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GENDERED LIVES:
INTERSECTIONAL
PERSPECTIVES
SEVENTH EDITION
GWYN KIRK AND MARGO OKAZAWA-REY
N E W Y O R K O X F O R D
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© 1998 Mayfield Publishing Company
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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
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and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kirk, Gwyn, author. | Okazawa-Rey, Margo, author.

Title: Gendered lives : intersectional perspectives / Gwyn Kirk and Margo
Okazawa-Rey.
Other titles: Women’s lives
Description: Seventh edition. | New York : Oxford University Press, [2020]
Identifiers: LCCN 2019017536 | ISBN 9780190928285 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Women—United States—Social conditions. |
Women—United States—Economic conditions. | Feminism—United States.
Classification: LCC HQ1421 .K573 2020 | DDC 305.420973—dc23 LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2019017536
Printing number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Sheridian Books, Inc., United States of America
To those who connect us to the past,
women who birthed us, raised us,
taught us, inspired us, held us to high standards, and loved us
Edwina Davies, Kazuko Okazawa, Willa Mae Wells, and Yoko Lee.
We also honor Eiko Matsuoka, our extraordinary Bay Area mother,
and the late Maha Abu-Dayyeh, visionary feminist and human rights
defender, who dedicated her life to the liberation of Palestine and
Palestinian women.
To those who connect us to the future

Jeju Daisy Ahn Miles
Charlotte Elizabeth Andrews-Briscoe
Irys Philippa Ewuraba Casey
Zion Neil Akyedzi Casey
Gabrielle Raya Clancy-Humphrey
Jesse Simon Cool
Mitchell Stephen Davies-Munden
William Marshall Davies-Munden
Dominica Rose Edwards (Devecka-Rinear Smiley)
Issac Kana Fukumura-White
Akani Kazuo Ai Lee James
Ayize Kimani Ming Lee James
Hansoo Lim
Maple Elenore McIntire
Uma Talpade Mohanty
Ali Nakhleh, Yasmin Nakhleh, Zaina Nakhleh, Tala Nakhleh,
Ingrid Elisabet Pansini-Jokela
Sara Refai, Adam Refai, Rita Refai
Maven Jude Riding In
May Maha Shamas
Alma Shawa, Hani Shawa
Keziah Sade Story
Camille Celestina Stovall-Ceja
Aya Sato Venet
BRIEF CONTENTS
Preface xvi
PA R T I W O M E N ’ S A N D G E N D E R S T U D I E S: K N O W I N G A N D 01
U N D E R S TA N D I N G
CHAPTER 1 Untangling the “F”-word 02

CHAPTER 2 Creating Knowledge: Integrative Frameworks for
Understanding 43
CHAPTER 3 Identities and Social Locations 89
PA R T I I O U R B O D I E S , O U R S E LV E S 137
CHAPTER 4 Sexuality 138
CHAPTER 5 Bodies, Health, and Wellness 185
CHAPTER 6 Sexualized Violence 245
PA R T I I I HOME AND WORK IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD 289
CHAPTER 7 Making a Home, Making a Living 290
CHAPTER 8 Living in a Globalizing World 336
PA R T I V S E C U R I T Y A N D S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y 385
CHAPTER 9 Gender, Crime, and Criminalization 386
C H A P T E R 10 Gender, Militarism, War, and Peace 437
C H A P T E R 11 Gender and Environment 485
v
vi BRIEF CONTENTS
PA R T V AC T I V I S M A N D C H A N G E 527
C H A P T E R 12 Creating Change: Theories, Visions, and Actions 528
Glossar y 563
References 569
Name Index 597
Subject Index 603
About the Authors 615
CONTENTS
*indicates new to this edition

Preface xvi
W O M E N ’ S A N D G E N D E R S T U D I E S: K N O W I N G A N D 1
PA R T I
U N D E R S TA N D I N G
CHAPTER 1 Untangling the “F”-word 2

Feminist Movements and Frameworks 4
Native American Antecedents 5
Legal Equality for Women 5
Resisting Interlocking Systems of Oppression 9
Queer and Trans Feminisms 10
The Focus of Women’s and Gender Studies 11
Myth 1: Women’s and Gender Studies Is Ideological 12
Myth 2: Women’s and Gender Studies Is Narrow 13
Myth 3: Women’s and Gender Studies Is a White, Middle-Class,
Western Thing 13
Men Doing Feminism 13
Collective Action for a Sustainable Future 14
1. A Matrix of Oppression, Privilege, and Resistance 14
2. From the Personal to the Global 15
3. Linking the Head, Heart, and Hands 15
4. A Secure and Sustainable Future 16
The Scope of This Book 16
Questions for Reflection 17
Finding Out More on the Web 17
Taking Action 17
vii
viii CONTENTS
READINGS
1. Paula Gunn Allen, “Who is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism”
(1986) 18
2. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Declaration of Sentiments” (1848) 25
3. Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement” (1977) 28
4. Mathangi Subramanian, “The Brown Girl’s Guide to Labels” (2010) 34
5. *Loan Tran, “Does Gender Matter? Notes Toward Gender Liberation”
(2018) 38
CHAPTER 2 Creating Knowledge: Integrative Frameworks

for Understanding 43
What Is a Theory? 44
Creating Knowledge: Epistemologies, Values, and Methods 45
Dominant Perspectives 45
Critiques of Dominant Perspectives 47
The Role of Values 48
Socially Lived Theorizing 48
Standpoint Theory 49
Challenges to Situated Knowledge and Standpoint Theory 50
Purposes of Socially Lived Theorizing 51
Media Representations and the Creation of Knowledge 52
The Stories Behind the Headlines 52
Whose Knowledge? 53
Reading Media Texts 53
Taking Action 56
READINGS
6. *Anne Fausto-Sterling, “The Five Sexes, Revisited” (2000) 57
7. Allan G. Johnson, “Patriarchy, the System: An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us”
(1997) 62
8. Patricia Hill Collins, Excerpt from “Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge,
Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment” (1990) 71
9. Nadine Naber, “Decolonizing Culture: Beyond Orientalist and Anti-Orientalist
Feminisms” (2010) 76
10. *Whitney Pow, “That’s Not Who I Am: Calling Out and Challenging
Stereotypes of Asian Americans” (2012) 84
CHAPTER 3 Identities and Social Locations 89

Being Myself: The Micro Level 92
Community Recognition and Expectations: The Meso Level 93
Social Categories and Structural Inequalities:
Macro and Global Levels 95
Defining Gender Identities 96
Content s ix
Maintaining Systems of Structural Inequality 97

Colonization, Immigration, and the US Landscape of Race and Class 99
Multiple Identities and Social Locations 103
Taking Action 105
READINGS
11. Dorothy Allison, “A Question of Class” (1993) 106
12. Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, “Jews, Class, Color, and the Cost of Whiteness”
(1992) 114
13. *Eli Clare, “Body Shame, Body Pride: Lessons from the Disability Rights
Movement” (2013) 121
14. *Mariko Uechi. “Between Belonging: A Culture of Home” (2018) 126
15. Julia Alvarez, Excerpt from “Once Upon a Quinceñera: Coming of Age in the
USA” (2007) 130
PA R T I I O U R B O D I E S , O U R S E LV E S 137
CHAPTER 4 Sexuality 138

What Does Sexuality Mean to You? 138
Heteropatriarchy Pushes Heterosex . . . 139
. . . and Racist, Ageist, Ableist Stereotypes 141
Objectification and Double Standards 142
Media Representations 144
Queering Sexuality 144
“Queer” as a Catch-All? 146
Queering Economies and Nation-States 146
Defining Sexual Freedom 147
Radical Heterosexuality 148
Eroticizing Consent 149
The Erotic as Power 150
Taking Action 151
READINGS
16. *Daisy Hernández, “Even If I Kiss a Woman” (2014) 153
17. *Ariane Cruz, “(Mis)Playing Blackness: Rendering Black Female Sexuality in
The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl” (2015) 160
18. *Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, “How Sex and the City Holds Up in the
#MeToo Era” (2018) 169
19. *V. Spike Peterson, “The Intended and Unintended Queering of States/
Nations” (2013) 172
20. Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” (1984) 181
x CONTENTS
CHAPTER 5 Bodies, Health, and Wellness 185

Human Embodiment 187
Body Ideals and Beauty Standards 188
Body Acceptance 189
Reproductive Health, Reproductive Justice 191
Focusing on Fertility 192
Reproductive Justice: An Intersectional Framework 195
Health and Wellness 197
Health Disparities 197
Mental and Emotional Health 199
Aging and Health 200
Taking Action 202
READINGS
21. *Linda Trinh Vō, “Transnational Beauty Circuits: Asian American Women,
Technology, and Circle Contact Lenses” (2016) 203
22. *Margitte Kristjansson, “Fashion’s ‘Forgotten Woman’: How Fat Bodies Queer
Fashion and Consumption” (2014) 212
23. *Loretta J. Ross, “Understanding Reproductive Justice” (2011) 221
24. *Alison Kafer, “Debating Feminist Futures: Slippery Slopes, Cultural Anxiety,
and the Case of the Deaf Lesbians” (2013) 227
25. Bell hooks, “Living to Love” (1993) 239
CHAPTER 6 Sexualized Violence 245

What Counts as Sexualized Violence? 246
The Incidence of Sexualized Violence 247
Intimate Partner Violence 247
Rape and Sexual Assault 249
Effects of Gender Expression, Race, Class, Nation, Sexuality, and Disability 250
Gender-Based State Violence 251
Explaining Sexualized Violence 252
Explanations Focused on Gender 252
Sexualized Violence Is Not Only About Gender 253
Ending Sexualized Violence 254
Providing Support for Victims/Survivors 255
Public and Professional Education 255
The Importance of a Political Movement 256
Contradictions in Seeking State Support to End Gender-Based Violence 257
Sexualized Violence and Human Rights 258
Questions for Refection 260
Taking Action 260
Content s xi
READINGS
26. Aurora Levins Morales, “Radical Pleasure: Sex and the End of Victimhood”
(1998) 261
27. *Alleen Brown, “Indigenous Women Have Been Disappearing for Generations:
Politicians Are Finally Starting to Notice” (2018) 263
28. *Nicola Henry and Anastasia Powell, “Technology-Facilitated Sexual
Violence” (2018) 270
29. *Jonathan Grove, “Engaging Men Against Violence” (2018) 274
30. Rita Laura Segato, “Territory, Sovereignty, and Crimes of the Second State:
The Writing on the Body of Murdered Women” (2010) 281
PA R T I I I HOME AND WORK IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD 289
CHAPTER 7 Making a Home, Making a Living 290

Relationships, Home, and Family 290
Partnership and Marriage 291
The Ideal Nuclear Family 292
Gender and Work 293
Balancing Home and Work 294
The Second Shift 295
Caring for Children 296
Flextime, Part-Time, and Home Working 297
Gender and Economic Security 298
Education and Job Opportunities 298
Organized Labor and Collective Action 300
Working and Poor 301
Pensions, Disability Payments, and Welfare 301
Understanding Class Inequalities 303
Resilience and Sustainability 304
Taking Action 306
READINGS
31. *Claire Cain Miller, “The Costs of Motherhood Are Rising, and Catching
Women Off Guard (2018) 307
32. *Sara Lomax-Reese, “Black Mother/Sons” (2016) 310
33. *Linda Burnham and Nik Theodore, Excerpt from “Home Economics: The
Invisible and Unregulated World of Domestic Work” (2012) 313
34. *Linda Steiner, “Glassy Architectures in Journalism” (2014) 317
35. *Emir Estrada and Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, “Living the Third Shift:
Latina Adolescent Street Vendors in Los Angeles” (2013) 326
xii CONTENTS
CHAPTER 8 Living in a Globalizing World 336

Locations, Circuits, and Flows 336
Migrations and Displacements 337
Migration 337
Migration Patterns 339
Tourism, Trafficking, and Transnational Adoption and Surrogacy 340
Consumption: Goods, Information, and Popular Culture 342
Material Flows 342
Information Flows 344
Cultural Flows 344
Global Factories and Care Chains 347
The International Financial System 349
Assumptions and Ideologies 350
Legacies of Colonization 350
Transnational Alliances for a Secure and Sustainable Future 351
Taking Action 352
READINGS
36. Gloria Anzaldúa, “The Homeland: Aztlán/El Otro Mexico” (1987) 353
37. Pun Ngai, Excerpt from “Made in China” (2005) 360
38. *Carolin Schurr, “The Baby Business Booms: Economic Geographies of Assisted
Reproduction” (2018) 368
39. *Moira Birss, “When Defending the Land Becomes a Crime” (2017) 378
40. *Mark Graham and Anasuya Sengupta, “We’re All Connected Now, So Why Is
the Internet So White and Western?” (2017) 382
PA R T I V S E C U R I T Y A N D S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y 385
CHAPTER 9 Gender, Crime, and Criminalization 386

Female in the Criminal Justice System 386
People in Women’s Prisons 388
Race and Class Disparities 390
Girls in Detention 391
Women Political Prisoners 392
The National Context: “Tough on Crime” 393
The War on Drugs 393
Incarceration as a Business 394
Criminalization as a Political Process 394
Definitions and Justifications 395
Profiling and Surveillance for “National Security” 396
Criminalization of Migration 397
Inside/Outside Connections 398
Content s xiii
Support for People in Women’s Prisons 398

Prison Reform, Decriminalization, and Abolition 399
Taking Action 401
READINGS
41. *Susan Burton and Cari Lynn, Excerpts from “Becoming Ms. Burton”
(2017) 402
42. *Julia Sudbury, “From Women Prisoners to People in Women’s Prisons:
Challenging the Gender Binary in Antiprison Work” (2011) 409
43. *Diala Shamas, “Living in Houses without Walls: Muslim Youth in New York
City in the Aftermath of 9/11” (2018) 419
44. *Leslie A. Campos, “Unexpected Borders” (2018) 430
45. *Spanish Federation of Feminist Organizations, “Walls and Enclosures: This Is
Not the Europe in which We Want to Live” (2016) 435
C H A P T E R 10 Gender, Militarism, War, and Peace 437

