance, and Abolition It is characterized by the emergence of a women’s rights movement that was spearheaded by activists who sought to secure the rights of women to vote, own property, and participate in education and the public […]
• Feminism in the “Lorraine Hansberry” Film Her activism aligns with the fundamental tenets of women of color feminism, which emphasizes the intersecting nature of oppression and the importance of centering the experiences of marginalized groups in social justice movements.
• Gloria Steinem: Political Activist and Feminist Leader Thesis: Gloria Steinem’s direct, bold, argumentative, and explicit style of conveying her ideas and values is the result of her political activism, feminist leadership, and her grandmother, Pauline Perlmutter Steinem.
• The Myntra Logo from a Feminist Perspective The first feature of the Myntra logo that comes under the scrutiny of transnational feminism is the commercialization of female sexuality.
• Feminist Geography and Women Suppression Tim Cresswell’s feminist geography explores how the patriarchal structures of our society have silenced women’s voices and experiences in the field of geography for centuries and how recent changes in the field have allowed for […]
• Feminism from a Historical Perspective Accordingly, the discontent facilitated the development of reform-minded activist organizations across Europe and the United States and the subsequent rise of the Modern or New Women’s Movement.
• The Feminist Theory in Modern Realities The theory and culture of feminism in modern philosophy and the development of society play a significant role in cultural and social development.
• Feminist Accountability Approach Therefore, the feminist accountability approach involves the collective responsibility to fight social injustices regardless of gender and race. Therefore, integrating the global approach to social injustice promotes the aspect of universality and unity in promoting […]
• Alice Walker’s Statement “Womanist Is to Feminist…” In her short tale “Perspectives Past and Present,” author and poet Alice Walker famously uses the statement “Womanist Is to Feminist as Purple Is to Lavender,” meaning that womanist is a larger ideological framework within […]
• Feminist Perspective on Family Counselling The author of the article considers the study and the data obtained as a result of it as information reporting not only about the specifics of homosexual relationships but also about their perception in American […]
• The Feminist and Gender Theory Influence on Nursing That is, gender and feminist theories are still relevant in the modern world. This is explained by the fact that women are struggling to demonstrate their professionalism in order to receive the same recognition and […]
• Modern Feminism and Its Major Directions Radical feminism views patriarchy as the reason men have more rights than women and attempts to fight against it. Liberal, intersectional, and radical feminism differ in many ways as they have various perspectives on women’s […]
• Feminist Theory and Its Application Alice Walker advocated for the rights of women of color at the end of the 20th century, creating a feminist branch named womanism. The feminist theory is one of the most known and popular theories […]
• Discussion of Feminist Movements The feminist movements have been behind a sequence of political and social movements that champion the equal rights of women in all aspects of life.
• Feminists on the Women’s Role in the Bible The author of the article uses the term intertextuality, which plays a significant role in the text analysis, including from the feminist aspect.
• The Incorporation of Feminism in Literature By focusing on the character, the book portrays the demand for feminism in society to allow females to have the ability and potential to undertake some responsibilities persevered by their male counterparts. The belief in […]
• Feminist Contribution to International Relations Moreover, it will be shown that the concept of gender is important as it helps to shed light on the power dynamics in the sphere of international relations and explain female exclusion from politics.
• Emotional Revival in Feminist Writers’ Short Stories This paper aims to discuss the emotional revival of heroines in the short stories of Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.”The Story of an Hour” is a very short story that describes a woman’s experience […]
• The Cyborg Term in the Context of Feminist Studies In other words, during the transition of identity from the individual to the collective level, people, especially women, may encounter inequalities manifested in the collective space.
• Feminism: A Road Map to Overcoming COVID-19 and Climate Change By exposing how individuals relate to one another as humans, institutions, and organizations, feminism aids in the identification of these frequent dimensions of suffering.
• White Privilege in Conflict and Feminist Theories They see how the privilege of whiteness and denial of non-whiteness are connected to the social and political meaning of race and ethnicity.
• Women’s Role in Society From Feminist Perspective Also, in Hartsock’s opinion, that the whole society would benefit if women were allowed to have a role equal with men in a community.
• The Feminist Theory and IR Practice Focusing on how international relations theorists explained some concepts, such as security, state, and superiority that led to gender bias, feminists felt the need to develop and transform the international relations practice and theory.
• Intersectionality and Feminist Activism Therefore, I hope to study the academic literature to discuss the existing tendencies and difficulties to contribute to the understanding of the identified topic in terms of gender and female studies.
• Feminism: Reflection of Cultural Feminism If they found that the gases were harmful and may lead to complications in their body, they would approve the employer’s right to prohibit women from working in the company.
• Feminist Theoretical Perspectives on Rape There is a number of theoretical perspectives aimed at explaining what stands behind rape, that is, how rape is reinforced by, why it is more widespread in specific concepts, and what a rapist’s motivations for […]
• Feminist Film Theory Overview The presence of women on the screen is commonly accomplished by the sexualization and objectivization of female characters. Along with that, sadism and fetishism toward the physical beauty of the object and the representation of […]
• “Daddy-long-Legs”: Why Jerusha Is a Feminist Heroine Jerusha is a feminist because she uses the letters to communicate the inequalities she feels in her relationship with Daddy-long-legs and her limits.
• Homosexuality and Feminism in the TV Series The depiction of these complex topics in the TV series of the humoristic genre implies both regressive and progressive impulses for the audience.
• Popular Feminism in Video Post of Emma Watson According to Emma Watson, now feminism is increasingly associated with hatred of men, although in reality it only implies the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.
• Contingent Foundations: Feminism and Postmodernism Feminism offers women theoretical bases on which to interrogate the issues of womanhood while Postmodernism takes this away by arguing for the “death of subjects”.abolition of the foundations of the ideals of reality.
• The Feminist Theory, Prostitution, and Universal Access to Justice In the essay, it is concluded that the theory is a key component of the reforms needed in the criminal justice system with respect to prostitution. In this essay, the subject of prostitution is discussed […]
• Art, Pornography and Feminism and Internet Influence The purpose of pornography is not the desire to admire the human body and respect physical intimacy. Indeed, society can say that women themselves agree to such rules, but the choice of a minority forms […]
• The Contemporary Image of Feminism Following the initial surge of the movement, governments finally came to acknowledge the magnitude of the situation and satisfied the demands of the female population.
• Gould’s and Sterling’s Feminist Articles Critique The focal point of this paper is to prepare a critical reflection on the articles by Stephen Jay Gould named “Women’s Brains” in The Panda’s Thumb and by Anne Fausto-Sterling named “The biological Connections,” from […]
• Core Aspects of Black Feminist and Womanist Thoughts Compared to Jones, who believes in “unparalleled advocates of universal suffrage in its true sense,” Lindsey does not support the relegation of the “voices and experiences of women of color to the background”.
• Barbara and Beverly Smith: Black Feminist Statement Sexism was an explicit element of the African American Civil Rights Movement. Fight against segregation was rather single-sided.
• Feminist Contributions to Understanding Women’s Lives This gave women a clear picture of the daily realities in their lives. The success of feminism is evident at all levels of human interaction since there is a better understanding of women and their […]
• As We Are Feminist Campaign’s Strategic Goals The present paper is devoted to the analysis of the goals of a feminist campaign As We Are that is aimed at challenging gender stereotypes that are being promoted by the media and society in […]
• Feminist Ethics in Nursing: Personal Thoughts The concept of feminist ethics emphasizes the belief that ethical theorizing at the present is done from a distinctly male point of view and, as such, lacks the moral experience of women.
• Feminism: Kneel to the Rest of Life, or Fight for the Fairness It seems that the law is not perfect, and the public opinion of sexual harassment might influence a woman’s life negatively.
• Feminist Perspective Influence on Canadian Laws and Lawmakers The change in the statistics is attributed to social changes, which include increase of women in the labor force, conflict in female-male relations, increase in alcohol consumption and increase in the rate of divorce. Feminists […]
• Blog Post: Arab Feminism in Contemporary World Women of the Arab world have struggled to overcome inequality, oppression, and rights deprivation by state authorities, which takes the discussion of the Islamic feminist movement to the political domain. According to Sharia, the unity […]
• Feminist Movement and Recommendations on Women’s Liberation According to Nawal El-Saadawi In Egypt, the feminist movement was started by Nawal El-Saadawi, and her article “The Arab Women’s Solidarity Association: The Coming Challenge” has historical importance as it addresses the plight of women in the community.
• Technological Progress, Globalization, Feminism Roots However, the work becomes more complicated when the time distance of the events and processes is shorter, and the stories are unfinished.
• Race at the Intersections: Sociology, 3rd Wave Feminism, and Critical Race Theory In this reading, the author examines the phenomenon of racism not merely as an issue but a systematic, institutionalized, and cultural phenomenon that is hard to eliminate.
• The Feminist Performers: Yoko Ono, Marina Abramovic, Gina Pane The feminist artists ccontributed to the women’s image, its role in society, and exposed the passiveness and submissiveness the women are obliged to endure.
• Feminism and Multiculturalism for Women The foundation of liberalism is having an interest in all the minority cultures that are put together to form the larger special group.
• “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald: Betrayal, Romance, Social Politics and Feminism This work seeks to outline the role of women in the development of the plot of the book and in relation to the social issues affecting women in contemporary society.
• Pornography’s Harm as a Feminist Fallacy In this scenario, scientific research has proven the argument not to be true. It is weakened by the fact that people are not forced to watch the video.
• Feminism in Mourning Dove’s “Cogewea, the Half-Blood” The patriarchal practices embraced by the Indian community and the subsequent system of governance humiliated the writer; hence, the use of Cogewea in the passage was aimed to imply the abilities that were bestowed upon […]
• Feminist Film Strategy: The Watermelon Women These techniques have the capabilities of shifting meaning away from the narrative as the source of meaning to the audience’s background knowledge in making meaning.
• The Emerging Feminism in India and Their Views on God as a Feminist However, among the explanation of the cause of the phenomenon for this lack of agreement is the tendency for people to define religion too narrowly, and in most cases from the perspective of their own […]
• Feminist Psychology in Canada The introduction of the article gives the purposes of the research that include the historical and present condition of the psychology of women field of interest.
• American Art Since 1945 Till Feminism The entire movement represented the combination of emotional strength and the self-expression of the European abstract schools: Futurism, the Bauhaus and Synthetic Cubism.
• Modernist Art: A Feminist Perspective Clarke limited the definition of modernism even further by his restriction of it to the facets of the Paris of Manet and the Impressionists, a place of leisure, pleasure, and excesses, and it seems that […]
• Enlightenment, Feminism and Social Movements As a result of Enlightenment, the creative entrepreneurs as well as thinkers enjoyed the high freedom benefits that were brought in by the Enlightenment thinkers, enabling them to apply the newly acquired liberty to invent […]
• “Our Journey to Repowered Feminism” by Sonja K. Foss Foss tried to work out a new conception of repowered feminism in the article “Our Journey to Repowered Feminism: Expanding the Feminist Toolbox”.
• Feminism in ‘Telephone Video’ To demonstrate how feminist theory in communication is relevant to music, the paper will analyze the depiction of females, the vocal arrangements, representation of female roles and their visual appearance in Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” music […]
• Feminist Position on Prostitution and Pornography The only requirement is that it should not violate the norms of the law. On the other hand, one of the suggestions for feminists is to envisage individual cases of enslaving women as prostitutes.
• The Politics of Feminism in Islam by Anouar Majid Considering the work The Politics of Feminism in Islam by Anouar Majid written in 1998, it should be noticed that the main point of this article is the Muslim feminism and the relation of West […]
• The Feminist Art Movement in the 1970s and Today The feminist art movement emerged in the 1960s and from that time the women had taken much interest in what causes them to be different from the male gender and particularly, what causes the art […]
• Feminist Theory. Modes of Feminist Theorizing The second point of conflict is the acknowledgment that most of the feminist ideas are part and parcel of our culture yet these ideas might be presented in a way that is hard for us […]
• Australian Feminism Movements The fact that feminism movements do not have a great following in Australia is because they are not generally seen to address issues that women and the society are facing.
• Understanding of Feminism: Philosophical and Social Concepts The vision that emerges, in the narrative as in the world it represents, is of a whole composed of separate, yet interdependent and interrelating, parts.
• Geoffrey Chaucer: A Founder of English Literature as a Feminist Despite the distorted interpretation of gender in the patriarchal society, Chaucer’s vision of women contradicts the orthodox view of the biological distinction of males and females as the justification for gender inequality.
• Feminist Activism for Safer Social Space by Whitzman The scientist pays special attention to the municipal parks, mainly High Park in Toronto, from the point of view of feminists trying to make women involved into the discourse concerning different aspects of the park.
• Western Feminism as Fighters Against Oppression For postmodern feminists and post-colonial feminists, the second component of the new women’s ideology is the idea of the responsibility of the state to rule and administer both genders on the basis of their interpretation […]
• Perils and Possibilities of Doing Transnational Feminist Activism These have promoted awareness of human rights among women and other masses, ensured and led to the adoption of the rules and regulations recognizing women rights and that supports ending of women violations and participated […]
• The Feminist Gendering Into International Relations These are early female contributions to IR academic and the In terms of conferences, the theme of gender and politics was being explored in conferences.
• Western Feminists and Their Impact on the Consciousness and Self-Identity of Muslim Women One of the main objectives of the Western feminism is to give to the citizen of the new nation a feeling of dignity and importance resulting from that citizenship and from his ethnic origin, and […]
• Feminism – Women and Work in the Middle East The history of feminism consists of different movements and theories for the rights of women. The first wave of this phenomenon began in the 19th century and saw the end only in the early 20th […]
• Harriet Martineau, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Marianne Weber: Feminist Sociologists Through her writings she always advocated for the equal rights of women with men and remarked the importance of financial self-sufficiency among women in the society. She observed the role of women in society and […]
• English Language in the Feminist Movement In addition to that, it is of the crucial importance to explore the underlying causes of this phenomenon. Now that we have enumerated the research methods, that can be employed, it is of the utmost […]
• Feminist Ideas in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” One of these issues and the subject of this paper is the theme of feminism in Shelley’s novel. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners”.- Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the […]
• Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Works and Feminism The woman’s role is depicted ever so poignantly in the works of Divakaruni and this also reflects the importance of reclaiming the understanding of the role of women in society.
• Positive Changes That Feminism Brought to America And when, in 1919, the American Constitution was amended such that the women in all the States were given the right to vote, it was then that the first period of feminism officially ended, their […]
• Are Feminist Criticisms of Militarism Essentialist? In the following essay, I will trace the essentialist feminists and their juxtaposition to the extent of their deep thoughts and activities toward the militaristic attitude and the changing perception of women in the militarism […]
• Western Feminist Critics and Cultural Imperialism To be able to fulfill the above-provided task, it would be necessary to discuss and analyze the issues of race, gender, sexuality, the oppression of multiculturalism, cultural relativism, the attitude of the feminists toward the […]
• Social Justice and Feminism in America So as to make a change in this situation, the feminists in America took efforts to improve the condition of women.
• American Women in History: Feminism and Suffrage
• Wendy McElroy: A Feminist Defense of Men’s Rights
• Modern Feminism as the Part of Intellectual Life
• Feminist Movements in Contemporary Times
• Feminist Critiques of Medicine
• Shakespeare: A Feminist Writer
• Kate Chopin’s Feminist Short Stories and Novels
• Liberal Feminism Movement Analysis
• Feminism and Support of Gender Equality
• Feminism: Liberal, Black, Radical, and Lesbian
• Women and Law. Feminist Majority Foundation
• “The Historical Evolution of Black Feminist Theory and Praxis” by Taylor
• Postcolonial Feminism Among Epistemological Views
• Feminist Theory: Performing and Altering Bodies
• Feminist Theories by Bordo, Shaw & Lee, Shildrick & Price
• Feminist Examination of Science
• Race, Sex and Knowledge From Feminist Perspective
• Colonialism and Knowledge in Feminist Discourse
• Feminism and the Relational Approach to Autonomy
• Feminism and Sexuality in the “Lila Says” Film
• Second Wave of Feminist Movement
• Feminist Approach in Literary Criticism
• Education and Feminism in the Arabian Peninsula
• Black Women in Feminism and the Media
• Spiritual and Educational Feminist Comparison
• Feminist Theoretical Schools in Various Cultures
• The Application of Psychoanalysis in Feminist Theories
• Feminism: Exposing Women to the Public Sphere
• Feminist Psychoanalysis From McRobbie’s Perspective
• Feminist Films: “Stella Dallas” and “Dance Girl, Dance”
• Ageism and Feminism in Career and Family Expectations
• “Feminist Geopolitics and September 11” by Jenifer Hyndman
• The History of Feminism in the 1960
• Feminism in Tunisia and Jordan in Comparison
• Feminism and Gender Studies in Science
• Feminism in the United Arab Emirates
• Conceptualization of Difference in Feminism
• Feminist Political Theory, Approaches and Challenge
• Feminism in Latin America
• Planet B-Girl: Community Building and Feminism in Hip-Hop
• Methods of Feminism Education and Its Modern Theories
• Feminism in Lorrie Moore’s “You’re Ugly, Too”
• Anti-Feminism and Heteropatriarchal Normativity
• Feminist Archaeologists’ Interpretations of the Past
• The Theory of Feminism Through the Prism of Time
• Development of Feminism in Chile
• Elena Poniatowska and Her Feminism
• Feminism in Laura Esquivel’s “Like Water for Chocolate”
• Concept of “Western Feminism”
• Marxism vs. Feminism: Human Nature, Power, Conflict
• Feminism in Lorber’s, Thompson’s, Hooks’s Views
• Prison and Social Movement in Black Feminist View
• Great Awakening, American Civil War, and Feminism
• Feminist Miss America Pageant Protest of 1968
• Black Feminist Perspectives in Toni Morrison’s Works
• Feminist Movement as an Attempt to Obtain Equal Rights
• Axel Honneth Views on Feminism
• Activist and Feminist Rose Schneiderman
• Feminist Deceit in Short Stories
• Post-Feminism in the Wonder Bra Commercial
• Feminist Movement Influence on the Arab Film Industry
• Feminism in the Story “Lord of the Rings”
• Feminism: the Contraception Movement in Canada
• Beyonce and Assata Shakur Feminism Ideas Comparison
• Feminism in “‘Now We Can Begin” by Crystal Eastman
• Gender Studies of Feminism: Radical and Liberal Branches
• Feminism and Film Theory
• The Realization of Third-wave Feminism Ideals
• Sexuality as a Social and Historical Construct
• Modern Feminist Movements
• Feminist Theories in Relation to Family Functions
• Rebecca Solnit’s Views on Feminism
• Judith Butler’s Feminist Theory
• “Old and New Feminists in Latin America: The Case of Peru and Chile” by Chaney E.M.
• Chinese Feminism in the Early 20th Century
• Feminism and Modern Friendship
• Historical Development of Feminism and Patriarchy
• Women and Their Acceptance of Feminism
• Women, Religion, and Feminism
• The History of the Pill and Feminism
• Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics
• Challenges to Build Feminist Movement Against Problems of Globalization and Neoliberalism
• Feministic Movement in Iron Jawed Angels
• Hillary Clinton: Furthering Political Agenda Through Feminism
• Feministic View of McCullers’ “The Member of the Wedding”
• “Feminism, Peace, Human Rights and Human Security” by Charlotte Bunch
• Feminism in China During the Late Twentieth Century
• Feminist Political Change
• Antonio Gramsci and Feminism: The Elusive Nature of Power
• Changes That Feminism and Gender Lenses Can Bring To Global Politics
• Feminism Has Nothing to Tell Us About the Reality of War, Conflict and Hard, Cold Facts
• Feminism in the works of Susan Glaspell and Sophocles
• Cross Cultural Analysis of Feminism in the Muslim Community
• The Adoption of Feminist Doctrine in Canada
• Feminist Movement in Canada
• The Feminist Power and Structure in Canada
• Feminism and Gender Mainstreaming
• Feminist Movement: The National Organization for Women
• Female Chauvinist Pigs: Raunch Culture and Feminism
• Feminist Analysis of the Popular Media: The Sexualization Process Takes Its Toll on the Younger Female Audience
• Seven Variations of Cinderella as the Portrayal of an Anti-Feminist Character: a Counterargument Against the Statement of Cinderella’s Passiveness
• Women in the Field of Art
• The Reflection of the Second-Wave Feminism in Scandinavia: “Show Me Love” and “Together”
• Liberal and Socialist Feminist Theories
• What Does Feminism Stand For? Who are These Creatures who call themselves Feminists?
• Full Frontal Feminism – What is Still Preventing Women from Achieving Equality?
• The Ordeal of Being a Woman: When Feminist Ideas Dissipate
• Comparison and Contrast of Spiritual and Educational Feminists
• Gender Issue and the Feminist Movement
• Dorothy E. Smith and Feminist Theory Development
• Feminist Movement Tendencies
• Feminist Literature: “The Revolt of Mother” by Mary E. Wilkins
• Scholars Comment on Gender Equality
• The Smurfette Principle in the Modern Media: Feminism Is over?
• Feminist Challenge to Mainstream International Relations Theory
• The Feminist Movement
• Feminism and Evolution or Emergence of Psychology
• Reasons Why the Black Women Population Did Not Consider Themselves a Part of the Ongoing Feminist Movements
• Black Women and the Feminist Movement
• Feminism and Patriarchy
• Feminism Interview and the Major Aim of Feminism
• Gender and Religion: Women and Islam
• World Politics: Realist, Liberals, and Feminists Theories
• Concept and History of the Liberal Feminism
• Feminism and Women’s History
• Feminist Criticism in “The Story of an Hour” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”
• Obesity: Health or Feminist Issue?
• Feminism in Roger and Dodger Film
• Anarchy, Black Nationalism and Feminism
• Concepts of Feminism in the Present Societies
• Gender Issues and Feminist Movement
• “Just Say No? The Use of Conversation Analysis in Developing a Feminist Perspective on Sexual Refusal” by Kitzinger and Frith: Summary
• How Did African Feminism Change the World?
• Why Might Feminism and Poststructuralism Be Described as an Uneasy Alliance?
• Does Feminism and Masculinity Define Who People Are Today?
• How Did Feminism Change New Zealand?
• Can Feminism and Marxism Come Together?
• How Did Second Wave Feminism Affect the Lives of Women?
• Does Arab Feminism Exist?
• How Does Chivalry Affect Feminism?
• Has Feminism Achieved Its Goals?
• How Does the French Feminism Theory Manifest Itself?
• Does Feminism Create Equality?
• How Has Feminism Changed the Lives of Women, Men, and Families?
• Has Feminism Benefited the American Society?
• How Does Feminism Explain Gender Differences in Comparison to the Mainstream Psychology?
• Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men?
• How Does Feminism Harm Women’s Health Care?
• Does Feminism Really Work?
• How Does Feminism Threaten Male Control and Alters Their Dominance in Society?
• What Are the Basic Traits of Liberal Feminism?
• How Has Economic Development and Globalization of South Korea Influenced the Role of Feminism?
• What Are the Concepts of Marxism and Feminism?
• How Has Feminism Developed?
• What Are the Main Theoretical and Political Differences Between First and Second Waves of Feminism?
• Why Should Men Teach Feminism?
• How Does Popular Fiction Reflect Debates About Gender and Sexuality?
• When Does Feminism Go Wrong?
• How Do Teenage Magazines Express the Post-feminism Culture?
• Why Has Patriarchy Proved Such a Contentious Issue for Feminism?
• What Are the Main Contributions of Feminism to the Contemporary Lifestyle?
• Can Modern Feminism Start the Discrimination of Men?
• Motherhood Ideas
• Gender Stereotypes Essay Titles
• Women’s Role Essay Topics
• Sociological Perspectives Titles
• Gender Discrimination Research Topics
• Masculinity Topics
• Activist Essay Titles
• Gender Issues Questions
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 24). 334 Feminism Essay Topics & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/feminism-essay-examples/

"334 Feminism Essay Topics & Examples." IvyPanda , 24 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/feminism-essay-examples/.

