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CONTENTS

*indicates new to this edition


Preface xvi

W O M E N ’ S A N D G E N D E R S T U D I E S: K N O W I N G A N D 1
PA R T I
U N D E R S TA N D I N G

CHAPTER 1 Untangling the “F”-word 2


Feminist Movements and Frameworks 4
Native American Antecedents 5
Legal Equality for Women 5
Resisting Interlocking Systems of Oppression 9
Queer and Trans Feminisms 10
The Focus of Women’s and Gender Studies 11
Myth 1: Women’s and Gender Studies Is Ideological 12
Myth 2: Women’s and Gender Studies Is Narrow 13
Myth 3: Women’s and Gender Studies Is a White, Middle-Class,
Western Thing 13
Men Doing Feminism 13
Collective Action for a Sustainable Future 14
1. A Matrix of Oppression, Privilege, and Resistance 14
2. From the Personal to the Global 15
3. Linking the Head, Heart, and Hands 15
4. A Secure and Sustainable Future 16
The Scope of This Book 16
Questions for Reflection 17
Finding Out More on the Web 17
Taking Action 17

vii
viii CONTENTS

READINGS
1. Paula Gunn Allen, “Who is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism”
(1986) 18
2. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Declaration of Sentiments” (1848) 25
3. Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement” (1977) 28
4. Mathangi Subramanian, “The Brown Girl’s Guide to Labels” (2010) 34
5. *Loan Tran, “Does Gender Matter? Notes Toward Gender Liberation”
(2018) 38

CHAPTER 2 Creating Knowledge: Integrative Frameworks


for Understanding 43
What Is a Theory? 44
Creating Knowledge: Epistemologies, Values, and Methods 45
Dominant Perspectives 45
Critiques of Dominant Perspectives 47
The Role of Values 48
Socially Lived Theorizing 48
Standpoint Theory 49
Challenges to Situated Knowledge and Standpoint Theory 50
Purposes of Socially Lived Theorizing 51
Media Representations and the Creation of Knowledge 52
The Stories Behind the Headlines 52
Whose Knowledge? 53
Reading Media Texts 53
Questions for Reflection 55
Finding Out More on the Web 56
Taking Action 56
READINGS
6. *Anne Fausto-Sterling, “The Five Sexes, Revisited” (2000) 57
7. Allan G. Johnson, “Patriarchy, the System: An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us”
(1997) 62
8. Patricia Hill Collins, Excerpt from “Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge,
Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment” (1990) 71
9. Nadine Naber, “Decolonizing Culture: Beyond Orientalist and Anti-Orientalist
Feminisms” (2010) 76
10. *Whitney Pow, “That’s Not Who I Am: Calling Out and Challenging
Stereotypes of Asian Americans” (2012) 84

CHAPTER 3 Identities and Social Locations 89


Being Myself: The Micro Level 92
Community Recognition and Expectations: The Meso Level 93
Social Categories and Structural Inequalities:
Macro and Global Levels 95
Defining Gender Identities 96
Content s ix

Maintaining Systems of Structural Inequality 97


Colonization, Immigration, and the US Landscape of Race and Class 99
Multiple Identities and Social Locations 103
Questions for Reflection 104
Finding Out More on the Web 104
Taking Action 105
READINGS
11. Dorothy Allison, “A Question of Class” (1993) 106
12. Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, “Jews, Class, Color, and the Cost of Whiteness”
(1992) 114
13. *Eli Clare, “Body Shame, Body Pride: Lessons from the Disability Rights
Movement” (2013) 121
14. *Mariko Uechi. “Between Belonging: A Culture of Home” (2018) 126
15. Julia Alvarez, Excerpt from “Once Upon a Quinceñera: Coming of Age in the
USA” (2007) 130

PA R T I I O U R B O D I E S , O U R S E LV E S 137

CHAPTER 4 Sexuality 138


What Does Sexuality Mean to You? 138
Heteropatriarchy Pushes Heterosex . . . 139
. . . and Racist, Ageist, Ableist Stereotypes 141
Objectification and Double Standards 142
Media Representations 144
Queering Sexuality 144
“Queer” as a Catch-All? 146
Queering Economies and Nation-States 146
Defining Sexual Freedom 147
Radical Heterosexuality 148
Eroticizing Consent 149
The Erotic as Power 150
Questions for Reflection 151
Finding Out More on the Web 151
Taking Action 151
READINGS
16. *Daisy Hernández, “Even If I Kiss a Woman” (2014) 153
17. *Ariane Cruz, “(Mis)Playing Blackness: Rendering Black Female Sexuality in
The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl” (2015) 160
18. *Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, “How Sex and the City Holds Up in the
#MeToo Era” (2018) 169
19. *V. Spike Peterson, “The Intended and Unintended Queering of States/
Nations” (2013) 172
20. Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” (1984) 181
x CONTENTS

