Handbook of Gender and Women's Studies

by Kathy Davis

• ISBN13: 9780761943907
• ISBN10: 0761943900
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-06-12
• Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd

Summary

'This is an excellent and timely addition to the literature on Gender and Women's Studies. Each chapter explores contemporary questions and dilemmas in feminist theory and research, assessing the impacts of past research and feminist actions. Leading scholars discuss such topics as the state of women's and gender studies, feminist epistemology, cultural representations, globalization and the state, families, and work. This book is sure to be an essential resource for gender scholars and students' - Joan Acker, University of Oregon 'This breathtakingly broad, interdisciplinary reader demonstrates how widely feminist thinking has spread, how deeply it has shaken settled assumptions in the disciplines and how much new light it throws on contemporary controversies.This volume offers not only a reference manual to what we now know about gender relations as social forces but also gives impetus to future thinking in imaginative and utopian ways about questions of gender, power and knowledge' - Myra Marx Ferree, University of Wisconsin-Madison 'This is a timely intervention and highly engaged, thoughtful and scholarly analysis of the state of gender and wmoen's studies in the west by three eminent feminist scholars who have been centrally involved in feminist struggles and scholarship for some time. They have an acute understanding of what matters to feminism and bring together a wide range of essential new readings on gender works and gender troubles. Highly cognisant of the central issues that have fractured, blocked and enhanced western feminism they provide a contextual and political understanding of change and sustained normativity in gender relations. The Handbook ends with a call for gendered trouble making. Following the achievemnent of this handbook, it seems to be the least we as readers can do' - Professor Bev Skeggs, Goldsmiths College 'The Handbook gives a pedagogically well structured and thoroughly updated overview over discussions of central issues in contemporary women's and gender studies, including critical studies of men and masculinities. The comprehensiveness and the interdisciplinary range of themes are impressive, and they make the Handbook into a wonderful tool for teachers and students of women's and gender studies. It fulfills an obvious and pressing need for easy accessible overview of the literature. The Handbook strikes a good balance between overview and critically situated analysis, relevant for courses in Women's and Gender Studies on many levels' - Nina Lykke, Director of Nordic Research School in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, Linkoeping University Gender and women's studies is one of the most challenging fields within the social sciences- the dynamics of gender relations and the social and cultural implications of gender constructions offer a lively forum of debate. The Handbook of Gender and Women's Studies presents a comprehensive and engaging review of the most recent developments within the field, including the study of masculinity, the feminist implications of postmodernism, the 'cultural turn' and globalization. The authors review current research and offer critical analyses of women's and gender studies in work, the welfare state, family, education, religion, violence and war and feminist global politics. Edited by three leading academics from Europe and the United States, and with 25 chapters written by scholars based throughout the world, the Handbook situates the most important debates in the field within a uniquely international and interdisciplinary context. The Handbook is a useful introduction to gender theory and an exciting starting-point for fresh debates.

Table of Contents

Contributors	p. viii
Acknowledgements	p. xvii
Introduction	p. 1
Current State of Women's Studies, Gender Studies, and Studies of Men	p. 11
The Life and Times of Academic Feminism	p. 13
The Shadow and the Substance: The Sex/Gender Debate	p. 35
Changing Studies on Men and Masculinities	p. 53
Cultural Representations and Critiques	p. 71
Gendered Cultures	p. 73
The Social Foundations of the Sacred: Feminists and the Politics of Religion	p. 92
The Crisis in Masculinity	p. 109
Knowledge	p. 125
Clearing Ground and Making Connections: Modernism, Postmodernism, Feminism	p. 127
Women Knowing/Knowing Women: Critical-Creative Interventions in the Politics of Knowledge	p. 146
Gender, Change, and Education	p. 167
Globalization and the State	p. 183
Gender in a Global World	p. 185
Insiders and Outsiders: Within and Beyond the Gendered Nation	p. 196
Towards a New Theorizing of Women, Gender, and War	p. 214
Mothers and Muslims, Sisters and Sojourners: The Contested Boundaries of Feminist Citizenship	p. 234
Work and Family	p. 251
Gender and Work	p. 253
Gender, Care, and the Welfare State	p. 272
Blending into Equality: Family Diversity and Gender Convergence	p. 287
Intimate Relationships and Sexualities	p. 305
Thinking Straight, Acting Bent: Heteronormativity and Homosexuality	p. 307
Foregrounding Friendship: Feminist Pasts, Feminist Futures	p. 322
Transgendering: Blurring the Boundaries of Gender	p. 342
Embodiment in a Technological World	p. 355
Gendered Bodies: Between Conformity and Autonomy	p. 357
The Natural World and the Nature of Gender	p. 376
From Science and Technology to Feminist Technoscience	p. 397
Making Change	p. 415
Moral Perspectives: Gender, Ethics, and Political Theory	p. 417
Having It All: Feminist Fractured Foundationalism	p. 435
From Autonomy to Solidarities: Transnational Feminist Political Strategies	p. 457
Utopian Visions	p. 469
A World Without Gender?	p. 469
Getting Real: Contextualizing Gender	p. 474
Feminist Politics of Location	p. 476
Index	p. 481
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