BOOK LIST

FOR

WOMEN'S

STUDIES

Concerned that the feminist discourse developed in the 1960s in the US was representative primarily of middle class white women's views, Collins seeks to consider the complexities of what she calls the "double burden" of Black women living in a patriarchal and racist society. Includes essays on the power of self-definition, Black women and motherhood, sexual politics, and Afrocentric feminist epistemology.

Margaret Ehrenberg, Women in Prehistory (1989)

After showing how social attitudes in Western culture have led to the assumption that early advances in human knowledge were the work of men, Ehrenberg proceeds to write women back into history. Considers diverse themes, such as the role of women in evolution, women as farmers, matriarchal civilizations, domestic organization in early Europe, descent and marriage patterns, and women in war.

Sherna Berger Gluck, An American Feminist in Palestine: The Intifada Years (1994)

After candidly checking her biases as a Jewish American feminist working among Palestinian Muslim women, Gluck offers an enlightening perspective the struggle for the liberation of Palestine. Based on her experiences living on the West Bank during 1988-1990, at the height of the Palestinian uprising, the intifada, Gluck presents the stories of Palestinian women in the form of her own journal entries.

Evelyn Fox Keller, Reflections on Gender and Science (1985)

One of the foremost critics of contemporary science situates Western scientific discourse in its social context, proposing steps toward gender-free inquiry. Includes essays on Plato's epistemology, Francis Bacon and the birth of modern science, gender and science, and cognitive repression in physics.

Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution (1980)

Wide ranging cultural history of science in the West, touching upon such diverse themes as: nature and the female, the European witch hunts, human production and reproduction, the mechanical order of the modern West, and human dominion over nature. A must-read classic work in its field.

Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labor (1986)

Feminist analysis of the connections between the lives of Western and Third World women, interwoven with a radical critique of the 20th century global economic order. Draws upon case studies from India, China, the United States, and Germany, and offers a fresh perspective on some common questions often asked by feminists, such as: Are men inherently rapists? Why are women mobilized and then pushed back in national liberation struggles? Do men and women have different relations with nature?

Vandana Shiva, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development (1989)

While exploring women in relation to nature, Shiva simultaneously takes a close look at Western development schemes in the Third World. Discusses the unique place of women in the environmental movement of India, and surveys the challenges they pose to the dominant paradigm of contemporary scientific and economic thought and policy. Also offers a Hindu perspective on women and ecology.

Amina Wadud-Muhsin, Qur'an and Women (1992)

Provides much needed insight on women in Islam by taking a close look at its sacred text, the Qur'an. Considers questions like: How do cultural perceptions of women influence interpretation of the Qur'an? How does the Qur'an taken on its own terms present women? What are women's rights and roles in Islam?