Exclusions in Feminist Thought Challenging the Boundaries of Womanhood

by Brewer, Mary

• ISBN13: 9781902210636
• ISBN10: 1902210638
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Summary

What does feminism mean at the millennium? Can we say that such a thing as a women's movement exists anymore, and, if so, in what form? Why are so few women willing to identify as feminist; are we really post-feminism, or do we still need a woman-centered political discourse? And what might a feminist theory and practice capable of addressing the aspirations of all women look like? These are the fundamental questions about women's needs, experiences, and ideas explored in this volume. This powerful and empowering volume challenges conventional notions about differences of race, class and sexuality among women, bringing critical insights from the fields of anthropology, cultural and ethnic studies, history, sociology, and literary studies. Examined in this collection are many aspects of exclusion in feminist thought, including women's use of masculinist theory, the processes of tokenism and erasure prevalent in educational institutions, and the status of women in erotic discourse.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(10)
Mary Brewer
Part I Feminism in the Academy: Making Room for Different Subjects
Practicing Difference Differently: Cyborg Consciousness and Political Practice	11	(17)
Julia Balen
Ivory Towers and Guardians of the Word: Language and Discourse in the Academy	28	(18)
Susan Jackson
TransForm/ando Women's Studies: Latina Theory Re-Imagines America	46	(27)
Margaret A. Villanueva
Part II Representation and Resistance
Violating the Seal of Race: The Politics of (Post) Identity and the Theatre of Adrienne Kennedy	73	(19)
Mary Brewer
(Post) Colonial (Dis)orders: Female Embodiment as Chaos in Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions and Bharati Mukherjee's Jasmine	92	(26)
Melissa Chinchillo
``See, I've got my tit out!'': Women's Performance Art and Punk Rock	118	(14)
Kathleen Iudicello
Leaving Las Vegas: Reading the Prostitute as a Voice of Abjection	132	(17)
Doreen Piano
Part III Challenging Universalism in Feminist Theory and Practice
Theorizing Feminisms: Breast Cancer Narratives and Reconstructed ``Women''	149	(18)
Alyssa O'Brien
Aboriginal Women and the Canadian Women's Movement	167	(15)
Angela Slaughter
Where Metaphor Meets Materiality: The Spatialized Subject and the Limits of Locational Feminism	182	(23)
Rebecca Walsh
Part IV Finding a Different Voice
Feminism and the Aesthetic	205	(13)
Bella Adams
Bodily Transactions: Jean Genet in the Feminist Debate	218	(9)
Liz Barry
``Doing'' Judith: Race, Mixed Race and Performativity	227	(9)
Michele Hunter
Mary Wollstonecraft: Feminist, Lesbian or Transgendered?	236	(14)
Ashley Tauchert
The Contributors	250	(4)
Index	254