Women in the US Military 438
Soldier Mothers 439
Women in Combat 440
Militarism as a System 441
Militarism, Patriarchy, and Masculinity 441
Militarism and Histories of Colonization 443
Militarization as a Process 444
Impacts of War and Militarism 445
Vulnerability and Agency 445
Healing from War 447
Redefining Security 447
Women’s Peace Organizing 448
Demilitarization as a Process 450
Demilitarization and Feminist Thinking 450
Taking Action 451
READINGS
46. *Julie Pulley, “The Truth about the Military Gender Integration Debate”
(2016) 453
47. *Annie Isabel Fukushima, Ayano Ginoza, Michiko Hase, Gwyn Kirk, Deborah
Lee, and Taeva Shefler, “Disaster Militarism: Rethinking U.S. Relief in the
Asia-Pacific” (2014) 456
48. *Jane Freedman, Zeynep Kivilcim, and Nurcan Özgür Baklacioğlu, “Gender,
Migration and Exile” (2017) 459
49. *Amina Mama and Margo Okazawa-Rey, “Militarism, Conflict and Women’s
Activism in the Global Era: Challenges and Prospects for Women in Three
West African Contexts” (2012) 468
50. Julia Ward Howe, “Mother’s Day Proclamation” (1870) 484
xiv CONTENTS
C H A P T E R 11 Gender and Environment 485

The Body, the First Environment 486
Food and Water 487
The Food Industry 487
Food Security 488
Safeguarding Water 490
Population, Resources, and Climate Change 491
Overpopulation, Overconsumption, or Both? 491
Science, Gender, and Climate Change 491
Gender Perspectives on Environmental Issues 493
Creating a Sustainable Future 494
Defining Sustainability 494
Projects and Models for a Sustainable Future 494
Feminist Thinking for a Sustainable Future 495
Taking Action 496
READINGS
51. Sandra Steingraber, “Rose Moon” (2001) 497
52. Betsy Hartmann and Elizabeth Barajas-Román, “Reproductive Justice, Not
Population Control: Breaking the Wrong Links and Making the Right Ones in
the Movement for Climate Justice” (2009) 507
53. Michelle R. Loyd-Paige, “Thinking and Eating at the Same Time: Reflections of
a Sistah Vegan” (2010) 513
54. *Whitney Eulich, “Months after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans Take
Recovery into Their Own Hands” (2018) 518
55. *Vandana Shiva, “Building Water Democracy: People’s Victory Against Coca-
Cola in Plachimada” (2004) 523
PA R T V AC T I V I S M A N D C H A N G E 527
C H A P T E R 12 Creating Change: Theories, Visions, and Actions 528

How Does Social Change Happen? 529
Using the Head: Theories for Social Change 529
Using the Heart: Visions for Social Change 529
Using the Hands: Action for Social Change 530
Evaluating Activism, Refining Theory 531
Identities and Identity-Based Politics 532
Electoral Politics and Political Influence 533
Running for Office 534
Gendered Voting Patterns 536
Content s xv
Alliances for Challenging Times 538

Some Principles for Alliance Building 538
Overcoming Obstacles to Effective Alliances 539
Transnational Women’s Organizing 540
Next Steps for Feminist Movements 543
Taking Action 544
READINGS
56. Abra Fortune Chernik, “The Body Politic” (1995) 545
57. *Deborah Lee, “Faith as a Tool for Social Change” (2018) 550
58. *Patricia St. Onge, “Two Peoples, One Fire” (2016) 555
59. *Louise Burke, “The #MeToo Shockwave: How the Movement Has
Reverberated around the World” (2018) 557
60. *Association for Women’s Rights in Development, Center for Women’s
Global Leadership, and African Women’s Development and Communications
Network, “Feminist Propositions for a Just Economy: Time for Creative
Imaginations” (2016) 560
Glossar y 563
References 569
Name Index 597
Subject Index 605
About the Authors 621
PREFACE
A n introductory course is perhaps the most challenging women’s and gender studies
(WGS) course to conceptualize and teach. Depending on their overall goals for the
course, instructors must make difficult choices about what to include and what to leave
out. Students come into the course for a variety of reasons and with a range of expecta-
tions and prior knowledge, and most will not major in WGS. The course may fulfill a
distribution requirement for them, or it may be a way of taking one course during their
undergraduate education out of a personal interest in gender. For majors and minors,
the course plays a very different role, offering a foundation for their area of study.
This text started out as two separate readers that we used in our classes at Antioch
College (Gwyn Kirk) and San Francisco State University (Margo Okazawa-Rey) in the
mid-1990s. Since then, we have learned a lot about teaching an introductory course,
and the book has grown and developed as understandings of gender—and the wider
political climate—have changed.
Women’s and gender studies programs continue to build their reputations in terms
of academic rigor and scholarly standards. WGS scholarship is on the cutting edge of
many disciplines and interdisciplinary fields, especially in the arts, humanities, and
social sciences. At the same time, it occupies a marginal position within academia,
challenging male-dominated knowledge and pedagogy, with all the pressures that en-
tails. WGS faculty and allies live with these tensions personally and professionally.
Outside the academy, government policies and economic changes have made many
people’s lives more difficult. This includes the loss of factory and office work as jobs
continue to be moved overseas or become automated; government failure to introduce
and support adequate health care and child care systems; cuts in various social-service
programs and funding for education; hostility toward and greater restriction of gov-
ernment support, when available, to immigrants and their families; large numbers of
people incarcerated; and vast expenditures on war and preparations for war.
In the past decade, the political climate for WGS on campuses and in the wider
society has become more challenging as conservative viewpoints have gained ground
through political rhetoric and the narrow range of public discourse. In addition, a slow
erosion of academic freedom on campuses has made many teachers’ lives more dif-
ficult. Increasingly, faculty may face challenges to their teaching methods and course
content; their work may be written off as “biased,” unscholarly, or politically moti-
vated (Nisenson 2017). Also, academic institutions have become increasingly beholden
xvi
Preface xvii
to corporate funding and values. Budget cuts, department mergers, and the fact that
more than two-thirds of faculty are on part-time or temporary contracts these days all
affect the organization and viability of interdisciplinary programs like WGS.
The current Federal administration’s destruction of already inadequate “safety
nets,” contempt for the natural environment, support for overtly racist, sexist, trans-
and homophobic attacks, and the daily circulation of distortions, half-truths, and out-
right lies all challenge us profoundly. This is not new, especially for indigenous people
on this continent, for other communities of color, and for those in subjugated nations,
but it has become starker, more clear-cut, and increasingly affects many of us with rela-
tive access and privilege. What to think? Where to focus? How to respond to one crisis
after another? As students, how to support your friends, peers, and families as they ex-
perience direct and indirect impacts? As faculty, how to support students trying to find
their footing in this maelstrom?
We believe that our job as feminist scholars and teachers is to think big, to help
provide spaces where students can think clearly and face current challenges. The strong
tradition of organizing for social justice in the United States needs to be much better
known, as well as the many efforts underway today. They provide lessons, models,
and inspiration. We cannot afford to despair or to nurture despair in others. We must
remember the gains made in the past and continue to work for and hold out the pos-
sibility of progressive change even as past gains are being attacked and unraveled. A
silver lining in this turbulent time is that even as some political spaces are being closed
down, new social movements are opening up others.
WHAT WE WANT IN AN INTRODUCTORY WOMEN’S

AND GENDER STUDIES BOOK
As teachers, we want to present a broad range of gendered experiences to students in
terms of class, race, culture, national origin, dis/ability, age, sexuality, and gender iden-
tity and expression. We want teaching materials that do justice to the diversity of US
women’s lives—whether queer, femme, lesbian, gender nonconforming, or trans, as
well as heterosexual and cisgender women. We also want materials that address the lo-
cation of the United States in a globalizing world. We include some discussion of theory
because a basic understanding of theoretical frameworks is a powerful tool, not only
for WGS courses but also for other courses students take. We also emphasize activism.
There are many women’s and LGBTQI activist and advocacy projects across the United
States, but students may not know about them. Much of the information that students
learn in WGS may be discouraging, but knowing what people are doing to support each
other and to promote feminist values and concerns can be empowering, even in the
face of sometimes daunting realities. This knowledge reinforces the idea that current
inequalities and problems are not fixed but have the potential to be changed.
LINKING INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCES TO NATIONAL

AND TRANSNATIONAL TRENDS AND ISSUES
We are both trained in sociology, and we have noted that students coming into our
classes are much more familiar with psychological explanations for behaviors and ex-
periences than they are with structural explanations. People in the United States tend
xviii PR EFACE
to see inequality and injustice in terms of low self-esteem, poor identity development,
learned helplessness, or the work of a few “bad apples” that spoil the barrel. Students
invariably enjoy first-person accounts of life experiences, but a series of stories—even
wonderfully insightful stories—are not enough to understand the circumstances and
forces that shape people’s lives. Accordingly, we provide a broader context for the se-
lected readings in the overview essays that open each chapter.
We recognize that many women in the United States—especially white, cisgen-
dered women in higher socioeconomic groups—have greater opportunities for self-
expression, for earning a living, and for engagement in the wider world compared with
in the past. However, humankind faces serious challenges in the twenty-first century:
challenges regarding work and livelihood, personal and family relationships, violence
on many levels, and the mounting pressures on the fragile natural environment. These
issues raise major questions about personal and societal values and the distribution of
resources. How is our society going to provide for people in the years to come? What
are the effects of the increasing polarization between rich and poor in the United States
and between richer and poorer nations? These themes of security and sustainability
provide the wider framework for this book.
As teachers, we are concerned with students’ knowledge and understanding and,
beyond that, with their aspirations, hopes, and values, as well as their fears. One of our
goals for this book is to provide a series of lenses that will help students understand
their own lives and the lives of others. A second goal is that through this understand-
ing, students will be able to participate, in some way, in the creation of a genuinely
secure and sustainable future.
NEW TO THE SEVENTH EDITION

This seventh edition of what was formerly Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives, now
renamed Gendered Lives: Intersectional Perspectives, has undergone a major revision.
We rely on the analyses, principles, and style of earlier editions, but with substantial
changes to take account of recent scholarship and events. Specific changes include:
• A greater emphasis on gender identity and gender variance to show how trans
activists and scholars have challenged, unsettled, and transformed previous un-
derstandings of gender.
• An expanded chapter, “Creating Knowledge,” that includes greater discussion of
media representations and the role of mass media in the creation of knowledge.
In other chapters, we include several articles about media representations to
further this discussion.
• Greater emphasis on the insights of dis/ability activists and scholarship, follow-
ing new developments in this field in recent years.
• Inclusion of materials on Web-based information technologies, especially
their impacts on sexualized violence, transnational surrogacy, and feminist
organizing.
• Greater emphasis on the transnational and global levels of analysis, including
attention to the impact of extractivism in the Global South, barriers to immi-
gration in Europe and the United States, and effects of environmental destruc-
tion, war, and militarism worldwide.
Preface xix
• Updated statistics throughout, as well as updated information on activist

organizations.
• In our overview essays, reference clusters on particular topics, often spanning
years of feminist scholarship. As well as supporting the arguments we make,
these also serve as suggestions for further reading.
• A revised and updated, password-protected Instructor’s Manual—including al-
ternative Tables of Contents for flexible use of the book—available on our com-
panion website (www.oup.com/us/kirk-okazawa-rey).
A number of considerations, sometimes competing or contradictory, have influ-

enced the decisions we made to ensure this edition meets our goals. Since the be-
ginning, we have been committed to including the work of established scholars and
lesser-known writers from a range of backgrounds. As in previous editions, we have
looked for writers who integrate several levels of analysis (micro, meso, macro, and
global) in their work. Students we have talked with, including those in our own classes,
love first-person accounts, and such narratives help to draw them into more theoreti-
cal discussions. In our experience, teachers invariably want more theory, more history,
and more research-based pieces.
As we searched for materials, we found much more theoretical work by white
women in the US than by women of color. We assume this is because there are fewer
women of color in the academy, because white scholars and writers have greater access
to publishers, and because prevailing ideas about what theory is and what form it
should take tend to exclude cross-genre work by women of color. This can give the
misleading impression that aside from a few notable exceptions, women of color are
not theorists. We have tried not to reproduce this bias in our selection, but we note
this issue here to make this aspect of our process visible. We include personal essays
and narratives that make theoretical points, what scholar and writer Gloria Anzaldúa
(2002) called “autohistoriateoria”—a genre of writing about one’s personal and col-
lective history that may use fictive elements and that also theorizes. In a similar vein,
people living in the United States have limited access to writings by and about women
and gender nonconforming people from the Global South, whether personal accounts,
academic research, journalists’ reports, policy recommendations, or critiques of poli-
cies imposed by countries of the North. Relatively few scholars and fiction writers not
working in English are published widely. Again, structural limitations of the politics of
knowledge affect who has access to book publishers or websites and whose work may
be translated for English-language readers.
This new edition represents our best effort to balance these considerations as we
sought to provide information, analysis, and inspiration concerning the myriad daily
experiences, opportunities, limitations, oppressions and fears, hopes, joys, and satis-
factions that make up gendered lives.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
M any people—especially our students, teachers, colleagues, and friends—made it

