Εργαστήριο Σπουδών Φύλου και Ισότητας

The forty-two essays gathered here constitute some of the best and most significant recent English-language work in the field of lesbian/gay studies. They are derived from a wide variety of disciplines -- philosophy, classics, history, anthropology, sociology, African-American studies, ethnic studies, literary studies, and cultural studies. They produce and engage many different kinds of knowledge and meaning: they examine a range of topics and subjects for further inquiry demonstrating the cogency of different methods, theories, styles, and approaches: taken together, they transform our view of cultures and the world. As the essays collected here demonstrate, lesbian/gay studies is not limited to the study of lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men. Nor do they refer simply to studies undertaken by, or in the name of, lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men. Not at all research into the lives of lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men necessarily qualifies as lesbian/gay studies. Lesbian/gay studies does for sex and sexuality what women's studies does for gender, continuing to furnish the categories of sexuality and gender with significance for discussions in both women studies and lesbian/gay studies: hence, the interface of boundaries between the fields of lesbian/ gay studies is a matter of lively debate and ongoing negotiation. Lesbian/gay studies attempts to decipher the sexual meanings inscribed in many different forms of cultural expression while also attempting to decipher the cultural meanings inscribed in the discourses and practices of sex.

Why is bisexuality the object of such scepticism? Why do sexologists steer clear of it in their research? Why has bisexuality, in stark contrast to homosexuality, only recently emerged as a nascent political and cultural identity? Bisexuality has been rendered as mostly irrelevant to the history, theory, and politics of sexuality. With A History of Bisexuality, Steven Angelides explores the reasons why, and invites us to rethink our conceptions about sexual identity. Retracing the evolution of sexology, and revisiting modern epistemological categories of sexuality in psychoanalysis, gay liberation, social constructionism, queer theory. Biology, and human genetics, Angelides argues that bisexuality has functioned historically as the structural other to sexual identity itself, undermining assumptions about heterosexuality and homosexuality.

Despite promises from Western policy makers and financial institutions that capitalist globalization will eventually improve the economic welfare of all nations, overwhelming evidence thus far indicates that it has not only succeeded in enriching the few at the expense of the many. It has also created an international division of labor in which a female proletariat, composed primarily of women of color, is consigned to the lowest-paid and least secure jobs with the worst working conditions. Delia D. Aguilar and Anne E. Lacsamana have assembled a provocative collection of articles showing the various ways in which the neoliberal agenda of globalization has drawn women into productive labor and in the process radically reshaped their lives in the reproductive sphere. Implemented primarily through the structural adjustment programs required by international financial agencies, neoliberalism has intensified women's exploitation on the assembly line and spawned an unprecedented diaspora of women as mail-order brides, domestic helpers, and workers in the sex trade. Many of the essays describe the appalling conditions that characterize these work sites. Not less important, they underscore the vitality of grassroots organizations where women collectively wage battles for better work lives and envision a system more humane than what currently exists.

Desire and Domestic Fiction argues that far from being removed from historical events, novels by writers from Richardson to Woolf were themselves agents of the rise of the middle class. Drawing on texts that range from 18th-century female conduct books and contract theory to modern psychoanalytic case histories and theories of reading, Armstrong shows that the emergence of a particular form of female subjectivity capable of reigning over the household paved the way for the establishment of institutions which today are accepted centers of political power. Neither passive subjects nor embattled rebels, the middle-class women who were authors and subjects of the major tradition of British fiction were among the forgers of a new form of power that worked in, and through, their writing to replace prevailing notions of "identity" with a gender-determined subjectivity. Examining the works of such novelists as Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen, and the Bront?s, she reveals the ways in which these authors rewrite the domestic practices and sexual relations of the past to create the historical context through which modern institutional power would seem not only natural but also humane, and therefore to be desired.

Despite the recent publishing boom in queer studies, few texts cover a broad range of topics around sexual and gender identities. Most existing works are overly complex theoretical books, texts focused upon specific disciplines or topics, or practical guides aimed primarily at a heterosexual audience or people just beginning to come out. To date, there has been no general, accessible, and inclusive work suitable for use as an introduction to queer studies. Queer Studies is a wide-ranging anthology which discusses the nature and diversity of queer studies, its foundations, and some of the most pressing issues in the field today. Some contributors assess the conflict between postmodernism and theories of identity politics. Others address queer theory, looking specifically at how we define it, how we might use it to inform political activism, and how we can theorize such aspects of sexual performance/behaviors as s/m or butch/femme relationships. Other theories are also introduced and critiqued as contributors explain the value of feminist, cultural, and postmodern positions for queer theory.

The second edition of this highly successful anthology makes available to the feminist reader a collection of essays which does justice to the range and diversity, as well as to the eloquence and the challenge, of recent feminist critical theory and practice. The new, enlarged Feminist Reader includes Toni Morrison's brilliant discussion of a Hemingway short story, Line Pouchard's reading of Radclyfe Hall's lesbian classic The Well of Loneliness, Marjorie Garber on Elvis and cross-dressing, and Diane Elam on the relation between feminism and postmodernism, in addition to a selection of influential essays by prominent feminist critics and theorists.The book arose directly from the editor's experience of teaching feminist criticism, and their sense of the need for a fully annotated, representative selection of essays for discussion. They have included a summary of each essay, a glossary of unfamiliar terms, new suggestions for further reading and an updated introduction, mapping the field of feminist critical theory. The anthology begins at the point a great many feminist readers start from, a feeling of outrage at the patriarchal nature of the literary canon and the relative exclusion of women from literary history. It goes on to consider the implications of this. Is writing by women necessarily feminist? What kind of literary history would serve the needs of feminism? Is there a women's language? Has white, Western, heterosexual feminism inadvertently been guilty of another form of oppression? What do feminists want? The essays enter into a dialogue with each other on these issues, enlisting the reader in a developing debate.

What is a body? What are our perceptions of our inner body? Lynda Birke raises these questions and many others in the first book in this new series. While bodies may be currently fashionable in social and feminist theory, but their insides are not. Biological bodies always seem to drop out of debates about the body and its importance in Western culture. They are assumed to be fixed, their workings uninteresting or irrelevant to theory. Birke argues that these static views of biology do not serve feminist politics well. As a trained biologist, she uses ideas in anatomy and physiology to develop the feminist view that the biological body is socially and culturally constructed. She rejects the assumption that the body's functioning is somehow fixed and unchanging, claiming that biological science offers more than just a deterministic narrative of "how nature works". Feminism and the Biological Body puts biological science and feminist theory together and suggests that we need a politics which includes, rather than denies, our bodily flesh.

Unbearable Weight, marked a milestone in the development of cultural criticism and gave to many within the academy and outside a substantive understanding of our culture. Truly interdisciplinary in its conceptualization and approach, it offers a whole new way of thinking and writing and living an intellectual life. It helped generate a whole new genre in literary and cultural studies that now goes under the name of "body studies". It is cited as a foundational work in sociology, philosophy, gender studies, disability studies, psychology, and many others. Unbearable Weight is included on the "must read" list of websites dedicated to the interests of women, lesbians and gays, ethnicity, feminism, and pop culture. Unbearable Weight also became a kind of bible for a young generation of scholars.

That we live in an image saturated culture has come to seem routine to us. But our great-grandparents would probably have had their brain circuits blown if they were plunked down in our culture. Massive and dramatic cultural and technological changes have taken place in an extraordinarily brief period of historical time- and so recently that we have barely begun to chart their effects on our perception, cognition, and most basic experiences of the relation between reality and appearance. The images are much more ubiquitous in our lives today than they were just a decade ago. The technology for producing them is far more sophisticated, and those who produce the images seem to have no compunction about using that technology in the service of a deceptive verisimilitude. With created images setting the standard, we are becoming habituated to the glossy and gleaming, the smooth and shining, the ageless and sagless and wrinkleless. We are learning to expect "perfection" and to find any "defect" repellent or unacceptable. We expect live performances to sound like CDs, politicians to say nothing messy or disturbing, real breasts to be as round and firm as implants.