IvyPanda . (2024) '334 Feminism Essay Topics & Examples'. 24 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "334 Feminism Essay Topics & Examples." February 24, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/feminism-essay-examples/.

1. IvyPanda . "334 Feminism Essay Topics & Examples." February 24, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/feminism-essay-examples/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "334 Feminism Essay Topics & Examples." February 24, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/feminism-essay-examples/.

277 Feminism Topics & Women’s Rights Essay Topics

• Icon Calendar 18 May 2024
• Icon Page 2272 words
• Icon Clock 11 min read

Feminism topics encompass a comprehensive range of themes centered on advocating for gender equality. These themes critically address the social, political, and economic injustices primarily faced by females, aiming to dismantle patriarchal norms. Feminism topics may span from intersectional feminism, which underscores the diverse experiences of women across various intersections of race, class, and sexuality, to reproductive rights that advocate for women’s bodily autonomy and healthcare accessibility. They also involve the examination of workplace discrimination through concepts, such as the gender wage gap and the glass ceiling. Violence against women, including work and domestic abuse, sexual assault, and harassment, is a hot aspect, providing many discussions. In turn, one may explore the representation of women in media, politics, and STEM fields. Explorations of gender roles, gender identity, and the significance of male feminism are integral parts of these discussions. As society continues to evolve, feminism topics persistently adapt to confront and address emerging forms of gender inequality.

Best Feminism & Women’s Rights Topics

• Achievements of Women in Politics: A Global Perspective
• Emphasizing Gender Equality in the 21st-Century Workplace
• Evolving Representation of Women in Media
• Fight for Women’s Voting Rights: The Historical Analysis
• Intersectionality: Examining its Role in Feminism
• Unpacking Feminism in Third-World Countries
• Dissecting Misogyny in Classical Literature
• Influence of Religion on Women’s Rights Worldwide
• Unveiling Bias in STEM Fields: Female Experiences
• Gender Pay Gap: Global Comparisons and Solutions
• Probing the Historical Evolution of Feminism
• Reshaping Beauty Standards Through Feminist Discourse
• Importance of Reproductive Rights in Women’s Health
• Exploring Women’s Role in Environmental Activism
• Glass Ceiling Phenomenon: Women in Corporate Leadership
• Trans Women’s Struggles in Feminist Movements
• Empowering Girls: The Role of Education
• Intersection of Race, Class, and Feminism
• Effects of Feminism on Modern Art
• Impacts of Social Media on Women’s Rights Movements
• Deconstructing Patriarchy in Traditional Societies
• Single Mothers’ Challenges: A Feminist Perspective
• Dynamics of Feminism in Post-Colonial Societies
• Queer Women’s Struggles for Recognition and Rights
• Women’s Contributions to Scientific Discovery: An Underrated History
• Cybersecurity: Ensuring Women’s Safety in the Digital Age
• Exploring the Misrepresentation of Feminism in Popular Culture
• Repositioning Sexuality: The Role of Feminism in Health Discourse
• Women’s Economic Empowerment: The Impact of Microfinance
• Investigating Sexism in Video Gaming Industry
• Female Leadership During Global Crises: Case Studies

Easy Feminism & Women’s Rights Topics

• Power of Women’s Protest: A Historical Study
• Feminist Movements’ Role in Shaping Public Policy
• Body Autonomy: A Key Aspect of Feminist Ideology
• Cyber Feminism: Women’s Rights in Digital Spaces
• Violence Against Women: International Legal Measures
• Feminist Pedagogy: Its Impact on Education
• Depiction of Women in Graphic Novels: A Feminist Lens
• Comparing Western and Eastern Feminist Movements
• Men’s Roles in Supporting Feminist Movements
• Impacts of Feminism on Marriage Institutions
• Rural Women’s Rights: Challenges and Progress
• Understanding Feminist Waves: From First to Fourth
• Inclusion of Women in Peace Negotiation Processes
• Influence of Feminism on Modern Advertising
• Indigenous Women’s Movements and Rights
• Reclaiming Public Spaces: Women’s Safety Concerns
• Roles of Feminist Literature in Social Change
• Women in Sports: Overcoming Stereotypes and Bias
• Feminism in the Context of Refugee Rights
• Media’s Roles in Shaping Feminist Narratives
• Women’s Rights in Prisons: An Overlooked Issue
• Motherhood Myths: A Feminist Examination
• Subverting the Male Gaze in Film and Television
• Feminist Critique of Traditional Masculinity Norms
• Rise of Female Entrepreneurship: A Feminist View
• Young Feminists: Shaping the Future of Women’s Rights

Interesting Feminism & Women’s Rights Topics

• Roles of Feminism in Promoting Mental Health Awareness
• Aging and Women’s Rights: An Overlooked Dimension
• Feminist Perspectives on Climate Change Impacts
• Women’s Rights in Military Service: Progress and Challenges
• Achieving Gender Parity in Academic Publishing
• Feminist Jurisprudence: Its Impact on Legal Structures
• Masculinity in Crisis: Understanding the Feminist Perspective
• Fashion Industry’s Evolution through Feminist Ideals
• Unheard Stories: Women in the Global Space Race
• Effects of Migration on Women’s Rights and Opportunities
• Women’s Land Rights: A Global Issue
• Intersection of Feminism and Disability Rights
• Portrayal of Women in Science Fiction: A Feminist Review
• Analyzing Post-Feminism: Its Origins and Implications
• Cyberbullying and Its Impact on Women: Measures for Protection
• Unveiling Gender Bias in Artificial Intelligence
• Reimagining Domestic Work Through the Lens of Feminism
• Black Women’s Hair Politics: A Feminist Perspective
• Feminist Ethical Considerations in Biomedical Research
• Promoting Gender Sensitivity in Children’s Literature
• Understanding the Phenomenon of Toxic Femininity
• Reconsidering Women’s Rights in the Context of Climate Migration
• Advancing Women’s Participation in Political Activism

Feminism Argumentative Essay Topics

• Intersectionality’s Impact on Modern Feminism
• Evolution of Feminist Thought: From First-Wave to Fourth-Wave
• Gender Wage Gap: Myths and Realities
• Workplace Discrimination: Tackling Unconscious Bias
• Feminist Theory’s Influence on Contemporary Art
• Intersection of Feminism and Environmental Activism
• Men’s Roles in the Feminist Movement
• Objectification in Media: A Feminist Perspective
• Misconceptions about Feminism: Addressing Stereotypes
• Feminism in the Classroom: The Role of Education
• Feminist Analysis of Reproductive Rights Policies
• Transgender Rights: An Extension of Feminism
• Intersection of Feminism and Racial Justice
• Body Shaming Culture: A Feminist Viewpoint
• Feminism’s Influence on Modern Advertising
• Patriarchy and Religion: A Feminist Critique
• Domestic Labor: Feminist Perspectives on Unpaid Work
• Sexism in Sports: The Need for Feminist Intervention
• The MeToo Movement’s Influence on Modern Feminism
• Feminism and the Fight for Equal Representation in Politics
• Women’s Rights in the Digital Age: A Feminist Examination
• Feminist Critique of Traditional Beauty Standards
• Globalization and Its Effects on Women’s Rights
• The Role of Feminism in LGBTQ+ Rights Advocacy
• Popular Culture and Its Reflection on Feminist Values

Controversial Feminist Research Paper Topics

• Intersectionality in Modern Feminist Movements: An Analysis
• Representation of Women in High-Powered Political Roles
• Cultural Appropriation Within the Feminist Movement: An Inquiry
• The Role of Feminism in Defining Beauty Standards
• Women’s Reproductive Rights: A Debate of Autonomy
• Feminism and Religion: The Question of Compatibility
• Male Allies in the Feminist Movement: An Evaluation
• Shift in Traditional Gender Roles: Feminist Perspective
• Impacts of Media on Perceptions of Feminism
• Dissecting the Wage Gap: A Feminist Examination
• Menstrual Equity: A Battle for Feminist Activists
• Feminism in Popular Music: Power or Appropriation?
• Climate Change: The Unseen Feminist Issue
• Education’s Role in Shaping Feminist Beliefs
• Power Dynamics in the Workplace: A Feminist Scrutiny
• Cyber-Feminism: Harnessing Digital Spaces for Activism
• Healthcare Disparities Faced by Women: An Analysis
• Transgender Women in Feminist Discourse: An Exploration
• Feminist Perspectives on Monogamy and Polyamory
• Feminist Analysis of Modern Advertising Campaigns
• Exploring Sexism in the Film Industry through a Feminist Lens
• Debunking Myths Surrounding the Feminist Movement
• Childcare Responsibilities and Their Feminist Implications
• Women’s Sports: Evaluating Equity and Feminist Advocacy

Feminist Research Paper Topics in Feminism Studies

• Evaluating Feminist Theories: From Radical to Liberal
• Women’s Health Care: Policies and Disparities
• Maternal Mortality: A Global Women’s Rights Issue
• Uncovering Sexism in the Tech Industry
• Critique of Binary Gender Roles in Children’s Toys
• Body Positivity Movement’s Influence on Feminism
• Relevance of Feminism in the Fight Against Human Trafficking
• Women in Coding: Breaking Stereotypes
• The Role of Women in Sustainable Agriculture
• Feminism in the Cosmetics Industry: A Dual-Edged Sword
• The Influence of Feminism on Modern Architecture
• Bridging the Gap: Women in Higher Education Leadership
• The Role of Feminism in Advancing LGBTQ+ Rights
• Menstrual Equity: A Key Women’s Rights Issue
• Women in Classical Music: Breaking Barriers
• Analyzing Gendered Language: A Feminist Approach
• Women’s Rights and Humanitarian Aid: The Interconnection
• Exploring the Role of Women in Graphic Design
• Addressing the Lack of Women in Venture Capitalism
• Impact of Feminism on Urban Planning and Design
• Maternal Labor in the Informal Economy: A Feminist Analysis
• Feminism’s Influence on Modern Dance Forms
• Exploring the Role of Women in the Renewable Energy Sector
• Women in Esports: An Emerging Frontier
• Child Marriage: A Grave Violation of Women’s Rights

Feminist Topics for Discussion

• Feminist Criticism of the Fashion Modelling Industry
• Domestic Violence: Feminist Legal Responses
• Analyzing the Success of Women-Only Workspaces
• Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A Human Rights Issue
• Women’s Role in the Evolution of Cryptocurrency
• Women and the Right to Water: A Feminist Perspective
• Gender Stereotypes in Comedy: A Feminist View
• Intersection of Animal Rights and Feminist Theory
• Roles of Feminism in the Fight Against Child Labor
• Representation of Women in Folklore and Mythology
• Women’s Rights in the Gig Economy: Issues and Solutions
• Revisiting Feminism in Post-Soviet Countries
• Women in the Space Industry: Present Status and Future Trends
• The Influence of Feminism on Culinary Arts
• Unraveling the Impact of Fast Fashion on Women Workers
• Feminist Perspectives on Genetic Engineering and Reproduction
• Assessing the Progress of Women’s Financial Literacy
• Sex Work and Feminism: A Controversial Discourse
• Women in Cybernetics: An Untapped Potential
• Uncovering the Women Behind Major Historical Events
• The Impact of the #MeToo Movement Globally
• Women’s Rights in the Cannabis Industry: Challenges and Progress
• Redefining Motherhood: The Intersection of Feminism and Adoption
• Roles of Feminist Movements in Combatting Child Abuse

Women’s Rights Essay Topics for Feminism

• Evolution of Women’s Rights in the 20th Century
• Roles of Women in World War II: Catalyst for Change
• Suffrage Movement: Driving Force Behind Women’s Empowerment
• Cultural Differences in Women’s Rights: A Comparative Study
• Feminist Movements and Their Global Impact
• Women’s Rights in Islamic Societies: Perceptions and Realities
• Glass Ceiling Phenomenon: Analysis and Impacts
• Pioneering Women in Science: Trailblazers for Equality
• Impacts of Media Portrayal on Women’s Rights
• Economic Autonomy for Women: Pathway to Empowerment
• Women’s Rights in Education: Global Perspective
• Gender Equality in Politics: Global Progress
• Intersectionality and Women’s Rights: Race, Class, and Gender
• Legal Milestones in Women’s Rights History
• Inequities in Healthcare: A Women’s Rights Issue
• Modern-Day Slavery: Women and Human Trafficking
• Climate Change: A Unique Threat to Women’s Rights
• Body Autonomy and Reproductive Rights: A Feminist Analysis
• Globalization’s Effect on Women’s Rights: Opportunities and Threats
• Gender Violence: An Erosion of Women’s Rights
• Indigenous Women’s Rights: Struggles and Triumphs
• Women’s Rights Activists: Unsung Heroes of History
• Empowerment Through Sports: Women’s Struggle and Success
• Balancing Act: Motherhood and Career in the 21st Century
• LGBTQ+ Women: Rights and Recognition in Different Societies

Women’s Rights Research Questions

• Evolution of Feminism: How Has the Movement Shifted Over Time?
• The Workplace and Gender Equality: How Effective Are Current Measures?
• Intersectionality’s Influence: How Does It Shape Women’s Rights Advocacy?
• Reproductive Rights: What Is the Global Impact on Women’s Health?
• Media Representation: Does It Affect Women’s Rights Perception?
• Gender Stereotypes: How Do They Impede Women’s Empowerment?
• Global Disparities: Why Do Women’s Rights Vary So Widely?
• Maternal Mortality: How Does It Reflect on Women’s Healthcare Rights?
• Education for Girls: How Does It Contribute to Gender Equality?
• Cultural Norms: How Do They Influence Women’s Rights?
• Leadership Roles: Are Women Adequately Represented in Positions of Power?
• Domestic Violence Laws: Are They Sufficient to Protect Women’s Rights?
• Roles of Technology: How Does It Impact Women’s Rights?
• Sexual Harassment Policies: How Effective Are They in Protecting Women?
• Pay Equity: How Can It Be Ensured for Women Globally?
• Politics and Gender: How Does Women’s Representation Shape Policy-Making?
• Child Marriage: How Does It Violate Girls’ Rights?
• Climate Change: How Does It Disproportionately Affect Women?
• Trafficking Scourge: How Can Women’s Rights Combat This Issue?
• Female Genital Mutilation: How Does It Contradict Women’s Rights?
• Armed Conflicts: How Do They Impact Women’s Rights?
• Body Autonomy: How Can It Be Safeguarded for Women?
• Women’s Suffrage: How Did It Pave the Way for Modern Women’s Rights?
• Men’s Role: How Can They Contribute to Women’s Rights Advocacy?
• Legal Frameworks: How Do They Support or Hinder Women’s Rights?

History of Women’s Rights Topics

• Emergence of Feminism in the 19th Century
• Roles of Women in the Abolitionist Movement
• Suffragette Movements: Triumphs and Challenges
• Eleanor Roosevelt and Her Advocacy for Women’s Rights
• Impacts of World War II on Women’s Liberation
• Radical Feminism in the 1960s and 1970s
• Pioneering Women in Politics: The First Female Senators
• Inception of the Equal Rights Amendment
• Revolutionary Women’s Health Activism
• Struggle for Reproductive Freedom: Roe vs. Wade
• Birth of the Women’s Liberation Movement
• Challenges Women Faced in the Civil Rights Movement
• Women’s Roles in the Trade Union Movement
• Intersectionality and Feminism: Examining the Role of Women of Color
• How Did the Women’s Rights Movement Impact Education?
• Sexuality, Identity, and Feminism: Stonewall Riots’ Impact
• Influence of Religion on Women’s Rights Activism
• Women’s Empowerment: The UN Conferences
• Impact of Globalization on Women’s Rights
• Women’s Movements in Non-Western Countries
• Women in Space: The Fight for Equality in NASA
• Achievements of Feminist Literature and Arts
• Evolution of the Women’s Sports Movement
• Advancement of Women’s Rights in the Digital Age
• Cultural Shifts: The Media’s Role in Promoting Women’s Rights

Feminism Essay Topics on Women’s Issues

• Career Challenges: The Gender Wage Gap in Contemporary Society
• Examining Microfinance: An Empowering Tool for Women in Developing Countries
• Pioneers of Change: The Role of Women in the Space Industry
• Exploring Beauty Standards: An Analysis of Global Perspectives
• Impacts of Legislation: Progress in Women’s Health Policies
• Maternity Leave Policies: A Comparative Study of Different Countries
• Resilience Through Struggles: The Plight of Female Refugees
• Technology’s Influence: Addressing the Digital Gender Divide
• Dissecting Stereotypes: Gender Roles in Children’s Media
• Influence of Female Leaders: A Look at Political Empowerment
• Social Media and Women: Effects on Mental Health
• Understanding Intersectionality: The Complexity of Women’s Rights
• Single Mothers: Balancing Parenthood and Economic Challenges
• Gaining Ground in Sports: A Look at Female Athletes’ Struggles
• Maternal Mortality: The Hidden Health Crisis
• Reproductive Rights: Women’s Control Over Their Bodies
• Feminism in Literature: Portrayal of Women in Classic Novels
• Deconstructing Patriarchy: The Impact of Gender Inequality
• Body Autonomy: The Battle for Abortion Rights
• Women in STEM: Barriers and Breakthroughs
• Female Soldiers: Their Role in Military Conflicts
• Human Trafficking: The Disproportionate Impact on Women
• Silent Victims: Domestic Violence and Women’s Health

To Learn More, Read Relevant Articles

385 Odyssey Essay Topics & Ideas

• Icon Calendar 1 August 2023
• Icon Page 3601 words

415 Rogerian Essay Topics & Good Ideas

• Icon Calendar 30 July 2023
• Icon Page 3224 words

Feminist Theory

40 pages • 1 hour read

Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface 1-Chapter 2

Chapters 3-5

Chapters 6-8

Chapters 9-12

Key Figures

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

In what ways does bell hooks disagree with the feminist movement at the time of writing Feminist Theory: From Margins to Center ? Choose three aspects of the feminist movement that hooks aims to reform and explain the changes she argues for.

hooks frequently quotes major feminist texts, post-colonial texts, and social criticism within her own writing. How does this reflect her understanding of community, education, and solidarity?