possible for us to complete the first edition of this book over twenty years ago. We
acknowledge everyone at Mayfield Publishing who worked on our original manuscript:
Franklin Graham, our editor, whose confidence in our ideas never wavered and whose
light hand on the steering wheel and clear sense of direction got us into print; also
Julianna Scott Fein, production editor; the production team; and Jamie Fuller, copy-
editor extraordinaire. For the second edition, we were fortunate to have the support of
colleagues and librarians at Hamilton College as well as the Mayfield production team
led by editor Serina Beauparlant and assisted by Margaret Moore, another wonderful
copyeditor.
McGraw-Hill published editions two through six. We worked with several produc-
tion teams—too many to name here. Also, for the third edition we benefited from the
support of the Women’s Leadership Institute at Mills College and the Data Center, an
Oakland-based nonprofit that provided research and training to grassroots social jus-
tice organizations across the country.
For this seventh edition, we are deeply indebted to Sherith Pankratz of Oxford
University Press for the chance to revise and update this work. We are honored to
work with her and acknowledge her encouragement, enthusiasm, skills, and deep com-
mitment to publishing. Many thanks to Grace Li, Wesley Morrison, and Brad Rau for
their production and copyediting work and to Lynn Mayo, Hamilton College librarian.
Thanks also to those who reviewed the manuscript for this seventh edition: Padmini
Banerjee, Delaware State University; Laura Brunell, Gonzaga University; Sara Diaz,
Gonzaga University; Molly Ferguson, Ball State University; Meredith Heller, North-
ern Arizona University; Alison Kibler, Franklin and Marshall College; Rachel Lewis,
George Mason University; Stella Oh, Loyola Marymount University; Harleen Singh,
Brandeis University; Barbi Smyser-Fauble, Butler University; Katy Strzepek, St. Am-
brose University; Deborah Wickering, Aquinas College; Tessa Ong Winkelmann, Uni-
versity of Nevada, Las Vegas; and two anonymous reviewers. We greatly appreciate
their insights and suggestions.
As before, this new edition builds on the accumulated work, help, and support
of many people. Thank you to Leslie Campos, Jonathan Grove, Deborah Lee, Loan
Tran, and Mariko Uechi for writing new pieces for this edition. Thanks also to Judith
xx
Acknowledgment s xxi
Arcana, Joyce Barry, Sarah Bird, Anita Bowen, Charlene Carruthers, SuzyJane Edwards,
Aimee Germain, Priya Kandaswamy, Robin D. G. Kelley, Anne Lacsamana, Miyé Oka
Lamprière, Martha Matsuoka, Anuja Mendiratta, Albie Miles, Aurora Levins Morales,
Jose Plascencia, Catherine Pyun, Elizabeth Reis, Sonya Rifkin, Meredith Staples,
Louisa Stone, Sé Sullivan, Pavitra Sundar, Loan Tran, Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson,
and Kathleen Yep for providing new information and insights. We acknowledge the
feminist scholars, organizations, and activists whose work we have reprinted and all
those whose research and writing have informed our understandings of gendered lives
and shaped the field of WGS. We are grateful for the independent bookstores and small
presses that keep going thanks to dedicated staff and loyal readers. We also rely on
other feminist “institutions”: scholarly journals, the Women’s Review of Books, Ms., and
WMST-L. We have benefited enormously from discussions on the WMST-L list and
suggestions for readings and classroom activities generously shared by teachers. We
are grateful to the undergraduate WGS students in our courses at various institutions
across the country. Their experiences have shown us what has changed in this society
and what has not, what has been gained and what has been lost. Most of all, they have
taught us the importance of seeing them on their own terms as we engage them with
new ideas and encourage them to see beyond themselves and the current sociopolitical
moment.
The world continues to gain brilliant young feminist writers, teachers, organizers,
and artists—some of whose work is included here. We also acknowledge the ground-
breaking contributions made by an older generation of writers and scholars who have
passed on: especially Gloria Anzaldúa, Grace Lee Boggs, Lorraine Hansberry, June
Jordan, Melanie Kaye/Kantrovitz, Yuri Kochiyama, Audre Lorde, Grace Paley, Adri-
enne Rich, and Ntozake Shange.
Lastly, we acknowledge our friendship over twenty-five years, which has provided
a deep foundation for our work together. We continue to be inspired by national trea-
sures, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and the “sociological imagination”—C. Wright Mills’
touchstone concept—that draws on the need for complex social analysis in order to
make change.
To everyone, very many thanks.
— Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey
We have chosen each other
and the edge of each other’s battles
the war is the same
if we lose
someday women’s blood will congeal
upon a dead planet
if we win
there is no telling
we seek beyond history
for a new and more possible meeting.
—Audre Lorde
P A R T
Women’s and Gender

Studies
Knowing and Understanding
1
CHAPTER 1
Untangling the “F”-word
Feminist Movements and Frameworks

The Focus of Women’s and Gender Studies
Collective Action for a Sustainable Future
The Scope of This Book
Questions for Reflection
Finding Out More on the Web
Taking Action
Readings
Keywords: capitalism, discrimination, feminism, genealogy, gender

binary, heteronormativity, ideology, imperialism, intersectionality,
liberalism, patriarchy, prejudice, socialism, transgender
W hether or not you consider yourself a feminist as a matter of personal identity,

political perspective, or both, in women’s and gender studies courses you will
study feminist perspectives because these seek to understand and explain inequali-
ties based on gender. Fundamentally, feminism is about liberation from gender dis-
crimination and other forms of oppression. For some people, this means securing
equal rights within marriage, education, waged work, politics, law, or the military. For
others, it means changing these institutions to create a secure and sustainable future
for all. Still others focus on deconstructing or transforming the gender binary, the as-
sumption that everyone fits neatly into one of two categories labeled male or female.
Sociologist Judith Lorber (1991) argued that “the long-term goal of feminism must be
. . . the eradication of gender as an organizing principle of . . . society” (p. 355) (see the
box feature “Gender: What’s in a Name?”).
For many people, feminist thinking offers compelling ways to understand their
lives, and feminist projects and campaigns have mobilized millions of people in the
United States for over a century. Although serious gender inequalities remain, femi-
nist theorizing and activism have achieved significant gains. Women in the United
States have won the right to speak out on public issues, to vote, to own property in
our own names, to divorce, and to have custody of our children. Women have been
2
Untangling the “F”-word 3
Gender: What’s in a Name?
In recent years, transgender individuals and activists have these terms. In this book, we straddle and bridge vari-
challenged, unsettled, and transformed understandings ous gender paradigms and perspectives. We use LGBTQI
of gender together with others who identify as gender (lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer, and intersex) as a short-
variant, nonbinary, or gender nonconforming. They have hand term for the range of people who question or re-
opened up the possibility of gender fluidity as a site of pudiate heteronormativity, which we discuss more fully in
experimentation or a source of personal authenticity. As a Chapters 3 and 4. We use woman and women to include
result, increasing numbers of people are not interested in anyone who identifies as or is identified as female. This
identifying with what they see as rigid gender categories. may include those who identify as queer, femme, butch,
At an institutional level, gender is more fixed, though lesbian, gender nonconforming, and trans, as well as het-
this is changing to some extent with the legalization of erosexual and cisgender women (those whose gender
same-sex marriage, for example, and some states are is- identity is the same as they were assigned at birth). Please
suing gender-neutral ID cards. However, most people in keep these definitions in mind as you read on and under-
the USA live according to a male/female binary, some ada- stand that definitions currently in use –both in this book
mantly so. Others may not pay much attention to this issue and in the wider society– may change or be discarded
unless gender markers are missing or ambiguous. in favor of new terminology. Definitions are always being
We note that people are using the language of sex contested and challenged as people’s thinking and prac-
and gender very differently and mean different things by tices develop.
able to attend college, become professionals, and learn skilled trades. Developments
in birth control and reproductive technologies mean that women are freer to decide if
and when to have a child. Also, changing social expectations mean that we can choose
whether to marry and how to express our gender and sexuality. Gender-based violence,
though still widespread, is now discussed openly. In 2017 and 2018, Hollywood celeb-
rities, Congressional staffers, media workers, farmworkers, students, fashion models,
and athletes spoke out about long-standing patterns of sexual harassment as part of the
#MeToo and #TimesUp movements, which reverberated around the world (see Read-
ing 59). Time magazine named these “silence breakers” as its 2017 Person of the Year.
Some of the high-profile men named have faced real consequences: they have been
forced to resign, fired, or prosecuted for these crimes.
These feminist movements illustrate shifts in public opinion and what is con-
sidered appropriate for women—in all our diversity—and for men or people who are
male-identified. However, the term feminism carries a lot of baggage. For some, it is
positive and empowering. For others, it conjures up negative images of females who
do not shave their legs or are considered ugly according to dominant US standards of
beauty. Some assume that feminists are white women, or lesbians, or man-haters, or
all of the above. Feminist ideas and goals have been consistently distorted, trivialized,
and mocked by detractors. In the nineteenth century, suffragists who campaigned for
legal rights for women, including the right to vote, were caricatured as “mannish,”
“castrators,” and “home-wreckers.” Over a century later, Time magazine published no
fewer than 119 negative articles on feminism between the early 1970s and the mid-
1990s (Jong 1998).
Antifeminist ideas continue to be a staple of right-wing talk shows and social
media sites. In a well-known example, Rush Limbaugh maintained that “[f]eminism
4 U N TA N G L I N G T H E “ F ”- W O R D
was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of pop
culture” (Media Matters 2015). Feminists are ridiculed and written off as complain-
ing, angry, and humorless. When women speak of gender-based violence—battering,
rape, sexual assault, and child sexual abuse—or of racism, living in poverty, or aging
without health care, detractors describe them as whining critics who are out to destroy
men and the male establishment. In our society, most women are socialized to care for
men and to spare their feelings, but acknowledging institutional inequalities between
females and men as a group is very different from “man-bashing.” Many women are
pushing back by critiquing antifeminist social media and calling out antifeminist per-
spectives (see, e.g., Cohn 2018; Lawrence and Ringrose 2018).
The claim that we are now living in a postfeminist era is part of the opposition to
feminism. It involves a complex maneuver that recognizes the need for feminism in
the past but declares that this is now over because it has been successful. Media critic
Susan Douglas (2010) argued that even though “women’s achievements, or their desire
for achievement, are simply part of the cultural landscape” (p. 9), many contemporary
media images of women are
images of imagined power that mask, even erase, how much still remains to be done
for girls and women, images that make sexism seem fine, even fun, and insist that
feminism is now utterly pointless—even bad for you. (p. 6)
In this chapter, we introduce feminist ideas from different historical periods to

highlight the diversity, breadth, and richness of feminist thinking in the United States.
We hope this will help you to think about how you define feminism and what it means
to you.
FEMINIST MOVEMENTS AND FRAMEWORKS

Many historians and commentators have divided US feminist movements into dis-
tinctive periods, described as waves. In this formulation, “first wave feminism” de-
notes efforts to gain legal rights for women, including the right to vote, dating from
the 1840s to 1920. “Second wave feminism” refers to the feminist theorizing and
organizing that flourished in the 1960s and 1970s. The next generation, in the 1990s,
described themselves as “third wave” feminists. Some rejected what they knew of the
feminism associated with their mothers’ generation; others emphasized continuities
with earlier feminist work (see, e.g., Dicker and Piepmeier 2003; Findlen 1995; Labaton
and Martin 2004).
Defining historical periods is highly selective, focusing attention on certain events
or perspectives and downplaying or erasing others. The wave metaphor suggests both
continuity and discontinuity with the past as feminists have shaped and reshaped
theoretical understandings for their generation, circumstances, and time in history.
Also, this approach makes complex movements seem much neater and more static
than they really are. Historians Kathleen Laughlin and colleagues (2010) noted: “The
waves metaphor entrenches the perception of a ‘singular’ feminism in which gender
is the predominate category of analysis” (p. 77). It leaves out large areas of wom-
en’s activism, such as nineteenth-century movements of women workers in the New
England textile mills, or Black1 women’s opposition to slavery and lynching, and their
struggles for economic improvement. As well as focusing on gender discrimination,
women have campaigned for labor rights, civil rights, welfare rights, and immigrant
rights, where gender is “tied to racial, class, religious, sexual, and other identities”
(Boris 2010, p. 93).
Native American Antecedents

Among many possible pathways into US feminist thought, we chose Paula Gunn Allen’s
article about the “red roots of white feminism” (Reading 1). She discusses c enturies-old
practices that gave Native American women policy-making power in the Iroquois Con-
federation, especially the power to decide matters of peace and war. She lists various
Native American principles that overlap with feminist and other progressive ideals:
respect for women and their importance in society, respect for elders, an egalitarian
distribution of goods and power, diverse ideas about beauty, cooperation among peo-
ples, and respect for the earth. She emphasizes the importance in her community of
knowing your ancestry and argues that all “feminists must be aware of our history on
this continent”—a history that varies for different social and racial groups.
Legal Equality for Women

In the mid-nineteenth century, white middle-class women involved in the antislav-
ery movement began to articulate parallels between systems of inequality based on
race and gender. In 1840, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met at the World
Anti-Slavery Convention in London. Both were passionately opposed to slavery and
were shocked to find that women delegates were not allowed to speak at the conven-
tion (Schneir 1994). The irony of working against the system that enslaved people
of African descent while experiencing discrimination as women prompted them to
work for women’s rights. In 1848, they called a Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca
Falls, New York, where Stanton lived. Stanton drafted the Declaration of Sentiments
(Reading 2), modeled after the nation’s foundational Declaration of Independence.
This document, which was read and adopted at the convention, rallied women and
men to the cause of legal equality for US women, and this issue was fiercely debated in
newspapers, at public meetings, among churchgoers, in women’s organizations, and at
dinner tables nationwide.
Following the Civil War, three constitutional amendments—the Thirteenth, Four-
teenth, and Fifteenth Amendments—granted all men the right to vote but still allowed
states to deny the vote to women. Suffragists split over whether to support the Fifteenth
Amendment that enfranchised Black men. The American Woman Suffrage Association
supported it and decided to campaign for women’s suffrage state by state. Wyoming
was the first territory to allow women the right to vote in 1869. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Susan B. Anthony did not support it. Rather, they formed the National Woman
1
When referring to people, we use Black rather than black. Black is an identity forged in the context of
struggles for self-respect. It replaced Negro in a particular moment of self-assertion and carries that
history with it. Capitalized, it’s a proper noun, a name; lowercase, it’s just an adjective. White does
not carry the same connotations, except in the case of White racist organizations. So, because of the
history of racism and race relations in the United States, white and black are not equivalent.
Suffrage Association and worked for a constitutional amendment granting votes for
women. In 1920, seventy-two years after the Seneca Falls convention, the Nineteenth
Amendment to the US Constitution stopped states from denying women the right to
vote. This success had taken enormous effort, focus, and dedication. It spanned the
lives of generations of leaders and activists and included public education campaigns,
lobbying, mass demonstrations, civil disobedience actions, arrests, and hunger strikes
(see, e.g., Free 2015; McConnaughy 2013; Weiss 2018).
This dogged campaign for legal equality grew out of liberalism, a theory of in-
dividual rights and freedom with roots in seventeenth-century European ideas, espe-
cially the writings of political philosopher John Locke. Liberalism has been central to
US political thinking since the founding of the nation, although political and legal
rights were originally limited to white men who owned land and property. Achieving
greater equality among people in the United States has been a long, uneven process
marked by hard work, gains, and setbacks—and a process that is far from complete.
(Some key events are detailed in the box feature “Milestones in US History: Institution-
alizing and Challenging Social Inequalities.”)
Milestones in US History: Institutionalizing and Challenging Social Inequalities
1565 Spanish settlers established the first European In a second compromise, the agreement that cre-
colony in what is now the state of Florida and ated the Senate gave less populous states more
called it St. Augustine. power than they would have had otherwise. These
1584 Walter Raleigh founded Virginia, an English agreements enabled Southern senators to use
colony, at Roanoke Island. their power to preserve slavery before the Civil
1605 A Spanish settlement was established at what is War and Jim Crow during and after Reconstruc-
now Santa Fe, New Mexico. tion. Indian people were not counted for the pur-
1607 Captain Christopher Newport of the London pose of Congressional representation because
Company established an English colony at the US government designated the tribes as
Jamestown, Virginia. nation-like entities with whom they had to negoti-
1619 A Dutch “man of war” sailed into Jamestown ate, as with foreign powers.
harbor with twenty Africans on board; the cap- 1820 Missouri entered the Union as the twelfth slave
tain sold his human cargo to the colonists. state “balanced” by Maine as the twelfth free
1691 The first legal ban on interracial marriages was state. Slavery was banned in the Louisiana Terri-
passed in Virginia. Subsequently, other states tory (purchased from France in 1803 for approxi-
prohibited whites from marrying Blacks; mar- mately $15 million).
riages between whites and Native Americans, 1830 Congress passed, the Indian Removal Act, which
Filipinos, and Asians, were also forbidden. moved all Indian tribes from the southeastern
1776 The Second Continental Congress adopted the United States to land west of the Mississippi
Declaration of Independence, written mostly by River and granted them rights to these new
Thomas Jefferson and asserting that “all men lands “in perpetuity.”
are created equal.” 1834 The Department of Indian Affairs was established
1787 In order to ratify the Constitution of the United within the War Department to monitor the cre-
States, the 13 states negotiated a compromise. ation of reservations for Indian tribes. The Depart-
Southern states were allowed to count three out ment was later transferred to the Department of
of every five enslaved people in determining the the Interior as the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
number of representatives to Congress, even 1848 The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the
though they were excluded from the electorate. Mexican-American War (begun in 1846). It