Braidotti considers the ways in which contemporary French philosophers such as Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze address questions which are central to feminist thought though they do not acknowledge feminist theory as such. She shows that they rely on a notion of "the feminine" in order to undermine classical thought, and yet this notion is largely metaphorical and bears no direct relevance on the historical experience of women. The feminine thus becomes a means of renewing a philosophical discourse from which women continue to be paradoxically excluded. Braidotti then examines the attempts by feminist thinkers in Europe and the United States to undermine the universalizing claims of male theorists, and to show the gendered nature of discursive power games. She discusses the contributions of Luce Irigaray and many other feminist theorists to the understanding of sexual difference and of its implication for philosophy and politics. This book is a brilliant and timely analysis of the complex issues raised by the relation between women and philosophy. It will be praised as a major contribution to contemporary feminist theory and social thought.

The discussions about the ethical, political and human implications of the postmodernist condition have been raging for longer than most of us care to remember. They have been especially fierce within feminism. After a brief flirtation with postmodern thinking in the 1980s, mainstream feminist circles seem to have turned their back on the staple notions of poststructuralist philosophy. Metamorphoses takes stock of the situation and attempts to reset priorities within the poststructuralist feminist agenda.Cross-referring in a creative way to Deleuze's and Irigaray's respective philosophies of difference, the book addresses key notions such as embodiment, immanence, sexual difference, nomadism and the materiality of the subject. Metamorphoses also focuses on the implications of these theories for cultural criticism and a redefinition of politics. It provides a vivid overview of contemporary culture, with special emphasis on technology, the monstrous imaginary and the recurrent obsession with 'the flesh' in the age of techno-bodies.This highly original contribution to current debates is written for those who find changes and transformations challenging and necessary. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy, feminist theory, gender studies, sociology, social theory and cultural studies.

Until recently, the realm of politics has been limited almost exclusively to men. Wendy Brown, with her unerring aim for the essential, exposes the historical link between men's politics and the character and content of political thought and practice in a genderdivided world. This feminist analysis of Western political thought goes straight to the heart of the matter--bypassing the "woman issue"--to lay bare, with irresistible logic, the development of the ideal of man and manhood and its influence on the ontological basis of Western political thought. An interpretation of the works of three giants of classical political theory constitutes the main body of this work: Aristotle, who proclaimed man a political animal and the world of the polis his natural habitat; Machiavelli, who associated political excellence with virt?--the exertion needed to channel action, cunning, and strength to achieve one's goals; and Max Weber, who called for a politician endowed with heroic stature to save politics from the desultory process of bureaucratic rationalization. Manhood and Politics is an original, often acerbic reading of familiar themes in classical works. Professor Brown artfully weaves the dissimilarities of fundamentally masculine political theories into a depiction of points of similarity in constructing ideals of manhood and, in the process, provides touchstones for an alternative, "postmasculinist" politics.

Τα ζητήματα που εγείρει ο φεμινισμός έχουν κεντρική θέση στον τρόπο οργάνωσης της ανθρώπινης κοινωνίας και στον τρόπο με τον οποίο αντιλαμβανόμαστε τον κόσμο. Στο βιβλίο αυτό η Valerie Bryson προσφέρει μια διεξοδική εξέταση της ιστορίας της δυτικής φεμινιστικής σκέψης, από τον 17ο αιώνα μέχρι τις μέρες μας, και μια οξυδερκή ανάλυση των σύγχρονων αντιπαραθέσεων. Μας παρουσιάζει μια προσιτή και γόνιμη για τη σκέψη ανάλυση σύνθετων θεωριών και εννοιών, συνδέοντάς τες με ζητήματα της "αληθινής ζωής", όπως η σεξουαλική βία, η πολιτική εκπροσώπηση και η οικογένεια. Το βιβλίο αυτό αποδεικνύει ότι ο φεμινισμός ακόμη και σήμερα είναι σημαντικός, καθώς και ότι μια έγκυρη θεωρία μπορεί να μας βοηθήσει να κατανοήσουμε το γιατί εξακολουθούν να υφίστανται τόσα προβλήματα και το πώς θα μπορούσε να επιτευχθεί η πρόοδος. Ένα βασικό ανάγνωσμα για όλους όσοι ενδιαφέρονται για τη φεμινιστική σκέψη και την πολιτική θεωρία.

As a form of power, subjection is paradoxical. To be dominated by a power external to oneself is a familiar and agonizing form power takes. To find however, that what "one" is, one's very formation as a subject, is dependent upon that very power is quite another. If, following Foucault, we understand power as forming the subject as well, it provides the very condition of the subject's existence and the trajectory of its desire/ power is then not simply what we depend on but that which forms reflexivity as well. Drawing upon Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault and Althusser, this challenging and lucid work offers a theory of subject formation that illuminates as ambivalent the psychic effects of social power. To claim that power fabricates the psyche is also to claim that there is a fictional and fabricated quality to the psyche. The figure of a psyche that "turns against itself" is crucial to this study, and offers an alternative to describing power as "internalized". Although most readers of Foucault eschew psychoanalytic theory, and most thinkers of the psyche eschew Foucault, the author seeks to theorize this ambivalent relation between the social and the psychic as one of the most dynamic and difficult effects of power. This work combines social theory, philosophy, and psychoanalysis in novel ways, offering a more sustained analysis of the theory of subject formation implicit in such other works of the author such as Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" and Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.

Western culture is replete with mythic figures that provide a self-representation of the symbolic order from which the culture is woven. The process can be traced back to ancient mythology, and can be found in all kinds of literary documents down through the ages, even in the modern period, or rather, in modern reaprorpiations of more ancient figures. In the beginning were the gods of Greek myth, then Homer's Odysseus and Polyphemus, then Oedipus in classical tragedy, not to mention the figures in the Bible. Later came Faust and Don Juan, or we could even add Cyrano and Whether. In fact, the mythic figure has the power to express in a concentrated way the symbolic order that shapes it. Indeed it is within the symbolic order that the figure takes on a signifying name (a proper name). It does this with a kind of immediate, story-like allusiveness, coming to life in a vital, paradigmatic way. Clearly, the symbolic order finds expression in other types of language, for example the philosophical treatises or legal documents. But the mythic figure is unique in its communicative force and in its capacity to stir up a sense of self recognition: it has the ongoing ability to adapt to the inner workings of the symbolic order like a living organism whose different traits become visible from various points of view that evolve over time.

What relationship exists between gender and technology? Does technology contribute to the disadvantage of women? In this innovative, ground-breaking volume, the authors take as an example the microwave oven, a recent innovation in domestic technology that neatly encapsulates the technology/gender relationship. In the microwave, argue the authors, "masculine" engineering encounters an age-old "women's" technology-cooking. Cockburn and Ormrod show how the microwave begins as a state-of-the-art "masculine" technology, is translated in the retail trade into a "family" commodity (one of a range of domestic goods), and eventually settles into the kitchen alongside other humble "feminine" appliances. Demonstrating how technology relations work to the disadvantage of women, the authors build theory out of meticulous observation of lived relations--both comic and painful--between real men and women and the machines they make and sell, buy and use.

