ABSTRACT
We do not claim to have created a single conversation from these multiple strands; that remains a distant goal. We do claim that by focusing on women's resistance we are fostering a broader conversation among the separate strands, and that this conversation arises out of the nexus between women's writing about themselves and the representations of women that circulate in scholarly work and popular culture. The words of hundreds of women illustrate for us the infinite variety of ways in which women have reflected upon, reacted to, and initiated social change by resisting the gendered conditions of their lives as they understand them. Furthermore, reading these words reveals the ways that gender works in women's lives, sometimes claiming center stage, at other times receding in importance. It is this need to think from a both/and, rather than an either/or, perspective on women and resistance that informs our project.