established the Rio Grande as the international were forced to surrender 40 miles short of the
boundary; ceded Texas to the United States to- border and sent to Oklahoma, where many died.
gether with Arizona, California, Nevada, and New 1887 Congress passed the Dawes Act, providing for
Mexico; and guaranteed existing residents their the dissolution of Indian tribes and division of
land, language, culture, and US citizenship. tribal holdings among the members. Over the
The first Women’s Rights Convention was next fifty years, white settlers took nearly two-
held in Seneca Falls, New York. Delegates issued a thirds of Indian land holdings by deceit and
Declaration of Sentiments, listing inequities faced intimidation.
by women and urging that women be given the 1896 In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court vali-
right to vote (see Reading 2). dated a Louisiana law requiring Blacks and whites
1857 In Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Supreme Court to ride in separate railroad cars. The law had
argued that as an enslaved man, Dred Scott was been challenged as a violation of the Fourteenth
not a citizen and therefore had no standing to Amendment’s right of equal protection, but the
sue his master for his freedom even though he majority opinion held that “separate but equal”
had been living in free territory for four years. To satisfied the constitutional requirement. This deci-
grant Scott’s petition, the Court argued, would sion led to a spate of segregation laws in southern
deprive his owner of property without compen- states. From 1870 to 1900, twenty-two Black men
sation, violating the Fifth Amendment. This in- served in Congress, but with the introduction of
validated states’ rights to determine whether literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and
slavery should be banned. white primaries, none were left by 1901.
1863 Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proc- 1898 The United States declared war on Spain and
lamation freeing slaves in Alabama, Arkansas, acquired former Spanish colonial territories: the
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. Con-
Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and gress also approved US annexation of the Ha-
Virginia. waiian Islands.
1864 US military forces terrorized Indian nations. 1919 Suffragists were arrested in Washington, DC for
Navajo people endured the “long walk” to im- blocking sidewalks during a demonstration in
prisonment at Fort Sumner (New Mexico Terri- support of women’s right to vote.
tory). US troops massacred Cheyenne warriors Fifteen thousand Black people marched si-
(supported by Kiowa, Apache, Comanche, and lently down New York’s Fifth Avenue, protesting
Arapahoe warriors) at Sand Creek. lynching and discrimination against Blacks.
1865 Following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, The Jones Act granted full US citizenship to
the Civil War was ended after four years. Congress Puerto Ricans and the right to travel freely to the
established the Freedmen’s Bureau, responsible continental United States.
for relief to former slaves and those made des- 1920 The Women’s Suffrage Amendment (Nineteenth
titute by the war. The Thirteenth Amendment to Amendment) barred states from denying women
the Constitution officially ended slavery and invol- the right to vote.
untary servitude. 1924 The Indian Citizenship Act extended citizen-
1869 The first transcontinental railroad was com- ship to Native Americans, previously defined as
pleted. Chinese workers, allowed into the wards of the US government. As late as 1952,
country to work on the railroad, experienced some states still denied Indians voting rights.
increased discrimination and “anti-Oriental” 1935 The National Labor Relations Act protected the
hysteria. right of workers to organize into unions.
1870 Congress ratified the Fifteenth Amendment, The Social Security Act established entitlements
which enfranchised Black men but permitted to government assistance in the form of pensions
states to deny the vote to all women. and health benefit programs.
Julia Ward Howe issued a Mother’s Day 1941 Congress declared war on Japan, Italy, and
Proclamation for peace. Germany.
1877 Ordered off their land in Oregon, the Nez Percé 1942 President Roosevelt issued Executive Order
tribe attempted to flee to Canada, a trek of 9066, permitting military authorities to evacuate
1,600 miles, to avoid war with US troops. They 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry (mostly US
citizens) from West Coast states and incarcerate 1994 The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement
them in isolated locations. Act legislated mandatory life imprisonment for
The Bracero Program permitted Mexi- persons convicted in federal court of a “serious
can citizens to work in agricultural areas in the violent felony” and who had two or more prior
United States on a temporary basis and at lower convictions in federal or state courts, at least
wages than US workers. one of which was a “serious violent felony” (the
1945 World War II ended after the United States “three strikes” law). The other prior offense may
dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities be a “serious drug offense.” States adopted
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. similar laws.
1954 In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme 1996 The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportu-
Court reversed its Plessy v. Ferguson decision nity Reconciliation Act replaced families’ entitle-
and declared that segregated schools were in- ment to government assistance with Temporary
herently unequal. In 1955, the Court ordered the Assistance for Needy Families, a time-limited
desegregation of schools “with all deliberate work-based program.
speed.” The Defense of Marriage Act forbade the
1963 The Equal Pay Act mandated that men and federal government from recognizing same-sex
women doing the same work must receive the or polygamous marriages under any circum-
same pay. stances and stipulated that no state, city, or
To gain public support for a comprehensive county is required to recognize a marriage be-
civil rights law, 250,000 people participated in a tween persons of the same sex even if the mar-
March on Washington. riage is recognized in another state.
1964 Congress passed the most comprehensive Civil 2001 The Uniting and Strengthening America by Pro-
Rights Act in the history of the nation. Under viding Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept
Title VII, employment discrimination was prohib- and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA Patriot Act)
ited on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or greatly increased law enforcement agencies’
national origin. powers of detention, search, and surveillance. It
1965 The Voting Rights Act ended the use of literacy permitted expanded use of secret searches and
tests as a prerequisite for voting. allowed financial institutions to monitor daily
1972 Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment transactions and academic institutions to share
and sent it to the states for ratification. It had information about students.
been introduced in every session since 1923. 2015 A Supreme Court ruling allowed same-sex mar-
1973 The Rehabilitation Act (Section 504) prohibited riage in all 50 states.
discrimination against people with disabili- 2017 President Trump signed executive orders that
ties in programs that receive federal financial restricted entry of refugees to the United States
assistance. and citizens of various Muslim-majority coun-
1975 The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act tries, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan,
guaranteed children with disabilities a free, ap- Syria, and Yemen.
propriate public education. 2018 New immigration guidelines separated children
1982 The Equal Rights Amendment failed, being from parents or other adults at the US-Mexico
ratified by thirty-five rather than the required border. This included families applying for
minimum of thirty-eight states. Subsequent asylum. Due to immense public pressure, these
efforts to revive this campaign have not been guidelines were suspended after more than
successful. 2,300 children had been separated from their
1990 The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibited parents (see Reading 44).
discrimination on the basis of disability by em-
ployers, public accommodations, state and local
Primary source: A. Hernandez (1975, 2002). Also see the box
governments, public and private transportation, feature “A Timeline of Key U.S. Immigration Law and Policy” in
and in telecommunications. Chapter 3.
Liberal feminism is part of this liberal tradition and explains the oppression of
women in terms of unequal access to political, economic, and social institutions (see,
e.g., Eisenstein 1981; Friedan 1963; Steinem 1983). Much feminist organizing in the
United States—including campaigns for women’s rights to vote, to divorce, to enter
universities and professions, to run for political office, and to train for combat—has
been and continues to be based on this view. You may hold liberal feminist opinions
even though you may not realize it. Despite the disclaimer “I’m not a feminist . . . ,” the
comment “but I do believe in equal pay” is a liberal feminist position. Liberal feminism
may be criticized because it accepts existing institutions as they are, only seeking equal
access for women within them. However, as the decades-long campaign for women’s
legal rights shows, this goal should not be underestimated given the strength of patri-
archy, or male dominance, as a system of power.
Resisting Interlocking Systems of Oppression

The Combahee River Collective, a group of young Black feminists active in the Boston
area in the 1970s, offered a very different view of feminism generated by their experiences
of interlocking systems of oppression based on race, class, gender, and sexuality (Read-
ing 3). As Black feminists and lesbians, Collective members found many white feminists
too focused on male domination at the expense of oppressions based on race and class.
Group members did not advocate equal rights for women within current institutions
but argued for the transformation of the political and economic system as essential for
women’s liberation. They defined themselves as socialists and believed that “work must
be organized for the collective benefit of those who do the work and create the products,
and not for the profit of the bosses,” as argued by German philosophers Frederick Engels
and Karl Marx during the 1840s (shortly before the Seneca Falls convention). Collective
members offered a strong critique of capitalism and imperialism and stood in solidarity
with liberation struggles then being waged in colonized nations of Africa and Asia. Such
transnational feminist thinking is both relevant and necessary today to understand the
impacts of the global economic system, a point we take up in later chapters.
Socialist feminism views the oppression of women in terms of two interconnected
and reinforcing systems: patriarchy and capitalism (see, e.g., Federici 2012; Hennessy
and Ingraham 1997; Radical Women 2001; S. Smith 2005). The post–World War II
rivalry between the West and the Soviet Union led to the discrediting of socialist think-
ing in the United States, although interest in it is reviving as more people experience
the inequalities and insecurities generated by capitalism.
Theoretical perspectives that integrate gender with other systems of inequality
have become known by the shorthand term intersectionality. For African American
women, this has a long history. From the 1830s onward, Black speakers and writers like
Frances E. W. Harper, Maria Stewart, and Sojourner Truth explicitly linked oppressions
based on race and gender (Guy-Sheftall 1995). More recently, organizer and writer
Linda Burnham (2001) noted that
Black women’s experience as women is indivisible from their experiences as African

Americans. They are always “both/and,” so analyses that claim to examine gender
while neglecting a critical stance towards race and class inevitably do so at the expense
of African American women’s experiences. (p. 1)
An emphasis on intersectionality is not solely the prerogative of women of color.

Since the writings of Aphra Behn in the early 1600s, some white women have been
concerned with race and class as well as gender. White feminists worked against slavery
in the nineteenth century; they organized against lynching and the activities of the Ku
Klux Klan in the 1920s and 1930s; and they participated in labor movements, the wel-
fare rights movement, and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s (see, e.g.,
Bush 2004; Frankenberg 1993; Pratt 1984; Rich 1986c; Segrest 1994). An intersectional
approach is central to women’s and gender studies, as exemplified by the readings in
this book and in our overview essays.
Many media accounts of “second wave” feminism have ignored or erased alliances
among women across lines of race and class. They have focused on the thinking and
organizing of white middle-class feminists who were in the media spotlight, like Betty
Friedan (1963) and Gloria Steinem (1983). This distorted view still circulates among
antifeminist commentators even though more nuanced histories show the limitations
of those skewed accounts (see, e.g., Baxandall and Gordon 2000; L aughlin et al. 2010;
Moraga and Anzaldúa 1981; Roth 2003; Springer 2005; B. Thompson 2002). Unfortu-
nately, students and activists who do not know this history also repeat inaccurate ver-
sions of feminism as the province of white middle-class women and erase the feminist
thinking and organizing by a whole generation of women of color. Mathangi Subra-
manian, whose parents immigrated to the United States from India, had assumed that
feminism was a white, Western thing, incompatible with her South Asian American
identity, and wondered, “What does feminism have to do with me?” (Reading 4). She
was excited to discover the intersectional writings of South Asian feminists like Chan-
dra Talpade Mohanty (2003b; also see Alcoff 2013) that focused on “families and
religion and food and history” and found that “[t]his feminism fit.”
Queer and Trans Feminisms

Like members of the Combahee River Collective, many feminist writers and activ-
ists of the 1970s and 1980s were lesbians who rejected what Adrienne Rich (1986a)
called “compulsory heterosexuality.” Literary critic Michael Warner (1999) introduced
a related term—heteronormativity—the belief that heterosexuality is the normal and
natural way to express sexuality. Lesbians and gay men challenged this view, as did
those who reclaimed the word queer, which had been used as a hateful term to oppress
lesbians and gay men. This revamped notion of queer emphasized fluidity, experimenta-
tion, and playfulness, and it generated new political movements like ACT UP and Queer
Nation (see, e.g., Gage, Richards, and Wilmot 2002; Nestle, Howell, and Wilchins 2002;
Rodríguez 2003). The development of gay and lesbian studies and queer theory has in-
fluenced women’s and gender studies over the past twenty years, especially in analyzing
heteronormativity. Also, trans individuals and activists have challenged, unsettled, and
transformed understandings of gender.
Loan Tran questions whether gender still matters and, if so, what it means these days
when “technological, linguistic, and cultural shifts are allowing us to think about gender
in a way that was unimaginable just a few decades ago” (Reading 5). They (Loan Tran’s
preferred pronoun) see that the way “gender is embodied indicates a tremendous blos-
soming of human possibility” and argue for a trans feminism that is both broad and based
in daily material realities. For Tran, this means that feminists must be concerned with the
lives of trans people as well as capitalism, white supremacy, displacement, and war.
THE FOCUS OF WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES

Women’s studies programs in United States date from the early 1970s and grew out
of the vibrant women’s liberation movements of those times. Early courses had titles
like “Women’s Liberation,” “The Power of Patriarchy,” and “Sexist Oppression and
Women’s Empowerment.” Texts often included mimeographed articles from news-
letters and pamphlets because there was so little material available in books. Over
the years, scholars and activists have generated new understandings about gender
with extensive bodies of literature and hundreds of programs in the United States
and around the world, including Master’s and PhD programs. Some departments
have shifted their emphasis to women’s and gender studies, or to women’s, gender,
and sexuality studies. Interdisciplinary fields like gay and lesbian studies, queer
studies, ethnic studies, masculinity studies, cultural studies, and media studies have
all shaped and benefitted from gender scholarship, as have older disciplines like
literature, history, and sociology. As authors and editors, we draw on a wide range
of sources to illustrate the breadth and vitality of women’s and gender studies today.
The readings in this chapter provide a tiny sampling of the richness and diver-
sity of US feminist thought. Over the generations, feminist writers and activists have
drawn on their life experiences and beliefs in human liberation, evolving new per-
spectives that were often shocking at the time. Some arguments put forward by earlier
generations might seem self-evident these days, but it is important to consider them in
context. Earlier feminist thought provides foundations for current thinking and prac-
tice, which will also develop and change as others make their contributions to this
ongoing endeavor.
These introductory readings are also in dialogue with those in the rest of this book.
A key issue that links feminist thinking and movements internationally is violence
against women in its many forms. This includes the #MeToo movement (Reading 59),
Mexican women’s protests against the killing of young women in the border region
(Reading 30), West African women’s efforts to heal from the turmoil and sexual vio-
lence of war (Reading 49), and those working to support Syrian refugees (Reading 47).
Another theme concerns environmental justice: women in South India campaigning to
stop Coca-Cola from plundering local water supplies (Reading 55); indigenous women
in Latin America opposing mining, logging, and big dams that destroy their lands and
livelihoods (Reading 39); and international organizations that are developing feminist
principles for a just economy (Reading 60).
For students, women’s and gender studies courses provide perspectives on individual
experience and on other college courses in ways that are often life-changing. Many stu-
dents report that these courses are both informative and empowering. Critical reading and
integrative thinking, which are emphasized in women’s and gender studies, are important
academic and workplace skills. Graduates go on to work in business, community organiz-
ing, education, electoral politics, feminist advocacy projects, filmmaking, health, interna-
tional policy, journalism, law, library work, publishing, social and human services, and
more (see, e.g., Berger and Radeloff 2011; Luebke and Reilly 1995; Stewart 2007).
Women’s and gender studies started as a critique of scholarship that ignored gender
or treated women in stereotypical ways. It sought to provide missing information, new
theoretical perspectives, and new ways of teaching. This kind of study can evoke strong
emotions because you may be deeply affected by topics under discussion. Readings and
class discussions may make you angry at the many forms of gender oppression, at other
students’ ignorance or lack of concern, or at being female in a male-dominated world.