Whether the body is treated as biological bedrock or subversive metaphor, it is implicated in the cultural and historical construction of sexual difference as well as asymmetrical power relations. The contributors to this volume examine the role of the body as a socially shaped and historically colonized territory and as the focus of individual women's struggles for autonomy and self-determination. They also analyze its centrality to the feminist critique of male-stream science as dualistic, distanced and decontextualized. While the body has become a "hot item" in contemporary social theory and research, this renewed interest has received mixed reactions from feminists. The body may be back, but the "new" body theory often proves to be just as disembodied as it ever was. The body revival seems to be less an attempt to re-embody masculinist science than just another expression of the same condition which evoked the feminist critique in the first place: a flight from femininity and everything that is associated with it in Western culture. Drawing upon insights from contemporary feminist theories of gender and power, this book offers a timely critical appraisal of the recent "body revival".

Gender and Economics provides an introduction to gender studies in economics. This is a rapidly expanding field in which textbooks are urgently necessary. The contributors give comprehensive coverage of the economic situation of women throughout Europe. The authors approach the subject on three different levels: _ the economic theory of gender and economics. _ the different positions of men and women in the economy, their earning power and the division of labour within the family. _ European policy and law, and how this is evolving. With its unique balance of theoretical and empirical data, this book will be of great use to students of labour economics. It will also provide a wider view for all students of micro and macro economics.

How does the concept of racism rear its ugly head and fester in society? How do notions of "us'' and "them'', "inclusion'' and "exclusion'', "center'' and "margin'' originate and operate? Bridging cultural studies and political analysis, Race, Culture and Difference presents timely debates on race and its meanings in contemporary society and in educational and social policy. Linking feminist, post-structuralist and postmodernist concerns in recent social and cultural theory, it examines the contribution of ideas such as "ethnicity,'' "community,'' "identity,'' and "difference.'' The authors present a sustained yet sympathetic criticism of the organized forms of antiracism that have come to dominate educational policy. Their fresh, new approaches also begin to define an alternative agenda sensitive to the problems and the possibilities of difference. A successful balance between important recent articles and substantial contributions specifically written for this volume, Race, Culture and Difference will prove essential reading for professionals and students of sociology, cultural studies and education, and for those concerned with discrimination and antiracist policies.

It has long been recognized that women writers have played a significant role in the rise of the novel. Women and the Rise of the Novel is the first systematic theoretical study of early modern women's fiction showing how and why it helped shape the novel's identity. While most studies of the origin of the novel begin with the eighteenth century, Donovan traces women's literary traditions from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, focusing on the early modern period as a starting point. She examines works in Italian, French, and Spanish, as well as English, highlighting the contributions of various women writers from Christine de Pizan to Jane Austen.

Cynthia Enloe pulls back the curtain on the familiar scenes--governments restricting imported goods, bankers negotiating foreign loans, soldiers serving overseas--and shows that the real landscape is less exclusively male. Bananas, Beaches and Bases shows how thousands of women tailor their marriages to fit the demands of state secrecy; how foreign policy would grind to a halt without secretaries to handle money transfers or arms shipments; and how women are working in hotels and factories around the world in order to service their governments' debts. Enloe also challenges common assumptions about what constitutes "international politics." She explains, for example, how turning tacos and sushi into bland fast foods affects relations between affluent and developing countries, and why a multinational banana company needs the brothel outside its gates. And she argues that shopping at Benneton, wearing Levis, working as a nanny (or employing one) or planning a vacation are all examples of foreign policy in action. Bananas, Beaches and Bases does not ignore our curiosity about arms dealers, the President's men or official secrets. But it shows why these conventional clues are not sufficient for understanding how the international political system works. In exposing policymakers' reliance on false notions of "feminity" and "masculinity", Enloe dismantles a seemingly overwhelming world system, exposing it to be much more fragile and open to change than we are usually led to believe.

Ποιες είναι οι σημαντικότερες πτυχές της σύγχρονης βιβλιογραφίας για το φύλο; Ποια είναι η σχέση της βιβλιογραφίας αυτής με την κοινωνική θεωρία; Πως μεταβάλλει η αναγνώριση της σημασίας του φύλου τα κύρια θέματα και επιχειρήματα της κοινωνικής θεωρίας; Η φεμινιστική θεωρία μας έχει βοηθήσει να κατανοήσουμε βαθύτερα τη σημασία του φύλου στην προσωπική μας ζωή, ενώ όλες οι σύγχρονες κοινωνικές επιστήμες αναγνωρίζουν πλέον την έμφυλη διαφοροποίηση του κοινωνικού μας κόσμου. Η Mary Evans, στο παρόν βιβλίο, διερευνά τόσο το πώς το φύλο καθορίζει τις ζωές μας όσο και σε ποια έκταση η πληρέστερη αναγνώριση της διαφοράς των φύλων συνεπάγεται την αποδιάρθρωση, τον κλονισμό ή την υποβάθμιση της κοινωνικής θεωρίας με κάποιον σημαίνοντα τρόπο γραμμένο από μια διεθνούς φήμης συγγραφέα, το κείμενο αυτό έχει ιδιαίτερη αξία για το μελετητή και αποτελεί σημείο αναφοράς στο συγκεκριμένο γνωστικό πεδίο

Anne Fausto-Sterling goes on to critique the science itself, exposing inconsistencies in the literature and weaknesses in the rhetorical and theoretical structures that support new research. "One of the major claims I make in this book," she explains, "is that labeling someone a man or a woman is a social decision. We may use scientific knowledge to help us make the decision, but only our beliefs about gender--not science--can define our sex. Furthermore, our beliefs about gender affect what kinds of knowledge scientists produce about sex in the first place." Whether discussing genital surgery on intersex infants or the amorous lives of lab rats, the author is unfailingly clear and convincing, and manages to impart humor to subjects as seemingly unpromising as neuroanatomy and the structure of proteins.

"Sex class is so deep as to be invisible. Or it may appear as a superficial inequality, one that can be solved by merely a few reforms, or perhaps by the full integration of women into the labour force. But the reaction of the common man, woman, and child - 'That? Why you can't change that! You must be out of your mind!' - is the closest to the truth. We are talking about something every bit as deep as that. This gut reaction - the assumption that, even when they don't know it, feminists are talking about changing a fundamental biological condition - is an honest one. That so profound a change cannot be easily fitted into traditional categories of thought, e.g., 'political', is not because these categories do not apply but because they are not big enough: radical feminism bursts through them. If there were another word more all-embracing than revolution - we would use it."

The notion of identification, especially in the discourse of feminist theory, has come sharply and dramatically into focus with the recent interest in such topics as queer performativity, cross-dressing, and racial passing. Identification Papers is the first book to track the evolution of identification's emergence in psychoanalytic theory. Diana Fuss seeks to understand where this notion of identification has come from, and why it has emerged as one of the most difficult problems in contemporary theory and politics. Identification Papers situates the recent critical interest in identification in the intellectual tradition that first gave the idea its theoretical relevance: psychoanalysis. Fuss begins from the assumption that identification has a history, and that the term carries with it a host of theoretical problems, conceptual difficulties, and ideological complications. By tracking the evolution of identification in Freud's work over a forty year period, Fuss demonstrates how the concept of identification is neither a theoretically neutral notion nor a politically innocent one. Identification Papers closely examines the three principal figures -- gravity, ingestion, and infection -- that psychoanalysis invokes to theorize identification. Fuss then deconstructs the psychoanalytic theory of identification in order to open up the possibility of more innovative rethinkings of the political. Drawing on literature, film, and Freud's own case histories, and engaging with a wide range of disciplines -- including critical theory, philosophy, film theory, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, and feminism -- Identification Papers will be a necessary starting point in any future theoretical project that seeks to mobilize the concept of identification for a feminist politics.

