[This article appeared in FEMINIST COLLECTIONS: A QUARTERLY OF WOMEN'S STUDIES RESOURCES, vol. 16, no. 1 (Fall 1994), pages 2-5, published by the University of Wisconsin System Women's Studies Librarian, copyright of the Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. For information about subscribing to FEMINIST COLLECTIONS and other publications of the Women's Studies Librarian, write to 430 Memorial Library, 728 State Street, Madison, WI 53706, call 608-263-5754, or email the Women's Studies Librarian.] CHOOSING OUR WORDS CAREFULLY: A REVIEW OF WOMEN'S STUDIES TEXTBOOKS by Terry Brown Virginia Sapiro, WOMEN IN AMERICAN SOCIETY: AN INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN'S STUDIES. Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfield Publishing, 1994. 3rd ed. 549p. pap., $29.95, ISBN 1-55934-225-0. Jo Freeman, ed., WOMEN: A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE. Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing, 1995. 5th ed. pap., ISBN 1-55934-111-4. [1994?} Hunter College Women's Studies Collective, WOMEN'S REALITIES, WOMEN'S CHOICES: AN INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN'S STUDIES. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. [2nd ed., 1995??] 704p. ill. pap., $29.00, ISBN 0-19-505883-6. Sheila Ruth, ISSUES IN FEMINISM: AN INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN'S STUDIES. Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfield Publishing, 1995. 3rd ed. ISBN 1-55934-224-2. Jodi Wetzel, Margo Linn Espenlaub, Monys A. Hagen, Annette Bennington McElhiney, and Carmen Braun Williams, eds., WOMEN'S STUDIES: THINKING WOMEN. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1993. [1994?] 608p. pap., $38.95, ISBN 0-8403-9583-3. Amy Kesselmann, Lily D. McNair, and Nancy Schniedewind, WOMEN, IMAGES AND REALITIES: A MULTICULTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfield Publishing, 1995. Jo Whitehorse Cochran, Donna Langston, and Carolyn Woodward, eds., CHANGING OUR POWER: AN INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN'S STUDIES. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 1991. 2nd ed. Gloria AnzaldŁa, ed., MAKING FACE, MAKING SOUL/HACIENDO CARAS: CREATIVE AND CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES BY FEMINISTS OF COLOR. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1990. 400p. $25.95, ISBN 1-879960-11-7; pap., $15.95, ISBN 1-879960-10-9. Laurel Richardson and Verta Taylor, eds., FEMINIST FRONTIERS III. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993. 3rd ed. [1992???] pap., ISBN 0-07-052298-7. Alison M. Jaggar and Paula S. Rothenberg, eds., FEMINIST FRAMEWORKS: ALTERNATIVE THEORETICAL ACCOUNTS OF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN WOMEN AND MEN. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993. 3rd ed. 512p. pap., ISBN 0-07-032253-8. Miriam Schneir, ed., FEMINISM IN OUR TIME: THE ESSENTIAL WRITINGS, WORLD WAR II TO THE PRESENT. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. pap., $13.00, ISBN 0-679-74508-4. Maggie Humm, ed., MODERN FEMINISMS: POLITICAL, LITERARY, CULTURAL. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. 440p. $45.00, ISBN 0-231-08072-7; pap., $15.95, ISBN 0-231-08073-5. Diane Richardson and Victoria Robinson, eds., THINKING FEMINIST: KEY CONCEPTS IN WOMEN'S STUDIES. New York: Guilford Press, 1993. 368p. $45.00, ISBN 0-89862-989-6; pap., $18.95, ISBN 0-89862-160-7. Mary Kennedy, Cathy Lubelska, and Val Walsh, eds., MAKING CONNECTIONS: WOMEN'S STUDIES, WOMEN'S MOVEMENTS, WOMEN'S LIVES. London and Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Francis, 1993. Linda S. Kauffman, ed., AMERICAN FEMINIST THOUGHT AT CENTURY'S END: A READER. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1993. 512p. $49.95, ISBN 1-55786-346-6; pap., $19.95, ISBN 1-55786-347-4. I can safely say that Introduction to Women's Studies is the most difficult course I have ever taught. In fifteen weeks or less I attempt to give the students some sense of the treatment of women since the beginning of time so they understand why women began formally to resist their oppression; at the same time, I am careful not to generalize about the lives of all women, recognizing that individual women find themselves caught in a variety of systemic oppressions. Once an historical context for the course has been established, I survey the influence of feminist research across the curriculum, demonstrating the ways in which feminism has challenged traditional epistemologies and methods of inquiry. Because of the truly interdisciplinary nature of the course, I am inevitably taken out of my field of expertise. The course is often made even more challenging by the presence of students (sometimes the majority), who are taking the course, against their will, in order to satisfy a "diversity" requirement. For various personal and political reasons, these students tend to be wary, even defensive, about taking the course in the first place. Given