Authors: Margaret Walters

Tags: #Social Science, #Feminism & Feminist Theory, #Anthropology, #Cultural, #History, #Social History, #Political Science, #Human Rights

Feminism

Feminism: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in more than 25 languages worldwide.

The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes – a Very Short Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to conceptual art and cosmology.

Very Short Introductions available now:

ANARCHISM Colin Ward

CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead

ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw

CLASSICS Mary Beard and

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

John Henderson

Julia Annas

CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard

ANCIENT WARFARE

THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon

Harry Sidebottom

CONSCIOUSNESS Susan Blackmore

THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE

Continental Philosophy

John Blair

Simon Critchley

ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia

COSMOLOGY Peter Coles

ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn

THE CRUSADES

ARCHITECTURE

Christopher Tyerman

Andrew Ballantyne

CRYPTOGRAPHY

ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes

Fred Piper and Sean Murphy

ART HISTORY Dana Arnold

DADA AND SURREALISM

ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland

David Hopkins

THE HISTORY OF

Darwin Jonathan Howard

ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin

Democracy Bernard Crick

Atheism Julian Baggini

DESCARTES Tom Sorell

Augustine Henry Chadwick

DESIGN John Heskett

BARTHES Jonathan Culler

DINOSAURS David Norman

THE BIBLE John Riches

DREAMING J. Allan Hobson

BRITISH POLITICS

DRUGS Leslie Iversen

Anthony Wright

THE EARTH Martin Redfern

Buddha Michael Carrithers

EGYPTIAN MYTH Geraldine Pinch

BUDDHISM Damien Keown

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY

BUDDHIST ETHICS Damien Keown

BRITAIN Paul Langford

CAPITALISM James Fulcher

THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball

THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe

EMOTION Dylan Evans

CHOICE THEORY

EMPIRE Stephen Howe

Michael Allingham

ENGELS Terrell Carver

CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson

Ethics Simon Blackburn

The European Union

THE MARQUIS DE SADE

John Pinder

John Phillips

EVOLUTION

MARX Peter Singer

Brian and Deborah Charlesworth

MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers

FASCISM Kevin Passmore

MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope

FOSSILS Keith Thomson

MEDIEVAL BRITAIN

FOUCAULT Gary Gutting

John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

MODERN ART David Cottington

William Doyle

MODERN IRELAND Senia Pasěta

FREE WILL Thomas Pink

MOLECULES Philip Ball

Freud Anthony Storr

MUSIC Nicholas Cook

Galileo Stillman Drake

Myth Robert A. Segal

Gandhi Bhikhu Parekh

NATIONALISM Steven Grosby

GLOBALIZATION

NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner

Manfred Steger

NINETEENTH-CENTURY

GLOBAL WARMING

BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and

Mark Maslin

H. C. G. Matthew

HABERMAS

NORTHERN IRELAND

James Gordon Finlayson

Marc Mulholland

HEGEL Peter Singer

PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close

HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood

paul E. P. Sanders

HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson

Philosophy Edward Craig

HINDUISM Kim Knott

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

HISTORY John H. Arnold

Samir Okasha

HOBBES Richard Tuck

PLATO Julia Annas

HUME A. J. Ayer

POLITICS Kenneth Minogue

IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Indian Philosophy

David Miller

Sue Hamilton

POSTCOLONIALISM

Intelligence Ian J. Deary

Robert Young

ISLAM Malise Ruthven

POSTMODERNISM

JOURNALISM Ian Hargreaves

Christopher Butler

JUDAISM Norman Solomon

POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Jung Anthony Stevens

Catherine Belsey

KAFKA Ritchie Robertson

PREHISTORY Chris Gosden

KANT Roger Scruton

PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY

KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner

Catherine Osborne

THE KORAN Michael Cook

Psychology Gillian Butler and

LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews

Freda McManus

LITERARY THEORY

QUANTUM THEORY

Jonathan Culler

John Polkinghorne

LOCKE John Dunn

RENAISSANCE ART

LOGIC Graham Priest

Geraldine A. Johnson

MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner

ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway

ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler

THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

RUSSELL A. C. Grayling

Helen Graham

RUSSIAN LITERATURE

SPINOZA Roger Scruton

Catriona Kelly

STUART BRITAIN John Morrill

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

TERRORISM

S. A. Smith

Charles Townshend

SCHIZOPHRENIA

THEOLOGY David F. Ford

Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone

THE HISTORY OF TIME

SCHOPENHAUER

Leofranc Holford-Strevens

Christopher Janaway

TRAGEDY Adrian Poole

SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer

THE TUDORS John Guy

SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt

TWENTIETH-CENTURY

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL

BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan

ANTHROPOLOGY

THE VIKINGS Julian D. Richards

John Monaghan and

Wittgenstein A. C. Grayling

Peter Just

WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman

SOCIALISM Michael Newman

THE WORLD TRADE

SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce

ORGANIZATION

Socrates C. C. W. Taylor

Amrita Narlikar

Available soon:

AFRICAN HISTORY

HUMAN EVOLUTION

John Parker and Richard Rathbone

Bernard Wood

ANGLICANISM Mark Chapman

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea

Paul Wilkinson

CHAOS Leonard Smith

JAZZ Brian Morton

CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy

THE MIND Martin Davies

CONTEMPORARY ART

PERCEPTION Richard Gregory

Julian Stallabrass

PHILOSOPHY OF LAW

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

Raymond Wacks

Timothy Lim

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

Derrida Simon Glendinning

Jack Copeland and

ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta

Diane Proudfoot

THE END OF THE WORLD

PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards

Bill McGuire

PSYCHIATRY Tom Burns

EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn

RACISM Ali Rattansi

THE FIRST WORLD WAR

THE RAJ Denis Judd

Michael Howard

THE RENAISSANCE

FUNDAMENTALISM

Jerry Brotton

Malise Ruthven

ROMAN EMPIRE Christopher Kelly

HIV/AIDS Alan Whiteside

ROMANTICISM Duncan Wu

For more information visit our web site

www.oup.co.uk/vsi/

Margaret Walters

FEMINISM

A Very Short Introduction

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford o x 2 6 d p

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.

It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in

Oxford New York

Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto

With offices in

Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries

Published in the United States

by Oxford University Press Inc., New York

The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published as a Very Short Introduction 2005

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above

You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available

ISBN 0–19–280510–X 978–0–19–280510–2

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk

Printed in Great Britain by

TJ International Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall

Contents

List of illustrations ix

Introduction 1

The religious roots of feminism 6

The beginning of secular feminism 17

The 18th century: Amazons of the pen 26