Feminism & Feminist Theory books

Half a century after the beginning of the second wave, feminist legal theorists are still writing about many of the subjects they addressed early on: money, sex, reproduction, and jobs. What has changed is the way that they talk about these subjects. Specifically, these theorists now posit a more complex and nuanced conception of power. Recent scholarship recognizes the complexities of power in contemporary society, the ways in which these complexities entrench sex inequality, and the role that law can play in reducing inequality and increasing agency. The feminist legal theorists in this volume are emblematic of this effort. They carefully examine the relationship between gender, equality, and power across an array of realms: sex, reproduction, pleasure, work, money. In doing so they identify social, political, economic, developmental, and psychological and somatic forces, operating both internally and externally, that complicate the expression and constraint of power. Finally, they give sophisticated thought to the possibilities for legal interventions in light of these more complex notions of power.

Superwoman is alive and well and strutting around in her stilettos, sabotaging our right to an imperfect life. She is feeding our insecurities, she is damaging our self belief, she is sabotaging our businesses, our careers and our relationships and she is NOT a great life model to pass on to our daughters. She is what happens when we buy into the modern myth of ‘having it all’ and she has to go! She empowers us to stay small; shop for things we don’t need; obsess over eternal youth and multi task within an inch of emotional exhaustion on a daily basis. Jane has spent the past 10 years empowering and inspiring thousands of women to step up and shine through her aspirational brand The Well Heeled Divas and has seen far too many Superwomen in meltdown! There is a better place to live. One where your authentic soul is nurtured, your vulnerability is nourished and you are allowed to be you. Controlling everything does not give you power, it gives you a blinding headache! We need to learn to let go, say no, accept help, stop controlling everything, recognise the power of vulnerability and stop beating ourselves up for failing to hit perfect 24/7. This book uncovers how Superwoman is showing up in our professional life, our businesses, our marriages, in our role as mothers, in our attraction strategy and in our identity. It is a call out to women everywhere to be kinder to ourselves and each other and to reclaim our feminine power.

Without question, this book is for you if you’re a mum who wants to build a successful business around the family life you love.Written especially for mums by Nicola Huelin, a mum and award-winning business coach and mentor, The Invisible Revolution is an inspirational and practical handbook bringing you precious insights, inspiration and real-world advice on how to start, grow and sustain a successful business – without compromising your quality of family life, health or sanity.Discover the 14 Pillars of Empowered Success every mum in business needs. Join Nicola and a whole host of incredibly successful Mumpreneurs to discover how the women of the Invisible Revolution are carving out a new blueprint for business, achieving a new definition of success and creating a world-changing legacy for their children.  Learn what it really takes to turn your dream business into reality.“Nicola has written the essential handbook that every Mumpreneur should read. Inspiring, insightful and packed full of strategies to help us all achieve our dreams.” Jo Davison, founder of Blue Cow Global“These real-life stories straight from the heart inspire mums everywhere.” Dame Mary Perkins, Co-founder of Specsavers,“I believe reading this book will give you the courage to begin… and the courage to succeed.” Lucy Piper, Presenter “The Invisible Revolution is a truly inspiring read - full of practical tools, resources, insight and examples to help you on your Mumpreneur journey.” Lucy Griffin-Stiff, founder of Starting ConversationsAbout the Author Nicola Huelin is a multi-award winning business coach and mentor, founder of Mpower for mums in business, inspirational speaker and author with over 20 years’ experience in combining business success with family life.www.mpower.global

This book investigates the growing politicization of Mumsnet and its use by politicians to influence middle-class women in the UK. The site's discussion topics go far beyond traditional 'mothering' subjects and encompass politics, feminism and current affairs. Understood as a safe space for gender-critical voices, the site has spawned real-life activism and continues to be both praised and attacked for its support of free speech on controversial subjects. Sarah Pedersen investigates how Mumsnet has become a central part of a resurgent women's rights movement in the UK. She  argues that its openness to discussion around this subject has allowed the site to function as a subaltern counter-public - a space where gender-critical feminists have been able to share information and make plans for action and agitation.

100 years ago women in the UK won the vote and 50 years ago the Women’s Liberation Movement began a sustained campaign for equal rights. Eva Tutchell and John Edmonds draw upon historical perspectives and contemporary interviews to convey what it felt like to be in the heart of the campaigns—the excitement, the solidarity, the suffering and the humour.   The tragedy is that, after hard-won successes, the revolution has stalled and equality for women is still a distant dream. Today, men are paid more and occupy nearly 80% of the most powerful jobs across society. The Stalled Revolution poses a vital question about the future: Are women ready to draw inspiration from past successes and take a third leap forward towards equality?   The book’s three-part approach traces clear pathways through historical successes and disappointments, teaching a new generation of campaigners how to confront the many challenges that face women in the modern world. The Stalled Revolution showcases how the wisdom from our collective struggles can help form the bedrock of a new and successful liberation campaign today.