Explain hooks’s understanding of solidarity. How would it change the feminist movement? How does hooks propose bringing about this solidarity within the movement?

Don't Miss Out!

Access Study Guide Now

Related Titles

By bell hooks

Ain't I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism

All about Love: Love Song to the Nation Book 1

Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics

Killing Rage: Ending Racism

Salvation: Black People And Love

Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom

Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom

The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

Featured Collections

View Collection

Contemporary Books on Social Justice

Feminist Reads

Philosophy, Logic, & Ethics

Politics & Government

• Tools and Resources
• Customer Services
• African Literatures
• Asian Literatures
• British and Irish Literatures
• Latin American and Caribbean Literatures
• North American Literatures
• Oceanic Literatures
• Slavic and Eastern European Literatures
• West Asian Literatures, including Middle East
• Western European Literatures
• Ancient Literatures (before 500)
• Middle Ages and Renaissance (500-1600)
• Enlightenment and Early Modern (1600-1800)
• 19th Century (1800-1900)
• 20th and 21st Century (1900-present)
• Children’s Literature
• Cultural Studies
• Film, TV, and Media
• Literary Theory
• Non-Fiction and Life Writing
• Print Culture and Digital Humanities
• Theater and Drama
• Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Article contents

Feminist theory.

• Pelagia Goulimari Pelagia Goulimari Department of English, University of Oxford
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.976
• Published online: 19 November 2020

Feminist theory in the 21st century is an enormously diverse field. Mapping its genealogy of multiple intersecting traditions offers a toolkit for 21st-century feminist literary criticism, indeed for literary criticism tout court. Feminist phenomenologists (Simone de Beauvoir, Iris Marion Young, Toril Moi, Miranda Fricker, Pamela Sue Anderson, Sara Ahmed, Alia Al-Saji) have contributed concepts and analyses of situation, lived experience, embodiment, and orientation. African American feminists (Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Hortense J. Spillers, Saidiya V. Hartman) have theorized race, intersectionality, and heterogeneity, particularly differences among women and among black women. Postcolonial feminists (Assia Djebar, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Florence Stratton, Saba Mahmood, Jasbir K. Puar) have focused on the subaltern, specificity, and agency. Queer and transgender feminists (Judith Butler, Jack Halberstam, Susan Stryker) have theorized performativity, resignification, continuous transition, and self-identification. Questions of representation have been central to all traditions of feminist theory.

• continuous transition
• heterogeneity
• intersectionality
• lived experience
• performativity
• resignification
• self-identification
• the subaltern

Mapping 21st-Century Feminist Theory

Feminist theory is a vast, enormously diverse, interdisciplinary field that cuts across the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. As a result, this article cannot offer a historical overview or even an exhaustive account of 21st-century feminist theory. But it offers a genealogy and a toolkit for 21st-century feminist criticism. 1 The aim of this article is to outline the questions and issues 21st-century feminist theorists have been addressing; the concepts, figures, and narratives they have been honing; and the practices they have been experimenting with—some inherited, others new. This account of feminist theory will include African American, postcolonial, and Islamic feminists as well as queer and transgender theorists and writers who identify as feminists. While these fields are distinct and while they need to reckon with their respective Eurocentrism, racism, misogyny, queerphobia, or transphobia, this article will focus on their mutual allyship, in spite of continuing tensions. Particularly troubling are feminists who define themselves against queer and transgender theory and activism; by way of response, this article will be highlighting feminist queer theory and transfeminism.

On the one hand, literary criticism is not high on the agenda of many 21st-century feminist theorists. This means that literary critics need to imaginatively transpose feminist concepts to literature. On the other hand, a lot of feminist theorists practice literature; they write in an experimental way that combines academic work, creative writing, and life-writing; they combine narrative and figurative language with concepts and arguments. Contemporary feminist theory offers a powerful mix of experimental writing, big issues, quirky personal accounts, and utopian thinking of a new kind.

Feminists have been combining theory, criticism, and literature; Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, Hélène Cixous, and Alice Walker have written across these genres. In African Sexualities: A Reader ( 2011 ), Sylvia Tamale’s decision to place academic scholarship side by side with poems, fiction, life-writing, political declarations, and reports is supported by feminist traditions. 2 Furthermore, the border between feminist theory, literature, and life-writing has been increasingly permeable in the 21st century , hence the centrality of texts in hybrid genres: theory with literary and life-writing elements, literature with meta-literary elements, and so on. Early 21st-century terms such as autofiction and autotheory register the prevalence of the tendency. This is at least partly a question of addressing different audiences—aiming for public engagement and connection with activism outside universities and bypassing the technical jargon of academic feminist theory. Another reason is that feminist theorists, especially those from marginalized groups, have found some of the conventions of academic scholarship objectionable or false—for example, the assumption of a universal, disembodied, or unsituated perspective.

Nevertheless, recent feminist experiments with genre—for example, by Anne Carson, Paul B. Preciado, Maggie Nelson, or Alison Bechdel—nod toward an integral part of women’s writing and feminist writing. 3 Historic experiments in mixed genre, going back to Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s poem-novel Aurora Leigh , include: Virginia Woolf’s critical-theoretical-fictional A Room of One’s Own ; Julia Kristeva’s poetico-theoretical “Stabat Mater”; Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time , oscillating between speculative science fiction and naturalist novel; Audre Lorde’s “biomythography,” Zami ; the mix of theory, fiction, and life-writing in Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues and Chris Kraus’ I Love Dick ; or Qurratulain Hyder’s Fireflies in the Mist , hovering between historical fiction and romance. 4

Twenty-first-century feminist theory also tends to be thematically expansive and more than feminist theory narrowly understood, in that it is not only about “women” (those assigned female at birth or socially counted as women or self-identifying as women). It is a mature field that addresses structural injustice, social justice, and the future of the planet. As a result, cross-fertilization with other academic fields abounds. Relatively new academic fields such as feminist theory, postcolonial theory, and critical race theory—emerging since the 1960s, established in the 1980s, and having initially to cement their distinctiveness and place within the academy—have been increasingly coming together and cross-fertilizing in the 21st century . Distinct feminist perspectives (phenomenological, poststructuralist, African American intersectional, postcolonial, Islamic, queer, transgender) have also been coming together and variously informing 21st-century feminist theory. While this article will introduce these perspectives, it will aim to show that feminist theorists are increasingly difficult to put in a box, and this is a good thing.

Feminist Phenomenology (Beauvoir, Young, Moi, Fricker, Anderson, Ahmed, Al-Saji): Situation, Lived Experience, Embodiment, Orientation

Simone de Beauvoir initiates feminist phenomenology, her existentialism emerging within the broader tradition of phenomenology. While the present account of feminist theory begins with Beauvoir, it is important to acknowledge the continuing influence of older feminists and proto-feminists, as “feminism” only acquired its current ( 20th- and 21st-century ) meaning in the late 19th century , according to the Oxford English Dictionary. See, for example, Christine de Pizan, “Jane Anger,” Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn, Mary Astell, Anne Finch, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Hays, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Jacobs, Emily Davies, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, and Virginia Woolf.

All contemporary feminist theory has been influenced by Beauvoir, in some respect or other. Her famous claim that “One is not born, but rather becomes, woman,” opening volume 2 of The Second Sex ( 1949 ), points to the asymmetrical socialization of men and women. 5 In her philosophical terms, man is the One, the universal, subject, freedom, transcendence, mind, spirit, culture; woman is the Other, the particular, object, situation, immanence, body, flesh, nature. Patriarchy for Beauvoir is a system of binary oppositions, whose terms are mutually exclusive: the One/the Other, the universal/the particular, subject/object, freedom/situation, transcendence/immanence, mind/body, spirit/flesh, culture/nature. Men have been socialized to aim for—indeed to become—the valued terms in each binary opposition (the One, the universal, subject, freedom, transcendence, mind, spirit, culture); while the undesirable terms (the Other, the particular, object, situation, immanence, body, flesh, nature) are projected onto women, who are socialized to become those terms—to become object, for example. Emerging from this system is the illusion of a transhistorical feminine essence or a norm of femininity that misconstrues, disciplines, and oppresses actual, historical women. Women for Beauvoir are an oppressed group, and her aim is their liberation. 6

Beauvoir critiques the social aims and myths of patriarchy, pointing to the pervasiveness of patriarchal myths in philosophy, literature, and culture. But she also critiques the very forms of patriarchy—binary opposition, dualistic thinking, essentialism, universalism, abstraction—while not completely able to free her own analysis from them. Instead of them, Beauvoir advocates attention to concrete situation and close phenomenological description; indeed The Second Sex abounds in vivid and richly detailed descriptions of early 20th-century French women’s lives. Such close attention and description allow her to demonstrate that all humans are, potentially, both subject and object, free and situated, transcendent and immanent, spirit and flesh, hence the ambiguity of the human condition. 7

The philosophy of existentialism and the broader philosophical movement of phenomenology, within which Beauvoir situates her work, claim to offer radical aims and methods. Phenomenology (Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon) is committed to the phenomenological description of the particular in order to avoid the abstractions of scientism. It aims to avoid traditional philosophical dualisms such as mind/body. It re-describes human beings not as disembodied minds but as intentional beings engaged with the world, being-in-the-world (Heidegger’s term), situated in a particular time and place; as lived bodies that are centers of perception, action, and lived experience rather than mere objects; and as being-with and being-for others in inter-subjective relationships rather than just subject/object relationships. Human beings immerse themselves in their projects, using the world and their own bodies—with all their acquired skills, competencies, and sedimented habits—as instruments. While these instruments are indispensable to their projects, they are usually unperceived and remain in the background. They are the background against which objects of perception and action objectives come into view. And yet what is backgrounded can always come to the foreground, suddenly and rudely—when the world resists one, when a blunt knife does not cut the bread, when one’s body is in pain or sick and intrudes, interrupting one’s vision and plans. 8

Without minimizing the novelty of Beauvoir’s theorization of patriarchy, the present quick sketch of phenomenology ought to have highlighted its suitability for feminist appropriations. Nevertheless, Sartre, Beauvoir’s closest collaborator, for example, continues to think that one is distinctively human only to the extent that they transcend their situation. This arguably universalizes Sartre’s particular situation as a member of a privileged group determined to be free, while effectively blaming the situation of oppressed groups on their members, blaming the victims for lacking humanity. 9 By contrast, Beauvoir sheds light on women’s social situation and lived experience: men have “far more concrete opportunities” to be effective; women experience the world not as tools for their projects but as resistance to them; their “energy” is “thrown into the world” but “fails to grasp any object”; a woman’s body is not the “pure instrument of her grasp on the world” but painfully objectified and foregrounded. 10 Beauvoir goes on to distinguish between a variety of unequal social situations with different degrees of freedom inherent in them. Yes, on the whole, French men are freer, less constrained than French women. But Beauvoir discusses the “concrete situation” of other groups “kept in a situation of inferiority”—workers, the colonized, African American slaves, her contemporary African Americans, Jews—while explicitly acknowledging that women themselves are socially divided by class and race. 11

Beauvoir outlines impediments to women’s collective and individual liberation and sketches out paths to collective action and to the “independent woman” of the future, placing literature center stage. She claims that women lack the “concrete means” to organize themselves “in opposition” to patriarchy, in that they lack a shared collective space, such as the factory and the racially segregated community for working-class and black struggles, instead living dispersed private lives. 12 While white middle-class women “are in solidarity” with men of their class and race, rather than with working-class and black women, Beauvoir calls for solidarity among women across class and race boundaries. 13 She addresses white middle-class women like herself, who benefit materially from their connection to white middle-class men, asking them to abandon these benefits for the precarious pursuit of women’s solidarity and freedom. To the extent that women lack freedom by virtue of their social situation qua women, they need to claim their freedom in collective “revolt.” 14 Beauvoir’s 1949 call to organized political action was “the movement before the movement,” according to Michèle Le Doeuff. 15

However, Beauvoir also advocates writing literature as a means of liberation for women and considers all her writing—philosophical, literary, life-writing—a form of activism. Beauvoir devotes considerable space to literary criticism throughout The Second Sex . She shows how writers have reproduced patriarchal myths, often unwittingly. 16 But her future-oriented, crucial chapter “The Independent Woman” centers on a discussion of women writers and even addresses women writers. Having sketched out a history of women’s writing, she turns to young writers to offer advice, based on her analysis of women’s “situation.” 17 To overcome women’s socially imposed apprenticeship in “reasonable modesty,” they need to undertake a counter-practice of “abandonment and transcendence,” “pride” and boldness; they need to become “women insurgents” who feel “responsible for the universe.” 18 Her call, “The free woman is just being born” energizes new women writers to live and write freely—and has been answered by many. 19 But this is not triumphalist empty rhetoric; women writers also need to understand the “ambiguity” of the human condition and of truth itself. 20

Iris Marion Young returns to Beauvoir’s description of women’s social situation and lived experience in “Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment, Motility, and Spatiality” ( 1980 ). Young takes Beauvoir’s description as the starting point for her own phenomenology of women’s project-oriented bodily movement in “contemporary advanced industrial, urban, and commercial society,” arguing that their movement is inhibited, ambiguous, discontinuous, and ineffective. 21 Women exhibit a form of socially induced dyspraxia. Young contends that women’s movement “exhibits an ambiguous transcendence, an inhibited intentionality, and a discontinuous unity with its surroundings.” 22 Young turns to women’s bodies in their “orientation toward and action upon and within” their surroundings, particularly the “confrontation of the body’s capacities and possibilities with the resistance and malleability of things” when the body “aims to accomplish a definite purpose or task.” 23 It will be remembered that the phenomenological tradition theorizes the human body as a lived body that is the locus of subjectivity, perception, and action, a capable body extending itself into the world rather than a thing; this is especially the case with Merleau-Ponty. Young’s description of the deviation of women’s bodily experience from this norm is a powerful indictment of women’s social situation.

Firstly, Young identifies that women experience their bodies as ambiguously transcendent: both as a “capacity” and as a “ thing ”; both striving to act upon the world and a “burden.” 24 Secondly, they experience an inhibited intentionality: while acting, they hesitate, their “hesitancy” resulting in “wasted motion . . . from the effort of testing and reorientation.” 25 Thirdly, they experience their bodies as discontinuous with the world: rather than extending themselves and acting upon their surroundings, which is the norm, they live their bodies as objects “ positioned in space.” 26 Or rather, the “space that belongs to her and is available to her grasp and manipulation” is experienced as “constricted,” while “the space beyond is not available to her.” 27 In other words, she experiences her surroundings not as at-hand and within-reach for her projects but as out-of-reach. This discontinuity between “aim and capacity to realize” it is the secret of women’s “tentativeness and uncertainty.” 28 Even more ominously, they live the “ever-present possibility” of becoming the “object of another subject’s . . . manipulations.” 29 In the very exercise of bodily freedom—for example, in opening up the “body in free, active, open extension and bold outward-directedness”—women risk “objectification,” Young argues. 30

Young describes the situation of women as one in which they have to learn “actively to hamper” their “movements.” 31 If this has been the norm of genderization in modern Western urban societies, is it still at work and is it lived differently depending on one’s class, race, sexuality, and so on? 32 Similarly with Beauvoir’s theorization of the situation of women: does it continue to be relevant and useful?

The emergence of “sexual difference” feminism or écriture féminine in France in the mid-1970s, with landmark publications by Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous, brought with it a critique of Beauvoir. 33 In view of the present discussion of Beauvoir, one might argue that Beauvoir’s aim is the abolition of gender. Her horizon is the abolition of gender binarism and an end to the oppression of women. However, in “Equal or Different?” ( 1986 ) Irigaray reads this as a pursuit of equality through women’s adoption of male norms, at a great cost, that of “suppress[ing] sexual difference.” 34 In Irigaray’s eyes, Beauvoir’s work is assimilationist, while her own work is radical—it aims to redefine femininity in positive terms. Irigaray insists on the political autonomy of women’s struggles from other liberation movements and, controversially, the priority of feminism over other movements because of the priority of gender over class, race, and so on. Gender is “the primary and irreducible division.” 35

In 1994 feminist literary critic Toril Moi compares Beauvoir to Irigaray and Frantz Fanon, one of the founders of postcolonial theory. Like Fanon who redefined blackness positively and viewed anticolonial struggles as autonomous, Irigaray aims to redefine femininity and mobilize it autonomously, while Beauvoir failed to “grasp the progressive potential of ‘femininity’ as a political discourse” and also “vastly underestimated the potential political impact of an independent woman’s movement.” 36 However, Moi sides with Beauvoir against Irigaray and other “sexual difference” feminists, when comparing their aims. Beauvoir’s ultimate aim is the disappearance of gender, while difference feminists “focus on women’s difference, often without regard for other social movements,” claiming that “women’s interests are best served by the establishment of an enduring regime of sexual difference.” 37

Aiming toward the disappearance of gender does not mean blinding oneself to the situation and lived experience of women. In a 2009 piece on women writers, literature, and feminist theory, Moi turns to Beauvoir to analyze the social situation of women writers. Importantly, Beauvoir focuses on what happens “ once somebody has been taken to be a woman ”—the woman in question might or might not be assigned female at birth and might or might not identify as a woman. 38 While the body of someone taken to be a man is viewed as a “direct and normal connection with the world” that he “apprehends objectively,” the body of someone taken to be a woman is viewed as “weighed down by everything specific to it: an obstacle, a prison.” 39 Concomitantly, male writers and their perspectives and concerns are associated with universality—women writers associated with biased particularity. But if women writers adopt male perspectives and concerns to lay claim to universality, they are alienated from their own lived experience. This is how a “sexist (or racist) society” forces “women and blacks, and other raced minorities, to ‘eliminate’ their gendered (or raced) subjectivity” and “masquerade as some kind of generic universal human being, in ways that devalue their actual experiences as embodied human beings in the world.” 40 All too often women writers have declared “I am not a woman writer,” but this has to be understood as a “ defensive speech act”: a “ response ” to those who have tried to use her gender “against her.” 41

In 2001 feminist philosopher and Beauvoir scholar Michèle Le Doeuff announces a renaissance in Beauvoir studies, in her keynote for the Ninth International Simone de Beauvoir Conference: “It is no longer possible to claim, in the light of a certain New French Feminism, that Beauvoir is obsolete.” 42 She prioritizes the need for scholarship on the conflicts between Sartre and Beauvoir, with a view to making the case for Beauvoir’s originality as a philosopher, in spite of Beauvoir’s self-identification as a writer and reluctance to clash with Sartre philosophically.

