A definitive guide to race and gender from the pioneers of black women's studies.

A comprehensive overview of the interdisciplinary field of Women's and Gender Studies, featuring original contributions from leading experts from around the world The Companion to Women's and Gender Studies is a comprehensive resource for students and scholars alike, exploring the central concepts, theories, themes, debates, and events in this dynamic field. Contributions from leading scholars and researchers cover a wide range of topics while providing diverse international, postcolonial, intersectional, and interdisciplinary insights. In-depth yet accessible chapters discuss the social construction and reproduction of gender and inequalities in various cultural, social-economic, and political contexts. Thematically-organized chapters explore the development of Women's and Gender Studies as an academic discipline, changes in the field, research directions, and significant scholarship in specific, interrelated disciplines such as science, health, psychology, and economics. Original essays offer fresh perspectives on the mechanisms by which gender intersects with other systems of power and privilege, the relation of androcentric approaches to science and gender bias in research, how feminist activists use media to challenge misrepresentations and inequalities, disparity between men and women in the labor market, how social movements continue to change Women's and Gender Studies, and more. Filling a significant gap in contemporary literature in the field, this volume: Features a broad interdisciplinary and international range of essays Engages with both individual and collective approaches to agency and resistance Addresses topics of intense current interest and debate such as transgender movements, gender-based violence, and gender discrimination policy Includes an overview of shifts in naming, theoretical approaches, and central topics in contemporary Women's and Gender Studies Companion to Women's and Gender Studies is an ideal text for instructors teaching courses in gender, sexuality, and feminist studies, or related disciplines such as psychology, history, education, political science, sociology, and cultural studies, as well as practitioners and policy makers working on issues related to gender and sexuality.

This book is comprised of reflections by diverse women's studies scholars, focusing on the many ways in which the field has evolved from its first introduction in the University setting to the present day.

As a leading historian of women, Linda K. Kerber has played an instrumental role in the radical rethinking of American history over the past two decades. The maturation and increasing complexity of studies in women's history are widely recognized, and in this remarkable collection of essays, Kerber's essential contribution to the field is made clear. In this volume is gathered some of Kerber's finest work. Ten essays address the role of women in early American history, and more broadly in intellectual and cultural history, and explore the rhetoric of historiography. In the chronological arrangement of the pieces, she starts by including women in the history of the Revolutionary era, then makes the transforming discovery that gender is her central subject, the key to understanding the social relation of the sexes and the cultural discourse of an age. From that fundamental insight follows Kerber's sophisticated contributions to the intellectual history of women. Prefaced with an eloquent and personal introduction, an account of the formative and feminist influences in the author's ongoing education, these writings illustrate the evolution of a vital field of inquiry and trace the intellectual development of one of its leading scholars.

The role of gender in the history of the working class world

The complete, authoritative, and up to date history of American feminism-intersectionality, sex-positivity Updated and expanded, the second edition of A History of U.S. Feminisms is an introductory text that will be used as supplementary material for first-year women's studies students or as a brush-up text for more advanced students. Covering the first, second, and third waves of feminism, A History of U.S. Feminisms will provide historical context of all the major events and figures from the late nineteenth century through today. The chapters cover: first-wave feminism, a period of feminist activity during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which focused primarily on gaining women's suffrage; second-wave feminism, which started in the '60s and lasted through the '80s and emphasized the connection between the personal and the political; and third-wave feminism, which started in the early '90s and is best exemplified by its focus on diversity, intersectionality, queer theory, and sex-positivity.

More than a generation after the rise of women's history alongside the feminist movement, it is still difficult, observes Catherine Brekus, to locate women in histories of American religion. In this collection of 12 essays, contributors explore how considering the religious history of American women can transform our dominant historical narratives. Covering a variety of topics--including Mormonism, the women's rights movement, Judaism, witchcraft trials, the civil rights movement, Catholicism, everyday religious life, Puritanism, African American women's activism, and the Enlightenment--the volume enhances our understanding of both religious history and women's history. Taken together, these essays sound the call for a new, more inclusive history.