Women and Social Transformation brings three women from different countries together into dialogue. Judith Butler is the most referenced author in current feminist literature, and we find the latest developments of her work in this book. Lidia Puigvert has recently reached international recognition with her contribution to the "other women", who have not yet had a voice in feminism and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim complements this debate with her work about immigrant women. The authors argue for the need to open feminism to the plurality of all women's voices, especially those who are in the margins. Women and Social Transformation is a debate, and speaks about transforming gender relations, taking a distance from post-modern stances, and insisting on the need for egalitarian dialogue among women. This book gives back the meaning of the feminist struggle.

In conflict zones from Iraq and Afghanistan to Guatemala and Somalia, the rules of war are changing dramatically. Distinctions between battlefield and home, soldier and civilian, state security and domestic security are breaking down. In this especially timely book, a powerful group of international authors doing feminist research brings the highly gendered and racialized dimensions of these changes into sharp relief. In essays on nationalism, the political economy of conflict, and the politics of asylum, they investigate what happens when the body, household, nation, state, and economy become sites at which violence is invoked against people. In particular, these essays move us forward in our understanding of violence against women--how it is perpetrated, survived, and resisted. They explore the gendered politics of ethno-nationalism in Sri Lanka, the post-Yugoslav states, and Israel and Palestine. They consider "honor killings" in Iraqi Kurdistan, armed conflict in the Sudan, and geographies of violence in Ghana. This volume augments feminist analysis on conflict zones and contributes to transnational coalition-building and feminist organizing efforts.

Gender roles are nowhere more prominent than in war. Yet contentious debates, and the scattering of scholarship across academic disciplines, have obscured understanding of how gender affects war and vice versa. In this authoritative and lively review of our state of knowledge, Joshua Goldstein assesses the possible explanations for the near-total exclusion of women from combat forces, through history and across cultures. Topics covered include the history of women who did fight and fought well, the complex role of testosterone in men's social behaviors, and the construction of masculinity and femininity in the shadow of war. Goldstein concludes that killing in war does not come naturally for either gender, and that gender norms often shape men, women, and children to the needs of the war system. lllustrated with photographs, drawings, and graphics, and drawing from scholarship spanning six academic disciplines, this book provides a unique study of a fascinating issue.

Women, the State, and Welfare is the first collection of essays specifically about women and welfare in the United States. As an introduction to the effects of welfare programs, it is intended for general readers as well as specialists in sociology, history, political science, social work, and women's studies. The book begins with a review essay by Linda Gordon that outlines current scholarship about women and welfare. The chapters that follow explore discrimination against women inherent in many welfare programs; the ways in which welfare programs reinforce basic gender programs in society; the contribution of organized, activist women to the development of welfare programs; and differences of race and class in the welfare system. By giving readers access to a number of perspectives about women and welfare, this book helps position gender at the center of welfare scholarship and policy making and places welfare issues at the forefront of feminist thinking and action.

During the 1990s, Greece had a very high rate of abortion at the same time that its low birth rate was considered a national crisis. The Empty Cradle of Democracy explores this paradox. Alexandra Halkias shows that despite Greek Orthodox beliefs that abortion is murder, many Greek women view it as "natural" and consider birth control methods invasive. The formal public-sphere view is that women destroy the body of the nation by aborting future citizens. Scrutiny of these conflicting cultural beliefs enables Halkias's incisive critique of the cornerstones of modern liberal democracy, including the autonomous "individual" subject and a polity external to the private sphere. The Empty Cradle of Democracy examines the complex relationship between nationalism and gender and re-theorizes late modernity and violence by exploring Greek representations of human agency, the fetus, national identity, eroticism, and the divine. Halkias's analysis combines telling fragments of contemporary Athenian culture, Greek history, media coverage of abortion and the declining birth rate, and fieldwork in Athens at an obstetrics/gynecology clinic and a family-planning center. Halkias conducted in-depth interviews with one hundred and twenty women who had had two or more abortions and observed more than four hundred gynecological exams at a state family-planning center. She reveals how intimate decisions and the public preoccupation with the low birth rate connect to nationalist ideas of race, religion, freedom, resistance, and the fraught encounter between modernity and tradition. The Empty Cradle of Democracy is a startling examination of how assumptions underlying liberal democracy are betrayed while the nation permeates the body and understandings of gender and sexuality complicate the nation-building projects of late modernity.

Is bisexuality coming out in America? Bisexual characters are surfacing on popular television shows and in film. Newsweek proclaims that a new sexual identity is emerging. But amidst this burgeoning acknowledgment of bisexuality, is there an understanding of what it means to be bisexual in a monosexual culture? RePresenting Bisexualities seeks to answer these questions, integrating a recognition of bisexual desire with new theories of gender and sexuality. Despite the breakthroughs in gender studies and queer studies of recent years, bisexuality has remained largely unexamined. Problematic sexual images are usually attributed either to homosexual or heterosexual desire while bisexual readings remain unexplored. The essays found in RePresenting Bisexualities discuss fluid sexualities through a variety of readings from the fence, covering texts from Emily Dickinson to Nine Inch Nails. Each author contributes to the collection a unique view of sexual fluidity and transgressive desire. Taken together, these essays provide the most comprehensive bisexual theory reader to date.

In Primate Visions, Haraway explicates the metaphors and narratives that direct the science of primatology. She demonstrates that there is a tendency to masculinize the stories about reproductive competition and sex between aggressive males and receptive females that facilitate some and preclude other types of conclusions. She contends that female primatologists focus on different observations that require more communication and basic survival activities, offering very different perspectives of the origins of nature and culture than the currently accepted ones. Drawing on examples of Western narratives and ideologies of gender, race and class, Haraway questions the most fundamental constructions of scientific human nature stories based on primates.

Donna Haraway's work has transformed the fields of cyberculture, feminist studies, and the history of science and technology. Her subjects range from animal dioramas in the American Museum of Natural History to research in transgenic mice, from gender in the laboratory to the nature of the cyborg. Trained as a historian of science, she has produced a series of books and essays that have become essential reading in cultural studies, gender studies, and the history of science. The Haraway Reader brings together a generous selection of Donna Haraway's work. Included is her "Manifesto for Cyborgs," in which she famously wrote that she "would rather be a cyborg than a goddess." Other selections are taken from her three major works, Primate Visions, Modest Witness , and Simians, Cyborgs and Women , as well as some of her more recent writing on animals. For readers in cultural studies, feminist theory, science studies, and cyberculture, Donna Haraway is one of our keenest observers of nature, science, and the social world. This volume is the best introduction to her thought.

This volume contains eleven of Hartsock's essays, almost all previously published, and arranged in roughly chronological order. The book is divided into three sections, interspersed with short commentaries in which Hartsock explains the development of her thought. From these inteludes one gains insights into how Hartsock's life shaped her thought, and vice versa; her more first-personal meta-analysis of the state of feminist theory reflects her long political experience. She identifies two core themes in all these essays - power and epistemology - and is right to point out the significance of "the importance of issues of power for activists committed to social change cannot be exaggerated. We need to know how relations of domination are constructed, how we participate in these relations, how we resist, and how we might transform them."

As a largely unexplored area, this inquiry is an innovative and original examination of bisexual spaces as places that are defined by both geographical boundaries and cultural assumptions. Hemmings applies the ideas of queer theory as well as social and cultural geography in her fascinating investigation into the spaces and places of bisexual life. Specifically focusing on Northhampton, MA and San Francisco, she draws on interviews with community members and the town histories showing how and why they have developed into safe places for the gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities. By mapping out a space of bisexuality, Bisexual Spaces provides a new and provocative understanding of the concept.