Feminist philosopher Miranda Fricker returns more than once to the question of whether Beauvoir is a philosopher or a writer. In 2003 Fricker locates Beauvoir’s originality in her understanding of ambiguity and argues that life-writing has been the medium most suited to her thought, focusing on Beauvoir’s The Prime of Life ( La Force de l’age , 1960 ). 43 Beauvoir found in the institution of philosophy, as she experienced it, a pathological, obsessional attitude—a demand for abstract theorizing that divorces thinkers from their situation to lend their thought universal applicability. This imperious, sovereign role was seriously at odds with Beauvoir’s sense of reality, history, and the self. For Beauvoir, reality is “full of ambiguities, baffling, and impenetrable” and history a violent shock to the self: “History burst over me, and I dissolved into fragments . . . scattered over the four quarters of the globe, linked by every nerve in me to each and every other individual.” 44 Beauvoir uses narrative, particularly life-writing, to connect with her past selves but also to appeal to the reader: “self-knowledge is impossible, and the best one can hope for is self-revelation” to the reader. 45 Fricker claims that Beauvoir primarily addresses female readers; and Beauvoir’s alliance-building with her readers—her “feminist commitment to female solidarity”—promises to bring out, through the reader, “the ‘unity’ to that ‘scattered, broken’ object that is her life.” 46

An example of the role of the reader is Fricker’s 2007 reading of Beauvoir’s under-written account of an early epistemic clash with Sartre. 47 Beauvoir’s first-person narrative voice doesn’t quite say that Sartre undermined her as a knower, but Fricker interprets this incident as an epistemic attack by Sartre that Beauvoir had the resilience to survive, and which contributed to her self-identification as a writer rather than a philosopher. Here the violence of history and the institution of philosophy take very concrete, embodied, intimate form. But the incident also serves as a springboard for Fricker’s concept of epistemic injustice and its two forms: testimonial injustice, and hermeneutical injustice and lacunas. For Fricker, Sartre in this instance does Beauvoir a “testimonial injustice” in that he erodes her confidence and her credibility as a knower. 48 This process might also be “ongoing” and involve “persistent petty intellectual underminings.” 49 Hermeneutical (or interpretive) injustice, on the other hand, has to do with a gap in collective interpretative resources, where a name should be to describe a social experience. 50 For example, the relatively recent term “sexual harassment” has described a social experience where previously there was a hermeneutic lacuna, according to Fricker. Such lacunas are often due to the systemic epistemic marginalization of some groups, and any progress (for example, in adopting a proposed new term) is contingent upon a “virtuous hearer” who will try to listen without prejudice but also requires systemic change. 51 In George Eliot’s Mill on the Floss Maggie Tulliver suffers both testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. 52

This article will now turn to feminist phenomenology within queer theory and critical race theory. Sara Ahmed, in Queer Phenomenology ( 2006 ), offers not a phenomenology of queerness but rather a phenomenological account of heteronormativity as well as a feminist queer critique of phenomenology. In an important reversal of perspective, Ahmed denaturalizes being straight—denaturalizes heteronormativity—by asking: how does one become straight? This is not simply a matter of sexual orientation and choice of love-object. Rather heteronormativity is itself “something that we are oriented around, even if it disappears from view”; “bodies become straight by ‘lining up’” with normative “lines that are already given.” 53 Being straight is “an effect of being ‘in line.’” 54 Unlike earlier phenomenologists such as Heidegger, what is usually being backgrounded and thus invisible is a naturalized system that Ahmed hopes to foreground and bring “into view”: heteronormativity. 55 Ahmed thus extends Beauvoir’s and Young’s analyses of the systematic oppression and incapacitation of women, respectively. 56 Ahmed puts Young’s language to use in order to talk about lesbian lives: heteronormativity “puts some things in reach and others out of reach,” in a manner that incapacitates lesbian lives. Ahmed searches for a different form of sociality, “a space in which the lesbian body can extend itself , as a body that gets near other bodies.” 57 Her critique of even the most promising phenomenologists is that in their work “the straight world is already in place” as an invisible background. 58

Ahmed extends her analysis of the production of heteronormativity to the production of whiteness in “A Phenomenology of Whiteness” ( 2007 ), asking: how does one become white? Ahmed thus furthers her critique of phenomenology from within. Phenomenologists such as Husserl and Merleau-Ponty define the body as “successful,” as “‘able’ to extend itself (through objects) in order to act on and in the world,” as a body that “‘can do’ by flowing into space.” 59 However, far from this being a universal experience, it is the experience of a “bodily form of privilege” from which many groups are excluded. 60 Ahmed does not here acknowledge Young’s analysis of women’s socially induced dyspraxia but turns instead to Fanon’s “phenomenology of ‘being stopped.’” 61 Ahmed calls “discomfort” the social experience of being impeded and goes on to outline its critical potential in “bringing what is in the background, what gets over-looked” back into view. 62 More than a negative feeling, discomfort has the exhilarating potential of opening up a whole world that was previously obscured. 63 Ahmed’s subsequent work has focused on institutional critique, especially of universities in their continuing failure to become inclusive, hospitable spaces for certain groups, in spite of their managerial language of diversity. 64

Where Ahmed calls for critical and transformative “discomfort,” Alia Al-Saji calls for a critical and transformative “hesitation” in “A Phenomenology of Hesitation” ( 2014 ). Al-Saji’s concept of hesitation revises the work of Beauvoir and Young and enlarges their focus on gender to include race. Beauvoir’s analysis of patriarchy as a system that projects and naturalizes fixed, oppositional, hierarchical identities is redeployed toward a “race-critical and feminist” project, though Al-Saji does not acknowledge Beauvoir explicitly but credits Fanon’s work. 65 The systematic and “socially pathological othering” of fluid, relational, contextual, contingent differences into rigid, frozen, naturalized hierarchies remains “hidden from view.” 66 Experience, affect, and vision, in their pathological form, are closed and rigid; in their healthy form, they have a “creative and critical potential . . . to hesitate”—they are ambiguous, open, fluid, responsive, receptive, dynamic, changing, improvisational, self-critical. 67 Al-Saji argues that the “paralyzing hesitation” analyzed by Young can be “mined” to extract a critical hesitation, as Young’s own work exemplifies. 68 By contrast, the “normative ‘I can’ – posited as human but in fact correlated to white, male bodies”—rigidly “excludes other ways of seeing and acting”; it is “objectifying – racializing and sexist[,] . . . reifying and othering .” 69 The alternative to both thoughtless action and paralyzing inaction is: “ acting hesitantly ” and responsively. 70

Feminist philosopher Pamela Sue Anderson’s last writings on “vulnerability” build on Michèle Le Doeuff’s critique of unexamined myths and narratives underlying the Western “imaginary.” One values and strives for invulnerability and equates vulnerability with exposure to violence and suffering. One projects vulnerability onto “the vulnerable” to disavow their own vulnerability: “a dark social imaginary continues to stigmatize those needing to be cared for as a drain on an economy, carefully separating ‘the cared for’ from those who are thought to be ‘in control’ of their lives and of the world.” 71 Furthermore, members of privileged groups often exhibit a “wilful ignorance” of systemic forms of social vulnerability and social injustice. 72 But Anderson also outlines “ethical” vulnerability as a capability for a transformative and life-enhancing openness to others and mutual affection—occasioned by ontological vulnerability. Ethical vulnerability is envisaged as a project where reason, critical self-reflexivity, emotion, intuition and imagination, concepts, arguments, myths and narrative all have a role to play, while also needing to be reimagined and rethought.

African American Feminisms (Morrison, Lorde, Walker, Spillers, Hartman): Race, Intersectionality, Differences among Women and among Black Women

African American and postcolonial feminists have struggled to create space for themselves, caught between a predominantly white women’s movement on the one hand, and male-led civil-rights and anticolonial struggles and postcolonial elites on the other hand. They have fought against assumptions that “All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men” and that white women are “saving brown women from brown men.” 73 African American and postcolonial writers and thinkers (from Toni Morrison to Chandra Talpade Mohanty) have hesitated to self-identify with a primarily white movement that, they argued powerfully, effectively excluded them in unthinkingly prioritizing the concerns of white, middle-class women. Some have avoided self-identifying as a feminist, self-identifying as a “black woman writer” instead. Alice Walker invented the term “womanism” to signal black feminism. “Intersectionality” was coined by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, and other African American feminists to highlight the intersections of gender and race, feminist and antiracist struggles, creating a space between the white women’s movement and the male-led civil-rights movement. 74 Postcolonial feminists (Assia Djebar, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Chandra Talpade Mohanty) similarly created a space between Western feminists and male-led anticolonial struggles and postcolonial elites.

African American feminists have been critical of Beauvoir and of the women’s movements of the 1960s. They have been reconstructing oral, written, and activist traditions of black women such as abolitionists Sojourner Truth and Harriet Jacobs, and modernists Zora Neale Hurston and Nella Larsen—all previously neglected and marginalized. 75 These traditions prioritize: collectivism; the need to critique and resist internalized but unlivable white middle-class norms; waywardness or willfulness rather than individualism; differences among women; difference among black women; and friendship and solidarity among black women across their differences. (By contrast, contemporary white American feminist critics such as Elaine Showalter emphasized self-realization and self-actualization. 76 ) African American women writers—rather than literary critics—have led the way, inspired by orators, musicians, and collective oral forms, as critics have acknowledged. 77

Toni Morrison, as a self-identified black woman writer, announces these strategic priorities in her first novel, The Bluest Eye ( 1970 ). 78 In The Bluest Eye she revises Beauvoir’s analysis of patriarchy as a binary opposition—man/woman—that projects onto “woman” what men disown in themselves. She examines a related binary opposition: white, light-skinned, middle-class, beautiful, proper lady vs. dark-skinned, poor, ugly girl (the racialized opposition between angelic and demonic woman). The first novel to focus on black girls, The Bluest Eye shows the systemic propagation and internalization of white norms of beauty and femininity, leading to hierarchical oppositions between black and white girls as well as between black girls (light-skinned middle-class Maureen, solidly working-class Claudia and Frieda, and precariously poor Pecola). The projection, by everyone, of all ugliness onto poor, dark-skinned Pecola, combined with white norms that are impossible for her, lead to Pecola’s madness. Her attempts at existential affirmation are crushed by the judgment of the world. Pecola’s Bildungsroman turns out naturalist tragedy. However, Claudia, the narrator, develops anagnorisis and shares her increasingly complex critique with the readers.

In “What the Black Woman Thinks about Women’s Lib” ( 1971 ) Morrison uses Beauvoir’s language to bring attention both to the situation of African American women and to their traditions of resistance. Reminding readers of two segregation-era signs—“White Ladies” and “Black Women”—she asserts that many black women rejected ladylike behavior and “frequently kicked back . . . [O]ut of the profound desolation of her reality” the black woman “may very well have invented herself.” 79 Black women have been working and heading single-parent households in a hostile world. If ladies are all “softness, helplessness and modesty,” black women have been “tough, capable, independent and immodest.” 80

Audre Lorde explores similar themes. Her poem, “Who Said It Was Simple” ( 1973 ) illustrates the hierarchy between white “ladies,” in their feminist struggle for self-realization, and black “girls” on whose work they rely. Sister Outsider , Lorde’s essays and speeches from 1976 to 1984 , theorizes intersections of race, sexuality, class, and age that are particularly binding and threatening for black lesbian women. 81 White feminists are ignorant of racism and wrongly assume their concerns to be universally shared by all women, thus replicating the patriarchal elevation of men to the universal analyzed by Beauvoir; they need to drop the “pretense to a homogeneity of experience,” educate themselves about black women, read their work, and listen. 82 In “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” delivered during a Beauvoir conference, Lorde argues that Beauvoir’s call to know “the genuine conditions of our lives” must include racism and homophobia. 83 Black men misdirect their anger for the racism they encounter toward black women, who, paid less and more socially devalued, are easy targets. Falsely equating anti-sexist with anti-Black, black men are hostile to black feminists and especially lesbians; so black men’s sexism is different from the sexism of privileged white men analyzed by Beauvoir. 84 Black women have also been hostile toward each other, due to internalized racism and sexism, projected toward the most marginalized among them; identifying with their oppressors, black women suffer a “misnaming” and “distortion” in their understanding of their situation. 85

But Lorde also exalts traditions of black women’s solidarity across their differences. Once differences among women and among black women are properly understood and named, they can be creative and generative. To achieve this, she extols recording, examining, and naming one’s experience, perceptions, and feelings, as a path to clarity, precision, and illumination, leading to concepts and theories but also to empowerment. Anger, unlike hatred, is potentially both full of information and generative. 86 Affect, more broadly, can be a path to understanding, as affect and rationality are not mutually exclusive: “I don’t see feel/think as a dichotomy.” 87 Particularly innovative is Lorde’s theorization of the “erotic.” In contrast to the pornographic, the erotic is a power intrinsically connected to (and cutting across) love, friendship, self-connection, joy, the spiritual, creativity, work, collaboration, and the political—especially among black women. 88 But relations of interdependence and mutuality among women are only possible in a context of non-hierarchical differences among equals and peers, Lorde stresses repeatedly. 89

Alice Walker attends to many of these themes in Color Purple ( 1982 ). 90 In her collection of essays, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose ( 1983 ), she pays tribute to black women’s traditions of resistance, due to which “womanish” connotes “outrageous, audacious, courageous or willful behavior.” 91 Her term “womanism” honors these collectivist traditions and their commitment to the “survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female.” 92 But she also calls for the reconstruction of a written tradition of forgotten black women writers, resurrecting Zora Neale Hurston from oblivion in “Looking for Zora,” initially published in Ms . magazine in 1975 . 93

In 1979 Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination established the enforced privatization and entrapped idleness of 19th-century white middle-class women. 94 In 1987 Hortense J. Spillers powerfully added that this was made possible by the enforced hard labor of black women, as house or field slaves and later as domestic servants who often headed single-parent households. 95 Furthermore, the gender polarization within the white middle-class family was accompanied by the ungendering of African American slaves, who were not allowed to marry and raise their children, and the structural rape of black women. In the late 1980s Crenshaw and Collins formally introduced the concept of intersectionality, though intersectionality-like ideas—that the black woman is the “mule uh de world”—have been a part of black women’s thought for a long time. 96

“Slavery and gender” has been a core topic since the 1980s, with publications such as Orlando Patterson’s Slavery and Social Death ( 1982 ), Toni Morrison’s Beloved ( 1987 ) and Playing in the Dark ( 1992 ), and Saidiya V. Hartman’s Scenes of Subjection ( 1997 ). 97 Hartman’s abiding topic has been a lost history of black girls and women that can only partially be retrieved and that requires new methodologies. Archives and official records are full of gaps, systematically “dissimulate the extreme violence” of slavery, and “disavow the pain” and “deny the sorrow” of slaves. 98 Even while reading them “against the grain,” Hartman underlines the “ impossibility of fully recovering the experience of the enslaved.” 99 In Lose Your Mother ( 2006 ) Hartman’s concept of the “afterlife of slavery” describes the persistence of “devalued” and “imperiled” black lives, racialized violence, “skewed life chances, limited access to health and education, premature death, incarceration, and impoverishment. I, too, am the afterlife of slavery.” 100 In “Venus in Two Acts” ( 2008 ), Hartman defines her method as “critical fabulation”: mixing critical use of archival research, theorization, and multiple speculative narratives, in an experimental writing that acknowledges its own failure and refuses “to fill in the gaps” to “provide closure.” 101 This writing is:

straining against the limits of the archive . . . and . . . enacting the impossibility of representing the lives of the captives precisely through the process of narration . . . [in order] to displace the . . . authorized account, . . . to imagine what might have happened[,] . . . to listen for the mutters and oaths and cries of the commodity[,] . . . to illuminate the contested character of history, narrative, event, and fact, to topple the hierarchy of discourse, and to engulf authorized speech in the clash of voices. 102

In “The Anarchy of Colored Girls Assembled in a Riotous Manner” ( 2018 ) Hartman returns to “critical fabulation” and offers a “speculative history” of Esther Brown, her friends, and their life in Harlem around 1917 . 103 Their experiments in “free love and free motherhood” were criminalized as “Loitering. Riotous and Disorderly. Solicitation. Violation of the Tenement House Law. . . . Vagrancy.” 104 Questions such as “ Is this man your husband? Where is the father of your child ?”—meant to detect the “likelihood” of their “future criminality” and moral depravity—might render them “three years confined at Bedford and . . . entangled with the criminal justice system and under state surveillance for a decade.” 105 In official records, these measures were narrated as rescuing, reforming, and rehabilitating, therapeutic interventions for the benefit of young black women.

Reading such records against the grain, Hartman tells the story of a “ revolution in a minor key ”: of “ too fast girls and surplus women and whores ” as “social visionaries, radical thinkers, and innovators.” 106 Their “wild and wayward” collective experiments, at the beginning of the 20th century , were building on centuries of black women’s “mutual aid societies” conducted “in stealth.” 107 Their aspiration has been “singularity and freedom”—not the “individuality and sovereignty” coveted by white liberal feminists. 108

Hartman’s work emerges out of African American feminist traditions but also out of postcolonial feminists, whose work pays particular attention to impossibility, failure, aporia, and the limits of representing the subaltern, as well as the heterogeneity and specificity of women’s agency.

Postcolonial Feminisms (Djebar, Spivak, Mohanty, Stratton, Mahmood, Puar): The Subaltern, Specificity, Agency

Colonized women had to contend not only with the “imbalances of their relations with their own men but also the baroque and violent array of hierarchical rules and restrictions that structured their new relations with imperial men and women.” 109 Furthermore, they were central to powerful orientalist fantasies that rendered their actual lives invisible. The relation of colonized land to colonizer was figured as that of a nubile, sexually available woman waiting for her lover, as in H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines where the map of the land centers around “Sheba’s Breasts” and “Mouth of treasure cave.” 110 Algerian writer Assia Djebar exposes this colonial fantasy in Fantasia ( 1985 ). 111 The city of Algiers is seen by the arriving colonizers as a virginal bride waiting for her groom to possess her. She is an “Impregnable City” that “sheds her veils,” as if this was “mutual love at first sight” and “the invaders were coming as lovers!” 112 The Victorian patriarchal, hierarchical nuclear family, ruled by a benign and loving husband and father, was key to the colonial “civilizing mission” because it was the perfect metaphor for the relation between colonizer and colonized in colonial ideology. 113 However, in Women of Algiers in Their Apartment ( 1980 ; mirroring the title of Eugène Delacroix’s orientalist paintings) Djebar reminds her readers that women took part in large numbers in the Algerian anticolonial struggle and suffered torture, rape, and loss of life, but that their contribution was marginalized in post-independence narratives, while they were expected to return to a patriarchal mold ostensibly for the good of the new nation. 114 By contrast, Women of Algiers in Their Apartment foregrounds Algerian women’s heterogeneity but also the intergenerational transmission of their socially repressed, traumatic history, which cannot be fully recovered—hence the self-conscious aporia of Djebar’s project.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?” ( 1983 , 1988 , 1999 ) is a subtle theorization of what remains outside colonial, anticolonial, postcolonial, neocolonial, and even “liberal multiculturalist” elites and discourses. 115 Spivak’s starting point is the unpresentability of the “subaltern” (those most marginalized and excluded). The subaltern exceeds any representation treating it as a full identity with a fixed meaning. The subaltern is an inaccessible social unconscious that can only be ethically presented in its unpresentability—fleetingly visible in fragments.

Rather than documenting “subaltern” resistance in its “taxonomic” difference from the elite and rather than assuming that political forces are self-conscious and already constituted identities, Spivak assumes that political identities are being constituted through political action. 116 Many subaltern groups are highly articulate about their aims and their relations to elites and other subaltern groups, but Spivak understands the “subaltern” as singular acts of resistance that are “irretrievably heterogeneous” in relation to constituted identities. 117 Rather than asking for the recognition of “subjugated” and previously “disqualified” forms of knowledge, Spivak is intent on acknowledging her privileged positionality and insists that what she calls the “subaltern” is irretrievably silenced; the “subaltern” is what escapes—or is excluded from—any discourse. 118

Spivak’s heterogeneous subaltern is a (Derridean) singularity that cannot be translated fully or repeated exactly but can only be repeated differently. 119 The singularity in “Can the Subaltern Speak?” is Talu’s suicide, as retold by Spivak. Spivak interprets it as a complex political intervention, by a young middle-class woman activist, that remained illegible as such. Entrusted with a political assassination in the context of the struggle for Indian independence, Spivak claims that Talu’s suicide was a complex refusal to do her mission without betraying the cause. Talu questioned anticolonial nationalism, sati suicide, and female “imprisonment” in heteronormativity, but her “Speech Act was refused” by everyone because it resisted translation into established discourses. 120 Spivak iterates Talu’s singularity differently: as a postcolonial feminist heroine. She does not present her version of Talu’s story as restoring speech to the subaltern. Speech acts are addressed to others and completed by others; they involve “distanced decipherment by another, which is, at best, an interception.” 121 To claim that Talu has finally spoken through Spivak would be a neocolonial “missionary” claim of saving the subaltern. 122 To avoid this, Spivak self-dramatizes her privileged institutional “positionality” and calls for “unlearning” one’s privilege. 123

Postcolonial feminists have been telling the story of the marginalization of women of color within anticolonial movements, postcolonial states, and within Western feminist movements. In “Three Women’sTexts and a Critique of Imperialism” ( 1985 ), Spivak argues that Gilbert and Gubar, in their reading of Jane Eyre in Madwoman in the Attic , unwittingly reproduce the “axioms of imperialism.” 124 For Spivak, in Jane Eyre Bertha, a dark colonial woman, sets the house on fire and kills herself so that Jane Eyre “can become the feminist individualist heroine of British fiction”; she is “sacrificed as an insane animal” for her British “sister’s consolidation” in a manner that is exemplary of the “epistemic violence” of imperialism. 125 Gilbert and Gubar fail to see this and only read Jane and Bertha in individual, “psychological terms.” 126 By contrast, Jean Rhys’s rewriting of Jane Eyre in Wide Sargasso Sea ( 1966 ) makes this visible and enables Spivak’s critique. 127 Rhys allows Bertha to tell her story and keeps Bertha’s “humanity, indeed her sanity as critic of imperialism, intact.” 128 In “Does the Subaltern Speak?” Spivak articulates the value of postcolonial feminism but refuses to defend it as a redemptive breakthrough. Instead she issues a call for self-reflexivity.