Despite being recognised by victim-survivors as a tactic used by abusers, economic abuse has received little attention in research, policy, or practice. Written by an internationally recognised expert on economic abuse, this powerful book provides a crucial validation of the lived experience of victim-survivors, and highlights the urgent need to develop effective responses to the issue. Breaking fresh ground, Understanding and Responding to Economic Abuse exposes the many ways in which abusers seek to control their intimate partners through economic resources and reinforces the importance of holding abusers accountable for their behaviour. Whilst the focus of this book is on Westminster policy in the UK, the author highlights how the case for ‘naming’ and defining economic abuse in statute has wider resonance. Making a trailblazing case for recognising this form of abuse, Sharp-Jeffs argues the case to expand the coordinated community response model to domestic abuse to address economic control through involving ‘non-traditional’ stakeholders such as money/debt advice organisations and the financial services sector, alongside specialist domestic abuse services and statutory agencies. Coming in the wake of the Domestic Abuse Act (2021), which broadened discourse from financial to economic abuse, Sharp-Jeffs turns our attention to this critical momentum for change and makes an important step towards shining a light on a form of coercive and controlling behaviour which has been invisible for too long.

Childlessness is not a new phenomenon, but empirical evidence from the demographic field has demonstrated that it is on the increase. Furthermore, childlessness has a number of consequences for both women and men, the communities in which they live, their psychic states, their social networks and the organisations in which they work. Bringing together research from a wide range of scholarly disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, sociology, gender studies, social work and social policy, and underpinned by a feminist ontology this edited collection of original chapters provides an insight into the current state of the art research on the drivers, determinants, manifestations and outcomes of childlessness. The collection is intended to be a key resource for scholars, students and policymakers addressing this issue in a wide range of disciplinary contexts.

Women leaders in many parts of the world have leadership opportunities that never existed before as a result of technology, globalization, and demographic shifts that have produced more female graduates than in the past and created a workforce which consists almost 50% of women. Ever more so, in today’s rapidly changing environment, the contexts in which women exercise leadership is critically important in shaping their leadership style. At the same time, objectifying women in contexts such as sports and the media or the patriarchal ideology that permeates contexts such as the military and the church have changed very little. This book, updated and expanded from the 2011 first edition, acknowledges and discusses the belief that the context in which women exercise leadership is critically important in shaping their leadership style. Each chapter opens with a vignette of an extraordinary leader in the respective context, presents a contextual analysis, and discusses issues, controversies and paradoxes germane to the context of interest. What is the future of women's leadership in a global environment characterized by ambiguity, uncertainty, increasing interdependence and interconnectivity? Award-winning author Karin Klenke shows us in this revised edition of Women in Leadership.

In a male-dominated higher education sector characterised by overt and subtle adversities for women, the path for women in academia is rarely a simple and easy one. This book sets out to empower women in academia to unite in sharing their stories, inspiring and encouraging one another.  Providing international perspectives from Asia, Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom, and packed with real examples, success stories and practical advice from academic women at all levels, this timely text equips readers to understand how we can move higher education institutions beyond the constraints that have held highly competent women back for far too long. Chronicling both the challenges and opportunities posed by the higher education sector, and cutting across the fields of leadership, management and gender studies, the contributors offer a finely curated collection which empowers women not only to better navigate the academic world, but thrive in it.

There’s never been a better time to be a woman. Thanks to those feminists who fought for liberation, young women today have freedom and opportunities their grandmothers could barely have imagined. Girls do better at school than boys and are more likely to go to university. As a result, women are taking more of the top jobs and the gender pay gap has all but disappeared. Yet rather than encouraging women to seize the new possibilities open to them, contemporary feminism tells them they are still oppressed.  Women vs Feminism: Why We All Need Liberating from the Gender Wars challenges this stance, unpicking the statistics from the horror stories to explore the reality of women’s lives. It argues that today’s feminism is obsessed with trivial issues – skinny models, badly phrased jokes and misplaced compliments – and focuses on the regulation of male behaviour, rather than female empowerment, pitching men and women against each other in a never-ending gender war that benefits no-one.   Feminism today does women no favours and it’s time we were all liberated from the gender wars.