Women in Culture: An Intersectional Anthology for Gender and Women's Studies

by Bonnie Kime Scott (Editor), Susan E. Cayleff (Editor), Anne Donadey (Editor)

The thoroughly revised Women in Culture 2/e explores the intersections of gender, race, sexuality, gender identity, and spirituality from the perspectives of diverse global locations. Its strong humanities content, including illustrations and creative writing, uniquely embraces the creative aspects of the field.

Genres: Nonfiction

576 pages, Paperback

Published August 8, 2016

Reviews

[Rae (semi-hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the very few textbooks I bought where I didn’t regret buying and keeping. This book right here opened my eyes to so many things that I had no clue about. I chose a Culture, Inequality, and Self course to meet one of my core requirements and realized that everybody should take that class. This book encapsulated it perfectly. It made me think, it made me strive to do anything I could for change.
There were many inspiring and informative authors and activists works in this book- some being Kimberle Crenshaw and Audre Lorde and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Of course this is a relatively small textbook so it didn’t dive super deep, but it does dive deep enough that you want to continue learning.

[Rikki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the greatest anthology by any stretch of the imagination. It has some good pieces by solid second-wave feminists like hooks, Lorde, and Frye, but it includes way too much neoliberal fauxminist bullshit that revolves entirely around MRA/gender identity antifeminist-in-feminist-clothing nonsense. Disagreed with some of the pieces that were included in the environment/nature/ecofeminist section, specifically those that advocated for a female-controlled carnist system. The exploitation of female bodies is still exploitative even when done by females, regardless of species. Also disagreed with the pro-veiling garbage. There are a lot of arguments (if you can call them that) in this collection that are against feminist analysis of sex-based oppression in Islam, in that they call all feminists who are anti-veiling (including hijab) colonialist and white feminist. It's an ironic accusation: if the editors had taken a moment to look for radical feminist voices in areas where Islam is the prevailing religion, they'd find that it's not just upper-class white women who think veiling is oppressive and antifemale. But the editors found one woman who talks about how veiling makes a woman more beautiful, protects her from patriarchal abuses, and encourages men to take her more seriously, so obviously the most logical conclusion is that any anti-veiling sentiment is Islamophobic and antifeminist and colonialist. /s

Overall, this is a perfect snapshot of the current mainstream "feminist" movement: dominated by gender identity politics, not at all critical of gender as an oppressive social construct and tool of patriarchy, and has almost zilch to do with women's liberation. In short, it's very far removed from the actual feminist canon and should not be considered a part of it. I'm sure the original edition was much better before it was gutted.