You may be challenged to rethink some of your assumptions and experiences as well as
your views on various issues.
Most feminist teachers do not use what Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (1970)
called the “banking method” of education, common in many fields, where students
are like banks and teachers deposit information—historical facts, dates, definitions,
formulae—and withdraw it in quizzes and exams. Regardless of its relevance for other
subjects, this method is not appropriate for women’s and gender studies, where stu-
dents come into class with life experience and views on many of the topics discussed.
As students, you are familiar with opinions circulating in social media, for example, or
how your spiritual community views matters you care about. In women’s and gender
studies classes, you are encouraged to reflect on your experiences and to relate the
readings and class discussions to your own life. At the end of each chapter, we raise
questions and suggest activities to help do this. We believe that you should understand
how your experiences are connected to wider social and historical contexts so that you
are part of your own system of knowledge.
Although not always explicit, education has always been a political matter: who
has been allowed to learn, and what kinds of learning (basic literacy, skilled trades, or
abstract thinking) are deemed appropriate for different groups. For several generations,
important goals in US women’s education concerned equality: to study alongside men,
to have access to the same curriculum, and to be admitted to male-dominated profes-
sions. Beyond this, feminist thinking has called into question the gendered nature
of knowledge itself, with its focus on white, male, elite perspectives that are deemed
to be universal, as we discuss in Chapter 2. As women’s and gender studies programs
continue to build their scholarly work and academic rigor, they occupy a contradictory
position within academia, challenging male-dominated knowledge. Many myths and
misunderstandings about feminism and women’s and gender studies circulate on cam-
puses and in the wider society. We consider three of these myths here, and then look
at the related topic of men in women’s and gender studies.
Myth 1: Women’s and Gender Studies Is Ideological

Some people assume that women’s and gender studies is feminist propaganda, not
“real” scholarship. They may believe that such courses are too “touchy-feely” or consti-
tute extended gripe sessions against men. Feminist inquiry, analysis, and activism have
arisen from women’s life experiences and from well-researched inequalities and dis-
crimination. One example is the fact that, on average, US women’s wages for full-time,
year-round work are 77 percent to 80 percent of what men earn on average, meaning
that women earn between 77 and 80 cents (depending on age) for every dollar earned
by men. For African American women, this is 63 cents—and for Latinas, 54 cents—
compared to white men (AAUW 2018). Knowledge is never neutral, and in women’s
and gender studies, this is made explicit.
Given its movement origins, the field has valued scholarly work that is relevant to
activist concerns. Women’s and gender studies courses seek to link intellectual, expe-
riential, and emotional forms of knowing with the goal of improving everyone’s lives.
This is a rigorous endeavor, but it differs from much traditional scholarship, which
values abstract knowledge, narrowly defined, as discussed in Chapter 2. By contrast,
women’s and gender studies scholarship places a high value on breadth and connected-
ness. This kind of rigor requires broad understandings grounded in diverse experiences
and the ability to make connections between insights from different perspectives.
To some people, feminism is more than an area of study. It is a cause to believe in
because it provides cogent ways to understand the world, which may be personally em-
powering. In the face of egregious gender-based discrimination, it may be tempting to
blame everything on “the patriarchy” or “rich white men” without taking the trouble to
read or think critically. Students who do this are being anti-intellectual; they limit their
own understanding and inadvertently reinforce the notion that women’s and gender
studies is anti-intellectual.
Myth 2: Women’s and Gender Studies Is Narrow

Women’s and gender studies seeks to understand and explain the significance of in-
tersecting inequalities based on gender, race, class, dis/ability, sexuality, age, national
origin, and so on. Feminist analyses provide a series of lenses to examine many topics
and contribute to a long list of academic disciplines, from anthropology to ethnic
studies, history, law, literature, psychology, and more. Feminist scholarship is on the
cutting edge of many fields and raises crucial questions about teaching and learning,
research design and methodologies, and theories of knowledge. Thus, far from being
narrow, women’s and gender studies is concerned with thinking critically about the
world in all its complexity, as illustrated in this book.
Myth 3: Women’s and Gender Studies Is a White,

Middle-Class, Western Thing
Many notable scholars, writers, and activists of color identify as feminists. Among them
are Julia Alvarez, Gloria Anzaldúa, Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, Aurora Levins
Morales, Nadine Naber, Loan Tran, and others whose work is included in this anthology.
They link analyses of gender with race, class, and other systems of power and inequality,
as do homegrown feminist movements in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean
(see, e.g., Basu 2016; Moghadam 2005; Naples and Desai 2002). As African American
writer and cultural critic bell hooks (2000) argued: “there should be billboards; ads in
magazines; ads on buses, subways, trains; television commercials spreading the word, let-
ting the world know more about feminism” because “feminism is for everybody” (p. x).
Men Doing Feminism

Women’s and gender studies classes include a growing number of men, and courses
increasingly include scholarly work on masculinities. There is a long history of men’s
support for women’s rights in the United States (see, e.g., Digby 1998; Kaufman and
Kimmel 2011; Tarrant 2007; also see Reading 29). Indeed, the changes we discuss
in this book cannot be achieved without men’s full participation—whether as sons,
brothers, fathers, partners, lovers, friends, classmates, coworkers, supervisors, labor
organizers, spiritual leaders, teachers, doctors, lawyers, police officers, judges, legisla-
tors, and more. Women’s and gender studies courses provide a strong grounding for
this. Moreover, the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have prompted discussions of
manliness and masculinities, which hopefully will continue.
Because masculinities are socially constructed and highly constrained in this soci-
ety, as in others, we assume that there is something for men in feminism beyond being
allies to women (see, e.g., A. Johnson 2005; Tarrant 2007). People in dominant posi-
tions on any social dimension (gender, race, class, ability, nation, and so forth) have
obvious benefits, and those with privilege may be afraid of losing it. At the same time,
such structures of power and inequality are limiting for everyone. Privilege separates
people and makes those of us in dominant positions ignorant of important truths. To
be able to look others fully in the eye, we have to work to end systems of inequality.
This repudiation of privilege is not a sacrifice, we believe, but rather the possibility of
entering into genuine community where we can all be more truly human.
COLLECTIVE ACTION FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

In the past forty years or so, there has been a proliferation of popular and scholarly
books, journals, magazines, websites, and blog posts on gender issues. When opin-
ion polls, academic studies, government data, public debates, grassroots research, and
personal narratives are added, it is easy to be swamped with information and vary-
ing perspectives. In making our selections as writers and editors, we have filtered this
wealth of material according to four main principles—our particular road map, which
provides the framework for this book.
1. A Matrix of Oppression, Privilege, and Resistance

Underlying our analysis is the concept of oppression, which we see as a group phenom-
enon even though individuals in specific groups many not think they are oppressed
or want to be in positions of dominance. Every form of oppression—such as sexism,
racism, classism, heterosexism, anti-Arabism, anti-Semitism, and able-bodyism—is
rooted in social institutions like the family, education, religion, government, law, and
media. Those who are dominant in this society, as in others, use their relative power
and privilege to rule, control, and exploit other groups—those who are subordinate—
for the benefit of the dominant group.
Oppression works through systems of power and inequality, including the domi-
nance of certain values, beliefs, and assumptions about people and how society should be
organized. Members of dominant groups generally have built-in economic, political, and
cultural power and benefits regardless of whether they are aware of, or even want, these
advantages. This process of accruing benefits is often referred to as privilege. Those most
privileged may be least able to recognize it. Men, as a group, are advantaged by sexism,
whereas women, as a group, are disadvantaged, though there are significant differences
within these groups based on race, class, dis/ability, sexuality or gender expression.
Oppression involves prejudice, which we define as unreasonable, unfair, and hos-
tile attitudes and judgments toward people, and discrimination, or differential treatment
favoring those who are in positions of dominance. But oppression reaches beyond indi-
vidual behavior. It is promoted by every social institution and cannot be fully changed
without fundamental changes in institutional practices and ideologies—the ideas, at-
titudes, and values that institutions embody and perpetuate. Our definition of oppres-
sion assumes that everyone learns to participate in oppressive practices, thus helping to
maintain them. People may be involved as perpetrators or passive beneficiaries, or they
Collec tive Ac tion for a Sustainable Future 15
may direct internalized oppression at members of their own group. Oppression results
in appropriation and the loss—both voluntary and involuntary—of voice, identity, and
agency of oppressed peoples. What examples can you think of to illustrate this?
It is important to think about oppression as a system, at times blatantly obvious
and at others subtly nuanced, rather than as an either/or dichotomy of privileged/
disadvantaged or oppressor/oppressed. People may be privileged in some respects ( e.g.,
in terms of race or gender) and disadvantaged in others (e.g., class or sexual expres-
sion). We use the phrase matrix of oppression, privilege, and resistance to describe
the interrelatedness of various forms of oppression, the fact that people may be privi-
leged on certain dimensions and disadvantaged on others, and to recognize both op-
pression and privilege as potentially powerful sources of resistance and change. We
note that people of different groups learn what is considered appropriate behavior for
them in their families, in school, or from media representations and popular culture.
As a result, people may internalize dominant ideas so that we “police” ourselves with-
out the need for overt oppression from outside.
2. From the Personal to the Global

Throughout this book, we make connections between people’s personal experiences
and wider social systems that we are part of. We use the analytical terms micro level
(personal or individual), meso level (community, neighborhood, or school), macro
level (national or institutional), and global level to make these links. To understand
people’s experiences or the complexity of a particular issue, it is necessary to look at all
of these levels and how they interconnect. Take a personal relationship, for instance.
This operates on a micro level. However, both partners bring all of themselves to the
relationship. So in addition to individual factors like being funny, generous, or “hot,”
there are meso-level aspects—like where you live and what high school you went to,
which are affected by economic inequalities and segregation in housing—and macro-
level factors—like the obvious or hidden ways in which men or white people are privi-
leged in this society. As editors, we make connections between these levels of analysis
in our overview essays and have chosen readings that also make these links.
Given the diversity and complexity of US society, we have chosen to focus on the
United States in this book. However, we also discuss the preeminence of the United States
in the world. This is evident through the dominance of the English language and the wide-
spread distribution of US movies, news media, TV shows, music, books, and websites. It
manifests through the power of the dollar as an international currency and the impact of
US-based corporations abroad, especially in poorer countries of the Global South. Domi-
nance is also apparent in the broad reach of US foreign and military policy. Students who
have lived in other parts of the world often know this from their own experience. We
see “nation” as an analytical category like race or gender, and in some places, we refer to
gender issues and feminist thinking and activism in other nations. A global level of analy-
sis recognizes that patriarchy, heteronormativity, and militarism are global phenomena,
although with differences in practice from nation to nation.
3. Linking the Head, Heart, and Hands

Humankind faces serious challenges if we are to sustain ourselves, our children, their chil-
dren, and the environment that supports all life. Although some women in the United
States have benefited from greater opportunities for education and wage earning, many
are now working harder or longer hours than their mothers did, and are under pressure
to keep a job and to juggle waged work with caring for a family. Over the past forty years,
economic changes and government policies have made many people’s lives more diffi-
cult. Examples include a loss of factory and office jobs as work has been moved overseas
or become automated, government failure to introduce an adequate system of child care
or a health care system that benefits everyone, cuts in welfare programs, restrictions of
government support to immigrants and their families, and a dramatic increase in the
number of people who are incarcerated. Government spending illustrates these priori-
ties. Some states spend more on incarceration than on higher education, for example. A
massive 47 percent of the federal discretionary budget is earmarked for military spend-
ing, a total of $717 billion for fiscal year 2019 (US Department of Defense 2018). At the
same time, thousands of people are homeless, many urban schools lack basic resources,
and funding for services from preschool programs to the Veterans Administration has
been cut back. Individuals are affected by such policies as they negotiate intimate rela-
tionships, raise children, and make a living for themselves and their families.
In the face of these negative economic and political trends, we mention many in-
spiring projects and organizations to showcase activist work that is often not recog-
nized in the mainstream media. We urge you to find out more about such projects
on the Web and to take action yourself. We see collective action for progressive social
change as a major goal of scholarly work, especially in a field like women’s and gender
studies. Doing something about an issue requires us to have an explanation about it,
to have ideas for a different way of doing things, followed by action—linking the head,
heart, and hands (a theme we will return to later).
4. A Secure and Sustainable Future

