Synopses & Reviews
In Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics, Fifth Edition, internationally renowned feminist Judith Lorber examines various evolving theories of gender inequality. Tightly structured around Lorber's own paradigm of "reform, resistance, rebellion," this combination text/reader acknowledges feminism's significant contributions to redressing gender inequality and celebrates its enormous accomplishments over the last forty years. It also documents feminism's ongoing political activism, and, with an awareness of postmodern and third-wave trends, points toward its future.
The fifth edition features eight new readings and five significantly rewritten, reorganized, and updated chapters, including one on transnational feminism, which encompasses Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Other rewritten chapters are Psychoanalytic and Cultural Feminism, Social Construction Feminism, Postmodern Feminism and Queer Theory, and Third Wave Feminism.
As before, the bulleted lists introducing each type of feminism include the feminism's theories of the sources of gender inequality, its politics, its contributions, and a critique.
An accessible, engaging classic written by one of sociology's first feminists, Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics, Fifth Edition, is an ideal undergraduate and graduate text for courses in introductory feminism, feminist theory, and women's studies.
Review
"Gender Inequality provides an excellent overview of feminist theories that are often given short shrift in other texts. "--Susan Farrell, Kingsborough Community College
"The best book out there for exposing students to the nuances of feminist theory."--Dana Berkowitz, Louisiana State University
"The pedagogy is outstanding!"--Jane Prather, California State University, Northridge
Synopsis
In
Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics, Fifth Edition, internationally renowned feminist Judith Lorber examines thirteen evolving theories of gender inequality. Tightly structured around Lorber's own paradigm of "reform, resistance, rebellion," this combination text/reader acknowledges feminism's significant contributions to redressing gender inequality and celebrates its enormous accomplishments over the last forty years. It also documents feminism's ongoing political activism, and with an exploration of postmodern and third-wave trends, points toward its future.
Significantly rewritten, reorganized, and updated, the fifth edition includes:
* More coverage of cultural feminism
* New readings on such topics as deconstruction, ecofeminism, and Chicana feminism
* An expanded discussion of postmodern feminism, including transgendering and its congruences and conflicts with feminist theory and politics
* New references on transnational feminism and feminist studies of men
About the Author
JUDITH LORBER is Professor Emerita of Sociology and Women's Studies at the Graduate Center and Brooklyn College, CUNY. She received her Ph.D. degree from New York University in 1971 and began developing and teaching courses in women's studies in 1972. She was the first Coordinator of the CUNY Graduate Center's Women's Studies Certificate Program and was Founding Editor of Gender and Society, official publication of Sociologists for Women in Society.
She is the author of Breaking the Bowls: Degendering and Feminist Change, Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics, Paradoxes of Gender, and Women Physicians: Careers, Status and Power, as well as numerous articles on gender and on women as health care workers and patients. She is co-author of Gender and the Social Construction of Illness and Gendered Bodies: Feminist Perspectives, and co-editor of the Handbook of Gender and Women's Studies, Revisioning Gender, and The Social Construction of Gender.
Table of Contents
* = New to the Fifth Edition
Preface
Feminisms and Their Contributions to Gender Equality
Part I: Gender Reform Feminisms
1. Liberal Feminism
A Theory of Female Subordination by Cynthia Fuchs Epstein
*Children of the Gender Revolution by Kathleen Gerson
2. Marxist Feminism
Theorizing Racial and Gendered Class by Joan Acker
Gender, Race, and Citizenship by Evelyn Nakano Glenn
3. Socialist Feminism
Gender and Complex Inequality by Leslie McCall
The Invisible Heart by Nancy Folbre
4. Transnational Feminism
Under Western Eyes at the Turn of the Century by Chandra Talpade Mohanty
*Challenges in Transnational Feminist Mobilization by Aili Mari Tripp
Part II: Gender Resistance Feminisms
5. Radical Feminism
Redstockings Manifesto by Redstockings
*Biopiracy of Body-Based Resources by Susan Hawthorne
6. Lesbian Feminism
Decentering Lesbian Feminism by Arlene Stein
Lipstick or Timberlands: Gender Presentation in Black Lesbian Communities by Mignon R. Moore
7. Psychoanalytic and Cultural Feminism
Freud and Feminism by Nancy J. Chodorow
The Laugh of the Medusa by Hélène Cixous
8. Standpoint Feminism
Women's Standpoint: Embodied Knowledge versus the Ruling Relations by Dorothy E. Smith
Gendered Standpoints on Nature by Sandra Harding
Part III: Gender Rebellion Feminisms
9. Social Construction Feminism
*Framed Before We Know It by Cecilia L. Ridgeway
Gender as a Social Structure by Barbara J. Risman
10. Multiracial/Multiethnic Feminism
Black Feminism, Knowledge, and Power by Patricia Hill Collins
*Gloria Anzaldúa's Spiritual Activism by AnaLouise Keating
11. Feminist Studies of Men
Hegemonic Masculinity by Raewyn Connell and James W. Messerschmidt
*Racializing the Glass Escalator by Adia Harvey Wingfield
12. Post-Modern Feminism and Queer Theory
Gender, Sex, and Sexual Performativity by Judith Butler
"A Rose is a Rose" by Tey Meadows
13. Third-Wave Feminism
*What is Third-Wave Feminism? by R. Claire Snyder
Third-Wave Black Feminism? by Kimberly Springer
Towards a New Feminism
Glossary
Index