ABSTRACT
The feminist tradition and gender studies emerged largely out of a widespread concern with the invisibility and exploitation of women over the past several centuries. Most feminists take their political agendas very seriously and constantly try to weave them into the more scholarly forms of feminist inquiry and practice. This chapter refers to multiple feminist traditions that are often united by little more than an overall interest in women's lives and the role of gender in structuring different aspects of society. Some of the better-known feminist scholarly traditions include liberal feminism, women's voice/experience feminism, radical feminism, and poststructural feminism. The chapter looks at some of the different intellectual strands within the broader feminist and gender studies tradition. Notions of sex and gender constitute the very building blocks that have gone into the construction of the different feminist traditions. Within radical feminism, patriarchy is identified as the structural source of women's exploitation.