the particular challenges of the Introduction to Women's Studies, choosing the right texts, I have discovered, is more critical than it is for any other course I have taught. For those of us who teach the course with one central text, there are now many excellent works to choose from. Until a few years ago, however, there were very few texts for introductory women's studies courses, and most were written in the style of traditional textbooks -- books that, whether by one author or a few, tend to convey a unified view of the discipline. Virginia Sapiro's Women in American Society: an Introduction to Women's Studies, now in its third edition, is probably the most widely read textbook of this kind, and for good reason. The book is an exhaustive explanation of the social construction and institutionalization of gender difference in the United States. Like most textbooks, Women in American Society must present a lot of information in a unified and clear manner, but in doing so it sacrifices subtlety and complexity. For example, dividing feminist theory into four categories -- liberal feminism, socialist feminism, radical feminism, multicultural feminism -- has the unfortunate effect of suggesting that these "types" of feminism are mutually exclusive or even at odds. Like Women in American Society, Women: A Feminist Perspective, first published in the mid-1970's, presents monolithic definitions of what it calls "the feminist perspective" and "the traditionalist view" (emphasis added). Both of these women's studies textbooks, out of necessity, find themselves stating as fact ideas that may be arguable even from a feminist point of view. I would also add that neither of these textbooks foregrounds other issues of difference, such as race, as do more recent women's studies texts. Rather than integrate articles on "difference" throughout the text, the most recent edition of Women: A Feminist Perspective has unfortunately merely added a chapter at the end of the book entitled "Feminism and Diversity," which includes articles on "the experience of minority women in the United States," "feminist consciousness and black women," "chicana feminism," "Jewish feminism," and "lesbian feminism." In contrast, the recently published Women: Images and Realities: A Multicultural Anthology thoroughly foregrounds and integrates issues of difference throughout. Following the pattern of these types of textbooks, it begins with a section that defines women's studies, but unlike other textbooks, includes articles written by students of women's studies, such as "Finding My Latina Identity Through Women's Studies," and "What Women's Studies has Meant to Me." This multicultural women's studies text may be organized according to standard textbook models, but it includes a more diverse selection of writers: bell hooks, Adrienne Rich, Lois Gould, Nellie Wong, In‚s Hernandez-Avila, Marilyne Frye, June Jordan, Leslie Marmon Silko, Angela Davis, Suzanne Pharr, to name a few. Since it is the nature of textbooks to generalize about their subject, the genre is already at odds with the complex terrain of women's studies. Women's Realities, Women's Choices, which calls itself "the first basic textbook written for women's studies courses," illustrates the inherent problem. The Preface devotes several paragraphs to discussing how the authors decided what pronoun to use when refering to women: using "they" had the effect, the authors say, of "relegating women, again, to the voiceless `they,' the `other,' where patriarchy has always tried to put all of us" (p.xi). But the pronoun "we," they explain, had the effect of sounding as if the authors were speaking for all women. The problem is with the genre of the textbook itself, which, insofar as it forces its authors to speak for all women (in spite of prefatory disclaimers), is antithetical to a pedagogy that would seek to preserve a multiplicity of women's voices. The only truly satisfactory women's studies text, it would seem, is one that allows women to speak for themselves. I am not surprised, therefore, that the most recently published texts in women's studies are "readers," collections of works written by women. Some of these recent texts combine extensive textbook-like commentary with selected readings, in the style of Sheila Ruth's Issues in Feminism, which pairs an essay by the author of the text with selections from divergent perspectives. Sheila Ruth, for example, pairs an essay on images of women in patriarchy with commentaries about women written by St. Thomas Aquinas, Sigmund Freud, and Simone de Beauvoir. Unlike some texts which collect only contemporary feminist perspectives, Ruth's book contains feminist and anti-feminist essays from the past and present, as well as historical documents such as the "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions" from the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and Sojourner Truth's famous speech "Ain't I a Woman?" The recently published