Feminism and Freedom

Feminism and Freedom PDF

Author: Michael E. Levin

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 1987-01-01

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9781412823548

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Levin argues that feminists deny that innate sex differences have anything to do with the basic structure of society.

Freedom Feminism

Freedom Feminism PDF

Author: Christina Hoff Sommers

Publisher: A E I Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780844772622

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Women's equality is one of the great achievements of Western civilization. Yet most American women today do not consider themselves "feminists." Why is the term that describes one of the great chapters in the history of freedom in such disrepute? In Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today, Christina Hoff Sommers seeks to recover the lost history of American feminism by introducing readers to conservative feminism's forgotten heroines. More importantly, she demonstrates that a modern version of conservative feminism -- in which women are free to employ their equal status to pursue happiness in their own distinctive ways -- holds the key to a feminist renaissance. Freedom Feminism is a primer in the Values & Capitalism series intended for college students.

Feminism and the Abyss of Freedom

Feminism and the Abyss of Freedom PDF

Author: Linda M. G. Zerilli

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2020-11-13

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 022681405X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In contemporary feminist theory, the problem of feminine subjectivity persistently appears and reappears as the site that grounds all discussion of feminism. In Feminism and the Abyss of Freedom, Linda M. G. Zerilli argues that the persistence of this subject-centered frame severely limits feminists' capacity to think imaginatively about the central problem of feminist theory and practice: a politics concerned with freedom. Offering both a discussion of feminism in its postmodern context and a critique of contemporary theory, Zerilli here challenges feminists to move away from a theory-based approach, which focuses on securing or contesting "women" as an analytic category of feminism, to one rooted in political action and judgment. She revisits the democratic problem of exclusion from participation in common affairs and elaborates a freedom-centered feminism as the political practice of beginning anew, world-building, and judging. In a series of case studies, Zerilli draws on the political thought of Hannah Arendt to articulate a nonsovereign conception of political freedom and to explore a variety of feminist understandings of freedom in the twentieth century, including ones proposed by Judith Butler, Monique Wittig, and the Milan Women's Bookstore Collective. In so doing, Zerilli hopes to retrieve what Arendt called feminism's lost treasure: the original and radical claim to political freedom.

The Subject of Liberty

The Subject of Liberty PDF

Author: Nancy J. Hirschmann

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2009-01-10

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1400825369

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book reconsiders the dominant Western understandings of freedom through the lens of women's real-life experiences of domestic violence, welfare, and Islamic veiling. Nancy Hirschmann argues that the typical approach to freedom found in political philosophy severely reduces the concept's complexity, which is more fully revealed by taking such practical issues into account. Hirschmann begins by arguing that the dominant Western understanding of freedom does not provide a conceptual vocabulary for accurately characterizing women's experiences. Often, free choice is assumed when women are in fact coerced--as when a battered woman who stays with her abuser out of fear or economic necessity is said to make this choice because it must not be so bad--and coercion is assumed when free choices are made--such as when Westerners assume that all veiled women are oppressed, even though many Islamic women view veiling as an important symbol of cultural identity. Understanding the contexts in which choices arise and are made is central to understanding that freedom is socially constructed through systems of power such as patriarchy, capitalism, and race privilege. Social norms, practices, and language set the conditions within which choices are made, determine what options are available, and shape our individual subjectivity, desires, and self-understandings. Attending to the ways in which contexts construct us as "subjects" of liberty, Hirschmann argues, provides a firmer empirical and theoretical footing for understanding what freedom means and entails politically, intellectually, and socially.