The basic premise of this book is that "the structural contradictions on which capitalism is based . . . shape the work we do, the food we eat, our mobility in the world, how we know, who and how we love." Further, Hennessy argues that homosexuality can no longer be seen as a "monolithic or universal identity" and that "all sexual identities . . . are intimately inflected by gender, race, nationality, ability, age." Hennessy makes the point that these "identities themselves arise from capitalism." and gives us a Marxist feminist analysis of the commodification of culture in global capitalism and the creation and management of sexual identities. Her historical approach uncovers problems not only with classical identity politics but also with postmodern queer theory and politics with incisive criticisms of Althusser, Williams, Butler and De Lauretis.

Women with muscles are a recent phenomenon, so recent that, while generating a good deal of interest, both positive and negative, their importance to the cultural landscape has yet to be acknowledged. This newness, along with the ways in which muscular women challenge traditional ideas that associate women with physical weakness and incompetence, femininity with diminution and childishness, and the female body with softness, has led to a widely held belief, both inside of body building circles and outside, that the cultural implications of female body building are limited to a small subculture. Leslie Heywood looks at the sport and image of female body building as a metaphor for how women fare in our current political and cultural climate. Drawing on contemporary feminist and cultural theory as well as her own involvement in the sport, she argues that the movement in women's body building from small, delicate bodies to large powerful ones and back again is directly connected to progress and backlash within the abortion debate, the ongoing struggle for race and gender equality, and the struggle to define "feminism" in the context of the nineties. She discusses female body building as activism, as an often effective response to abuse, race and masculinity in body building, and the contradictory ways that photographers treat female body builders. Engaging and accessible, Bodymakers reveals how female bodybuilders find themselves both trapped and empowered by their sport.

An important contribution to the current literature on gender and social politics, this book challenges mainstream thinking on welfare states, citizenship, family, work, and social policy. Contested Concepts in Gender and Social Politics analyses the corresponding shifts in political discourse, and the changes in socio-political configurations that mirror changing gender relations. The discussion is both international and interdisciplinary, and focuses on topics that include citizenship, social exclusion and inclusion, care, social capital and representation, amongst others. The contributors examine these issues in relation to current policy debates and consider how they are embedded in particular European intellectual traditions. They also explore how feminist scholarship has engaged with these issues, and assess how these contested concepts can improve understanding both of the position of women and of gender relations more broadly.

Socialist feminist theorizing is flourishing today. This collection is intended to show its strengths and resources and convey a sense of it as an ongoing project. Not every contribution to that project bears the same theoretical label, but the writings collected here share a broad aim of understanding women's subordination in a way which integrates class and gender - as well as aspects of women's identity such as race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation - with the aim of liberating women. The Socialist Feminist Project: A Contemporary Reader in Theory and Politics brings together the most important recent socialist feminist writings on a wide range of topics: sex and reproduction, the family, wage labor, social welfare and public policy, the place of sex and gender in politics, and the philosophical foundations of socialist feminism. Although focusing on recent writings, the collection shows how these build on a history of struggle. These writings demonstrate the range, depth, and vitality of contemporary socialist feminist debates. They also testify to the distinctive capacity of this project to address issues in a way that embraces collective experience and action while at the same time enabling each person to speak in their own personal voice.

Sex/Machine is maping the intersection between gender and technology. Crossing multiple academic disciplines--from philosophy of technology, to medical ethics, to womens studies, gender theory and cultural studies, to law (among others), Patrick Hopkins has assembled a collection of provocative writing concerning the interactions between technologies and genders. The essays in this edited volume explore the history of technologies and gender, and how technology can shore up traditional and problematic gender roles (e.g., pectoral implants to make men appear more "macho", and technologies that make it possible for parents to know, and potentially select, the sex of their children before they are born). Another important aspect of the book is the exploration of the ways technologies undermine traditional ideas of gender.

This up-to-date book addresses the implications of postmodernism and post-structuralism for feminist theorizing. It identifies the challenges of this through the development of 'conceptual literacy'. Introducing conceptual literacy as a pedagogic task, this text facilitates students' understanding of, for example: - The range and lack of fixity of conceptualizations and meanings of key terms; - The significance of theoretical framework for conceptualization of key terms; - The changing nature of language and the reframing of key terms in research (eg the recent shift from 'equality' to 'social justice'); The text explores these issues through six key concepts in feminist theorizing: equality; difference; choice; care; time; and experience. Each chapter considers the varied ways in which these terms have been conceptualised and the feminist debates about these concepts. Each chapter includes case studies to illustrate the application of these concepts in feminist empirical research, and provides a guide to further reading.

New technologies suggest new ideas about embodiment: our "reach" extends to global sites through the Internet; we enter cyberspace through the engines of virtual reality. In this book, a leading philosopher of technology explores the meaning of bodies in technology-how the sense of our bodies and of our orientation in the world is affected by the various information technologies. Bodies in Technology begins with an analysis of embodiment in cyberspace, then moves on to consider ways in which social theorists have interpreted or overlooked these conditions. An astute and sensible judge of these theories, Don Ihde is a uniquely provocative and helpful guide through contemporary thinking about technology and embodiment, drawing on sources and examples as various as video games, popular films, the workings of e-mail, and virtual reality techniques. Charting the historical, philosophical, and practical territory between virtual reality and real life, this work is an important contribution to the national conversation on the impact technology-and information technology in particular-has on our lives in a wired, global age.

What does it mean to desire both men and women?This question has been answered in many different ways and asked for many different reasons: by Madonna, by Freud, by feminism, by Shakespeare, and more recently by the emergent bisexual community. The essays in The Bisexual Imaginary demonstrate that the ways in which bisexuality is discussed shed important light on how we make sense of our desires and how we produce identities and communities out of them. Covering variously film and sexology, photography and literature, psychoanalysis and political identity, this collection explores the different ways that bisexuality has both been represented and had its representation elided. By refusing to argue simply for a new and autonomous "bisexual self", these essays show desiring both men and women plays a complex role in the construction of lesbian, gay, and straight identities. Bisexuality is presented as simultaneously pivotal to a sense of self and as that which causes profound anxiety and tension within the self.The Bisexual Imaginary, offers wide-ranging analysis of these concerns and makes a timely case for the centrality of bisexual theory to gender studies, lesbian and gay studies, and cultural and literary studies.

Can science be gender-neutral? In recent years, feminist critics have raised troubling questions about the practice and goals of traditional science, demonstrating the existence of a pervasive bias in the ways in which scientists conduct and discuss their work. This exciting volume gathers seventeen essays--by sociologists, scientists, historians, and philosophers--of seminal significance in the emerging field of feminist science studies. Analyzing topics from the stereotype of the "Man of Reason" to the "romantic" language of reproductive biology, these fascinating essays challenge readers to take a fresh look at the limitations--and possibilities--of scientific knowledge.

Gender and International Migration in Europe is a unique work which introduces a gendered dimension into theories of contemporary migrations. As the European Union seeks to extend equal opportunities, increasingly restrictionist immigration policies and the persistance of racism, deny autonomy and choice to migrant women. This work demonstrates how processes of globalisation and change in state policies on employment and welfare have maintained a demand for diverse forms of gendered immigration. The authors examine state and European Union policies of immigration control, family reunion, refugees and the management of immigrant and ethnic minority communities. Most importantly this work considers the opportunities created for political activity by migrant women and the extent to which they are able to influence and participate in mainstream policy-making. This is volume will be essential reading for anyone involved in or interested in modern European immigration policy.