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, in “Under Western Eyes” ( 1984 ), calls for studies of local collective struggles and for localized theorizing by investigators. 129 The category of “Third World Woman” is an essentialist fabrication reducing the irreducible “heterogeneity” of women in the Third World. 130 Mohanty’s call for specificity is a rejection of white middle-class feminists’ generalizations on “women” and “Third World women” as neocolonial:

Women are constituted as women through the complex interaction between class, culture, religion and other ideological institutions and frameworks. . . . [R]eductive cross-cultural comparisons result in the colonization of the conflicts and contradictions which characterize women of different social classes and cultures. 131

Mohanty is here remarkably close to African American feminists. What is at stake for Mohanty is for groups of marginalized women to represent themselves and to retrieve forms of agency within their own traditions. As she stresses in Feminism without Borders ( 2003 ): the “application of the notion of women as a homogeneous category to women in the Third World colonizes and appropriates the pluralities” of their complex location and “robs them of their historical and political agency .” 132

Saba Mahmood, in “Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival” ( 2001 ), argues that rather than reading a specific cultural phenomenon through an established conception of agency, agency should be theorized through the specific phenomenon studied. 133 Her target is the Western feminist equation of feminist agency with secularism, resistance, and transgression, which she finds unhelpful when studying the “urban women’s mosque movement that is part of the larger Islamic revival in Cairo.” 134 While in some contexts feminist agency might take the form of “dramatic transgression and defiance,” for these Egyptian women it took the form of active participation and engagement with a religious movement. 135 It would be a neocolonial gesture to understand their involvement as due to “false consciousness” or internalized patriarchy. 136 Mahmood’s “situated analysis” thus endorses plural, local theories and concepts. 137

Florence Stratton focuses on gender in African postcolonial literature and criticism. She analyses the multiplicity of “ways in which women writers have been written out of the African literary tradition.” 138 They have been ignored by critics, marginalized by definitions of the African canon that universalize the tropes and themes of male writers, and silenced by “gender definitions which . . . maintain the status quo of women’s exclusion from public life.” 139 Particularly pernicious has been the “iteration in African men’s writing of the conventional colonial trope of Africa as female.” 140 Stratton discerns a ubiquitous pattern in African postcolonial men’s writing. Women are cast as symbols of the nation, in sexualized or bodily roles: as nubile virgin to be impregnated or as mother (Stratton calls this the “pot of culture” trope); or, alternatively, as degraded prostitute (the “sweep of history” trope). 141 So women are figured either as embodiments of an ostensibly static traditional culture (trope 1) or as passive victims of historical change (trope 2). This is coupled with a male quest narrative, where the male hero and his vision actively transform prostitute into mother Africa. Underlying this is a patriarchal division of active/passive and subject/object, which denies women as artists and citizens and neglects women’s issues (so actual sex work is totally obscured by its metaphorical role). Stratton goes on to show how African women writers have been “initiators” of “dialogue” with African male writers in order to self-authorize their work and make space for it in the African literary canon. 142 Stratton is also critical of white feminists who read African women writers through their own formal and thematic priorities, oblivious to African feminist traditions. 143

Jasbir K. Puar analyses how the “war on terror” and rising Islamophobia in the West, particularly the United States, have coopted feminist and queer struggles. While colonial orientalist fantasies projected sexual license onto the Middle East, 21st-century orientalist fantasies are “Islamophobic constructions” othering Muslims as “homophobic and perverse,” while constructing the West as “‘tolerant’ but sexually, racially, and gendered normal.” 144 On the one hand, Muslims are presented as “fundamentalist, patriarchal, and, often even homophobic.” 145 On the other hand, a “rhetoric of sexual modernization” turns American queer bodies into “normative patriot bodies.” 146 This involves the loss of an intersectional perspective and the “fissuring of race from sexuality.” 147 Muslims are seen as only marked by race and “presumptively sexually repressed, perverse, or both,” while Western queers are seen as only marked by sexuality and “presumptively white,” male, and “gender normative.” 148

Queer and Transgender Feminisms (Butler, Halberstam, Stryker): Performativity, Resignification, Continuous Transition, Self-Identification

Queer theory emerged in the period from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, in the midst of the outbreak of HIV/AIDS. 149 Queer theory, as an academic field, can be located at the intersection of poststructuralism (especially the work of Michel Foucault, but also Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, and Gilles Deleuze), Francophone feminism from Beauvoir to Irigaray, and African American feminism. Queer theorists have negotiated this genealogy variously; some are predominantly influenced by Foucault, less by feminist thought. The present account will focus on feminist queer theory, especially the work of Judith Butler, and its relation to earlier and subsequent feminist, queer, and transgender thought. As queer theory evolved, postcolonial feminists also became increasingly influential.

In brief, feminist queer theory, while indebted to “sexual difference” feminists such as Irigaray, critiques them through African American feminism. A core theoretical insight of African American feminism is that gender must not be considered on its own or as primary in relation to other social categories and hierarchies. Queer theorists adopt this insight. For queer theorists, sexual orientation is at least as important as gender. Indeed, they contend that what underpins the gender binary (the polarization of two genders) is the institution of “compulsory heterosexuality” or heteronormativity.

Transgender theory emerged in the mid to late 1990s, within the orbit of queer theory but also through its critique. The crux of this critique is that, despite queer theorists’ best intentions, the queer subject is primarily or implicitly white, Western, gender-normative, and cisgender. In attending to sexual orientation, queer theory neglected the spectrum of gender identities and translated issues of gender identification into issues of sexual orientation. Strands of queer activism—for example, figures such as Sylvia Rivera or Stormé DeLarverie in the United States—were marginalized by a politics of respectability led by affluent, white, cisgender queers. 150 This is particularly ironic, given the aspirations invested in the term “queer.”

In queer theory, the term “queer” was intended as an appropriation and resignification of a term of abuse but also as a floating signifier without a fixed meaning or definition and thus open to multiple and changing uses, in keeping with poststructuralist theory. “Queer” has been defined as beyond definition, transgressive, excessive, beyond polar opposites, and exceeding false polarization. So “queer” is both a particular social identity but also exemplary of a potential for openness, fluidity, and transformation in all identities (what poststructuralist theory calls the infinite deferral of the signified). It is important to point out that Spivak defined the “subaltern” and Irigaray the “feminine” in similar terms, also within a poststructuralist frame. A problem with such terms is that, though they are intended to be inclusive, they are exclusive in some of their effects. The chosen term is privileged as the only term that stands for marginality, potential for change, or openness to the past or future. In the process, the privileged term also loses specificity and becomes a metaphor. This is perhaps replicated in some uses of the term “trans” or “trans*,” where once again the term becomes a metaphor for the element of fluidity and openness in all identities.

Retracing one’s steps back to the beginnings of queer theory, while Beauvoir called for equality and the disappearance of gender, “sexual difference” feminists, such as Irigaray and Cixous, called for autonomous women’s struggles and a radical, utopian revisioning of the “feminine” to be performed by their écriture féminine . Judith Butler in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity ( 1990 ), one of queer theory’s inaugural texts, questions Irigaray’s utopianism and takes as her starting point Beauvoir’s “One is not born, but rather becomes, woman.” 151 Forty years after The Second Sex , Butler contends that societies continue to systematically produce two “discreet and polar genders,” as a prerequisite of heteronormativity; two “[d]iscreet genders are part of what ‘humanizes’ individuals within contemporary society; indeed, we regularly punish those who fail to do their gender right.” 152 One is produced as a recognizably human individual in their very repetition of genderizing practices, performance of gender norms, and iteration of speech acts that bring about gender and its effect of timeless naturalness. But the performativity and iterability of gender show up the “ imitative structure of gender ” and its historical “ contingency .” 153 In spite of the pervasiveness of genderizing practices and the unavailability of a position outside gender, the very performativity and iterability of gender open up the possibility of repeating it slightly differently. Butler hopes for destabilized and constantly resignified genders: “a fluidity of identities,” “an openness to resignification,” and “proliferating gender configurations.” 154 While gender is a normalizing, disciplinary force, it is possible to engage consciously with gender norms and open them to resignification. However, the success or failure of an attempt at resignification also depends on its audience or addressees and the authority they are prepared to attribute to it.

In the context of feminist theory, Butler’s call for continuous resignification takes the form of resignifying “woman” and “feminism” itself. As part of her “radical democratic” feminist politics, she aims to “release” the term “woman” into a “future of multiple significations.” 155 In resignifying feminism, she writes against those feminists who assume that there is an “ontological specificity to women. . . . In the 1980s, the feminist ‘we’ rightly came under attack by women of color who claimed that the ‘we’ was invariably white.” 156 Not only heterogeneity but contentions among feminists ought to be valued: “the rifts among women over the content” of the term “woman” ought to be “safeguarded and prized.” 157 Furthermore, Butler distrusts the utopianism of those feminists who believe they are “beyond the play of power,” asking instead for self-reflexive recognition of feminists’ inevitable embeddedness in power relations. 158

One of the targets of Butler’s critique is Irigaray. Her nuanced reading of Irigaray in Bodies That Matter defends her from accusations of essentialism but rejects the primacy of sexual difference over other forms of difference—race, class, sexual orientation, and so on—in Irigaray’s work. For example, Butler finds that Irigaray’s alternative mythology of two labial lips touching and being touched by each other is a self-conscious textual “rhetorical strategy” intended to counter established understandings of women’s genitals as a lack, a wound, and so on. 159 Rather than describing an essential sexual difference, Irigaray’s reparative, positive figuration of the two lips is a deliberately improper and catachrestic form of mimicry akin to Butler’s resignification; it is “not itself a natural relation, but a symbolic articulation.” 160 Irigaray distinguishes between the false feminine within gender binaries and a true feminine “excluded in and by such a binary opposition” and appearing “only in catachresis .” 161 The true feminine is an “ excessive feminine” in that it “exceeds its figuration”; its essence is to have no essence, to undermine binary oppositions and their essences, and to exceed conceptuality. 162 Irigaray’s textual practice is intended as the “very operation of the feminine in language.” 163 Butler seems to endorse Irigaray’s purely strategic essentialism. However, it is troubling that Irigaray’s true feminine is a name for all that escapes binary oppositions and social hierarchies.

Butler’s critique of Irigaray is that her exclusive focus on the feminine is an implicitly white, middle-class, heterosexual position attending to the marginalization of women qua women but neglecting other forms of social marginalization. Since Irigaray’s true feminine is “exactly what is excluded” from binary oppositions, it “monopolizes the sphere of exclusion,” resulting in Irigaray’s “constitutive exclusions” of other forms of difference. 164 For Irigaray “the outside is ‘always’ the feminine,” breaking its link to race, class, sexual orientation, and so on. 165 By contrast, Butler embraces intersectionality. Whereas for Irigaray sexual difference is “autonomous” and “more fundamental” than other differences, which are viewed as “ derived from” it, for Butler gender is “articulated through or as other vectors of power.” 166

Butler acknowledges her debt to African American literature and feminist thought, in a rare foray into literary criticism, her close reading of Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel, Passing . She also pays tribute to feminists of color, such as Chicana feminist Norma Alarcón, who similarly theorized women of color as multiply rather than singly positioned and marginalized. In Passing and in related African American literary criticism by Barbara Christian, Hazel Carby, Deborah McDowell, and others, Butler finds valuable theoretical insights that “ racializing norms ” and gender norms are “articulated through one another.” 167 But these texts also identify the value of solidarity among black women and the many obstacles to this solidarity. Versions of “racial uplift” adhering to the white middle-class nuclear family have been obstructive; they have been “masculine uplift” whose disproportionate “cost . . . for black women” has been the “impossibility of sexual freedom” for them. 168 Larsen’s critique of “racial uplift”—and its promotion of white middle-class gender norms, marriage, nuclear family, and heteronormativity—grasps the interimplication of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. By contrast, Larsen’s Passing and Toni Morrison’s Sula uphold the precarious “promise of connection” among black women. 169

If “racial uplift” has been obstructive, Irigaray’s exclusive focus on the feminine is equally obstructive, according to Butler. Irigaray seems to assume that sexual difference is “unmarked by race” and that “whiteness is not a form of racial difference.” 170 By contrast, Larsen highlights historical articulations “of racialized gender, of gendered race, of the sexualization of racial ideals, or the racialization of gender norms.” 171 In Passing Clare passes as white, and Butler’s reading particularly traces the convergence of race and sexuality. Clare’s “risk-taking” takes the dual form of “racial crossing and sexual infidelity” that undermines middle-class norms, questioning both the “sanctity of marriage” and the “clarity of racial demarcations.” 172 Sexual and racial closeting are also interlinked: “the muteness of homosexuality converges in the story with the illegibility of Clare’s blackness.” 173 The word “queering” in Passing is “a term for betraying what ought to remain concealed,” in relation to both race and sexuality. 174

If some early commentators interpreted Butler’s theory of the performativity of gender and her call for gender resignification as a voluntarist, individualist, consumerist lifestyle choice for privileged Westerners, this article has tried to show just how constrained gender resignification is, and how inextricable from other social struggles. In Butler’s more recent work, issues of gender and sexual orientation are situated in interlocking frames of social exclusion and social precarity. Neither gender nor sexual orientation on their own can determine what counts as a human, livable, and grievable life. 175

Susan Stryker, one of the founders of transgender theory, addresses her first publication, “My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix” ( 1994 ), to feminist and queer communities and exposes their exclusion and abjection of the “transgendered subject” as a monster. 176 Through a close reading of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , she expresses her affinity with Frankenstein’s monster. 177 She criticizes the medical discourse that “produced sex reassignment techniques” for its “deeply conservative attempt to stabilize gendered identity in service of the naturalized heterosexual order” and insists on the disjunction between the “naturalistic effect biomedical technology can achieve” and the “subjective experience” of this transformation. 178 She rejects the continuing pathologization of the transgendered subject by psychiatrists, with the effect that “the sounds that come out of my mouth can be summarily dismissed.” 179 Notable here is an emphasis on self-identification and lived experience, which inherits the insights of phenomenological feminists that the body is not an object but a center of perception. To honor this emphasis, Stryker enlists a mixed form that combines criticism, diary entry, poetry, and theory.

Jack Halberstam’s 1998 Female Masculinity is a complex negotiation between feminist theory, queer theory, and the emerging field of transgender theory. While in medical discourse the approved narrative for the authorization of hormones and gender confirmation surgery is that of being in the wrong body and transitioning toward the right body, Halberstam warns that the “metaphor of crossing over and indeed migrating to the right body from the wrong body merely leaves the politics of stable gender identities, and therefore stable gender hierarchies, completely intact.” 180 Indeed he endorses the very “refusal of the dialectic of home and border” in Chicana/o studies and postcolonial studies. 181 Taking a broadly intersectional position, he argues that “alternative masculinities, ultimately, will fail to change existing gender hierarchies to the extent to which they fail to be feminist, antiracist, and queer.” 182

In his 2018 “Preface to the Twentieth Anniversary Edition” of Female Masculinity Halberstam defines “female masculinity” and “the butch” in a manner that bears a family resemblance to Irigaray’s “feminine,” Spivak’s “subaltern,” and queer theory’s “queer.” “Female masculinity” includes “multiple modes of identification and gender assignation” without “stabilizing” their “meanings.” 183 “The butch” is a “placeholder for the unassimilable, for that which remains indefinable or unspeakable within the many identifications that we make and that we claim”; “let the butch stand as all that cannot be absorbed into systems of signification, legitimation, legibility, recognition, and legality.” 184 The butch is “neither cis-gender nor simply transgender” but a “bodily catachresis . . . the rhetorical practice of misnaming something for which there would otherwise be no words.” 185 In Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability ( 2018 ) Halberstam defines trans* in similar terms. In keeping with his commitment to gender identity as “continuous transition,” the term trans* “embraces the nonspecificity of the term ‘trans’ and uses it to open the term up to a shifting set of conditions and possibilities rather than to attach it only to the life narratives of a specific group of people”; the asterisk “keeps at bay any sense of knowing in advance what the meaning of this or that gender variant form may be.” 186 His 2018 “Theory in the Wild,” co-written with Tavia Nyong’o, folds a “range of concerns” in addition to gender and sexuality—“race, coloniality, ecology, anarchy”—in a language that stretches from academic to creative writing. 187

In “Transgender Studies: Queer Theory’s Evil Twin” ( 2004 ), Susan Stryker launches transgender studies as an academic field “born of the union of sexuality studies and feminism” but distinct from them. The rationale for this autonomization is that “all too often queer remains a code word for ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian,’” while “transgender phenomena are misapprehended through a lens that privileges sexual orientation.” 188 Transgender studies is intended to disrupt the “privileged . . . narratives that favor sexual identity labels” at the expense of “gender categories.” 189 But Stryker is keen to acknowledge her own Western privilege: transgender studies is “marked by its First World point of origin” and the new field risks reproducing the “power structures of colonialism by subsuming non-Western configurations of personhood into Western constructs of sexuality and gender.” 190

In “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges: An Introduction to Transgender Studies” ( 2006 ), Stryker continues to argue that, within queer theory, “the entire discussion of ‘gender diversity’” was “subsumed within a discussion of sexual desire—as if the only reason to express gender was to signal the mode of one’s attractions.” 191 While the term transgender “began as a buzzword of the early 1990s,” in the 21st century it is established as the name for a “wide range of phenomena that call attention to the fact that ‘gender,’ as it is lived, embodied, experienced, performed, and encountered, is more complex and varied” than previously thought. 192 As this definition suggests, transgender studies draws on the insights of all the strands of feminist theory discussed in this article—phenomenological, poststructuralist, intersectional, and postcolonial. Stryker reminds readers that, since at least Sojourner Truth, “fighting for representation within the term ‘woman’ has been . . . a part of the feminist tradition,” and “the fight over transgender inclusion within feminism is not significantly different.” 193 As with African American and postcolonial feminisms, transgender theory calls for feminists’ examination of their “exclusionary assumptions.” 194 In turn, transgender theorists need to reckon with the “whiteness” of their academic field and the “First World origin” of the term transgender, as it is being exported globally across “racial, ethnic, linguistic, and socioeconomic communities.” 195 Arundati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness explores the clash, in India, between the terms of transgender theory—emanating from the United States and disseminated by NGOs, magazines, and other publications—and the terminology, self-understanding, and practices of hijras . 196

Stryker is particularly critical of the modern Western correlation of biological or bodily sex (particularly genital status) and gender identity, where gender is taken to be merely the “representation of an objectively knowable material sex.” 197 Stryker is adamant that “Sex . . . is not the foundation of gender.” 198 Nor is sex as self-evident as it appears to be, in that the different components of sex—chromosomal, anatomical, reproductive, and morphological—do not necessarily line up. (For example, one’s chromosomal status might not line up with their anatomical sex.) This supposedly “objective” correlation is based on the “assumed correlation of a particular” component of “biological sex with a particular,” normative “social gender,” with the result that transgender people (among others) are forever viewed as making “false representations of an underlying material truth.” 199 Many feminist strands have shed light on the correlation of biological sex and “gender normativity,” and Stryker promises that transgender theory will continue to analyze the “operations of systems and institutions that simultaneously produce various possibilities of viable personhood, and eliminate others.” 200 In recognizing diversity beyond “Eurocentric norms,” Stryker notes that “relationships between bodily sex, subjective gender identity, social gender roles, sexual behaviors, and kinship status” have varied greatly. 201 Of central importance to transgender theory is subjective gender identity, which Stryker understands within the tradition of feminist phenomenology.

It is important to distinguish between gender as a social category within social classifications and hierarchies and gender as one’s self-identification and sense of self. Stryker focuses on the latter and connects it to the body, as the “contingent ground of all our knowledge.” 202 The antidote to fake objectivity is the recognition of “embodiment,” “embodied experience,” and “experiential knowledge”; one’s “gendered sense of self” and “lived complexity” of gender are “inalienable.” 203 All voices are embodied and no voice should be allowed to “mask” its “particularities and specificities” under the cloak of “false universality.” 204 It is therefore imperative to either speak from “direct experience” or to represent others “in an ethical fashion.” 205 It is equally vital to include forms of knowledge previously “disqualified as nonconceptual[,] . . . naïve” and “hierarchically inferior.” 206 Once again, Stryker here joins several strands of feminist theory that have practiced formal innovation—for example, in mixing theory, literature, and life-writing—not for its own sake but in the pursuit of truth and justice.

Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to Julie Rak and Jean Wyatt for their suggestions for revision, John Frow for his comments, and Ian Richards-Karamarkovich for his in-house editorial support.

Further Reading

• Ahmed, Sara . Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others . Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.
• Al-Saji, Alia . “A Phenomenology of Hesitation: Interrupting Racialized Habits of Seeing.” In Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment . Edited by Emily S. Lee , 133–172. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014.
• Anderson, Pamela Sue . “Silencing and Speaker Vulnerability: Undoing an Oppressive Form of (Wilful) Ignorance.” In “Love and Vulnerability: Thinking with Pamela Sue Anderson.” Edited by Pelagia Goulimari . Special issue, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 25, no. 1–2 (February–April 2020): 36–45.
• Beauvoir, Simone de . The Second Sex . Translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier . London: Vintage, 2011.
• Butler, Judith . Gender Trouble . London: Routledge, 1990.
• Cixous, Hélène . “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Translated by Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen . Signs 1, no. 4 (Summer 1976): 875–893.
• Collins, Patricia Hill . Black Feminist Thought . Rev. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2000.
• Crenshaw, Kimberlé Williams . “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (July 1991): 1241–1299.
• Djebar, Assia . Women of Algiers in Their Apartment . Translated by Marjolijn De Jager . Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992.
• Fricker, Miranda . Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
• Gilbert, Sandra , and Susan Gubar . The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination . 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.
• Halberstam, Jack . Female Masculinity . 20th anniversary ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018.
• Hartman, Saidiya V. Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
• Irigaray, Luce . This Sex Which Is Not One . Translated by Catherine Porter with Carolyn Burke . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985.
• Lorde, Audre . Your Silence Will Not Protect You . Preface by Reni Eddo-Lodge , introduction by Sara Ahmed . London: Silver Press, 2017.
• Mahmood, Saba . “Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival.” Cultural Anthropology 16, no. 2 (May 2001): 202–236.
• Mohanty, Chandra Talpade . “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses.” boundary 2 12–13 (Spring–Autumn 1984): 333–358.
• Moi, Toril . “‘ I Am Not a Woman Writer’: About Women, Literature and Feminist Theory Today .” Eurozine , June 2009.
• Morrison, Toni . The Bluest Eye . London: Picador, 1990.
• Puar, Jasbir K. “Queer Times, Queer Assemblages.” Social Text 23, no. 3–4 (2005): 121–139.
• Spillers, Hortense J. “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s May Be: An American Grammar Book.” Diacritics 17, no. 2 (Summer 1987): 64–81.
• Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty . “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present , by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak , 198–311. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
• Stratton, Florence . “Periodic Embodiments: A Ubiquitous Trope in African Men’s Writing.” Research in African Literatures 21, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 111–126.
• Stryker, Susan . “My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix.” GLQ 1, no. 3 (1994): 237–254.
• Walker, Alice . In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose . Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004.
• Young, Iris Marion . “Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment, Motility, and Spatiality.” In On Female Body Experience: “Throwing Like a Girl” and Other Essays , by Iris Marion Young , 27–45. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

1. See also the companion, complementary piece by Pelagia Goulimari, “Genders,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature (March 2020).