Security and sustainability are central issues for the twenty-first century. This includes
the personal security of knowing who we are as individuals; having sturdy relation-
ships with family and friends; living free from threats, violence, or coercion; having
adequate income or livelihood; and enjoying health and well-being. It also involves
security for communities, nations, and our overburdened planet. We see structural
inequalities based on race, class, gender, and nation as a major threat to long-term se-
curity worldwide because they create literal and metaphorical walls, gates, and fences
that separate people and maintain hierarchies among us. We argue that creating a more
sustainable future means rethinking materialism and consumerism and finding fairer
ways to distribute wealth so that everyone may thrive.
Throughout our discussion, we emphasize the diversity of women’s experiences.
We assume no easy “sisterhood” across lines of race, class, nation, age, ability, sexual-
ity, or gender expression, but we do believe that alliances built on the recognition and
understanding of such differences can make effective collective action possible.
THE SCOPE OF THIS BOOK

This book is concerned with the conditions facing people of all genders and the long-
term work of transforming those conditions. In Part I (Chapters 1–3), we introduce ex-
amples of feminist thought from the United States; we argue for a theoretical framework
The Scope of This Book 17
that allows students to understand the significance of gender, race, class, sexuality, dis/
ability, nation, and more; and we discuss the role of identity and social location as stand-
points for creating knowledge and understanding. Part II (Chapters 4–6) e xplores wom-
en’s experiences of their bodies, sexuality, health, and sexualized violence. In Part III
(Chapters 7 and 8), we look at what is involved in making a home and making a living,
and how opportunities in the United States and abroad are shaped by global factors. In
Part IV (Chapters 9–11), we continue to explore concepts of security and sustainability by
looking at crime and criminalization, militarization, and the impacts of environmental
destruction. Finally, in Part V (Chapter 12), we examine the importance of theories, vi-
sions, and actions for creating change, using the head, heart, and hands together.
Throughout the book, we draw on personal narratives, journalists’ accounts, gov-
ernment data, scholarly papers, and the work of nonprofit research and advocacy or-
ganizations. Our overview essays provide some historical and contemporary context
for the readings, which amplify key points. Our overall argument is that improving
people’s lives in the United States also means directing ourselves, our communities,
this society, and the wider world toward a more sustainable future.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

As you read and discuss this chapter, think about these questions:
1. What is your ancestry—biologically, culturally, and intellectually? How would you
answer Paula Gunn Allen’s question: Who is your mother?
2. How can you learn more about the history of feminist movements? Who will be
your teachers? What sources will you use?
3. What does feminism mean to you? Keep your answer, and return to this question at
the end of the course.
FINDING OUT MORE ON THE WEB

1. In Reading 1, Paula Gunn Allen mentions Lysistrata. Who was she?
2. In Reading 3, the writers mention Dr. Kenneth Edelin, Joan Little, and Inéz Garcia.
Who were these people? Why were they significant?
3. How many Black men held seats in the US Congress in 2000 compared to 1900?
4. Look at how blogs such as Feministing (http://feministing.com) or Quirky Black
Girls (http://quirkyblackgirls.blogspot.com) discuss current feminist issues.
TAKING ACTION
1. Find quotes or slogans about feminism that resonate for you.
2. Find a feminist blog you like, and read it regularly.
3. Ask older people in your family or community about their involvement in a social
movement.
4. Interview your professors or the staff of your campus women’s center to learn about
the beginnings of women’s and gender studies at your college or university.
5. Join an organization or support a campaign on a feminist issue you care about.
PA U L A G U N N A L L E N
WHO IS YOUR MOTHER? RED ROOTS OF WHITE

1
FEMINISM (1986)
Paula Gunn Allen (1939–2008) was a poet, novelist, essayist, and literary critic of Laguna, Sioux, Lebanese, and Scot-
tish ancestry who grew up on the Laguna Pueblo (New Mexico). Among many awards, she received a Pulitzer Prize
nomination for Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat (2004), a Lifetime Achievement Award
from the Native Writer’s Circle of the Americas (2001), and the American Book Award from the Before Columbus
Foundation for Spider Woman’s Granddaughters: Traditional Tales and Contemporary Writing (1990).
A t Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, “Who is your

mother?” is an important question. At Laguna,
one of several of the ancient Keres gynocratic so-
the community is not confined to Keres Indians;
all American Indian Nations place great value on
traditionalism.
cieties of the region, your mother’s identity is the The Native American sense of the importance of
key to your own identity. Among the Keres, every continuity with one’s cultural origins runs coun-
individual has a place within the universe—human ter to contemporary American ideas: in many in-
and nonhuman—and that place is defined by clan stances, the immigrants to America have been
membership. In turn, clan membership is depen- eager to cast off cultural ties, often seeing their an-
dent on matrilineal descent. Of course, your mother tecedents as backward, restrictive, even shameful.
is not only that woman whose womb formed and Rejection of tradition constitutes one of the major
released you—the term refers in every individual features of American life, an attitude that reaches
case to an entire generation of women whose psy- far back into American colonial history and that
chic, and consequently physical, “shape” made the now is validated by virtually every cultural institu-
psychic existence of the following generation pos- tion in the country. . . .
sible. But naming your own mother (or her equiva- The American idea that the best and the brightest
lent) enables people to place you precisely within should willingly reject and repudiate their origins
the universal web of your life, in each of its dimen- leads to an allied idea—that history, like everything
sions: cultural, spiritual, personal, and historical. in the past, is of little value and should be forgotten
Among the Keres, “context” and “matrix” are as quickly as possible. This all too often causes us
equivalent terms, and both refer to approximately to reinvent the wheel continually. We find ourselves
the same thing as knowing your derivation and discovering our collective pasts over and over,
place. Failure to know your mother, that is, your having to retake ground already covered by women
position and its attendant traditions, history, and in the preceding decades and centuries. The Native
place in the scheme of things, is failure to remem- American view, which highly values maintenance
ber your significance, your reality, your right re- of traditional customs, values, and perspectives,
lationship to earth and society. It is the same as might result in slower societal change and in quite
being lost—isolated, abandoned, self-estranged, a bit less social upheaval, but it has the advantage
and alienated from your own life. This impor- of providing a solid sense of identity and lowered
tance of tradition in the life of every member of levels of psychological and interpersonal conflict.
Source: Republished with permission of Beacon Press, from Paula Gunn Allen, The Sacred Hoop (Boston, MA. Beacon Press,
1986); permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
18
Who is Your Mother? 19
Contemporary Indian communities value indi- sense of the sacredness and mystery of existence;
vidual members who are deeply connected to the balance and harmony in relationships both sacred
traditional ways of their people, even after centu- and secular were all features of life among the
ries of concerted and brutal effort on the part of tribal confederacies and nations. And in those that
the American government, the churches, and the lived by the largest number of these principles,
corporate system to break the connections between gynarchy [government by women] was the norm
individuals and their tribal world. In fact, in the rather than the exception. Those systems are as yet
view of the traditionals, rejection of one’s culture— unmatched in any contemporary industrial, agrar-
one’s traditions, language, people—is the result of ian, or postindustrial society on earth.
colonial oppression and is hardly to be applauded. . . . Femaleness was highly valued, both respected
They believe that the roots of oppression are to be and feared, and all social institutions reflected this
found in the loss of tradition and memory because attitude. Even modern sayings, such as the Chey-
that loss is always accompanied by a loss of a posi- enne statement that a people is not conquered until
tive sense of self. In short, Indians think it is im- the hearts of the women are on the ground, express
portant to remember, while Americans believe it is the Indians’ understanding that without the power
important to forget. . . . of woman the people will not live, but with it, they
will endure and prosper.
Re-membering Connections Indians did not confine this belief in the central
importance of female energy to matters of worship.
and Histories
Among many of the tribes (perhaps as many as 70
The belief that rejection of tradition and of history
percent of them in North America alone), this belief
is a useful response to life is reflected in America’s
was reflected in all of their social institutions. The
amazing loss of memory concerning its origins in
Iroquois Constitution or White Roots of Peace, also
the matrix and context of Native America. Amer-
called the Great Law of the Iroquois, codified the
ica does not seem to remember that it derived its
Matrons’ decision-making and economic power:
wealth, its values, its food, much of its medicine,
and a large part of its “dream” from Native Amer- The lineal descent of the people of the Five Fires
ica. . . . Hardly anyone in America speculates that [the Iroquois Nations] shall run in the female line.
the constitutional system of government might Women shall be considered the progenitors of the
be as much a product of American Indian ideas Nation. They shall own the land and the soil. Men
and practices as of colonial American and Anglo- and women shall follow the status of their moth-
European revolutionary fervor. ers. (Article 44)
Even though Indians are officially and infor- The women heirs of the chieftainship titles
mally ignored as intellectual movers and shapers of the League shall be called Oiner or Otinner
in the United States, Britain, and Europe, they are [Noble] for all time to come. (Article 45)
peoples with ancient tenure on this soil. During the If a disobedient chief persists in his disobedi-
ages when tribal societies existed in the Americas ence after three warnings [by his female relatives,
largely untouched by patriarchal oppression, they by his male relatives, and by one of his fellow coun-
developed elaborate systems of thought that in- cil members, in that order], the matter shall go to
cluded science, philosophy, and government based the council of War Chiefs. The Chiefs shall then
on a belief in the central importance of female take away the title of the erring chief by order of the
energies, autonomy of individuals, cooperation, women in whom the title is vested. When the chief is
human dignity, human freedom, and egalitarian deposed, the women shall notify the chiefs of the
distribution of status, goods, and services. Respect League . . . and the chiefs of the League shall sanc-
for others, reverence for life and, as a by-product, tion the act. The women will then select another of
pacifism as a way of life; importance of kinship ties their sons as a candidate and the chiefs shall elect
in the customary ordering of social interaction; a him. (Article 19) (Emphasis mine)1
The Matrons held so much policy-making power continent is unnecessary confusion, division, and
traditionally that once, when their position was much lost time.
threatened they demanded its return, and conse-
quently the power of women was fundamental in The Root of Oppression Is Loss
shaping the Iroquois Confederation sometime in the
of Memory
sixteenth or early seventeenth century. It was women
. . . As I write this . . . I am keenly aware of the
who fought what may have been the first successful lack of image Americans have about our continent’s
feminist rebellion in the New World. The year was recent past. I am intensely conscious of popular no-
1600, or thereabouts, when these tribal feminists tions of Indian women as beasts of burden, squaws,
decided that they had had enough of unregulated traitors, or, at best, vanished denizens of a long-lost
warfare by their men. Lysistratas among the Indian wilderness. How odd, then, must my contention
women proclaimed a boycott on lovemaking and seem that the gynocratic tribes of the American
childbearing. Until the men conceded to them the continent provided the basis for all the dreams of
power to decide upon war and peace, there would liberation that characterize the modem world.
be no more warriors. Since the men believed that We as feminists must be aware of our history
the women alone knew the secret of childbirth, the on this continent. We need to recognize that the
rebellion was instantly successful. same forces that devastated the gynarchies of Brit-
In the Constitution of Deganawidah the ain and the Continent also devastated the ancient
founder of the Iroquois Confederation of Nations African civilizations, and we must know that those
had said: “He caused the body of our mother, the same materialistic, antispiritual forces are pres-
woman, to be of great worth and honor. He pur- ently engaged in wiping out the same gynarchical
posed that she shall be endowed and entrusted values, along with the peoples who adhere to them,
with the birth and upbringing of men, and that she in Latin America. I am convinced that those wars
shall have the care of all that is planted by which were and continue to be about the imposition of
life is sustained and supported and the power to patriarchal civilization over the holistic, pacifist,
breathe is fortified: and moreover that the warriors and spirit-based gynarchies they supplant. To that
shall be her assistants.” end the wars of imperial conquest have not been
The footnote of history was curiously sup- solely or even mostly waged over the land and its
plied when Susan B. Anthony began her “Votes for resources, but they have been fought within the
Women” movement two and a half centuries later. bodies, minds, and hearts of the people of the
Unknowingly the feminists chose to hold their earth for dominion over them. I think this is the
founding convention of latter-day suffragettes in reason traditionals say we must remember our ori-
the town of Seneca [Falls], New York. The site was gins, our cultures, our histories, our mothers and
just a stone’s throw from the old council house grandmothers, for without that memory, which
where the Iroquois women had plotted their femi- implies continuance rather than nostalgia, we are
nist rebellion. (Emphasis mine)2 doomed to engulfment by a paradigm that is fun-
damentally inimical to the vitality, autonomy, and
Beliefs, attitudes, and laws such as these became self-empowerment essential for satisfying, high-
part of the vision of American feminists and of quality life.
other human liberation movements around the The vision that impels feminists to action was
world. Yet feminists too often believe that no one the vision of the Grandmothers’ society, the soci-
has ever experienced the kind of society that em- ety that was captured in the words of the sixteenth-
powered women and made that empowerment the century explorer Peter Martyr nearly five hundred
basis of its rules of civilization. The price the femi- years ago. . . . That vision as Martyr told it is of a
nist community must pay because it is not aware of country where there are “no soldiers, no gendarmes
the recent presence of gynarchical societies on this or police, no nobles, kings, regents, prefects, or
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CHAPTER LX
TRIED AS BY FIRE
The night was still, the air sopped with recent rain, the sky piled with
sluggish cloud-strata through whose rifts the half-moon glimpsed
obliquely, making the sea-beach that curved above Missolonghi an
eerie checker of shine and shade.
Between hill and shore a lean path, from whose edges the cochineal
cactus swung its quivers of prickly arrows, shambled across a great
flat ledge that jutted from the hill’s heel to break abruptly above a
deep pool gouged by hungry tempests. On the reed-clustered sand
beyond the rock-shelf were disposed a body of men splendidly
uniformed, in kirtle and capote, standing by their hobbled horses. On
the rocky ledge, in the flickering light of a torch thrust into a cleft,
were seated their two leaders conversing.
They had ridden far. The object of their coming was the safe delivery
of a letter to the one man to whom all Greece looked now. The
message was momentous and secret, the errand swift and silent. In
Missolonghi, whose lights glowed a mile away, clanging night and
day with hurried preparation, none knew of the presence of that
company on the deserted shore, save one of its own number who
had ridden, under cover of the dark, into the town’s defenses.
“This is a journey that pleases me well, Lambro,” averred one of the
primates on the rock. “I wish we were well on our way back to the
Congress at Salona, and the English lordos leading us. What an
entry that will be! But what if he doubts your messenger—suspects
some trickery of Ulysses? Suppose he will not come out to us?”
“Then the letter must go to him in Missolonghi,” said the other,
“Mavrocordato or no Mavrocordato. He will come properly guarded,”
he added, “but he will come.”
“Why are you so certain?”
“Because the man I sent to him an hour since is one he must trust. It
was his sister the Excellency saved in his youth from the sack. Their
father was then a merchant of the bazaar in this same town. Do you
not know the tale?” And thereupon he recited the story as he had
heard it years before, little dreaming they sat upon the very spot
where, on that long-ago dawn, the Turkish wands had halted that
grim procession. “I would the brother,” he closed, “might sometime
find the cowardly dog who abandoned her!”
They rose to their feet, for dim forms were coming along the path
from the town—a single horseman and a body-guard afoot. “It is the
archistrategos,” both exclaimed.
The younger hastily withdrew; the other advanced a step to meet the
man who dismounted and came forward.
Gordon’s face in the torch-light was worn and haggard, for the
inward fever had never left him since that fierce convulsion—nature’s
protest against unbearable conditions. Day by day, with the same
unyielding will he had fought his weakness, pushing forward the
plans for the assault on Lepanto, slaving with the gunners, drilling
musket-men, much of the day in the saddle, and filching from the
hours of his rest, time for his committee correspondence, bearing
always that burning coal of anxiety—the English loan which did not
come.
The primate saw this look, touched with surprise as Gordon caught
the stir of horses and men from the further gloom. He bowed
profoundly as he drew forth a letter.
“I regret to have brought Your Illustrious Excellency from your
quarters,” he said in Romaic, “but my orders were specific.”
Gordon stepped close to the torch and opened the letter. The
primate drew back and left him on the rock, a solitary figure in the
yellow glare, watched from one side by two score of horsemen, richly
accoutred, standing silent—on the other by a rough body-guard of
fifty, in ragged garments, worn foot-wear, but fully armed.
Once—twice—three times Gordon read, slowly, strangely deliberate.
A shiver ran over him, and he felt the torch-light on his face like a
sudden hot wave. The letter was a summons to Salona, where
assembled in Congress the chiefs and primates of the whole Morea
—but it was far more than this; in its significant circumlocution, its
meaning diplomatic phrases, lay couched a clear invitation that
seemed to transform his blood to a volatile ichor.
Gordon’s eyes turned to the shadow whence came the shifting and
stamping of horses—then to the lights of the fortifications he had left.
He could send back these silent horsemen, refuse to go with them,
return to Missolonghi, to his desperate waiting for the English loan,
to the hazardous attack on Lepanto, keeping faith with the cause,
falling with it, if needs be; or—he could wear the crown of Greece!
The outlines of the situation had flashed upon him as clearly as a
landscape seen by lightning. The letter in his hand was signed by a
name powerful in three chanceleries. The courts of Europe, aroused
by the experiment of the American colonies, wished no good of
republicanism. Names had been buzzing in State closets: Jerome
Bonaparte, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. But Greece had gone too far
for that; if a foreign ruler be given her, he must be one acceptable to
the popular mind. Governmental eyes turned now to him! He, the
despised of England, a king! The founder of a fresh dynasty, the first
emperor of New Greece!
Standing there, feeling his heart beat to his temples, a weird
sensation came to him. There had been a time in his youth when he
had camped upon that shore, when on that very rock he had struck
an individual blow against Turkish barbarity. Now the hum of the
voices beyond turned into a wild Suliote stave roared about a fire
and he felt again the same chill, prescient instinct that had
possessed him when he said: “It is as though this spot—that town
yonder—were tangled in my destiny!” Was this not the fulfilment, that
on the spot where he had penned his first immortal lines for Greece,
should be offered him her throne?
A mental barb stung him. It was for Greek freedom he had sung then
—the ancient freedom tyranny had defiled. And would this mean true
liberty? The Moslem would be cast out, but for what? A coup d’état!
A military dictatorship, bolstered by suzerain arms! The legislative
government, with the hopes of Mavrocordato, of all the western
country, fallen into the dust! Greece a puppet kingdom, paying
compensation in self-respect to self-aggrandizing cabinets.
But a Greece with himself upon the throne!
Far-off siren voices seemed to call to him from the darkness. What
would be his? World-fame—not the bays he despised, but the laurel.
A seat above even social convention, unprecedented, secure. A
power nationally supreme, in State certainly, in Church perhaps—
power to override old conditions, to re-create his own future. To
sever old bonds with the sword of royal prerogative. Eventually, to
choose his queen!
A fit of trembling seized him. He felt Teresa’s arms about him—
warm, human, loving arms—her lips on his, sweet as honeysuckle
after rain. For a moment temptation flung itself out of the night upon
him. Not such as he had grappled with when she had come to him
on the square in Venice. Not such as he had felt when Dallas told
him of the portrait hidden from Ada’s eyes. It was a temptation a
thousandfold stronger and more insidious. It shook to its depths the
mystic peace that had come to him on the deck of the Hercules after
that last parting. It was as though all the old craving, the bitterness,
the cruciate longing of his love rose at once to a combat under which
the whole mind of the man bent and writhed in anguish.
Gordon’s face, as it stared out from the torch-flare across the gloomy
gulf, showed to the man who waited near-by no sign of the struggle
that wrung his soul, and that, passing at length, left him blanched
and exhausted like one from whose veins a burning fever has ebbed
suddenly.
The primate came eagerly from the shadow as Gordon turned and
spoke:
“Say to those who sent you that what they propose is impossible—”
“Illustrious Excellency!”
“—that I came hither for Greek independence, and if this cause shall
fall, I choose to bury myself in its ruins.”
The other was dumb from sheer astonishment. He knew the
proposal the letter contained. Had not he, Lambro, primate of Argos,
nurtured the plan among the chiefs? Had not the representative of a
great power confided in his discretion when he sent him with that
letter? And now when the whole Morea was ready—when prime
ministers agreed—the one man to whom it might be offered, refused
the crown! He swallowed hard, looking at the letter which had been
handed back to him.
Before he recovered his wits, Gordon had walked uncertainly to his
horse, mounted, and was riding toward the town, his body-guard
streaming out behind him, running afoot.
As his fellow officer approached him, Lambro swore an oath:
“By the Virgin! You shall return to Salona without me. I stay here and
fight with the English lordos!”
He rode into Missolonghi that night, and with him were twenty of his
men.
CHAPTER LXI
THE RENUNCIATION
Gordon entered his bleak room with mind strangely numbed.

