Feminism: From Pressure to Politics

This anthology of signal essays by leading feminist scholars represents an important contribution to women’s studies. It deals with fundamental questions of theory and practice, the relationship between the world of academia and the world of activism, and the development of feminist theory. Articles in this volume are an important testimony to the fact that recognizing women’s commonality is the necessary condition for the exploration of women’s diversity, and not the denial of diversity that it is sometimes presumed to be. In recent years, deconstructionalists—including some feminists—have extended feminism’s important critique of patriarchy’s false knowledge claims to criticize all knowledge claims, and have carried the unseating of men’s false status as universal subject to the unseating of all subjects. This work presents an important counter-viewpoint to this disabling relativism. This volume is a record and celebration of the continuing development of feminism’s radical vision. At the same time, the theoretical framework it supplies continues to be a much-needed resource in the struggle to maintain and strengthen that vision.