2. Sylvia Tamale, ed., African Sexualities: A Reader (Oxford: Pambazuka, 2011).

3. Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006); Alison Bechdel, Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama (London: Jonathan Cape, 2012); Anne Carson, Antigonick , ill. Bianca Stone (Tarset: Bloodaxe, 2012); Maggie Nelson, Jane: A Murder (London: Zed Books, 2019); Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts (London: Melville House, 2016); and Paul B. Preciado, Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era , trans. Bruce Benderson (New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2013).

4. Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, Aurora Leigh , new ed., ed. Kerry McSweeney (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (London: Penguin, 2004); Julia Kristeva, “Stabat Mater,” trans. Arthur Goldhammer, Poetics Today 6.1–2 (January 1985): 133–152; Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time (London: Women’s Press, 2000); Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name; A Biomythography (London: Penguin, 2018); Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues: A Novel (Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1993); Chris Kraus, I Love Dick (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2016); and Qurratulain Hyder, Fireflies in the Mist (New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2008).

5. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex , trans. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier (London: Vintage, 2011), 293 .

6. For example, the situation of women is a form of “slavery of half of humanity” and Beauvoir calls for its abolition; Beauvoir, The Second Sex , 782.

7. For example, “every existent [human being] is at once immanence and transcendence,” Beauvoir, The Second Sex , 276; if woman is flesh for man, “man is also flesh for woman; and woman is other than a carnal object” (277); “The same drama of flesh and spirit, and of finitude and transcendence, plays itself out in both sexes,” and both sexes should assume the “ambiguity” of their situation (779–780). See also Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity , trans. Bernard Frechtman (New York: Philosophical Library, 2015).

8. See further Pelagia Goulimari, Literary Criticism and Theory: From Plato to Postcolonialism (London: Routledge, 2015), ch. 10.

9. See Michèle Le Doeuff, Hipparchia’s Choice: An Essay Concerning Women, Philosophy, etc ., trans. Trista Selous (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 60.

10. Beauvoir, The Second Sex , 672, 654, 663, 672. This description by Beauvoir is the starting point for Iris Marion Young’s work. Beauvoir adds that, lacking the means to grasp the world, a woman might offer herself as a “gift” (679). Hélène Cixous will return to this offering and reappraise it more positively in “The Laugh of the Medusa,” trans. Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen, Signs 1, no. 4 (Summer 1976): 875–893.

11. Beauvoir, The Second Sex , 4, 12, 15, 654.

12. Beauvoir, The Second Sex , 8.

13. Beauvoir, The Second Sex , 9.

14. Beauvoir, The Second Sex , 680.

15. Le Doeuff, Hipparchia’s Choice , 57.

16. See, for example, the section on D. H. Lawrence in Beauvoir, The Second Sex , 236–244.

17. Beauvoir, The Second Sex , 767.

18. Beauvoir, The Second Sex , 762, 765, 762, 766.

19. Beauvoir, The Second Sex , 767. For example, Hélène Cixous and Catherine Clément echo Beauvoir in their book, The Newly Born Woman , trans. Betsy Wing (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986).

20. “[T]ruth itself is ambiguity,” Beauvoir, The Second Sex , 763.

21. Iris Marion Young, “Throwing Like a Girl,” in On Female Body Experience: “Throwing Like a Girl” and Other Essays , by Iris Marion Young (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 27–45, 30.

22. Young, “Throwing Like a Girl,” 35.

23. Young, “Throwing Like a Girl,” 29, 35, 30.

24. Young, “Throwing Like a Girl,” 35–36 (emphasis added).

25. Young, “Throwing Like a Girl,” 37. Alia Al-Saji will adopt Young’s discussion of hesitation to build her own phenomenology of hesitation.

26. Young, “Throwing Like a Girl,” 39 (emphasis added).

27. Young, “Throwing Like a Girl,” 40.

28. Young, “Throwing Like a Girl,” 40–41.

29. Young, “Throwing Like a Girl,” 44.

30. Young, “Throwing Like a Girl,” 45.

31. Young, “Throwing Like a Girl,” 43.

32. For example, Dianne Chisholm claims that Young’s phenomenological description is out of date and no longer relevant. Dianne Chisholm, “Climbing Like a Girl: An Exemplary Adventure in Feminist Phenomenology,” Hypatia 23, no. 1 (January–March 2008): 9–40.

33. Luce Irigaray, Speculum of the Other Woman , trans. Gillian C. Gill (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985); Luce Irigaray, “This Sex Which Is Not One,” in This Sex Which Is Not One , trans. Catherine Porter with Carolyn Burke, by Luce Irigaray (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), 23–33; Luce Irigaray, “The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine,” in This Sex Which Is Not One , trans. Catherine Porter with Carolyn Burke, by Luce Irigaray (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), 68–85; and Cixous, “Laugh of the Medusa.”

34. Luce Irigaray, “Equal or Different?,” trans. David Macey, in The Irigaray Reader , ed. Margaret Whitford (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 30–33, 32.

35. Irigaray, “Equal or Different?,” 32–33.

36. Toril Moi, “‘Independent Women’ and Narratives of Liberation,” in Simone de Beauvoir: A Critical Reader , ed. Elizabeth Fallaize (London: Routledge, 1998), 72–92, 86.

37. Moi, “Independent Women,” 87–88.

38. Toril Moi, “‘ I Am Not a Woman Writer’: About Women, Literature and Feminist Theory Today ,” Eurozine (June 2009), 8 (emphasis added).

39. Moi, “I Am Not a Woman Writer,” 6, quoting Beauvoir, translation amended by Moi.

40. Moi, “I Am Not a Woman Writer,” 7.

41. Moi, “I Am Not a Woman Writer,” 7 (emphasis added).

42. Michèle Le Doeuff, “Engaging with Simone de Beauvoir,” in The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir , ed. Margaret A. Simons (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 11–19, 12.

43. Simone de Beauvoir, The Prime of Life , trans. Peter Green (London: Penguin, 2001).

44. Beauvoir quoted in Miranda Fricker, “Life-Story in Beauvoir’s Memoirs,” in The Cambridge Companion to Simone de Beauvoir , ed. Claudia Card (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 208–227, 219, 225.

45. Beauvoir quoted in Fricker, “Life-Story,” 223.

46. Fricker, “Life-Story,” 226.

47. Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 50–51.

48. Fricker, Epistemic Injustice , 50.

49. Fricker, Epistemic Injustice , 51.

50. Fricker, Epistemic Injustice , 150–152; see also 158–159.

51. Fricker, Epistemic Injustice , 169–175.

52. George Eliot, Mill on the Floss , ed. Gordon Sherman Haight (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). See Dorota Filipczak, “The Disavowal of the Female ‘Knower’: Reading Literature in the Light of Pamela Sue Anderson’s Project on Vulnerability,” in “Love and Vulnerability: Thinking with Pamela Sue Anderson,” ed. Pelagia Goulimari, special issue, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 25, no. 1–2 (February–April 2020): 156–164.

53. Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 90–91, 23.

54. Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology , 66.

55. Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology , 87.

56. Ahmed’s work is also informed by Michel Foucault on disciplinary practices producing capable but docile bodies and Pierre Bourdieu on the “habitus” (naturalized socio-cultural habits).

57. Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology , 101–102, 105 (emphasis added).

58. Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology , 106.

59. Sara Ahmed, “A Phenomenology of Whiteness,” Feminist Theory 8, no. 2 (August 2007): 149–168, 161.

60. Ahmed, “Phenomenology of Whiteness,” 161.

61. Ahmed, “Phenomenology of Whiteness,” 161.

62. Ahmed, “Phenomenology of Whiteness,” 163.

63. Ahmed, “Phenomenology of Whiteness,” 163.

64. See Sara Ahmed, What’s the Use? (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019).

65. Alia Al-Saji, “A Phenomenology of Hesitation: Interrupting Racialized Habits of Seeing,” in Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment , ed. Emily S. Lee (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014), 133–172, 138 .

66. Al-Saji, “Phenomenology of Hesitation,” 136.

67. Al-Saji, “Phenomenology of Hesitation,” 142.

68. Al-Saji, “Phenomenology of Hesitation,” 155.

69. Al-Saji, “Phenomenology of Hesitation,” 153 (emphasis added).

70. Al-Saji, “Phenomenology of Hesitation,” 154 (emphasis added).

71. Pamela Sue Anderson, “Creating a New Imaginary for Love in Religion,” in “Love and Vulnerability: Thinking with Pamela Sue Anderson,” ed. Pelagia Goulimari, special issue, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 25, no. 1–2 (February–April 2020): 46–53, 49 .

72. Pamela Sue Anderson, “Silencing and Speaker Vulnerability: Undoing an Oppressive Form of (Wilful) Ignorance,” in “Love and Vulnerability: Thinking with Pamela Sue Anderson,” ed. Pelagia Goulimari, special issue, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 25, no. 1–2 (February–April 2020): 36–45 .

73. See Akasha Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith, eds., All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies , 2nd ed. (New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2015). See also Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” in A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present , by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 284 .

74. Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (July 1991): 1241–1299 ; and Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought , rev. 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2000) .

75. See Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I a Woman?,” in Women in Culture: An Intersectional Anthology for Gender and Women’s Studies , ed. Bonnie Kime Scott et al., 2nd ed. (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2017); Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism , ed. Frances Smith Foster and Richard Yarborough, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2019); Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God , introd. Zadie Smith, afterword by Sherley Anne Williams (London: Virago, 2018); and Nella Larsen, Passing , ed. Thadious M. Davis (New York: Penguin, 2003).

76. Elaine Showalter, A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing , new ed. (London: Virago, 1999). See further Goulimari, Literary Criticism and Theory , ch. 9.

77. Indeed Barbara Christian argues that black women writers have had to include self-theorizing in their texts, becoming their own critics. Barbara Christian, “The Race for Theory,” Feminist Studies 14, no. 1 (April 1988): 67–79.

78. Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (London: Picador, 1990) .

79. Toni Morrison, “What the Black Woman Thinks about Women’s Lib,” in What Moves at the Margin: Selected Nonfiction , ed. Carolyn C. Denard (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2008), 18–30, 24.

80. Morrison, “What the Black Woman Thinks,” 18, 19.

81. Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (New York: Ten Speed Press, 2007). Also included in Audre Lorde, Your Silence Will Not Protect You , preface by Reni Eddo-Lodge, introd. Sara Ahmed (London: Silver Press, 2017) .

82. Lorde, Your Silence , 96.

83. Lorde, Your Silence , 113.

84. Lorde, Your Silence , 12.

85. Lorde, Your Silence , 29, and see the chapter “Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred and Anger.”

86. See “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism” in Lorde, Your Silence .

87. Lorde, Your Silence , 78.

88. See “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” in Lorde, Your Silence .

89. See “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” in Lorde, Your Silence .

90. Alice Walker, Color Purple (London: Women’s Press, 1983).

91. Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004) , xi (emphasis added).

92. Walker, In Search , xi (emphasis added).

93. Alice Walker, “Looking for Zora,” in In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose , by Alice Walker (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004), 93–118 .

94. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination , 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000) .

95. Hortense J. Spillers, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s May Be: An American Grammar Book,” Diacritics 17, no. 2 (Summer 1987): 64–81 .

96. Hurston, Their Eyes , 29.

97. Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982); Toni Morrison, Beloved (London: Picador, 1988); Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992); and Saidiya V. Hartman, Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) .

98. Hartman, Scenes of Subjection , 23, 36.

99. Hartman, Scenes of Subjection , 10 (emphasis added).

100. Saidiya V. Hartman, Lose Your Mother: A Journey along the Atlantic Slave Route (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008), 6.

101. Saidiya V. Hartman, “Venus in Two Acts,” Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 12, no. 2 (June 2008): 1–14, 12.

102. Hartman, “Venus,” 11–12.

103. Saidiya V. Hartman, “The Anarchy of Colored Girls Assembled in a Riotous Manner,” South Atlantic Quarterly 117, no. 3 (July 2018): 465–490, 470, 486.

104. Hartman, “Anarchy,” 471, 473.

105. Hartman, “Anarchy,” 474, 486 (emphasis added).

106. Hartman, “Anarchy,” 471, 470 (emphasis added).

107. Hartman, “Anarchy,” 469, 466, 471.

108. Hartman, “Anarchy,” 471. See further Saidiya V. Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval (New York: W. W. Norton, 2019).

109. Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather (London: Routledge, 1995), 6.

110. H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon’s Mines , ed. Robert Hampson (London: Penguin, 2007), 24.

111. Assia Djebar, Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade , trans. Dorothy S. Blair (London: Quartet, 1989).

112. Djebar, Fantasia , 6, 8.

113. McClintock, Imperial Leather , 45.

114. Assia Djebar, Women of Algiers in Their Apartment , trans. Marjolijn De Jager (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992) .

115. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” 309. Delivered as a lecture in 1983, it was published in different versions of varying length. This article discusses the version in Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999) .

116. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” 271.

117. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” 270.

118. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” 267.

119. See Goulimari, Literary Criticism and Theory , ch. 11. See also Hartman on singularity, as discussed in the section “ African American Feminisms (Morrison, Lorde, Walker, Spillers, Hartman): Race, Intersectionality, Differences among Women and among Black Women ” in this article.

120. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” 307, 273.

121. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” 309.

122. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” 310.

123. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” 283, 284.

124. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism,” Critical Inquiry 12, no. 1 (October 1985): 243–261, 243; and Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre , 3rd ed., ed. Jane Jack and Margaret Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

125. Spivak, “Three Women’s Texts,” 251.

126. Spivak, “Three Women’s Texts,” 248.

127. Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea , ed. Angela Smith (London: Penguin, 1997).

128. Spivak, “Three Women’s Texts,” 249.

129. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,” boundary 2 12–13 (Spring–Autumn 1984): 333–358 .

130. Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes,” 333.

131. Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes,” 344.

132. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 39 (emphasis added).

133. Saba Mahmood, “Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival,” Cultural Anthropology 16, no. 2 (May 2001): 202–236 .

134. Mahmood, “Feminist Theory,” 202.

135. Mahmood, “Feminist Theory,” 217.

136. Mahmood, “Feminist Theory,” 205.

137. Mahmood, “Feminist Theory,” 224.

138. Florence Stratton, Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender (London: Routledge, 1994), 1.

139. Stratton, Contemporary African Literature , 10.

140. Stratton, Contemporary African Literature , 18.

141. Florence Stratton, “Periodic Embodiments: A Ubiquitous Trope in African Men’s Writing,” Research in African Literatures 21, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 111–126, 112 .

142. Stratton, Contemporary African Literature , 11.

143. Stratton, Contemporary African Literature , 11.

144. Jasbir K. Puar, “Queer Times, Queer Assemblages,” Social Text 23.3–4 (2005): 121–139, 122 (emphasis added).

145. Puar, “Queer Times,” 131.

146. Puar, “Queer Times,” 122, 121.

147. Puar, “Queer Times,” 126.

148. Puar, “Queer Times,” 126.

149. See, for example, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire , 30th anniversary ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015).

150. See Eileen Myles, “ The Lady Who Appears to Be a Gentleman ,” Harper’s Magazine , June 2019.

151. Beauvoir, The Second Sex , 293.

152. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990), 140, 139–140.

153. Butler, Gender Trouble , 137 (emphasis added).

154. Butler, Gender Trouble , 138, 141.

155. Judith Butler, “Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of ‘Postmodernism,’” in Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange , by Seyla Benhabib, et al. (New York: Routledge, 1995), 35–58, 50–51.

156. Butler, “Contingent Foundations,” 49.

157. Butler, “Contingent Foundations,” 50.

158. Butler, “Contingent Foundations,” 39.

159. Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter (London: Routledge, 1993), 38; and Luce Irigaray, “When Our Lips Speak Together,” in This Sex Which Is Not One , trans. Catherine Porter with Carolyn Burke, by Luce Irigaray (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), 205–218 .

160. Butler, Bodies That Matter , 46 (emphasis added).

161. Butler, Bodies That Matter , 37 (emphasis added).

162. Butler, Bodies That Matter , 39, 41 (emphasis added).

163. Butler, Bodies That Matter , 46.

164. Butler, Bodies That Matter , 37, 42.

165. Butler, Bodies That Matter , 49.

166. Butler, Bodies That Matter , 167 (emphasis added).

167. Nella Larsen, Passing , ed. Thadious M. Davis (New York: Penguin, 2003); and Butler, Bodies That Matter , 182 (emphasis added).

168. Butler, Bodies That Matter , 178.

169. Butler, Bodies That Matter , 183; and Toni Morrison, Sula (London: Picador, 1991).

170. Butler, Bodies That Matter , 181–182.

171. Butler, Bodies That Matter , 182.

172. Butler, Bodies That Matter , 169.

173. Butler, Bodies That Matter , 175.

174. Butler, Bodies That Matter , 176.

175. See Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London: Verso, 2004); and Judith Butler, Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? (London: Verso, 2016).

176. Susan Stryker, “My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix,” GLQ 1, no. 3 (1994): 237–254 , 241. See also 251n2: “transgender” as “an umbrella term that refers to all identities or practices that cross over, cut across, move between, or otherwise queer socially constructed sex/gender boundaries.”

177. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein , 2nd ed., ed. J. Paul Hunter (London: W. W. Norton, 2012).

178. Stryker, “My Words,” 242.

179. Stryker, “My Words,” 244.

180. Jack Halberstam, Female Masculinity , 20th anniversary ed. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018), 171 .

181. Halberstam, Female Masculinity , 170.

182. Halberstam, Female Masculinity , 173.

183. Halberstam, Female Masculinity , xii.

184. Halberstam, Female Masculinity , xx, xxi.

185. Halberstam, Female Masculinity , xx.

186. Jack Halberstam, Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability (Oakland: University of California Press, 2018), 95, 52–53, 4.

187. Jack Halberstam and Tavia Nyong’o, “Introduction: Theory in the Wild,” in “Wildness,” ed. Jack Halberstam and Tavia Nyong’o, special issue, South Atlantic Quarterly 117, no. 3 (July 2018): 453–464, 462.

188. Susan Stryker, “Transgender Studies: Queer Theory’s Evil Twin,” GLQ 10, no. 2 (2004): 212–215, 214.

189. Stryker, “Transgender Studies,” 212.

190. Stryker, “Transgender Studies,” 214–215.

191. Susan Stryker, “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges: An Introduction to Transgender Studies,” in The Transgender Studies Reader , ed. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle (London: Routledge, 2006), 1–18, 1.

192. Stryker, “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges,” 3.

193. Stryker, “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges,” 7.

194. Stryker, “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges,” 7.

195. Stryker, “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges,” 14–15.

196. Arundati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2017). On the expression of third-gender and non-normative gender identities in non-Western cultures, see, for example, the Rae-rae (Tahitian trans women), Faʻafafine (Samoan third gender), and Māhū (Polynesian “middle” or third gender).

197. Stryker, “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges,” 8.

198. Stryker, “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges,” 9.

199. Stryker, “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges,” 9.

200. Stryker, “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges,” 13, 3.

201. Stryker, “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges,” 14.

202. Stryker, “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges,” 12.

203. Stryker, “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges,” 12, 13, 10, 7.

204. Stryker, “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges,” 12.

205. Stryker, “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges,” 13.

206. Stryker, “(De)Subjectivated Knowledges,” 13.

Related Articles

• Affect Studies
• Lesbian Poetics
• Identity Technologies
• Theorizing the Subject
• Sexualities

Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Literature. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 12 June 2024

• Cookie Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Legal Notice
• Accessibility
• [185.148.24.167]
• 185.148.24.167

Character limit 500 /500

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

22 An Introduction to Feminist Theory

Brittany John; Caitlin Andreasen; Ryan French; and Katherine Whitcomb

Feminist criticism dates back to well before our time.  Although women’s movements in the 1960s and 1970s sparked a contemporary feminist criticism, texts that were written much earlier call for a certain feminist critique.  The feminist movements of the 1960s and 70s were calling attention to the unfortunate female experiences under male power.  There was a shift in feminist critique and theory by the 1980s that Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar helped move into action.  Before the 1980s, feminist theory was more about the stereotypes that men had against females, and after the 1980s, feminist theory was more about the rearranging of forms that were seen as “feminine”, like a diary.  There were two kinds of feminists: liberal and radical.  The liberal feminists believed that, ultimately, gender was something that was constructed, and feminism should go outside of that construct that was built around them.  The radical feminists believed that there was a certain female essence, and that essence should be embraced by women.  These two types of feminists would lead into the two of the key ideas of feminist theory today: essentialist and constructivist.

