Feminism reading thread

brianthebard

Sparked by g'em's other thread and what she said about learning the ins and outs of feminism. Firstly I want to say I really like tll for the conversations that crop up about feminism and the fact that it isn't instantly ignored. I think the whole of feminist discourse to be hugely interesting and widely applicable (although not always as applicable as made out to be).

I thought to further these discussions and help people learn about hte many many different strands of feminism we could have a thread were you post about a feminist author, give some links to their work and some info on what they are about, as you see it. Then people could read the stuff and ask questions if they wanted, or someone else could post another author afterwards, and gradually we'd build up a bank of knowledge and discourse about feminism.

So with all that in mind I'd like to start it off with one of my favourite writers, Julia Kristeva. I came across her in literature studies, in which she has a lot to say. She's refered to as a post-structuralist feminist-this means she's a feminist (obviously) who uses theories of post structuralism (a school of criticism that came after structuralism, see wiki ) to construct concepts of gender.
She's well known for ideas of ecriture feminine, the idea of writing in the feminine voice, which goes against the norm of a patriarchal language and world. The last chapter of Ulysses is often cited as at the very least an attempt at this.

The reason I like her so much is her ideas of radical dissent intellectualism, semanalysis, and the fact that she doesn't believe in merely inverting the present gender binary situation as some feminists did/do, but rather of deconstructing it, laying it low. I realise there is a lot of jargon in the above but its not hard to understand, wiki-ing terms always helps me when dealing with a new writer or topic. There's a link in my sig on semanalysis, and also, here is the kristeva wiki page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristeva

If there's any questions I'll try and answer them, although I haven't read her works very intensely so I won't know a lot of things about it. If anyone else has read Kristeva and wants to give their opinion that would be great too. And then we'll get things started.

Stheno

Thanks Brian

Am looking forward to gleaning some new reading material from this thread, although as I'm hoping to start a degree part time very shortly, along with work, my leisure reading time will be limited

Jules

As a complete n00b, well not complete but very ignorant as to where feminism came from or what its roots are. The way i see it, its about woman being equal to men and been seen as that in every aspect of life!

But i would be interested in some, basic, reading and where to start off to educate myself on the subject.

brianthebard

Oh yay,replies! I was afraid people weren't going to be interested. You're absolutely right Jules, feminism began as a means of seeking equality for women in society. Mary Wollestonecroft is often seen as the founder of feminism, her vindication of the rights of women was a call to give women equal education as men.
Although I don't know the ins and outs of the history of feminism, the next big marker was the suffragette's movement, which was aimed at winning women the right to vote, obviously this was successful but took some time. There is about 100 years separating Wollstonecroft from the suffragettes, so if someone could fill in that blank for us that would be interesting.

Feminism in a lot of third world countries especially continues to be fundamentally about equal rights, since it can be so much more unequal than here. In the West there is a lot of autonomy of the various aspects of feminism. What I mean is in the social sciences and especially in practical social programmes the main focus is on working on equality, against discrimination, etc.
In other parts of humanities its almost solely theoretical, like the stuff I outlined in the first post, although Kristeva's semiotics can be used as a way of approaching the world-system.

One of the main problems I feel for people trying to learn about feminism is trying to fit all the different stands together into something coherent. I'm not a historian of feminism by any means, but if anyone could post a link or give a brief explanation that would be great. In the meantime here are the wikis;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Vindication_of_the_Rights_of_Woman

this one gives you a very brief explanation of the three main phases of feminism; http://feminism.eserver.org/theory/feminist/Womens-Movement.html

basics from marxist.org http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/e.htm

edit; apologies for incoherencies, hungover today.

Stheno

Thanks again Brian, have enjoyed reading the links.

Like Jules I'd be a right noob when it comes to the theory of feminism so it's great to get links and info

Jules

If anyone has any books or can recommend some books.. i love reading!

WindSock

I read an excerpt from Virginia Woolfes 'A room of ones own' recently. I enjoyed it as she hit the nail on the head about having the progress of her thoughts been constantly interupted by other men. She almost came to this conclusion while on the banks of a river in Cambridge (or Oxford?) where she was not allowed to walk on as a woman and was told off. Of course I didn't get to the end of it as my boyfriend thought it would be funny hide and to throw pebbles at me.

Fox McCloud

One book that made me realise I had been a born a feminist was Germiane Greer's "The Female Eunuch". I'm not finished it yet(its back on my loooong to read list after i finish college this summer!), i read the first half and the whole time I was just like, hey I wasnt a weirdo tomboy when i was 8, I was an intelectual feminist!

Simone de Beauvoir's the second sex is good but heavy reading.. The whole "eternal feminine" section is really good.

There were many other really good articles we looked at in feminist philosophy and womens writing, when I find them i'l post the names up here!