Gamba, now acting as his adjutant, was waiting, and him he
dismissed without dictating his usual correspondence. The struggle
he had fought had bitten deeply into his fund of physical resistance.
A tremor was in his hands—a cold sweat on his forehead.
Riding, with the ashes of denial on his lips, it had come to him that in
this temptation he had met his last and strongest enemy. It had
found him in his weakness, and that weakness it would not be given
him to surmount. The sword was wearing out the scabbard. His own
hand should never lead the Greece he loved to its freedom—should
never marshal it at its great installation. None but himself knew how
fearfully illness had grown upon him or with what difficult pain he had
striven to conceal its havoc. Only he himself had had no illusions. He
knew to-night that the final decision had lain between the cause and
his life itself. The one thing which might have knit up his ravelled
health—the abandonment of this miasma-breeding town for the
wholesome unvitiated hill air of Salona, of the active campaign for
passive trust to foreign dictation—he had thrust from him. And in so
doing, he had made the last great choice.
“Lyon!” he said—“Lyon!” The shepherd-dog by the hearth raised his
head. His eyes glistened. His tail beat the stone. He whined uneasily
as his master began to pace the floor, up and down, his step uneven,
forcing his limbs to defy their dragging inertia.
As the long night-watch knelled wearily away, drop by drop Gordon
drank this last and bitter cup of renunciation. Love and life he put
behind him, facing unshrinkingly the grisly specter that looked at him
from the void.
He thought of Teresa singing to her lonely harp in a far-off fragrant
Italian garden. His gaze turned to a closet built into the corner of the
room. In it was a manuscript—five additional cantos of “Don Juan”
written in that last year at Pisa, the completion of the poem, on which
he had lavished infinite labor. He remembered an hour when her
voice had said: “One day you will finish it—more worthily.” Had he
done so? Had he redeemed those earlier portions which, though his
ancient enemy had declared them “touched with immortality,” yet
rang with cadences long since grown painful to him? The world
might judge!
He thought of his Memoirs, completed, which he had sent from Italy
by Dallas for the hand of Tom Moore in London. These pages were a
brief for the defense, submitted to the Supreme Bench of Posterity.
“For Ada!” he muttered. “The smiles of her youth have been her
mother’s, but the tears of her maturity shall be mine!”
His life for Greece! And giving it, it should be his to strike at least one
fiery blow, to lead one fierce dash of arms! He looked where a
glittering helmet hung on the wall, elaborately wrought and
emblazoned, bearing his own crest and armorial motto: “Crede
Gordon”—a garish, ostentatious gewgaw whose every fragile line
and over-decoration was a sneer. It had been brought him in a satin
casket by the hand of the suave Paolo, the last polished sting of his
master, the Count Guiccioli. He would bring to naught that gilded
mockery of hatred that scoffed at his purpose! A few more hours and
preparations would be completed for the attack on Lepanto. To storm
that stronghold, rout the Turkish forces, sound this one clear bugle-
call that would ring on far frontiers—and so, the fall of the curtain.
At length he sat down at the table and in the candle-light began to
write. What he wrote in that hour has been preserved among the few
records George Gordon left behind him at Missolonghi.
“My days are in the yellow leaf;

The flowers and fruits of love are done;
The worm, the canker and the grief
Are mine alone!
The hope, the fear, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain
And power of love, I cannot share.
I wear the chain.
Yet see—the sword, the flag, the field!

Glory and Greece around me see!
The Spartan, borne upon his shield,
Was not more free.
Awake! (not Greece—she is awake!)

Awake my spirit! Think through whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake.
And then strike home!
Up to the battle! There is found

A soldier’s grave—for thee the best;
Then look around and choose thy ground.
And take thy rest!”
The pen fell from his fingers. A sudden icy breath seemed to congeal
from the air. He rose—tried to walk, but felt his limbs failing him. He
fixed his eyes upon a bright spot on the wall, fighting desperately
against the appalling faintness that was enshrouding him. It gyrated
and swam before his vision—a burnished helmet. Should the battle
after all evade him? Was it denied him even to fall upon the field? A
roaring rose in his ears.
He steadied himself against the table and shut his teeth. The quiver
of convulsion was upon him again—and the movement against
Lepanto began to-morrow! It must not come—not yet, not yet! The
very life of the cause was wound in his. He would not yield!
The shepherd-dog had risen whining from the hearth; Gordon felt the
rough tongue licking his hand—felt but could not see. He staggered
toward the couch. Darkness had engulfed him, a black giddiness
from whose depths he heard faintly a frantic barking and hurried
footsteps on the stair.
CHAPTER LXII
GORDON GOES UPON A PILGRIMAGE
Easter afternoon and all Missolonghi was on the streets. But there
were no festivities, no firing of guns nor decorations. A pall had
settled on the town, a pall reflected in a sky dun-colored and
brooding storm.
To-day had been fixed upon for the march against Lepanto, but now
war was forgotten. The wheels of movement had stopped like those
of some huge machine whose spring of action has lost its function.
Silent soldiers patrolled the empty bazaar and the deserted docks.
The crowds that thronged the pavements—Suliotes, their wild faces
softened by grief unconcealed, gloomy officers of infantry and
artillery, weeping women, and grave priests of the Greek church—
conversed in low tones. Even the arrival of a new vessel in the
harbor had gone unnoticed. Observation centered on the stone
building fronting the shallows, from whose guarded precincts from
time to time an aide issued with news which spread speedily through
the desponding populace—the military headquarters where the
foreign archistrategos lay sick unto death.
Through the crowds, from the wharf, three figures passed in haste.
One was a gigantic Venetian servant, staggering beneath the burden
of an iron-bound chest. Small wonder its weight taxed even his
herculean strength, for besides bills of exchange for the sum nine
times over, it contained ten thousand pounds in English sovereigns.
His huge form made a way for the two who followed him: a
venerable Armenian friar, bareheaded and sandalled, and a woman
heavily veiled, whose every nerve was strung with voiceless
suffering.
Mercifully a portion of the truth had come to Teresa at Zante, and in
the few intervening hours, an eternity of suspense, she had gained
an unnatural self-control. Up to the last moment of possibility she
had fought the dread sense of the inevitable that was rising to shut
out her whole horizon of future; but before the ominous hush of the
multitudes, hope had died within her. She seemed to hear Mary
Shelley crying through the voice of that Pisan storm: “O, I am afraid
—afraid—afraid!”
Yet, even in her despair, as she threaded the press with the friar, she
felt an anguished pride and thankfulness. The man on whose life
these awe-struck thousands trembled—the all that he had been to
her! And she had not come too late.
In the cheerless stone room, Mavrocordato, Pietro Gamba and the