third edition collects more articles on issues of ethnicity, class, and sexuality, and more satisfactorily addresses homophobia, including an excerpt from Suzanne Pharr's Homophobia, A Weapon of Sexism. Women's Studies: Thinking Women, one of the most recently published texts of this type, introduces selected readings with informative summaries on subjects such as the psychology of women, women's health, and violence against women. Unlike Ruth's text, Women's Studies: Thinking Women includes a section on women in the arts. Other women's studies readers simply collect many works from a variety of perspectives. What distinguishes Changing Our Power: An Introduction to Women's Studies among these readers is that it is a deliberately nonacademic (although intended for the women's studies classroom) collection of works, some of which are written by women who are not professional writers. The editors state that "one goal for the textbook is that it can be accessible _ neither cluttered with academic jargon nor speaking from unacknowledged assumptions of the `generic woman.' One way in which we have tried to meet this goal has been to write, and to ask others to write, short essays that come directly from women's experiences and knowledge" (p.xvii). While the quality of the writing in this collection is uneven, the book is probably one of the most inclusive women's studies texts. Unfortunately, it is organized into three sections that, like the title of the book Changing Our Power, are so vaguely named ("Our Identities in Difference and Communities," "Claiming our Identities: Naming the Violence," and "Claiming Our Identities: Creating Against All Odds") that it is difficult to discern any clear organizing principle or idea. Edited by Gloria AnzaldŁa, Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives of Feminists of Color, like Changing Our Power, collects the writings -- poetry, fiction, memoirs, theory -- of renowned writers such as Sandra Cisneros, Cherrˇe Moraga, Audre Lorde, and June Jordan as well as "unknown, little published or unpublished writers." In many ways, however, the text is more successful than Changing Our Power. The selections in this book are consistently powerful, thought-provoking, and beautifully written. While AnzaldŁa warns the reader that the book was organized according to "poetic association," the purpose of Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras is clear: "Besides being a testimonial of survival," AnzaldŁa says in the Introduction, "I wanted a book which would teach ourselves and whites to read in nonwhite narrative traditions -- traditions which, in the very act of writing, we try to recoup and to invent. In addition to the task of writing, or perhaps included in the task of writing, we've had to create a readership and teach it how to `read' our work (p.xviii). Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras would be an excellent text to use in teaching introductory women's studies students how to read in new, critical and creative, ways. Unlike either Changing Our Power or Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras, Richardson and Taylor's Feminist Frontiers III and Jaggar and Rothenberg's Feminist Frameworks: Alternative Theoretical Accounts of the Relations between Women and Men are thoroughly academic in perspective and purpose. Feminist Frontiers III, in fact, intends to be an introduction to feminist research, including significant feminist essays from sociology, science, history, economics, political science, and psychology. The book foregrounds the subject of race in its first section with essays by Audre Lorde and Patricia Hill Collins, and integrates articles by and about women of color and lesbians throughout the text. I have used this text successfully in my introductory women's studies courses, but I have found that some selections are written in such lifeless academic prose that, in spite of the engaging subject, they are a challenge to read with interest. While the organization of Feminist Frontiers reflects the fact that its editors are sociologists, emphasizing the social construction and organization of gender, the organization of Feminist Frameworks reflects the fact that its editors are philosophers, emphasizing more theoretical questions of women's subordination. Most of the book is devoted to examining women's subordination through various "lenses" (e.g., the lens of sex, the lens of gender, the lens of class, etc.), or theories, some of which they have called "classical Marxism," "radical feminism," "socialist feminism," "multicultural feminism," and "global feminism." Feminism in Our Time: The Essential Writings, World War II to the Present, edited by Miriam Schnier, might make a good companion text with either Feminist Frontiers III or Feminist Frameworks, both of which lack a satisfactory representation of historical feminist documents. The book collects documents and commentaries historically important to Second