The competing pressures of globalization and immigration have forced people everywhere to think long and hard about what it means to be a citizen. In Citizenship, Ruth Lister argues for a new feminist notion of citizenship, one that can accommodate difference. Lister explores a range of disciplines and a burgeoning international literature on citizenship, pinpointing important theoretical issues and recasting traditional thinking about it, while exploring its political and policy implications for women in all their diversity. Themes of inclusion and exclusion (at the national and international level), rights and participation, inequality and difference are thus brought to the fore in the development of a "woman-friendly" theory of citizenship.

Recent debates in contemporary feminist theory have been dominated by the relation between identity and politics. Beyond Identity Politics examines the implications of recent theorizing on difference, identity and subjectivity for theories of patriarchy and feminist politics. This book focuses on a question which feminists struggled with and were divided by throughout the last decade, that is: how to theorize the relation between the subject and politics. In a thoughtful engagement with these debates Moya Lloyd argues that the turn to the subject in process does not entail the demise of feminist politics as many feminists have argued. A resource for feminist theorists, women's and gender studies students, as well as political and social theorists, this is a carefully composed and wide-ranging text, which provides important insights into one of contemporary feminism's most central concerns.

"A lot of people in the general public think female bodybuilding is gross and freaky . . . that that's not what a woman is supposed to look like." So says Michelle, a national bodybuilding judge. In fact, athletic women, especially those in sports where strength, muscle, and sweat feature prominently, are typically viewed by the public as being outside the boundaries of appropriate femininity. And perhaps no group of women athletes embodies this gender outlaw status more than female bodybuilders, who by their bulk and sheer strength challenge our very notions of what it means to be a woman. Why would women choose to look like that? And what does it take to become and stay so muscular? Maria R. Lowe has interviewed more than one hundred people connected with women's bodybuilding, from the bodybuilders themselves, to trainers, family members, spouses, judges, and sponsors. In Women of Steel, Lowe introduces us to a world where size and strength must be balanced with a nod toward grace and femininity. Lowe, who actually worked out with a couple of the bodybuilders she interviewed, gets at the heart of what it is to be a woman bodybuilder. We learn about "paying the price"--doing the necessary exercise, and sometimes drugs--that allows women to rise to the top of their profession. We follow their successes and failures, and discover the benefits-- including increased self-esteem and physical strength--as well as the sometimes unhealthy effects of their training regimen, from dehydration to baldness to rampant acne to high blood pressure. We travel with the women from competition to competition and find that judges' standards seem to vary alarmingly depending on momentary notions of what constitutes "the overall package"--that elusive perfect body that catches the judge's eye and wins competitions.

Since 1981, AIDS has had an enormous impact upon the popular imagination. Few other diseases this century have been greeted with quite the same fear, loathing, and prejudice against those who develop it. The mass media, and in particular, the news media, have played a vital part in "making sense" of AIDS. This volume takes an interdisciplinary perspective, combining cultural studies, history of medicine, and contemporary social theory to examine AIDS reporting. There have been three major themes dominating coverage: the "gay-plague" dominant in the early 1980s, panic-stricken visions of the end of the world as AIDS was said to pose a threat to everyone, in the late 1980s; and a growing routinising of coverage in the 1990s. This book lays bare the sub-textual ideologies giving meaning to AIDS news reports, including anxieties about pollution and contagion, deviance, bodily control, the moral meanings of risk, the valorisation of drugs and medical science. Drawing together the work of cultural and political theorists, sociologists and historians who have written about medicine, disease and the body, as well as that of theorists in Europe and the USA who have focused their attention specificaiiy on AIDS, this book explores the wide theoretical debate about the importance of language in the social construction of illness and disease. This text offers insights into the sociocultural context in which attitudes towards people with HIV or AIDS and people's perceptions of risk from HIV infection are developed as the responses of governments to the AIDS epidemic are formulated.

This is a theoretical legal treatise from activist attorney MacKinnon, co-author of the controversial Dworkin-MacKinnon anti-pornography civil rights ordinance. She begins with a discussion of feminism and Marxism, because (as she explains) the latter is the only contemporary political tradition to confront organized social dominance as a dynamic. She goes on to analyze feminist methodologies (in terms of consciousness-raising) and the knowledge it reveals; and what she calls feminism unmodified (radical feminism) as a post-Marxist methodology. She explores issues of sexuality/gender and how they contribute to women's oppression and the role of the liberal state in promoting it. Revealing, closely reasoned, densely written, this is not easy reading, but sure to be hotly debated among academicians and intellectuals.

A sumptuously mounted and photographed celebration of artful wickedness, betrayal and sexual intrigue among depraved 18th-century French aristocrats, Dangerous Liaisons (based on Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses) is seductively decadent fun. The villainous heroes are the Marquise De Merteuil (Glenn Close) and the Vicomte De Valmont (John Malkovich), who have cultivated their mutual cynicism into a highly developed and exquisitely mannered form of (in-)human expression. Former lovers, they now fancy themselves rather like demigods whose mutual desires have evolved beyond the crudeness of sex or emotion. They ritualistically act out their twisted affections by engaging in elaborate conspiracies to destroy the lives of their less calculating acquaintances, daring each other to ever-more-dastardly acts of manipulation and betrayal. Why? Just because they can; it's their perverted way of getting their kicks in a dead-end, pre-Revolutionary culture. Among their voluptuous and virtuous prey are fair-haired angels played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Uma Thurman, who have never looked more ripe for ravishing. When the Vicomte finds himself beset by bewilderingly genuine emotions for one of his victims, the Marquise considers it the ultimate betrayal and plots her heartless revenge. Dangerous Liaisons is a high-mannered revel for the actors, who also include Swoosie Kurtz, Mildred Natwick, and Keanu Reeves.

This book reassesses theories of agency and gender identity against the backdrop of changing relations between men and women in contemporary societies. McNay argues that recent thought on the formation of the modern subject offers a one-sided or negative account of agency, which underplays the creative dimension present in the responses of individuals to changing social relations. An understanding of this creative element is central to a theory of autonomous agency, and also to an explanation of the ways in which women and men negotiate changes within gender relations.In exploring the implications of this idea of agency for a theory of gender identity, McNay brings together the work of leading feminist theorists - such as Judith Butler and Nancy Fraser - with the work of key continental social theorists. In particular, she examines the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Paul Ricoeur and Cornelius Castoriadis, each of whom has explored different aspects of the idea of the creativity of action. McNay argues that their thought has interesting implications for feminist ideas of gender, but these have been relatively neglected partly because of the huge influence of the work of Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan in this area. She argues that, despite its suggestive nature, feminist theory must move away from the ideas of Foucault and Lacan if a more substantive account of agency is to be introduced into ideas of gender identity. This book will appeal to students and scholars in the areas of social theory, gender studies and feminist theory.

The women's Olympics are one of the best kept secrets of ancient Greek history! Dozens or maybe even hundreds of books have been published about the male games, but this is the only one examining the female ones. Harita Meenee, a classical studies expert specializing in women's studies, sheds abundant light on the young women's games which took place every four years in Olympia. They were called Heraia, as they were held in honor of Hera, and they may have been older than the male ones. The author emphasizes the female cults which existed in this area from age-old times honoring the Great Mother Gaia and other goddesses. She also expands on the theory of professor F. M. Cornford, who suggested that the purpose of the two games was to select the young man and woman who would incarnate Zeus and Hera, or the Sun God and the Moon Goddess, in the ritual of the Sacred Marriage. Her research draws upon ancient texts and archeological finds, as well as on the rich material provided by mythology, religion, symbols and language. Additionally, she utilizes the power of fiction in order to initiate the reader into the spirit of Olympia, starting the book with a fascinating love story.