men of medicine watched beside the conch on which Gordon lay.
After a long period of unconsciousness he had opened his eyes.
A moment he looked about the familiar apartment, slowly realizing.
He saw the tears on Gamba’s cheeks, the grave sorrow that
moulded the prince’s face. In that moment he did not deceive
himself.
His look drew Mavrocordato—a look in which was a question, but no
fear.
The other bent over him. “An hour, they think,” he said gently.
Gordon closed his eyes. Such a narrow span between this life and
the unbridged gulf, between the old questioning and the great
solution. An hour, and he should test the worth of Dallas’ creed,
should know if the friar of San Lazzarro had been right. An hour, and
life would be behind him, with its errors ended, its longings
quenched.
Its largest endeavor had been defeated: that was the closest sting. In
his weakness all else sank away beside the thought that he had tried
—and failed. Even the one blow he might not strike. The nation was
in straits, the loan delayed, the campaign unopened. He caught the
murmurs of the crowds in the courtyard. His lips framed words: “My
poor Greece! Who shall lead you now?”
Yet he had done his best, given his all, even his love. She, Teresa,
would know and hold his effort dear because she loved him. But
there was another woman—in England—who had hated and
despised him. He had piled upon her the mountain of his curse, and
that curse had been forgiveness. Must her memory of him be always
bitterness? In the fraying fringe of life past resentments were worn
pitifully small. Should he go without one tenderer word to Annabel?
He tried to lift himself. “Fletcher!” he said aloud.
The old valet, shaken with emotion, came forward as the others
turned away.
“Listen, Fletcher. You will go back to England. Go to my wife—you
will see Ada—tell my sister—say—”
His voice had become indistinct and the phrases ran together. Only
fragmentary words could be distinguished: “Ada”—“my child”—“my
sister”—“Hobhouse.” His speech flashed into coherence at last as he
ended: “Now I have told you all.”
“My dear lord,” sobbed the valet, “I have not understood a word!”
Pitiful distress overspread Gordon’s features. “Not understood?” he
said with an effort. “Then it is too late!” He sank back. Fletcher, blind
with grief, left the room.
A subdued commotion rose unwontedly beneath the windows.
Mavrocordato spoke hurriedly to an orderly who had just come to the
door. “Have they not been told?” he whispered. “What is the matter?”
Through the closing darkness, Gordon’s ear caught a part of the low
reply. “What did he say?” he asked.
Mavrocordato approached the couch. “Some one has come in a
vessel bringing a vast fortune for Greece.”
The dimming eyes flared up with joyful exultation. The cause was not
lost then. The armament could go on—the fleet be strengthened, the
forces held together, till the loan came—till another might take his
place.
A sound of footsteps fell on the stair—there was a soft knock. The
orderly’s voice demanded the password.
If there was reply, none of the watchers heard it. Gordon had lifted
himself on his elbow, his head turned with a sudden, strange
expectancy. “The password?” he said distinctly,—“it is here!” He laid
his hand upon his heart.
A sobbing cry answered, and a woman crossed swiftly to the couch
and knelt beside it.
A great light came to Gordon’s countenance. “Teresa!” he gasped.
“Teresa—my love!”
The effort had brought exhaustion. He sank back, feeling his head
pillowed upon her breast. He smiled and closed his eyes.
A friar had followed her into the room. Mavrocordato beckoned the
wondering surgeons to the door. They passed out, and young
Gamba, after one glance at his sister, followed. The friar drew near
the couch, crucifix in hand, his lips moving silently. The door closed.
After the one cry which had voiced that beloved name, Teresa had
made no sound. She cradled Gordon’s head in her arms, watching
his face with a fearful tenderness. From the court came the hushed
hum of many people, from the stair low murmur of voices; behind her
she heard Padre Somalian’s breathed prayer. Her heart was
bleeding with a bitter pain. Now and again she touched the damp
brow, like blue-veined marble, and warmed the cold hands between
her own as she had done in that direful ride when her arms had held
that body, bleeding from a kriss.
The day was declining and the air filled with shadows. The storm that
had hung in the sky had begun to mutter in rolling far-off thunder,
and the sun, near to setting, made a lurid flame at the horizon-bars.
Gordon stirred and muttered, and at length opened his eyes upon
the red glare. He heard the echoes of the clouds, like distant artillery.
With the energy of delirium he sat up. He began to talk wildly, in a
singular jumble of languages: “Forward! Forward! Courage—strike
for Greece! It is victory!”
The hallucination of weakness had given him his supreme desire. He
was leading the assault on Lepanto.
“My son,”—the friar’s voice spoke—“there are other victories than of
war. There is that of the agony and the cross.”
The words seemed to strike through the delirium of the fevered
fantasies and calm them. The dying man’s eyes fastened on the
speaker with a vague inquiry. There was silence for a moment, while
outside the chamber a grizzled servant knelt by a group of officers,
his seamed face wet with tears, and from the courtyard rose the
plaintive howl of a dog.
Through the deepening abyss of Gordon’s senses the crumbling
memory was groping for an old recollection that stirred at the
question. Out of the maze grew sentences which a voice like that
had once said: “Every man bears a cross of despair to his Calvary.
He who bore the heaviest saw beyond. What did He say?—”
The failing brain struggled to recall. What did He say? He saw dimly
the emblem which the friar’s hand held—an emblem that had hung
always somewhere, somewhere in a fading Paradise of his. It
expanded, a sad dark Calvary against olive foliage gray as the ashes
of the Gethsemane agony—the picture of the eternal suffering of the
Prince of Peace.
“Not—my will, but—Thine!”
The words fell faintly from the wan lips, scarce a murmur in the
stirless room. Gordon’s form, in Teresa’s clasp, seemed suddenly to
grow chill. She did not see the illumination that transformed the
friar’s face, nor hear the door open to her brother and Mavrocordato.
She was deaf to all save the moan of her stricken love, blind to all
save that face that was slipping from life and her.
Gordon’s hand fumbled in his breast, and drew something forth that
fell from his nerveless fingers on to the bed—a curling lock of baby’s
hair and a worn fragment of paper on which was a written prayer.
She understood, and, lifting them, laid them against his lips.
His eyes smiled once into hers and his face turned wholly to her,
against her breast.
“Now,” he whispered, “I shall go—to sleep.”
A piteous cry burst from Teresa’s heart as the friar leaned forward.
But there was no answer. George Gordon’s eternal pilgrimage had
begun.
CHAPTER LXIII
THE GREAT SILENCE
Blaquiere stood beside Teresa in the windowed chamber which had

been set apart for her, overlooking the courtyard.
All in that Grecian port knew of her love and the purpose that had
upheld her in her journey. To the forlorn town her wordless grief
seemed a tender intimate token of a loss still but half comprehended.
It had surrounded her with an unvarying thoughtfulness that had
fallen gently across her anguish. She had listened to the muffled
rumble of cannon that the wind brought across the marshes from the
stronghold of Patras, where the Turks rejoiced. She had seen the
palled bier, in the midst of Gordon’s own brigade, borne on the
shoulders of the officers of his corps to the Greek church, to lie in
state beside the remains of Botzaris—had seen it borne back to its
place amid the wild mourning of half-civilized tribesmen and the
sorrow of an army.
The man she had loved had carried into the Great Silence a people’s
worship and a nation’s tears. Now as she looked out across the
massed troops with arms at rest—across the crowded docks and
rippling shallows to the sea, where two ships rode the swells side by
side, she hugged this thought closer and closer to her heart. One of
these vessels had borne her hither and was to take her back to Italy.
The other, a ship-of-the-line, had brought the man who stood beside
her, with the first installment of the English loan. It was to bear to an
English sepulture the body of the exile to whom his country had
denied a living home. Both vessels were to weigh with the evening
tide.
Blaquiere, looking at the white face that gazed seaward,
remembered another day when he had heard her singing to her harp
from a dusky garden. He knew that her song would never again fall
with such a cadence.
At length he spoke, looking down on the soldiery and the people that
waited the passing to the water-side of the last cortège.
“I wonder if he sees—if he knows, as I know, Contessa, what the
part he acted here shall have done for Greece? In his death faction
has died, and the enmities of its chiefs will be buried with him
forever!”
Her eyes turned to the sky, reddening now to sunset. “I think he
knows,” she answered softly.
Padre Somalian’s voice behind them intervened: “We must go
aboard presently, my daughter.”
She turned, and as the friar came and stood looking down beside
Blaquiere, passed out and crossed the hall to the room wherein lay
her dead.
She approached the bier—a rude chest of wood upon rough trestles,
a black mantle serving for pall. At its head, laid on the folds of a
Greek flag, were a sword and a simple wreath of laurel. A dull roar
shook the air outside—the minute-gun from the grand battery, firing a
last salute-and a beam of fading sunlight glanced through the
window and turned to a fiery globe a glittering helmet on the wall.
Gently, as though a sleeping child lay beneath it, she withdrew the
pall and white shroud from the stainless face. She looked at it with
an infinite yearning, while outside the minute-gun boomed and the
great bell of the Greek church tolled slowly. Blaquiere’s words were
in her mind.
“Do you know, my darling?” she whispered. “Do you know that
Greece lives because my heart is dead?”
She took from her bosom the curl of flaxen hair and the fragment of
paper that had fallen from his chilling fingers and put them in his
breast. Then stooping, she touched in one last kiss the unanswering
marble of his lips.
At the threshold she looked back. The golden glimmer from the
helmet fell across the face beneath it with an unearthly radiance. A
touch of woman’s pride came to her—the pride that sits upon a
broken heart.
“How beautiful he was!” she said in a low voice. “Oh, God! How
beautiful he was!”
CHAPTER LXIV
“OF HIM WHOM SHE DENIED A HOME, THE
GRAVE”
Greece was nevermore a vassal of the Turk. In the death of the

archistrategos who had so loved her cause, the chieftains put aside
quarrels and buried private ambitions—all save one. In the stone
chamber at Missolonghi wherein that shrouded form had lain, the
Suliote chiefs swore fealty to Mavrocordato and the constitutional
government as they had done to George Gordon.
Another had visited that chamber before them. This was a dark-
bearded man in Suliote dress, who entered it unobserved while the
body of the man he had so hated lay in state in the Greek church.
Trevanion forced the sealed door of the closet and examined the
papers it contained. When he took horse for Athens, he bore with
him whatever of correspondence and memoranda might be fuel for
the conspiracy of Ulysses—and a roll of manuscript, the completion
of “Don Juan,” which he tore to shreds and scattered to the four
winds on a flat rock above a deep pool a mile from the town. He
found Ulysses a fugitive, deserted by his faction, and followed him to
his last stronghold, a cavern in Mount Parnassus.
But fast as Trevanion went, one went as fast. This was a young
Greek who had ridden from Salona to Missolonghi with one Lambro,
primate of Argos. Beneath the beard and Suliote attire he recognized
Trevanion, and his brain leaped to fire with the memory of a twin
sister and the fearful fate of the sack to which she had once been
abandoned. From an ambush below the entrance of Ulysses’ cave,
he shot his enemy through the heart.
On the day Trevanion’s sullen career was ended, along the same
highway which Gordon had traversed when he rode to Newstead on
that first black home-coming, a single carriage followed a leaden
casket from London to Nottinghamshire.
In its course it passed a noble country-seat, the hermitage of a
woman who had once burned an effigy before a gay crowd in
Almack’s Assembly Rooms. Lady Caroline Lamb, diseased in mind
as in body, discerned the procession from the terrace. As the hearse
came opposite she saw the crest upon the pall. She fainted and
never again left her bed.
The cortège halted at Hucknall church, near Newstead Abbey, and
there the earthly part of George Gordon was laid, just a year from
the hour he had bidden farewell to Teresa in the Pisan garden,
where now a lonely woman garnered her deathless memories.
At the close of the service the two friends who had shared that last
journey—Dallas, now grown feeble, and Hobhouse, recently
knighted and risen to political prominence—stood together in the
lantern-lighted porch.
“What of the Westminster chapter?” asked Dallas. “Will they grant
the permission?”
A shadow crossed the other’s countenance. Popular feeling had
undergone a great revulsion, but clerical enmity was outspoken and
undying. He thought of a bitter philippic he had heard in the House of
Lords from the Bishop of London. His voice was resentful as he
answered:
“The dean has refused. The greatest poet of his age and country is
denied even a tablet on the wall of Westminster Abbey!”
The kindly eyes under their white brows saddened. Dallas looked out
through the darkness where gloomed the old Gothic towers of
Newstead, tenantless, save for their raucous colonies of rooks.
“The greatest poet of his age and country!” he repeated slowly. “After
all, we can be satisfied with that.”
AFTERMATH
Springs quickened, summers sped their hurrying blooms, autumns
hung scarlet flags in the coppice, winters fell and mantled glebe and
moor. Yet the world did not forget.
There came an April day when the circumstance of a sudden shower
set down from an open carriage at the porch of Newstead Abbey a
slender girl of seventeen, who had been visiting at near-by Annesley.
Waiting, in the library, the passing of the rain, the visitor picked up a
book from the table. It was “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.”
For a time she read with tranquil interest—then suddenly startled:
“Is thy face like thy mother’s, my fair child!
Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart?
When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled,
And then we parted,—not as now we part,
But with a hope.—”
She looked for the name of its author and paled. Thereafter she sat
with parted lips and tremulous, long breathing. The master of the
house entered to find an unknown guest reading in a singular rapt
absorption.
Her youth and interest beckoned his favorite topic. He had been one
of the strangers who, year by year in increasing numbers, visited the
little town of Hucknall—travelers who, speaking the tongue in which
George Gordon had written, trod the pave of the quiet church with
veneration. He had purchased Newstead and had taken delight in
gathering about him in those halls mementoes of the man whose
youth had been spent within them.
While the girl listened with wide eyes on his face, he told her of the
life and death of the man who had written the book. He marvelled
while he talked, for it appeared that she had been reared in utter
ignorance of his writings, did not know that he had lived beneath that
very roof, nor that he lay buried in the church whose spire could be

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Gendered Lives: Intersectional

Perspectives 7th Edition Gwyn Kirk

Gendered Lives 17th Edition Julia T. Wood

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Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, & Culture

The Movement for Black Lives: Philosophical

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GWYN KIRK AND MARGO OKAZAWA-REY

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kirk, Gwyn, author. | Okazawa-Rey, Margo, author.

To those who connect us to the future

CHAPTER 1 Untangling the “F”-word 02

CHAPTER 4 Sexuality 138

CHAPTER 5 Bodies, Health, and Wellness 185

CHAPTER 6 Sexualized Violence 245

PA R T I I I HOME AND WORK IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD 289

CHAPTER 7 Making a Home, Making a Living 290

CHAPTER 8 Living in a Globalizing World 336

CHAPTER 9 Gender, Crime, and Criminalization 386

C H A P T E R 10 Gender, Militarism, War, and Peace 437

C H A P T E R 11 Gender and Environment 485

C H A P T E R 12 Creating Change: Theories, Visions, and Actions 528

*indicates new to this edition

CHAPTER 1 Untangling the “F”-word 2

CHAPTER 2 Creating Knowledge: Integrative Frameworks

CHAPTER 3 Identities and Social Locations 89

Maintaining Systems of Structural Inequality 97

CHAPTER 4 Sexuality 138

CHAPTER 5 Bodies, Health, and Wellness 185

CHAPTER 6 Sexualized Violence 245

PA R T I I I HOME AND WORK IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD 289

CHAPTER 7 Making a Home, Making a Living 290

CHAPTER 8 Living in a Globalizing World 336

CHAPTER 9 Gender, Crime, and Criminalization 386

Support for People in Women’s Prisons 398

C H A P T E R 10 Gender, Militarism, War, and Peace 437

C H A P T E R 11 Gender and Environment 485

C H A P T E R 12 Creating Change: Theories, Visions, and Actions 528

Alliances for Challenging Times 538

WHAT WE WANT IN AN INTRODUCTORY WOMEN’S

LINKING INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCES TO NATIONAL

NEW TO THE SEVENTH EDITION

• Updated statistics throughout, as well as updated information on activist

A number of considerations, sometimes competing or contradictory, have influ-

M any people—especially our students, teachers, colleagues, and friends—made it

Women’s and Gender

Untangling the “F”-word

Feminist Movements and Frameworks

Keywords: capitalism, discrimination, feminism, genealogy, gender

W hether or not you consider yourself a feminist as a matter of personal identity,

Gender: What’s in a Name?

In this chapter, we introduce feminist ideas from different historical periods to

FEMINIST MOVEMENTS AND FRAMEWORKS

Native American Antecedents

Legal Equality for Women

CHAPTER 2 Creating Knowledge: Integrative Frameworks