Wave feminism, such as: The Combahee River Collective Statement, the Radicalesbians' "The Woman-identified Woman," "The Equal Rights Amendment," and Anita Hill's statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as excerpts from the feminist classics Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, and Michele Walace's Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman. Here and there the collection includes poetry by Audre Lorde, Syvia Plath, and Anne Sexton. There are several books that call themselves introductions to women's studies but whose focus is primarily British. Maggie Humm's Modern Feminisms: Political, Literary, Cultural might be a useful supplementary text for women's studies as it collects excerpts from a wide range of historical and contemporary feminist prose. By its own description, it is "theory and not practice orientated; academic and not movement based; first world and not third world directed." Diane Richardson and Victoria Robinson's Thinking Feminist: Key Concepts in Women's Studies is a collection of scholarly articles that summarize the major issues in a range of disciplines (e.g., feminist theory, cultural studies, literature, sociology, history, economics, and education), after foregrounding issues of race within women's studies in one of the introductory essays, Kum-Kum Bhavnani's "Talking Racism and the Editing of Women's Studies." Each essay in this volume is careful to represent multiple perspectives on the subject without foresaking the author's own perspective. While an essay on feminism and science would have completed the collection, Thinking Feminist, even though it claims to be an introduction to the subject, would make an excellent text for a more advanced course. Making Connections: Women's Studies, Women's Movements, Women's Lives is organized around the ways feminism has redefined knowledge. The essays here are theoretical and sophisticated, and some are very good, especially a compelling article by Celia Kitzinger and Sue Wilkinson on heterosexuality and feminism. By and large, this collection seems too specialized (e.g., Julia Hallam and Annecka Marshall's "Layers of Difference: The Significance of a Self-Reflexive Research Practice for a Feminist Epistemological Project") to be used in an introductory women's studies course. Finally, I must recommend American Feminist Thought at Century's End, edited by Linda S. Kaufmann, which is probably more appropriate for a course in feminist theory or a senior seminar in women's studies. This book is, quite simply, one of the best feminist readers I have examined. It is thoroughly interdisciplinary, collecting essays on literature, philosophy, political science, law, science, film, history, sociology, and medicine, while it insists on maintaining a global perspective throughout. Unlike some of the women's studies textbooks we have seen, this collection is wary of consensus and categorization: "Far from attempting to construct a totalizing portrait, these essays deconstruct it: the words American, national, identity, and feminist are fraught with signification, but they resist reductive classification. Far from striving for consensus, controversies over race, reproduction, sexuality, economics, and identity are confronted here" (p.xv). Some of the most provocative and intelligent essays in feminist thought from the 1980's and 1990's are collected here, including Gayle Rubin's classic "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality" and Gloria AnzaldŁa's "La conciencia de la mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness." Judging from the recent publication of so many excellent women's studies texts, I can only conclude that, far from being a discipline gasping its final breath as the newspapers would have us believe, perhaps now more than ever women's studies is a serious and thriving academic discipline, willing to look critically at itself from a variety of perspectives. In spite of the challenges, the Introduction to Women's Studies can be one of the most rewarding courses to teach, a task made even more gratifying by the array of texts from which to choose. [Terry Brown is Associate Professor of English and Director of Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. She has published articles on feminist theory, literature, and pedagogy, and is currently writing a book, with John Nguyet Erni, on travel writing, sex tourism, and the AIDS epidemic in Thailand.]
FEMINIST COLLECTIONS' copyright is held by the Regents of the
University of
Wisconsin System.
Single issues of FEMINIST COLLECTIONS may be purchased for
$3.50 (plus postal charges for non-U.S. requests--inquire about rates). Please
send a
check made payable to University of Wisconsin-Madison to Women's Studies
Librarian's
Office, 430 Memorial Library, 728 State Street, Madison, WI 53706
For < subscription rates or further information, contact wiswsl at (replace with "@") library.wisc.edu
Last updated: August 24, 1999