CHAPTER 5 Bodies, Health, and Wellness 185


Human Embodiment 187
Body Ideals and Beauty Standards 188
Body Acceptance 189
Reproductive Health, Reproductive Justice 191
Focusing on Fertility 192
Reproductive Justice: An Intersectional Framework 195
Health and Wellness 197
Health Disparities 197
Mental and Emotional Health 199
Aging and Health 200
Questions for Reflection 201
Finding Out More on the Web 202
Taking Action 202
READINGS
21. *Linda Trinh Vō, “Transnational Beauty Circuits: Asian American Women,
Technology, and Circle Contact Lenses” (2016) 203
22. *Margitte Kristjansson, “Fashion’s ‘Forgotten Woman’: How Fat Bodies Queer
Fashion and Consumption” (2014) 212
23. *Loretta J. Ross, “Understanding Reproductive Justice” (2011) 221
24. *Alison Kafer, “Debating Feminist Futures: Slippery Slopes, Cultural Anxiety,
and the Case of the Deaf Lesbians” (2013) 227
25. Bell hooks, “Living to Love” (1993) 239

CHAPTER 6 Sexualized Violence 245


What Counts as Sexualized Violence? 246
The Incidence of Sexualized Violence 247
Intimate Partner Violence 247
Rape and Sexual Assault 249
Effects of Gender Expression, Race, Class, Nation, Sexuality, and Disability 250
Gender-Based State Violence 251
Explaining Sexualized Violence 252
Explanations Focused on Gender 252
Sexualized Violence Is Not Only About Gender 253
Ending Sexualized Violence 254
Providing Support for Victims/Survivors 255
Public and Professional Education 255
The Importance of a Political Movement 256
Contradictions in Seeking State Support to End Gender-Based Violence 257
Sexualized Violence and Human Rights 258
Questions for Refection 260
Finding Out More on the Web 260
Taking Action 260
Content s xi

READINGS
26. Aurora Levins Morales, “Radical Pleasure: Sex and the End of Victimhood”
(1998) 261
27. *Alleen Brown, “Indigenous Women Have Been Disappearing for Generations:
Politicians Are Finally Starting to Notice” (2018) 263
28. *Nicola Henry and Anastasia Powell, “Technology-Facilitated Sexual
Violence” (2018) 270
29. *Jonathan Grove, “Engaging Men Against Violence” (2018) 274
30. Rita Laura Segato, “Territory, Sovereignty, and Crimes of the Second State:
The Writing on the Body of Murdered Women” (2010) 281

PA R T I I I HOME AND WORK IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD 289

CHAPTER 7 Making a Home, Making a Living 290


Relationships, Home, and Family 290
Partnership and Marriage 291
The Ideal Nuclear Family 292
Gender and Work 293
Balancing Home and Work 294
The Second Shift 295
Caring for Children 296
Flextime, Part-Time, and Home Working 297
Gender and Economic Security 298
Education and Job Opportunities 298
Organized Labor and Collective Action 300
Working and Poor 301
Pensions, Disability Payments, and Welfare 301
Understanding Class Inequalities 303
Resilience and Sustainability 304
Questions for Reflection 305
Finding Out More on the Web 306
Taking Action 306
READINGS
31. *Claire Cain Miller, “The Costs of Motherhood Are Rising, and Catching
Women Off Guard (2018) 307
32. *Sara Lomax-Reese, “Black Mother/Sons” (2016) 310
33. *Linda Burnham and Nik Theodore, Excerpt from “Home Economics: The
Invisible and Unregulated World of Domestic Work” (2012) 313
34. *Linda Steiner, “Glassy Architectures in Journalism” (2014) 317
35. *Emir Estrada and Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, “Living the Third Shift:
Latina Adolescent Street Vendors in Los Angeles” (2013) 326
xii CONTENTS