This book traces the social origins of the sexual division of labor. It gives a history of the related processes of colonization and "housewifization" and extends this analysis to the contemporary new international division of labor and the role that women have to play as the cheapest producers and consumers. First published in 1986, it was hailed as a major paradigm shift for feminist theory. Eleven years on, Maria Mies' theory of capitalist patriarchy has become even more relevant; this new edition includes a substantial new introduction in which she both applies her theory to the new globalized world and answers her critics.

This introduction to feminist literary theory, the first full introduction to this field to be published in English, is intended for the general reader as well as for students of literature. The aim of this book is to present the two main approaches to feminist literary theory, the Anglo-American and the French, through detailed discussion of the most representative figures on each side. Though it gives an accurate and comprehensive account of the main tendencies within the field, the book does not set out to provide a survey of different feminist readings or interpretations of literary works. Its main concern is to discuss the methods, principles and politics at work within feminist critical practice. One of the central principles of feminist criticisms is that no account can ever be neutral. The presentation of the feminist field is therefore an explicitly critical one. The author arguing from a position that often leads to disagreement with other feminists, would seem that she is exposed to accusations of lack of solidarity with other women. Should feminists criticize each other at all? If it is true, as she believes, that feminist criticism today is stifled by the absence of a genuinely critical debate about the political implications of its methodological and theoretical choices, the answer to that question is surely an unqualified affirmative.

The original essays in this book have been written by a number of leading international experts in the field of labour market studies to honour the intellectual contribution and lifetime achievement of Gόnther Schmid. The multidisciplinary contributions, which cover a variety of theoretical approaches, are all concerned with transitional labour markets and labour market policy in the new global economic environment. The authors first address current arguments and controversies regarding appropriate institutions for the formation and implementation of labour market and employment policies. They move on to focus on the policies and problems associated with enhancing gender equality in terms of labour market integration and transitions. Finally, they examine new institutional arrangements that they believe will both enhance the performance of transitional labour markets and improve the management of social risks. Combining a theoretical approach with empirical research and a strong policy emphasis, the scope and diversity of this book will ensure a broad audience amongst economists, political scientists and academics in the fields of labour market theory and policy.

The EU has recently launched a framework for policy development in education, training and the labor market. While equal opportunity is identified as important in the model framework, Mainstreaming Equality in the European Union argues that the gendered nature of these fields is not incorporated into the analysis upon which the policies are based. This book traces and critiques the record of the EU on equal opportunities from equal treatment, then positive action, through to the current agenda--mainstreaming equality. The author combines insights from feminist theory on conceptualizing equality, familiarity with Eurospeak and original research on the programs and projects of the Commission to offer an accessible, jargon-free account of the EU's attempts to encourage equal opportunities.

Feminisms and Internationalism addresses the theme of the history of internationalism in feminist theory and praxis. It engages some of the following topics: the ways in which 'internationalism' has been conceived historically within feminism and women's movements; the nature of and historical shifts within 'imperial' feminisms; changes in the meaning of feminist internationalism both preceding and following the end of most formal empires in the twentieth-century; the challenges to, and the reformulations of, internationalism within feminism by women of color and by women from colonized or formerly colonized countries; the fragmentation of internationalism in response to a growing emphasis on local over global contexts of struggle as well as on a variety of different feminism instead of a singular feminism; and the context for the re-emergence of internationalism within feminisms and women's movements as a result of the new modes of globalization in the late twentieth-century.

Gender is increasingly recognized as central to the study and analysis of the traditionally male domains of war and international relations. This book explores the key role of gender in peace research, conflict resolution and international politics. Rather than simply 'add gender and stir', the aim is to transcend different disciplinary boundaries and conceptual approaches to provide a more integrated basis for research and study. To this end Gender, Peace and Conflict uniquely combines theoretical chapters alongside empirical case studies to demonstrate the importance of a gender perspective to both theory and practice in conflict resolution and peace research. The theoretical chapters explore the gender relationship and engage with the many stereotypical elisions and dichotomies that dominate and distort the issue, such as the polarized pairs of femininity and peace versus masculinity and war. The case study chapters (drawing on examples from South America, South Asia and Europe, including former Yugoslavia) move beyond theoretical critique to focus on issues such as sexual violence in war, the role of women in military groups and peacekeeping operations, and the impact of a 'critical mass' of women in political decision-making. Gender, Peace and Conflict provides an invaluable survey and new insights in a central area of contemporary research. It will be essential reading for academics, students and practitioners across peace studies, conflict resolution and international politics.

This book has three major aims. First, it is in a broad sense concerned with exploring the ways in which "gender makes the world go around" and suggests ways in which feminist theories furnish us with conceptual and theoretical tools to construct knowledge about the world. It does not, however, attempt to construct a single feminist theory of International Relations, nor does it advance a particular perspective on how gender can best be understood in an international or global context. Rather, the approach adopted is in sympathy with the view that whilst partial in themselves, feminist theories have collectively produced a great many insights which contribute to our understanding of many of the concerns of International Relations as conventionally defined. For this reason, the organization of the book mirrors the conventional concerns of the discipline, for example issues of political identity, conceptions of political community and citizenship, the nature of power, the state, violence, peace and security, global political economy and development.

Since the 1970s, conflict studies and feminist studies have benefited greatly from a convergence of interest by widely different people, including practitioners, theorists, and researchers. The academic study of conflict, conflict management, and conflict resolution has grown, and applications of conflict resolution strategies have become integral to legal, corporate, and bureaucratic structures and widespread in personal and interpersonal problem solving. Concurrently, the 20th century women's movement brought major challenges to social and political organizations and changes in personal lives, at least in developed Western cultures. Yet, curiously, these developments have remained largely separate from each other. Although many, if not most, practitioners of interpersonal conflict management are women, most of those involved in the academic study of conflict and its resolution are not. This book covers different forms and contexts of conflict and includes chapters about theory and chapters about research. Taken as a whole, this book raises more questions than it answers and poses problems for which we have no definitive solutions. Yet, its questions and problems are of such consequence that we believe it important to stimulate dialogue that might lead to answers and solutions.

From Eve to Madonna, the normative conceptions of female identity have been largely associated with fashion and appearance. Now, in The Masque of Femininity, author Efrat Tseelon draws from interdisciplinary theory, empirical resources, and original research to examine how fashion, the body, and personal appearance have defined the female self. This volume explores femininity through an analysis of key concepts--modesty, duplicity, beauty, seduction, and death--and sheds light on such topics as the religious constructions of woman, the power of the prostitute metaphor, the female gaze, and cosmetic surgery. Elias, Freud, Lacan, Goffman, and Baudrillard are just a few of the scholars and theorists to whom the author makes reference in highlighting the paradoxical nature of the expectations that lie at the root of the contemporary feminine experience in the West. The Masque of Femininity will serve as an ideal supplement for courses in gender studies, cultural studies, and social psychology.

Το βιβλίο αυτό πραγματεύεται και αναλύει μια διαφορετική προσέγγιση, της φεμινιστικής οπτικής, που δεν επιδιώκει τίποτε περισσότερο από το να αναδείξει τους μηχανισμούς της συμπληρωματικής ή ατελούς ένταξης των γυναικών στις ιεραρχικές οργανώσεις και οργανισμούς, αλλά και στα ελεύθερα επαγγέλματα. Ουσιαστικά, το παρόν πόνημα αποτελεί μια αναδρομή στο γνωστικό αντικείμενο που αφορά στην έμφυλη διάσταση της μελέτης για την οργάνωση των επιχειρήσεων. Συγκεκριμένα, επιχειρείται η σκιαγράφηση του ερευνητικού πεδίου "Οργάνωση και Φύλο". Συγκεκριμένα, περιγράφεται η ανάπτυξη του εν λόγω γνωστικού πεδίου και επισημαίνονται τα κυριότερα αποτελέσματα της έρευνας σε θεωρητικό και εμπειρικό επίπεδο. Το έργο ολοκληρώθηκε στο πλαίσιο της ιδιότητάς μας ως ερευνήτριες και καθηγήτριες του συγκεκριμένου ερευνητικού πεδίου και φιλοδοξεί να καλύψει το κενό από την έλλειψη εισαγωγικού εγχειριδίου, η οποία επισημαίνεται από τους ειδικούς του κλάδου. Η συγγραφή του πραγματοποιήθηκε στο πλαίσιο του προγράμματος ένταξης της έμφυλης διάστασης στην εκπαίδευση οικονομολόγων που ανέλαβε το πανεπιστήμιο, στο οποίο απασχολούμασταν κατ' εντολή της Ανώτατης Διεύθυνσης Πανεπιστημίων (Hogskoleverket).