Essentialist feminism is concerned with the inherent differences between men and women.  Taking root in psychoanalytic theory, the essentialist feminists believed that gender reflects a natural difference between men and women.  They believed this difference is as much psychological and linguistic as it is biological.

Essentialist feminists thought that women’s physical differences made them more attached to the physical world.  They believed this attachment made them more concerned with protecting nature than men.  Men, on the other hand, once separated from the mother, begin thinking in abstractions which allow them to assign identities and social roles to themselves and others.  While men think of rights while confronted with ethical issues, women think of responsibilities to others.

Constructivist feminism, on the other hand, has roots in Marxism. The constructivist feminists believe that gender is formed by culture in history.  They believe that patriarchal culture constructed gender identities with the intention to make men seem superior to women.  While essentialist feminists see female identity and psychology as inherently different from men, constructivist feminists see these differences as products of conditioning.

Another major duality in the feminist theory is the dynamic between the “angel” and the “monster” in female characters. The “angel” is described as a female character who is the perfect Victorian wife.  She is devoted to her husband/lover and she is selfless.  The “angel” is seen as virginal and pure, passive and ordinary, submissive and powerless, with no real story of her own and no story to set herself apart.

The “monster” in feminist theory is described as being able to express her desires and have an opinion of her own.  She has a sexual energy, and she shows a certain autonomy, authority, and aggressiveness.  The “monster” threatens to take the angels place, as she is the angel’s “mirror image” or “sister”.  Rivkin and Ryan argue that the monster can sometimes lie within the angel, and that no woman is inherently angelic.  This dynamic has been used in literature for years, and now, more contemporarily, used in film and television.

The four main points of the feminism theory are the differences between constructivist feminism and essentialist feminism, and the dynamic between the female “angel” and “monster” characters in a literary context.  One of the takeaways is that a constructivist feminist would say that gender is a construct formed by culture in history, and an essentialist feminist would say that gender reflects a natural difference between men and women.  The other takeaway is the importance of remembering that the “monster” sometimes lies within the “angel”, and that no woman is purely an “angel”.

Gilbert, Sandra, and Susan Gubar. “The Madwoman in the Attic.”  Literary Theory, an Anthology , by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, Blackwell, 1998.

The Student Theorist: An Open Handbook of Collective College Theory Copyright © 2018 by Brittany John; Caitlin Andreasen; Ryan French; and Katherine Whitcomb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Feminism: An Essay

Feminism: An Essay

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on April 27, 2016 • ( 6 )

Feminism as a movement gained potential in the twentieth century, marking the culmination of two centuries’ struggle for cultural roles and socio-political rights — a struggle which first found its expression in Mary Wollstonecraft ‘s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). The movement gained increasing prominence across three phases/waves — the first wave (political), the second wave (cultural) and the third wave (academic). Incidentally Toril Moi also classifies the feminist movement into three phases — the female (biological), the feminist (political) and the feminine (cultural).

The first wave of feminism, in the 19th and 20th centuries, began in the US and the UK as a struggle for equality and property rights for women, by suffrage groups and activist organisations. These feminists fought against chattel marriages and for polit ical and economic equality. An important text of the first wave is Virginia Woolf ‘s A Room of One’s Own (1929), which asserted the importance of woman’s independence, and through the character Judith (Shakespeare’s fictional sister), explicated how the patriarchal society prevented women from realising their creative potential. Woolf also inaugurated the debate of language being gendered — an issue which was later dealt by Dale Spender who wrote Man Made Language (1981), Helene Cixous , who introduced ecriture feminine (in The Laugh of the Medusa ) and Julia Kristeva , who distinguished between the symbolic and the semiotic language.

The second wave of feminism in the 1960s and ’70s, was characterized by a critique of patriarchy in constructing the cultural identity of woman. Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1949) famously stated, “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman” – a statement that highlights the fact that women have always been defined as the “Other”, the lacking, the negative, on whom Freud attributed “ penis-envy .” A prominent motto of this phase, “The Personal is the political” was the result of the awareness .of the false distinction between women’s domestic and men’s public spheres. Transcending their domestic and personal spaces, women began to venture into the hitherto male dominated terrains of career and public life. Marking its entry into the academic realm, the presence of feminism was reflected in journals, publishing houses and academic disciplines.

Mary Ellmann ‘s Thinking about Women (1968), Kate Millett ‘s Sexual Politics (1969), Betty Friedan ‘s The Feminine Mystique (1963) and so on mark the major works of the phase. Millett’s work specifically depicts how western social institutions work as covert ways of manipulating power, and how this permeates into literature, philosophy etc. She undertakes a thorough critical understanding of the portrayal of women in the works of male authors like DH Lawrence, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller and Jean Genet.

In the third wave (post 1980), Feminism has been actively involved in academics with its interdisciplinary associations with Marxism , Psychoanalysis and Poststructuralism , dealing with issues such as language, writing, sexuality, representation etc. It also has associations with alternate sexualities, postcolonialism ( Linda Hutcheon and Spivak ) and Ecological Studies ( Vandana Shiva )

Elaine Showalter , in her “ Towards a Feminist Poetics ” introduces the concept of gynocriticism , a criticism of gynotexts, by women who are not passive consumers but active producers of meaning. The gynocritics construct a female framework for the analysis of women’s literature, and focus on female subjectivity, language and literary career. Patricia Spacks ‘ The Female Imagination , Showalter’s A Literature of their Own , Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar ‘s The Mad Woman in the Attic are major gynocritical texts.

The present day feminism in its diverse and various forms, such as liberal feminism, cultural/ radical feminism, black feminism/womanism, materialist/neo-marxist feminism, continues its struggle for a better world for women. Beyond literature and literary theory, Feminism also found radical expression in arts, painting ( Kiki Smith , Barbara Kruger ), architecture( Sophia Hayden the architect of Woman’s Building ) and sculpture (Kate Mllett’s Naked Lady).

Share this:

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: A Literature of their Own , A Room of One's Own , Barbara Kruger , Betty Friedan , Dale Spender , ecriture feminine , Elaine Showalter , Feminism , Gynocriticism , Helene Cixous , http://bookzz.org/s/?q=Kate+Millett&yearFrom=&yearTo=&language=&extension=&t=0 , Judith Shakespeare , Julia Kristeva , Kate Millett , Kiki Smith , Literary Criticism , Literary Theory , Man Made Language , Mary Ellmann , Mary Wollstonecraft , Patricia Spacks , Sandra Gilbert , Simone de Beauvoir , Sophia Hayden , Susan Gubar , The Female Imagination , The Feminine Mystique , The Laugh of the Medusa , The Mad Woman in the Attic , The Second Sex , Toril Moi , Towards a Feminist Poetics , Vandana Shiva , Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Related Articles

• Mary Wollstonecraft’s Contribution to Feminism – Literary Theory and Criticism Notes
• Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics – Literary Theory and Criticism Notes
• The Influence of Poststructuralism on Feminism – Literary Theory and Criticism Notes
• Sigmund Freud and the Trauma Theory – Literary Theory and Criticism Notes
• Gender and Transgender Criticism – Literary Theory and Criticism Notes
• Second Wave Feminism – Literary Theory and Criticism Notes

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

• Directories
• General Literary Theory & Criticism Resources
• African Diaspora Studies
• Critical Disability Studies
• Critical Race Theory
• Deconstruction and Poststructuralism
• Ecocriticism
• Feminist Theory
• Indigenous Literary Studies
• Marxist Literary Criticism
• Narratology
• New Historicism
• Postcolonial Theory
• Psychoanalytic Criticism
• Queer and Trans Theory
• Structuralism and Semiotics
• How Do I Use Literary Criticism and Theory?
• Start Your Research
• Research Guides
• University of Washington Libraries
• Library Guides
• UW Libraries
• Literary Research

Literary Research: Feminist Theory

What is feminist theory.

"An extension of feminism’s critique of male power and ideology, feminist theory combines elements of other theoretical models such as psychoanalysis, Marxism, poststructuralism, and deconstruction to interrogate the role of gender in the writing, interpretation, and dissemination of literary texts. Originally concerned with the politics of women’s authorship and representations of women in literature, feminist theory has recently begun to examine ideas of gender and sexuality across a wide range of disciplines including film studies, geography, and even economics."

Brief Overviews:

• Feminism (Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory)
• Feminism (Routledge Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory)
• Feminist Literary Theory (Feminism in Literature: A Gale Critical Companion)
• Feminist Theory (Literary Theory Handbook)
• Feminist Theory (Oxford Research Encyclopedias)

Notable Scholars:

Luce Irigaray

• Irigaray, Luce., and Margaret Whitford.  The Irigaray Reader . Basil Blackwell, 1991.
• Irigaray, Luce, and Gillian Gill. Speculum of the Other Woman . Cornell University Press, 1985.
• Irigaray, Luce., and Carolyn Burke. This Sex Which Is Not One . Cornell University Press, 1985.

Julia Kristeva

• Kristeva, Julia, and Toril. Moi. The Kristeva Reader. Basil Blackwell, 1986.
• Kristeva, Julia, et al. Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. Columbia University Press, 1980.

Kate Millett

• Millett, Kate. Sexual Politics . Doubleday, 1970.

Jennifer Nash

• Nash, Jennifer C. Birthing Black Mothers. Duke University Press, 2021.
• Nash, Jennifer C. The Black Body in Ecstasy: Reading Race, Reading Pornography . Duke University Press, 2014.
• Nash, Jennifer C. Black Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality . Duke University Press, 2019.

Christina Sharpe

• Sharpe, Christina Elizabeth. In the Wake: In Blackness and Being . Duke University Press, 2016.
• Sharpe, Christina Elizabeth. Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects . Duke University Press, 2010.

Elaine Showalter

• Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing .  Princeton University Press, 1999.

Hortense Spillers

• Spillers, Hortense J. Black, White, and in Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture . University of Chicago Press, 2003.
• Pryse, Marjorie, and Hortense J. Spillers. Conjuring: Black Women, Fiction, and Literary Tradition . Indiana University Press, 1985.

Introductions & Anthologies

Also see other  recent eBooks discussing or using feminist theory in literature and scholar-recommended sources on Julia Kristeva  and Luce Irigaray via Oxford Bibliographies.

Definition from: " Feminist Theory ." Glossary of Poetic Terms. Poetry Foundation.(24 July 2023)

• << Previous: Ecocriticism
• Next: Formalism >>
• Last Updated: May 16, 2024 1:27 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.uw.edu/research/literaryresearch

Feminism - Essay Samples And Topic Ideas For Free

Feminism has been a driving force in advocating for equality and women’s rights. Through feminist arguments, the movement challenges societal norms and promotes women empowerment. Persuasive and argumentative essays on feminism serve as powerful tools to raise awareness and spark change. These papers delve into feminist topics for essays, addressing issues such as gender inequality, reproductive justice, and much more.

When creating a research paper on feminism, it is essential to develop compelling titles that capture the essence of the study. They should reflect the critical nature of the topic and engage readers from the outset. Also, strong thesis statements are crucial in guiding the research and presenting a clear argument. They set the tone for the entire paper and highlight the significance of the investigation question. Papers on feminism shed light on the challenges faced by women and provide evidence-based arguments to support feminist claims. With a clear outline, they present a well-structured and organized discussion on various feminist topics.

The Essay introduction and conclusion are crucial elements in exploring and analyzing the complex and evolving topic. An introduction serves as an opportunity to provide background information about the feminist movement, its historical context, and the specific focus of the essay. By summarizing the main arguments and findings, the conclusion reaffirms the significance of your study. Integrating essay examples about feminism in the introduction and conclusion strengthens the essay as a whole. It provides concrete evidence and relevant narratives. They serve as powerful illustrations of feminist ideologies, struggles, and achievements.

Feminism of Romeo and Juliet

Introduction The idea that playwright, William Shakespeare, tends to write within the gender expectations of saintly maidens or widowed hags in esteem of his female characters is not a new concept, as essentially all of his female characters face some sort of grievance either at the will of or by submitting to the strict patriarchal expectations of their time. Many would concur that Juliet Capulet in Romeo and Juliet is not any different. She is particularly childish and fickle, and […]

Feminism in a Doll’s House

Feminism is the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of being politically, socially, and economically equal to men. In the nineteenth century, women were viewed as secondary to men and had little rights. In 1890, married women were given the right to control their own wealth, and in 1882 women finally were given access to higher education. During the time that Ibsen wrote A Doll House, he lived in a patriarchal society which we can tell as we read […]

Women’s Rights in the United States in the 1970s

In the 1940’s-1960’s, there was a blurred distinction between clinical and sexual exams within the medical field (Wendy Kline, She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry). For example, many male doctors would provide pelvic exams as a means to teach women sex instruction, and were taught to assert their power over their patients. This led to women instituting new training programs for proper examinations, creating a more gentle and greatly-respected method of examining women and their bodies. There was also an increase […]

We will write an essay sample crafted to your needs.

Gender Inequality and Feminism

Gender inequality is a concept which has been occurring over a number of years and due to gender differences it fuels up gender inequality, which gave rise to gender socialization. Gender socialization is the process of learning gender roles which emerge from society and nowadays social media, throughout this process men and women learn their roles in society. The most common attribute we ascribe to women is that they can be vulnerable and sensitive, on the other hand, men hear […]

Expressing Feminism in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Background Information Jane Austen was an English novelist born in Hampshire, South of England on 16th December in 1775. She was very close to Cassandra, her sister. When together, the two would share a bedroom but when apart they would write to each other almost every. After Jane's death on 18th July 1817, her sister testified how the two loved each other, ""she was gilder of every pleasure, the sun of my life, and the soother of sorrow"" (Bendit 245). […]

Mona Lisa Smile

The 2003 romance movie, "Mona Lisa Smile," directed by Mike Newell, portrays a recent UCLA graduate female art history professor named Katherine Watson. She is hired at the prestigious all-female Wellesley College, in 1953 to teach an art history class to a classroom full of hardworking and demanding young girls, determined to make her feel unwelcome. The girls who attend Wellesley are from some of the most wealthy, influential, and upper-class families in Massachusetts. Despite all the hardships and judgmental […]

About Feminism in Hamlet

Ophelia agrees to take Laertes’s advice. She agrees to take his advice because she knows nothing else than to listen a man. She is dependent on men and continues to do whatever they tell her. She saids “this is a good lesson keep, As a watchman to my heart.” (1.3.51) She sees it as he is looking out for her, which he is but it reality he is demanding her to stay away from Hamlet to keep her purity. Laertes […]

Gladwell Outliers, Privilege Video, Intersectional Feminism

Race, gender, and conversation are controversial issues among most Americans, especially Blacks. For instance, the "Safe Space to Brave Space" article calls for freedom of speech. Comparatively, Chapter 3 of Gladwell presents a story about Christopher Langan which focuses on geniuses; children possessing innate genius, yet racism, conversation issues, and poverty caused Langan's misery. This concept is therefore incongruent with the privilege video's details where backgrounds tremendously influence people's social and economic welfare. The "Safe Space to Brave Space" article […]

Femininism and Masculinity in Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House”

For a considerable amount of the literature in English language, sex and gender are shown to be equitable with certain human traits. Strength is defined as a predominantly male trait while weakness is shown as the female one. Men are depicted as stable while women are shown as impulsive and unpredictable. Logic is shown as masculine while imagination is equated with femininity. It is often possible to identify a character as female or male by simply judging the behavior of […]

Feminism is for Everybody Themes of Feminism Marriage and Respect Found in a Doll’s House

The late, great Maya Angelou once said, ""You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them."" This idea is one that is clearly embraced my Nora Helmer in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House, a dramatic script filled with many heavy themes that leave a reader questioning their views on some rather hot topics. Feminism reigns supreme in the play, as the rights to equality for womankind are demanded, […]

Feminism in the Yellow Wallpaper and the Story of an Hour

Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, the protagonist is described as a woman of the 1800’s facing oppression by male dominance. In comparison, the protagonist from Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour”, experiences the same oppression. Both protagonists are dealing with some type of loss over the course of their short story, but in contrast the effectiveness of their loss differs on opposite ends of the spectrum. Ultimately both protagonists are portrayed as women who experience […]

“Pride and Prejudice” Satire

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is famous for satirizing society's rules and for exaggerating the extent to which they impact people. Although Austen is parodying the class structure in society throughout the whole novel, she is also enforcing the importance of self-awareness. Austen exaggerates the interactions between high and low status people because it ridicules society's rules. She condemns characters like Mr. Collins and Lady Catherine because of their inability to reject society's norms, and rewards Elizabeth because she is […]

Three Waves of Feminism

Women are a huge part of our Nation’s history. From stories of our Great American Heroes, to the patriotic American Flag itself, women have been a driving factor in the uprising of America. There was a time when women did not have rights, Which created the wills of Feminists. Historic Feminists such as Sojourner Truth, Betty Friedan, And Susan B. Anthony are the reason why the country is shaped how it is for women today. Their fight for civil justice […]

Feminism in Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is a critique of gender roles, during the early Victorian era. Brontë clearly reveals her feminist voice before the first wave of the feminist movement, which took place in the late 19th century. Brontë critiques gender roles with the binary appeal of the female and male main and secondary characters, throughout this work. During the early Victorian Era, the world was starting to change at an exponential rate. Traditional values, while still intact, became more flexible and education […]

The Yellow Wallpaper Feminism

Any literary work intends to evoke some profound feelings and impressions that readers link to their personal experience and reality around. Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents a feminist gothic story “The Yellow Wallpaper” that discloses the issues of female suffering and lack of freedom in the patriarchal society that limits women’s choices and desires. The protagonist faces discrimination and neglect that result in her physical and psychological breakdown, broken illusions about self-identity, and madness as a response to inside and outside […]

Feminism in the Handmaid’s Tale

According to the Oxford Dictionary, feminism is the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes (Oxford Dictionary). Despite many gender equality laws being passed and feminist movements being initiated in the late twentieth century, women were still struggling to achieve their rights. In the 1980s, a “third wave” of feminism began (Burkett & Brunell), which focused on intersectionality—the idea that women experienced layers of oppression caused by gender inequality (Zack). In interviews given around […]

Women in World War II

Many changes in the United States occurred with the start of World War II. These changes were heavily influenced by society, propaganda, and different kinds of advertising. One major change was the drastic shift of traditionally male jobs being taken over by women as a great number of men went off to fight in the war. This may seem like a step in the right direction for gender equality, but when the war concluded, women were expected to hand their […]

Feminism Represented through Frankenstein Characters

Frankenstein is known all over for being about a monster that loses control and kills people, but no one talks about some of the topics that Mary Shelley portrays in the novel. This book seems male dominant. The females play a big role, but not in the way that big roles are usually played. Women seem to hide from playing a part in Frankenstein, but Mary Shelley finds a way to display feminism in the book and that is how […]

Feminism in Frankenstein

When you hear the name Frankenstein you immediately think of a tall green monster, yet the name that the monster was called by everyone today is not the real name of this monster, it doesn't even have an actual name, Frankenstein is the name of the creator Victor. It may be questioned that why is this long time ago when the monster was created, in 1818 still talked about today. Many people today recreate the story of Frankenstein and tell […]

Short Essay on Feminism

Feminism is defined by the dictionary as “the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes,” but I believe it’s a lot more than that. I believe feminism is a way of life, a way of seeing more than just male and female. It is seeing people as a whole, regardless of their gender. Feminism isn’t only about equality for women, yes it might have started as such, but it opened up our eyes to […]

Dracula: Sexism and Feminism

Bram Stoker’s, Dracula portrays women that are in a vampiric state as more powerful than regular human women. Stoker shows how the women are subordinate by detailing the three sisters, Lucy Westenra and Mina Murray. In this novel their desires and lust are demonstrated from chapter to chapter. Stoker presents the New Woman and the Victorian Woman. Stoker also demonstrates and tells why the Victorian Woman would be the ideal woman for everyone. Sexism and feminism are described in Lucy […]

Elizabeth Stanton’s Impact on Women’s Rights Movement

Abstract For centuries, there have been several social issues that have been resolved by the actions of pioneers who stood for change. Whether the goal was to resolve violent bigotry or give equal rights to those without, these changes were vital in shaping our nation today. With every development in the system, more people became pursuant in advocating for change. The topic that will be discussed in this analysis revolves around the women's rights movement. The greatest advocate for the […]

The Problems with Modern Feminism Today

Since 1920 a society has changed, but have the effects of modern feminism created a counter-productive culture? Our society has taken a turn from worse to increasingly better. There are countless women using terms such as “mansplaining” to try and shut down anything factual that a man has to say (Goodwin 1). The pink tax is built on the belief that women are charged more for products when statistically it’s just marketing. Feminists complain of the gender wage gap, but […]

Beyonce Feminism Independent Woman in her Song

According to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, as used in Beyonce’s song, a feminist is “a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality between the sexes.” Yet, women have always been and still are subject to oppression: in our daily lives, literature, science, and in music. Yes, modern-day girls and women are able to live a much more free and comfortable life than those before us, but we still aren’t equal to our male counterparts. The difference today is […]

Why we Still Need Feminism

Many people think that with how far we gotten in certain aspects that we no longer need feminism but not all women are blessed with these opportunities, many people forget about women in other countries that aren't as progressive like the United states and Canada. There are still societal issues within the modern age. Many people who feel like feminism is no longer needed forgot about women in other countries, those are the women who need it the most because […]

“Their Eyes were Watching God”: Feminism and the Embracement of Self Love

“Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression.”- Bell Hook. This definition is the embodiment of the feminist revolution, which is very prominent in the novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston. In the novel the main character, Janie, is essentially on a journey to find her true self. Janie is an attractive, confident, middle-aged black woman, who returns to Eatonville after leaving for a long time. She experiences her first loss of innocence […]

Women’s Rights in America

Throughout the sixties until this very day, woman have been actively trying to take charge of their future by securing the same rights that men have. Issues commonly associated with women's rights include the rights to: bodily integrity, to be free from sexual violence, to vote, enter legal contracts, to work, to fair wages or equal pay, to have reproductive rights, own property, obtain an education. The Womens's Rights movement of the 1960's and 1970's has changed the course of […]

Feminism in Medea

Throughout history, the focus of media and literature was on "his"tory and rarely on "her"story. Majority of the protagonist in literature and popular media have been males. Nevertheless, not all works of literature focused on a male protagonist, for example in Euripides "Medea", Medea was portrayed as a strong female protagonist with modern feminist characteristics, she can be rivaled to Odysseus from the great Greek Epic, "The Odyssey" by Homer in terms of the intelligence, a difference between the protagonists' […]

About the Waves of Feminism

Women in the western societies have long fought for their rights and questioned the position the society had chosen to give them. This involved their rights in the political, social and economic spheres of the society which always seemed to favor men and ensured their superiority over women. This paper will discuss the topic of why women have been given less importance in all the important public spheres of the society, the different waves of feminism and how these problems […]

Fashion and Feminism

The late 1700s through early 1800s saw a major shift from huge Victorian dresses with extensive undergarments to thinner Greek-inspired forms. This change occurred as a direct result of America's independence from British rule. The idea behind this shift was to appear less British and more democratic, hence why inspiration was drawn from the democratic Greeks. This led to greater freedom of movement for women, both physically and socially. In 1851, Amelia Bloomer introduced "bloomers," the first form of women's […]

Related topic

Additional example essays.