Dressed for Freedom

Dressed for Freedom PDF

Author: Einav Rabinovitch-Fox

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2021-11-16

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0252052943

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Often condemned as a form of oppression, fashion could and did allow women to express modern gender identities and promote feminist ideas. Einav Rabinovitch-Fox examines how clothes empowered women, and particularly women barred from positions of influence due to race or class. Moving from 1890s shirtwaists through the miniskirts and unisex styles of the 1970s, Rabinovitch-Fox shows how the rise of mass media culture made fashion a vehicle for women to assert claims over their bodies, femininity, and social roles. She also highlights how trends in women’s sartorial practices expressed ideas of independence and equality. As women employed new clothing styles, they expanded feminist activism beyond formal organizations and movements and reclaimed fashion as a realm of pleasure, power, and feminist consciousness. A fascinating account of clothing as an everyday feminist practice, Dressed for Freedom brings fashion into discussions of American feminism during the long twentieth century.

Sojourning for Freedom

Sojourning for Freedom PDF

Author: Erik S. McDuffie

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2011-06-27

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 0822350505

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Illuminates a pathbreaking black radical feminist politics forged by black women leftists active in the U.S. Communist Party between its founding in 1919 and its demise in the 1950s.

At the Heart of Freedom

At the Heart of Freedom PDF

Author: Drucilla Cornell

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 1998-09-14

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 1400822556

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

How can women create a meaningful and joyous life for themselves? Is it enough to be equal with men? In this provocative and wide-ranging book, Drucilla Cornell argues that women should transcend the quest for equality and focus on what she shows is a far more radical project: achieving freedom. Cornell takes us on a highly original exploration of what it would mean for women politically, legally, and culturally, if we took this ideal of freedom seriously--if, in her words, we recognized that "hearts starve as well as bodies." She takes forceful and sometimes surprising stands on such subjects as abortion, prostitution, pornography, same-sex marriage, international human rights, and the rights and obligations of fathers. She also engages with what it means to be free on a theoretical level, drawing on the ideas of such thinkers as Kant, Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, Hegel, and Lacan. Cornell begins by discussing what she believes lies at the heart of freedom: the ability for all individuals to pursue happiness in their own way, especially in matters of love and sex. This is only possible, she argues, if we protect the "imaginary domain"--a psychic and moral space in which individuals can explore their own sources of happiness. She writes that equality with men does not offer such protection, in part because men themselves are not fully free. Instead, women must focus on ensuring that individuals face minimal interference from the state and from oppressive cultural norms. They must also respect some controversial individual choices. Cornell argues in favor of permitting same-sex couples to marry and adopt children, for example. She presses for access to abortion and for universal day care. She also justifies lifestyles that have not always been supported by other feminists, ranging from staying at home as a primary caregiver to engaging in prostitution. She argues that men should have similar freedoms--thus returning feminism to its promise that freedom for women would mean freedom for all. Challenging, passionate, and powerfully argued, Cornell's book will have a major impact on the course of feminist thought.

Liberty for Women

Liberty for Women PDF

Author: Wendy McElroy

Publisher: Ivan R. Dee Publisher

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The contributors to this important new collection offer a vision of contemporary feminism that runs counter to and goes beyond the dominant attitudes of the feminist orthodoxy. Basing their arguments on individual rights and personal responsibility, the contributors offer surprising views on a wide range of issues that confront modern woman. Published in association with The Independent Institute.

Feminism and Freedom

Feminism and Freedom PDF

Author: Michael E. Levin

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 1987-01-01

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9780887381256

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Levin argues that feminists deny that innate sex differences have anything to do with the basic structure of society.

What Women Want

What Women Want PDF

Author: Ella Whelan

Publisher:

Published: 2017-08

Total Pages: 98

ISBN-13: 9781925501476

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The brave, bold Ella Whelan is a leading voice of a rising generation of young warriors for free speech, which is lamentably threatened from both the left and the right in today's world. -- Camille Paglia And now, in this brilliant book, she puts the case for female autonomy against feminist victimhood. Some feminists will no doubt cry 'anti-feminist!', but this would be inaccurate; in fact, this book is in the tradition of the Suffragettes, the female explorers, the female workforce and other female pioneers of the 20th and 21st centuries who demanded that society should mine rather than suppress women's potential. All women and men who value women's liberation should read this. -- Brendan O'Neill (from the Foreword).