What is feminism? Competing definitions of feminism in the West

Questions to ponder whilst you read:

What are the different political traditions of feminism? Are terms such as radical, socialist and liberal adequate to describing different feminist outlooks?
How does feminism relate to other struggles for social justice?
How have definitions of feminism changed over time?
How should historians deploy ‘feminism’ as a historical term?

PPT SlidesLink opens in a new window

Core Reading

Barbara Caine, English Feminism 1780-1980 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) [a good place to start] ebook in library

Sally Haslanger, Nancy Tuana & Peg O’Conner, ‘Topics in Feminism’, The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Summer 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.): online article http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/feminism-topics/ [nice short overview – bit overly orientated towards United States but useful]

Further Reading - for the most up to date reading see Talis Reading ListLink opens in a new window

Chijioke Obasi, ‘Africanist Sista Hood in Britain: Creating Our Own Pathways’, in Akwugo Emejulu & Francesca Sobande, To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe (London: Pluto Press, 2019), pp. 229- 242 (ebook in library)

Nancy F. Cott, N. F. (1987) The Grounding of Modern Feminism, (New Haven & London, Yale University Press). [Chapter 1 provides a good account of historical development of term] digitised

Daisy Hernandez & Bushra Rehman, Colonize This! Young Women of Color in Today’s Feminism (Berkeley: Seal Press, 2002) [again US orientated]

Lorna Finlayson, 'Travelling in the Wrong Direction',Link opens in a new window London Review of Books 41:13 (July 2019) [for a less historical but more contemporary take.]

bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (Boston: South End Press, 1981) digitised

Alice Walker, ‘Definitions of Womanist’, in Gloria Anzaldua (ed.) Making Face, Making Soul: Haciendo Caras (San Francisco: Aunt Lutte Books, 1990)