• Gender Inequality in the Workplace
• Rhetorical Analysis of Roxane Gay’s “Bad Feminist”
• Feminist Criticism on Chopin's The Story of an Hour
• Love in L.A. by Dagoberto Gilb: Power, Gender, and Reality
• Gender Roles in the Great Gatsby
• Is Sexual Orientation Determined At Birth?
• Gender Inequality in the Medical Field
• Letter From Birmingham Jail Rhetorical Analysis
• A Raisin in the Sun Theme
• Why Abortion Should be Illegal
• Death Penalty Should be Abolished
• Logical Fallacies in Letter From Birmingham Jail

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

• Front Matter
• Table of Contents
• Thinking for Ourselves:: An Introduction to Feminist Theorising
• Feminist Social Theory
• Feminist Theory and Economic Change
• Feminist Political Theory
• Feminist Jurisprudence
• Feminism and Anthropology
• Black Feminisms
• Post-colonial Feminist Theory
• Lesbian Theory
• Theorising Gender and Sexuality
• Feminist Linguistic Theories
• Psychoanalytic Feminist Theory
• Postmodernism and Feminism
• Feminist Literary Theory
• Feminist Media and Film Theory
• Theorising the Personal:: Using Autobiography in Academic Writing
• Women’s Studies
• Notes on Contributors
• Subject Index

Custom Essay, Term Paper & Research paper writing services

• testimonials

Toll Free: +1 (888) 354-4744

Email: [email protected]

Writing custom essays & research papers since 2008

50 winning feminist topics for essays.

There is no denying it; feminism is an enthralling subject. Millions around the globe support feminism while an equal number express concerns about it.

Feminism is a political, historical, and social movement of ladies who fearlessly spoke for social, economic, political, and personal equality between men and women.

Because of feminism, women can enjoy suffrage rights, study in schools, go outside without being accompanied by men, work, and wear what they want.

Feminism has also become a popular area for most lecturers. When they give their students assignments, the first step, which involve selecting feminist paper topics is always a challenge. In this post, we are going to help you address the challenge by listing the top 50 feminist topics for you.

Popular Feminism Essay Titles

Notably, the subject of feminism is pretty broad. To get you started on this list of feminist topics for essays, here are some ideas on general questions.

• Domestic violence and feminism.
• Feminism and activism in the 21 st century.
• What is the role of women in the current world of business?
• How did feminism contribute to the contemporary lifestyle?
• How has the internet affected the publicity of feminism?
• Defining the differences between gender and sex.
• Mass media defining beauty standards: What are the pros and cons on women?
• Feminism is hatred to men: Is this a myth or reality?
• What are the main principles of feminism?
• The contrast of classic and modern feminism.
• Deconstructing the myths about feminists and feminism.
• What methods are used by feminists to fight for their ideas?
• Human rights and feminism.
• Feminist critics: Are they right in any way?
• Women rights violation in the contemporary world.
• Criminality and feminism: Are they related?
• What obstacles did feminists face in the contemporary world?

Controversial Feminism Paper Topics

To craft an excellent research paper on feminism, you need to have an inherent understanding of the topic. But feminism has been changing over time and attracting major controversies. So, if you want to focus on the controversial side of feminism, here are some research paper topics on feminism to consider.

Sexual education on children: What are the pros and cons?

Men and women’s non-traditional roles: Does feminism encourage it?

What are the causes of gender imbalance in Asia?

What are the best coping strategies for gender inequality?

Misogyny: What are the causes and ways to overcome it?

Kids’ toys for boys and girls: Should boys and girls be raised differently?

Analyzing feminism in Islamic countries?

• Where do we need feminism most?
• What are the best strategies for achieving gender equality?
• Why do men lead in businesses and politics even after decades of active feminism?
• Analyze the role of feminism in the declining cases of domestic violence.

The Most Interesting Feminist Research Taper Topics

Have you been wondering about the most thrilling feminist topics to write about? As feminism develops, it generates loads of issues, and you can focus on them to create winning papers. Here are some interesting feminist research paper topics to work on.

• The history of fashion and feminism.
• What are the impacts of feminism on education?
• Are gender stereotypes still relevant today?
• What components of women inequality are evident in the modern workplace?
• What are the main impacts of feminism on teenagers?
• What are the steps of becoming a feminist today?
• A closer look at top feminist personalities of the 21 st century.
• Feminism vs anti-feminism.
• Can feminism impact women negatively?
• Is it possible to make the world a better place for women?
• Sexuality and politics.
• Feminism in the developing world.

Powerful Feminist Topics for Research Paper

Whether you want to focus on feminism and gender, workplace, or traditional male-female duties, powerful topics will always make your paper stand out. Here are some of the powerful ideas for the best research paper on feminism.

• Analyzing gender violence cases in the US and UK.
• What issues are faced by modern Feminists today?
• A closer look at the advantages of investing in girl education.
• Comparing the career opportunities for men and women in the US military.
• How is feminism presented in literature?
• Rethinking the society without gender stereotypes.
• What is the influence of feminism on the modern media?
• Analyzing the controversial issues of feminism.
• Men earn more than women: Can you research to confirm or deny this assertion.
• Feminism and transgender theory.

Seek Help from Professional Writers

After selecting the best feminist research topics, your writing journey has just begun. You need to start working on the paper right away. This entails researching dozens of books on feminism, picking the right arguments & counterarguments, developing the right paper structure, and writing the papers based on your professor’s instructions. Well, if you have poor writing skills, the deadline is tight, or have other engagements, the process of writing a good feminism paper could turn into a nightmare. But there is a way out: seeing writing help from professional writers.

Expert academic writers have been in the industry for a long time and understand how to craft the best papers. So, do not give up after selecting the best feminist argument topics, let professional writers assist you in preparing A-rated research paper on feminism.

10 Essential Feminist Texts That Everyone Should Read

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique , a book that, as the Times put it, “ignited the contemporary women’s movement in 1963 and as a result permanently transformed the social fabric of the United States and countries around the world.” To celebrate the book’s anniversary, we’ve put together a list of ten essential feminist reads, from fiction and poetry to essays and nonfiction dissections. Read through our picks after the jump — and since there are so many more than ten important feminist texts worthy of pressing into any friend’s hands, add your own favorites to our list in the comments.

The Feminine Mystique , Betty Friedan

Friedan’s 1963 investigation into “the problem that has no name” — that is, the unrepentant unhappiness she found among housewives — is one of the most influential books of the 20th century, and is generally credited with being the catalyst for the rise of second-wave feminism in the United States.

Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics , bell hooks

Well, you heard her — this is by its very project a book for everyone. bell hooks has written a host of books that could fit this list, but this one is a primer of sorts to the movement — or at least hooks’s interpretation of the movement. She calls for a feminism that breaks barriers: “A genuine feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving,” she writes. “There can be no love without justice.”

A Room of One’s Own , Virginia Woolf

Another classic, we’d recommend Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own — an extended essay that explores women’s relationship to writing — to just about anyone. The Woolf devotees in this writer’s life happen to be almost exclusively men, so this might be a particularly good place to start for all you literary boys curious about feminism.

The Beauty Myth , Naomi Wolf

This 1991 text, which dissects the relationship between the growing social prominence of women and society’s demands for them to conform to specific standards of beauty, is as relevant now as it was 20 years ago — since, sadly, nothing much has changed in this arena since then. Betty Friedan herself wrote in Allure that “ The Beauty Myth and the controversy it is eliciting could be a hopeful sign of a new surge of feminist consciousness.”

Sister Outsider , Audre Lorde

One of the most influential voices of the feminist movement rings out in this collection of 15 essays and speeches by Caribbean-American activist Audre Lorde. “Perhaps,” Lorde challenges her reader in “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” “I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am a woman, because I am Black, because I am a lesbian, because I am myself — a Black woman warrior poet doing my work — come to ask you, are you doing yours?”

The Second Sex , Simone de Beauvoir

“I hesitated a long time before writing a book on woman,” De Beauvoir begins. “The subject is irritating, especially for women; and it is not new. Enough ink has flowed over the quarrel about feminism; it is now almost over: let’s not talk about it anymore.” This was in 1959 — and the sentiment is as fresh now as it was then, just like (most of) the rest of De Beauvoir’s lucid, equal parts literary and philosophical, book. Another installment in the classic-for-a-reason file.

The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton , Lucille Clifton

Feminism and poetry have a long and storied history together , and Lucille Clifton is one of the most beloved of its flagbearers, her poems ringing with race, sex, and the ever-present body. This volume, which collects all 11 of Lucille Clifton’s published collections, plus 50-odd unpublished works, is not only an essential text for those interested in feminism, but a must for all readers of poems, heralded by Publisher’s Weekly as “the most important book of poetry to appear in years.”

The Woman Warrior , Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston’s take on the memoir blends her personal experiences with traditional Chinese folktales, examining the Chinese-American experience as well as the female one, taking on the cultural source of oppression. She writes: “There is a Chinese word for the female I — which is ‘slave’. Break the women with their own tongues!” So why not seek the attention reserved for boys by channeling Fa Mu Lan and swapping out her gender? “I refused to cook. When I had to wash dishes, I would crack one or two. ‘Bad girl,’ my mother yelled, and sometimes that made me gloat rather than cry. Isn’t a bad girl almost a boy?”

Sexual Politics , Kate Millett

For the staunchly literary-minded among you, try Kate Millett’s 1970 book, widely heralded as the very first work of “academic feminist literary criticism,” which started as her doctoral dissertation. Though the book stirred up as much denunciation as it did praise, we think it’s an essential lens (one of many) for looking at the Western canon.

How to Be a Woman , Caitlin Moran

This list is filled with books written decades ago, so we thought we’d conclude with a recent triumph: Caitlin Moran’s manifesto on being a woman today, filled with brash, no-nonsense criticism steeped in a saucy sense of humor. An example: “We need to reclaim the word ‘feminism’. We need the word ‘feminism’ back real bad. When statistics come in saying that only 29% of American women would describe themselves as feminist – and only 42% of British women – I used to think, What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of ‘liberation for women’ is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? ‘Vogue’ by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF THE SURVEY?”

• Student Services
• Faculty Services

Women's Studies: Essential Writings of Feminism

• Library Databases
• Indexes & Bibliographies
• Statistical Sources
• Women's History on the Web
• eArchives of Women's Writings
• Special Topics on Women
• Biographical Resources
• Essential Writings of Feminism
• General Women's Studies Portals
• Groups and Associations
• Special Library Collections
• Selected Print and E-Book Sources

Internet Sources of Core Writings and Rhetoric on Women's Rights

Here are some links to online archives of classic feminist writings not covered elsewhere in this LibGuide.  See below box for selected print collections of feminist writings.

• Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement "The materials in this on-line archival collection document various aspects of the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States, and focus specifically on the radical origins of this movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Items range from radical theoretical writings to humorous plays to the minutes of an actual grassroots group. The items in this on-line collection are scanned and transcribed from original documents held in Duke's Special Collections Library. We are making these documents available on-line in order to support current teaching and research interests related to this period in U.S. history."
• Classic Feminist Writings This nice page, from the The Chicago Women's Liberation Union (CWLU) Herstory Website, provides a basic, browsable annotated list of a few primary documents. However, although the word "classic" appears in the title, all of these materials are from the 1960s and 1970s, so they are useful only in the study of the second wave. Note, too, that the group maintains files related to the "Jane" abortion activists. Click the Historical Archive link in the top frame to explore other web document options.
• Marxists Internet Archive Library of Feminist Writers Starting with Mary Wollstonecraft and Harriet Taylor, this webpage provides "Selected writings of feminists of each of the “three waves” of feminist political activity. Intellectual Property laws prevent the Marxists Internet Archive from reproducing the works of most of the major feminist writers of recent decades. However, key chapters and articles have been reproduced for educational purposes only."
• Fragen Project (Frames on Gender) Archive "For the first time, core feminist texts from the second wave of feminism in Europe have been made available to researchers in an easily accessible online database. The FRAGEN project brings together books, articles and pamphlets that were influential in the development of feminist ideas in 29 countries during the second half of the 20th century."
• Andrea Dworkin Web Site The late Andrea Dworkin was one of the most articulate, passionate and controversial voices from the second wave of American feminism. This webpage excerpts sections from a variety of her writings. Click on the large button for "Andrea Dworkin Online Library" to read selections from Intercourse, Right-Wing Women, Pornography: Men Possessing Women, Our Blood:Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics, Woman Hating, and Life and Death. The site also includes many memorial statements by other feminist leaders posted after her Spring 2005 death.
• Jo Freeman.com: Articles by Jo Freeman o Freeman is another feminist activist and scholar whose work has spanned the earliest days of the "women's movement" til today. This good-looking, well-organized website presents many of Ms. Freeman's writings, including several written under the pseudonym Joreen. (These classic pieces include "The BITCH Manifesto" and "The Tyranny of Structurelessness.")
• No Turning Back: Feminist Resource Site Designed to support this book , which we have in both print and eBook, this webpage suggests other websites, recommends appropriate films, and even links to the full-text of few classic "Primary Source Documents from Feminist History."

Print and eBook Collections of Feminist Writings and Primary Documents

Here are just a few examples of the types of anthologies Sawyer Library owns that gather and reprint interesting journalism, essays and primary documents about women's lives and feminist activism.

Subject Guide

• << Previous: Biographical Resources
• Next: General Women's Studies Portals >>
• Last Updated: Apr 4, 2024 10:24 AM
• URL: https://suffolk.libguides.com/WomensStudies

• Technical Support
• Find My Rep

You are here

Feminist Theory

Preview this book.

• Description

Aims and Scope

• Editorial Board
• Abstracting / Indexing
• Submission Guidelines

Feminist Theory champions and shapes feminist debates globally, providing a vital critical forum for publishing and reading cutting-edge discussions of feminist theory and feminist theoretical praxis. The journal is committed to speaking to the broadest spectrum of feminism, and of gender and sexual politics, as understood across the arts, humanities and social sciences. Feminist Theory is available on SAGE Journals Online and is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The journal promotes:

• debate among theorists from diverse perspectives
• critical engagements with shifting disciplinary hierarchies within feminist theory
• challenges to existing theoretical orthodoxies and conventional definitions of theory
• empirically grounded theorizing as well as more conceptual work
• writing which is politically engaged and which explores links between theory and practice
• the crossing of theoretical and disciplinary boundaries
• work by feminists from all parts of the world

Interchanges In addition to longer articles, Feminist Theory publishes short "think pieces", comments on past articles and theoretical reflections on topical issues. Readers are encouraged to respond to these contributions, thus fostering ongoing debate and exchanges of ideas.

Reviews Feminist Theory publishes solicited review essays which set several recent books within the context of contemporary debates.

Feminist Theory champions and shapes feminist debates globally, providing a vital critical forum for publishing and reading cutting-edge discussions of feminist theory and feminist theoretical praxis. The journal is committed to speaking to the broadest spectrum of feminism, and of gender and sexual politics, as understood across the arts, humanities and social sciences.

Feminist Theory is available on SAGE Journals Online and is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

• Feminist Theory is an international peer-reviewed journal that advances key contemporary debates within feminist theory and feminist theoretical praxis.
• The Editorial Collective is committed to publishing a multiplicity of feminist voices and intersectional positions.
• The journal promotes work from diverse perspectives as well as critical engagements with shifting disciplinary hierarchies, whilst both contesting and shaping the field of feminist theory itself.

• Academic Search Premier
• Annotated Bibliography for English Studies
• Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts (ASSIA)
• British Humanities Index
• Business Source Corporate
• CD-ROM - International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• CD-ROM - International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Lterature on the Humanities and Social S
• CD-ROM International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• CD-ROM International Bibliography of Periodical Literature on the Humanities and Social Sciences
• Communication Abstracts
• Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature CINAHL
• Current Contents / Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Current Contents/ Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Emerald Management Reviews
• Family Index
• Family Index Database
• Family and Society Studies Worldwide (FSSW)
• Feminist Periodicals
• Human Sexuality
• IBZ: International Bibliography of Periodical Literature
• IBZ: International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature on the Humanities and Social Sciences
• International Bibliography of the Social Sciences
• International Political Science Abstracts
• Journal Citation Reports Social Sciences
• Journal Citation Reports/Social Sciences Edition
• MasterFILE Premier
• Online - International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• Online - International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature on the Humanities and Social
• Online - International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• Online - International Bibliography of Periodical Literature on the Humanities and Social Sciences
• Psychological Abstracts
• Research Alert
• Sexual Diversity Studies: Gay, Lesbian, Bisex. & Transgender Abstracts
• Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)
• Social Services Abstracts
• Sociological Abstracts
• Studies on Women & Gender Abstracts
• Women Studies Abstracts
• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
• e-Psyche (Ceased)

Manuscript submission guidelines can be accessed on Sage Journals.

• Read Online
• Sample Issues
• Current Issue
• Email Alert
• Permissions
• Foreign rights
• Reprints and sponsorship
• Advertising

Individual Subscription, E-access

Individual Subscription, Print Only

Institutional Subscription, E-access

Institutional Subscription, Print Only

Institutional Subscription, Combined (Print & E-access)

Individual, Single Print Issue

Institutional, Single Print Issue

To order single issues of this journal, please contact SAGE Customer Services at 1-800-818-7243 / 1-805-583-9774 with details of the volume and issue you would like to purchase.

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Welcome to the Purdue Online Writing Lab

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

The Online Writing Lab (the Purdue OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. Teachers and trainers may use this material for in-class and out-of-class instruction.

The On-Campus and Online versions of Purdue OWL assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement. The Purdue OWL serves the Purdue West Lafayette and Indianapolis campuses and coordinates with local literacy initiatives. The Purdue OWL offers global support through online reference materials and services.

Social Media

Facebook twitter.

Help | Advanced Search

Astrophysics

Authors and titles for recent submissions.

• Wed, 12 Jun 2024
• Tue, 11 Jun 2024
• Mon, 10 Jun 2024
• Fri, 7 Jun 2024
• Thu, 6 Jun 2024

See today's new changes

Wed, 12 Jun 2024 (showing first 25 of 79 entries )