feminism: References & Edit History

Alice S. Rossi (ed.), The Feminist Papers: From Adams to de Beauvoir (1973, reprinted 1988), collects some of the key works of the last 200 years of feminism. Rosemarie Putnam Tong, Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, 2nd ed. (1998), provides a comprehensive map of 20th-century feminist thinking that includes liberal, radical, Marxist-socialist, postmodern, and multicultural feminism.

Karen Offen, European Feminisms, 1700–1950: A Political History (2000), looks at the development of European feminism from the Enlightenment through the mid-20th century. Marlene LeGates, Making Waves: A History of Feminism in Western Society (1996), is a comprehensive survey of feminism in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Latin America dating from early Christian times to the present. Texts focusing on feminism in the United States include Jane Rendall, The Origins of Modern Feminism: Women in Britain, France, and the United States, 1780–1860 (1984, reissued 1990), which examines the political and social position of women in a comparative context in order to locate the sources of women’s rebellion; while Eleanor Flexner and Ellen Fitzpatrick, Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States, enlarged ed. (1996), is the classic history of the complex social and political problems that confronted 19th- and early 20th-century American suffragists.

Perspectives from around the world are portrayed in Eugenia C. DeLamotte, Natania Meeker, and Jean F. O’Barr (eds.), Women Imagine Change: A Global Anthology of Women’s Resistance from 600 B.C.E. to Present (1997), a representation of women from 30 countries. Questions of class and culture are treated in M. Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty (eds.), Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures (1997), which challenges mainstream notions of global feminism and embeds the struggles of women in the Third World in the struggle against neocolonialism; while Uma Narayan, Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third-World Feminism (1997), shows how both Western and Third World scholars have misrepresented Third World cultures and feminist agendas.

Foundational readings in Black feminism are compiled in Henry Louis Gates (ed.), Reading Black, Reading Feminist: A Critical Anthology (1990). Early Black feminist books include Olive Gilbert and Sojourner Truth, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850, reprinted 2007); and Mary Church Terrell, A Colored Woman in a White World (1940, reprinted 2005). Black feminists and women of color continued to deconstruct the interactions of race, gender, and class during the second wave. Important works from this period include Michele Wallace, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (1979); Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua (eds.), This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981); Gloria T. 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 (1982); and Bettina Aptheker, Woman’s Legacy: Essays on Race, Sex, and Class in American History (1982), and Tapestries of Life: Women’s Work, Women’s Consciousness and the Meaning of Daily Life (1989).

Perhaps the most important Black feminist scholar of the late 20th and early 21st centuries is the prolific bell hooks, whose more than 25 books include Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981); Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics (1990); Killing Rage: Ending Racism (1995); and Where We Stand: Class Matters (2000).

Third-wave feminist texts include Rebecca Walker, To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism (1995); Rebecca Walker (ed.), What Makes a Man: 22 Writers Imagine the Future (2004); Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake (eds.), Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism (1997); Daisy Hernández and Bushra Rehman (eds.), Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism (2002); Leslie Heywood (ed.), The Women’s Movement Today: An Encyclopaedia of Third-wave Feminism (2006); and Deborah Siegel, Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild (2007). Third-wave feminism is also represented in periodicals such as Bitch: A Feminist Response to Pop Culture and Bust.