In an original and stimulating analysis of gender and AIDS, Tamsin Wilton assesses safer sex health promotion and health education discourse and considers their unintended consequences for the cultural construction of gender and sexuality. Taking a queer/feminist constructionist position, she links issues of power, gender, sexuality, and nationalism in an attempt to offer a sound theoretical foundation for an effective and radical HIV/AIDS health promotion strategy. EnGendering AIDS draws on safer sex materials from the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Scandinavia and sets current practice against the historical context of VD/STD education, dissecting the role played by STDs in the cultural construction of gender. Wilton debates the meanings that erotic minorities read into bodies and desires, and how these have been transformed by AIDS, and suggests a new model of pornography that disengages the sexually explicit and/or erotically arousing from gendered power relations. EnGendering AIDS suggests a radically innovative approach to the development of effective safer sex promotional strategies based on new thinking in health promotion and on the insights of both radical feminism and queer theory. This book will be of interest to professionals in health promotion and health education, and also to students and academics in womens studies, gender studies, lesbian and gay studies, sexuality, cultural studies, media studies, social policy, and medical sociology.

In the early days of Pong and Pac Man, video games appeared to be little more than an idle pastime. Today, video games make up a multi-billion dollar industry that rivals television and film. The Video Game Theory Reader brings together exciting new work on the many ways video games are reshaping the face of entertainment and our relationship with technology. Drawing upon examples from widely popular games ranging from Space Invaders to Final Fantasy IX and Combat Flight Simulator 2, the contributors discuss the relationship between video games and other media; the shift from third- to first-person games; gamers and the gaming community; and the important sociological, cultural, industrial, and economic issues that surround gaming.

Writing in an age when the call for the rights of man had brought revolution to America and France, Mary Wollstonecraft produced her own declaration of female independence in 1792. Passionate and forthright, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman attacked the prevailing view of docile, decorative femininity and instead laid out the principles of emancipation: an equal education for girls and boys, an end to prejudice, and the call for women to become defined by their profession, not their partner. Mary Wollstonecraft's work was received with a mixture of admiration and outrage-Walpole called her "a hyena in petticoats"-yet it established her as the mother of modern feminism.

Gender relations and the ways they affect and are affected by national projects and processes, Nira Yuval-Davis argues that the constructions of nationhood usually involve specific notions of both manhood and womanhood, although their explicit inclusion in the analytical discourse around nations and nationalisms is only a very recent endeavor. She promotes this analytical project by examining systematically the crucial contribution of gender relations into several major dimensions of nationalist projects, reproduction, national culture, citizenship, as well as national conflicts and wars. The author sharply differentiates national projects from nation-states and she emphasizes that membership on nations can be sub-, super-, and cross-states. Gender and Nation is an important contribution to the debates on citizenship, gender, and nationhood. Gender and Nation will be essential reading for academics and students of women's studies, race and ethnic studies, sociology, and political studies.

Από τα πιο σημαντικά στοιχεία που ο αναστοχασμός ως ρεύμα σκέψης εισήγαγε στις επιστήμες του ανθρώπου ήταν η αμφισβήτηση των ιεραρχικών δομών ανάμεσα στον ερευνητή και τα υποκείμενα της έρευνάς του. Η αντιεξουσιαστική αυτή λογική του αναστοχασμού στη φεμινιστική σκέψη πήρε διαστάσεις καταστατικής μεθοδολογικής διακήρυξης καθώς συγκλίνει με το αξίωμα ότι, όταν πρόκειται για την απελευθέρωση των γυναικών, το επιστημονικό αποδεικνύεται και πάλι πολιτικό. Πράγματι, όπως φαίνεται από τη εισαγωγική επισκόπηση των εξελίξεων που σημειώθηκαν στο χώρο των γυναικείων σπουδών τα τελευταία 30 χρόνια, ο σύγχρονος φεμινισμός υιοθετώντας τις προτάσεις του αναστοχασμού συνέβαλε ουσιαστικά στην κατανόηση ευρύτερων θεωρητικών ζητημάτων. Οι εργασίες που περιέχονται στο βιβλίο αυτό, και οι οποίες έχουν προκύψει όλες από έρευνες πεδίου, δείχνουν ακριβώς πως η αναστοχαστική μεθοδολογία εμπλουτίζει τη μελέτη του κοινωνικού φύλου στους τομείς της ψυχανάλυσης, της εθνογραφίας αλλά και της κριτικής των κειμένων.

Το ειδικό τεύχος του φεμινιστικού περιοδικού Δίνη, με θέμα την παραγωγή του "κοινωνικού σώματος", επιθυμεί να συνεισφέρει στην αποδόμηση της "ύποπτης γενικότητας" του σώματος, αλλά και να προχωρήσει πέρα από αυτό. Στοχεύει στη μελέτη και την ανάλυση των τρόπων με τους οποίους το σώμα, ο ορισμός και οι πρακτικές του αποτελούν κάτι παραπάνω από ένα (φυσικό) γεγονός, αποτελούν ένα κοινωνικό επίτευγμα κεντρικής σημασίας για τη σύσταση και τη διακυβέρνηση των σύγχρονων κοινωνιών. Η ευρύτερη θεωρητική συζήτηση στην οποία εντάσσονται η αποδόμηση και η επαν-εννοιολόγηση του έμφυλου υποκειμένου που επιχειρεί του έργο της Τζούντιθ Μπάτλερ εξελίσσεται με πληθώρα εντάσεων από τη δεκαετία του 1990 και μετά, κυρίως στις ΗΠΑ, την Αγγλία και τη Γαλλία. Κάτω από την επίδραση των αναζητήσεων και αναθεωρήσεων του μεταμοντερνισμού, οι οποίες καθιστούν προβληματική οποιαδήποτε επίκληση του "ατόμου" ως σταθερής και αυτονόητης οντότητας ή αναλυτικής κατηγορίας, και μαζί με τη φεμινιστική εμπειρία των κινδύνων που ελλοχεύουν όταν "οι γυναίκες" θεωρούνται εκ προοιμίου ομογενοποιημένη κατηγορία, αναπτύχθηκε εκ νέου μια συζήτηση που είχε ως αντικείμενο το αυτονόητο των διαφόρων φεμινισμών, την κατηγορία "γυναίκα". Το πρακτικό εγχείρημα του τεύχους είναι να συμβάλλει στο σύγχρονο διεπιστημονικό έργο διερεύνησης του κόμβου λόγος-εξουσία στον τόπο του έμφυλου σώματος. Το τεύχος μπορεί να συνεισφέρει στη σχετική διεθνή επιστημονική συζήτηση μέσα από τη συστηματική ανάλυση διαφορετικών τρόπων κατασκευής του κοινωνικού σώματος, διαδικασιών εξάλειψης αλλά και παραγωγής συγκεκριμένων ειδών σωμάτων και υποκειμένων.