Feminist theory

Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical discourse.

Quotes

• Much feminist theory emerges from privileged women who live at the center, whose perspectives on reality rarely include knowledge and awareness of the lives of women and men who live in the margin. As a consequence, feminist theory lacks wholeness, lacks the broad analysis that could encompass a variety of human experiences. Although feminist theorists are aware of the need to develop ideas and analysis that encompass a larger number of experiences, that serve to unify rather than to polarize, such theory is complex and slow in formation. At its most visionary, it will emerge from individuals who have knowledge of both margin and center.
  • bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), Preface, p. xvii.

• Feminist thought and practice were fundamentally altered when radical women of color and white women allies began to rigorously challenge the notion of "gender" was the primary factor determining a woman's fate. ... Looking at the interlocking nature of gender, race, and class was the perspective that changed the direction of feminist thought.
  • bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), Preface, p. xiii.

• The ideology of "competitive, atomistic liberal individualism" has permeated feminist thought to such an extent that it undermines the potential radicalism of feminist struggle. The usurpation of feminism by bourgeois women to support their class interests has been to a very grave extent justified by feminist theory as it has so far been conceived. (For example, the ideology of "common oppression.") Any movement to resist the co-optation of feminist struggle must begin by introducing a different feminist perspective-a new theory-one that is not informed by the ideology of liberal individualism. The exclusionary practices of women who dominate feminist discourse have made it practically impossible for new and varied theories to emerge.
  • bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), Chapter 1: Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory, p. 9.

• We resist hegemonic dominance of feminist thought by insisting that it is a theory in the making, that we must necessarily criticize, question, re-examine, and explore new possibilities.
  • bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), Chapter 1: Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory, p. 10.

External links

Wikibooks

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of

Sociological Theory/Feminist Theory

• Evolutionary Feminism
• Feminist theory website (Center for Digital Discourse and Culture, Virginia Tech)
• Feminist Theories and Anthropology by Heidi Armbruster
• [1] The Radical Women Manifesto: Socialist Feminist Theory, Program and Organizational Structure (Seattle: Red Letter Press, 2001)
• Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, Brown University
• Feminist Theory Papers, Brown University
• The Feminist eZine - An Archive of Historical Feminist Articles
• [2] Women, Poverty, and Economics- Facts and Figures

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