ABSTRACT

The feminist thinkers in this collection are the designated "fifty-one key feminist thinkers," historical and contemporary, and also the authors of the entries. Collected here are fifty-one key thinkers and fifty-one authors, recognizing that women are fifty-one percent of the population. There are actually one hundred and two thinkers collected in these pages, as each author is a feminist thinker, too: scholars, writers, poets, and activists, well-established and emerging, old and young and in-between. These feminists speak the languages of art, politics, literature, education, classics, gender studies, film, queer theory, global affairs, political theory, science fiction, African American studies, sociology, American studies, geography, history, philosophy, poetry, and psychoanalysis. Speaking in all these diverse tongues, conversations made possible by feminist thinking are introduced and engaged. 

Key figures include:

  • Simone de Beauvoir
  • Doris Lessing
  • Toni Morrison
  • Cindy Sherman
  • Octavia Butler
  • Marina Warner
  • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
  • Chantal Akerman
  • Betty Friedan
  • Audre Lorde
  • Margaret Fuller
  • Sappho
  • Adrienne Rich

Each entry is supported by a list of the thinker’s major works, along with further reading suggestions. An ideal resource for students and academics alike, this text will appeal to all those interested in the fields of gender studies, women’s studies and women’s history and politics.

chapter 1|4 pages

Abigail Adams (1744–1818)

chapter 2|5 pages

Chantal Akerman (1950–2015)

chapter 4|5 pages

Mary Astell (1666–1731)

chapter 5|5 pages

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986)

chapter 6|5 pages

Judith Butler (1956–)

chapter 8|5 pages

Rachel Carson (1907–1964)

chapter 9|5 pages

Anna Julia Cooper (1858–1964)

chapter 10|6 pages

Mary Daly (1928–2010)

chapter 11|5 pages

Angela Davis (1944–)

chapter 12|5 pages

Christine Delphy (1941–)

chapter 13|5 pages

Anne Fausto-Sterling (1944–)

chapter 14|5 pages

Shulamith Firestone (1945–2012)

chapter 15|5 pages

Betty Friedan (1921–2006)

chapter 16|5 pages

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850)

chapter 18|6 pages

Emma Goldman (1869–1940)

chapter 19|5 pages

Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793)

chapter 20|5 pages

Donna Haraway (1944–)

chapter 21|6 pages

bell hooks (1952–)

chapter 23|5 pages

Luce Irigaray (1930–)

chapter 24|6 pages

Barbara E. Johnson (1947–2009)

chapter 25|4 pages

Jamaica Kincaid (1949–)

chapter 26|5 pages

Julia Kristeva (1941–)

chapter 27|5 pages

Doris Lessing (1919–2013)

chapter 28|5 pages

Audre Lorde (1934–1992)

chapter 29|6 pages

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919)

chapter 30|5 pages

Catharine A. MacKinnon (1946–)

chapter 31|5 pages

Margaret Mead (1901–1978)

chapter 32|5 pages

Kate Millett (1934–)

chapter 33|6 pages

Toni Morrison (1931–)

chapter 34|5 pages

Laura Mulvey (1941–)

chapter 35|4 pages

Susan Moller Okin (1946–2004)

chapter 37|5 pages

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012)

chapter 38|5 pages

Nawal El Saadawi (1931–)

chapter 39|5 pages

Sappho (c. 630–570 bce)

chapter 40|5 pages

Cindy Sherman (1954–)

chapter 41|6 pages

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1942–)

chapter 43|5 pages

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)

chapter 44|5 pages

Edith Thomas (1909–1970)

chapter 45|5 pages

Sojourner Truth (1797–1883)

chapter 46|5 pages

Marina Warner (1946–)

chapter 48|5 pages

Monique Wittig (1935–2003)

chapter 50|5 pages

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)