CHAPTER 8 Living in a Globalizing World 336


Locations, Circuits, and Flows 336
Migrations and Displacements 337
Migration 337
Migration Patterns 339
Tourism, Trafficking, and Transnational Adoption and Surrogacy 340
Consumption: Goods, Information, and Popular Culture 342
Material Flows 342
Information Flows 344
Cultural Flows 344
Global Factories and Care Chains 347
The International Financial System 349
Assumptions and Ideologies 350
Legacies of Colonization 350
Transnational Alliances for a Secure and Sustainable Future 351
Questions for Refection 352
Finding Out More on the Web 352
Taking Action 352
READINGS
36. Gloria Anzaldúa, “The Homeland: Aztlán/El Otro Mexico” (1987) 353
37. Pun Ngai, Excerpt from “Made in China” (2005) 360
38. *Carolin Schurr, “The Baby Business Booms: Economic Geographies of Assisted
Reproduction” (2018) 368
39. *Moira Birss, “When Defending the Land Becomes a Crime” (2017) 378
40. *Mark Graham and Anasuya Sengupta, “We’re All Connected Now, So Why Is
the Internet So White and Western?” (2017) 382

PA R T I V S E C U R I T Y A N D S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y 385

CHAPTER 9 Gender, Crime, and Criminalization 386


Female in the Criminal Justice System 386
People in Women’s Prisons 388
Race and Class Disparities 390
Girls in Detention 391
Women Political Prisoners 392
The National Context: “Tough on Crime” 393
The War on Drugs 393
Incarceration as a Business 394
Criminalization as a Political Process 394
Definitions and Justifications 395
Profiling and Surveillance for “National Security” 396
Criminalization of Migration 397
Inside/Outside Connections 398
Content s xiii

Support for People in Women’s Prisons 398


Prison Reform, Decriminalization, and Abolition 399
Questions for Reflection 400
Finding Out More on the Web 401
Taking Action 401
READINGS
41. *Susan Burton and Cari Lynn, Excerpts from “Becoming Ms. Burton”
(2017) 402
42. *Julia Sudbury, “From Women Prisoners to People in Women’s Prisons:
Challenging the Gender Binary in Antiprison Work” (2011) 409
43. *Diala Shamas, “Living in Houses without Walls: Muslim Youth in New York
City in the Aftermath of 9/11” (2018) 419
44. *Leslie A. Campos, “Unexpected Borders” (2018) 430
45. *Spanish Federation of Feminist Organizations, “Walls and Enclosures: This Is
Not the Europe in which We Want to Live” (2016) 435

C H A P T E R 10 Gender, Militarism, War, and Peace 437


Women in the US Military 438
Soldier Mothers 439
Women in Combat 440
Militarism as a System 441
Militarism, Patriarchy, and Masculinity 441
Militarism and Histories of Colonization 443
Militarization as a Process 444
Impacts of War and Militarism 445
Vulnerability and Agency 445
Healing from War 447
Redefining Security 447
Women’s Peace Organizing 448
Demilitarization as a Process 450
Demilitarization and Feminist Thinking 450
Questions for Refection 451
Finding Out More on the Web 451
Taking Action 451
READINGS
46. *Julie Pulley, “The Truth about the Military Gender Integration Debate”
(2016) 453
47. *Annie Isabel Fukushima, Ayano Ginoza, Michiko Hase, Gwyn Kirk, Deborah
Lee, and Taeva Shefler, “Disaster Militarism: Rethinking U.S. Relief in the
Asia-Pacific” (2014) 456
48. *Jane Freedman, Zeynep Kivilcim, and Nurcan Özgür Baklacioğlu, “Gender,
Migration and Exile” (2017) 459
49. *Amina Mama and Margo Okazawa-Rey, “Militarism, Conflict and Women’s
Activism in the Global Era: Challenges and Prospects for Women in Three
West African Contexts” (2012) 468
50. Julia Ward Howe, “Mother’s Day Proclamation” (1870) 484
xiv CONTENTS

C H A P T E R 11 Gender and Environment 485


The Body, the First Environment 486
Food and Water 487
The Food Industry 487
Food Security 488
Safeguarding Water 490
Population, Resources, and Climate Change 491
Overpopulation, Overconsumption, or Both? 491
Science, Gender, and Climate Change 491
Gender Perspectives on Environmental Issues 493
Creating a Sustainable Future 494
Defining Sustainability 494
Projects and Models for a Sustainable Future 494
Feminist Thinking for a Sustainable Future 495
Questions for Refection 495
Finding Out More on the Web 495
Taking Action 496
READINGS
51. Sandra Steingraber, “Rose Moon” (2001) 497
52. Betsy Hartmann and Elizabeth Barajas-Román, “Reproductive Justice, Not
Population Control: Breaking the Wrong Links and Making the Right Ones in
the Movement for Climate Justice” (2009) 507
53. Michelle R. Loyd-Paige, “Thinking and Eating at the Same Time: Reflections of
a Sistah Vegan” (2010) 513
54. *Whitney Eulich, “Months after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans Take
Recovery into Their Own Hands” (2018) 518
55. *Vandana Shiva, “Building Water Democracy: People’s Victory Against Coca-
Cola in Plachimada” (2004) 523

PA R T V AC T I V I S M A N D C H A N G E 527

C H A P T E R 12 Creating Change: Theories, Visions, and Actions 528


How Does Social Change Happen? 529
Using the Head: Theories for Social Change 529
Using the Heart: Visions for Social Change 529
Using the Hands: Action for Social Change 530
Evaluating Activism, Refining Theory 531
Identities and Identity-Based Politics 532
Electoral Politics and Political Influence 533
Running for Office 534
Gendered Voting Patterns 536
Content s xv

Alliances for Challenging Times 538


Some Principles for Alliance Building 538
Overcoming Obstacles to Effective Alliances 539
Transnational Women’s Organizing 540
Next Steps for Feminist Movements 543
Questions for Reflection 543
Finding Out More on the Web 544
Taking Action 544
READINGS
56. Abra Fortune Chernik, “The Body Politic” (1995) 545
57. *Deborah Lee, “Faith as a Tool for Social Change” (2018) 550
58. *Patricia St. Onge, “Two Peoples, One Fire” (2016) 555
59. *Louise Burke, “The #MeToo Shockwave: How the Movement Has
Reverberated around the World” (2018) 557
60. *Association for Women’s Rights in Development, Center for Women’s
Global Leadership, and African Women’s Development and Communications
Network, “Feminist Propositions for a Just Economy: Time for Creative
Imaginations” (2016) 560

Glossar y 563
References 569
Name Index 597
Subject Index 605
About the Authors 621
PREFACE

A n introductory course is perhaps the most challenging women’s and gender studies
(WGS) course to conceptualize and teach. Depending on their overall goals for the
course, instructors must make difficult choices about what to include and what to leave
out. Students come into the course for a variety of reasons and with a range of expecta-
tions and prior knowledge, and most will not major in WGS. The course may fulfill a
distribution requirement for them, or it may be a way of taking one course during their
undergraduate education out of a personal interest in gender. For majors and minors,
the course plays a very different role, offering a foundation for their area of study.
This text started out as two separate readers that we used in our classes at Antioch
College (Gwyn Kirk) and San Francisco State University (Margo Okazawa-Rey) in the
mid-1990s. Since then, we have learned a lot about teaching an introductory course,
and the book has grown and developed as understandings of gender—and the wider
political climate—have changed.
Women’s and gender studies programs continue to build their reputations in terms
of academic rigor and scholarly standards. WGS scholarship is on the cutting edge of
many disciplines and interdisciplinary fields, especially in the arts, humanities, and
social sciences. At the same time, it occupies a marginal position within academia,
challenging male-dominated knowledge and pedagogy, with all the pressures that en-
tails. WGS faculty and allies live with these tensions personally and professionally.
Outside the academy, government policies and economic changes have made many
people’s lives more difficult. This includes the loss of factory and office work as jobs
continue to be moved overseas or become automated; government failure to introduce
and support adequate health care and child care systems; cuts in various social-service
programs and funding for education; hostility toward and greater restriction of gov-
ernment support, when available, to immigrants and their families; large numbers of
people incarcerated; and vast expenditures on war and preparations for war.
In the past decade, the political climate for WGS on campuses and in the wider
society has become more challenging as conservative viewpoints have gained ground
through political rhetoric and the narrow range of public discourse. In addition, a slow
erosion of academic freedom on campuses has made many teachers’ lives more dif-
ficult. Increasingly, faculty may face challenges to their teaching methods and course
content; their work may be written off as “biased,” unscholarly, or politically moti-
vated (Nisenson 2017). Also, academic institutions have become increasingly beholden

xvi
Preface xvii

to corporate funding and values. Budget cuts, department mergers, and the fact that
more than two-thirds of faculty are on part-time or temporary contracts these days all
affect the organization and viability of interdisciplinary programs like WGS.
The current Federal administration’s destruction of already inadequate “safety
nets,” contempt for the natural environment, support for overtly racist, sexist, trans-
and homophobic attacks, and the daily circulation of distortions, half-truths, and out-
right lies all challenge us profoundly. This is not new, especially for indigenous people
on this continent, for other communities of color, and for those in subjugated nations,
but it has become starker, more clear-cut, and increasingly affects many of us with rela-
tive access and privilege. What to think? Where to focus? How to respond to one crisis
after another? As students, how to support your friends, peers, and families as they ex-
perience direct and indirect impacts? As faculty, how to support students trying to find
their footing in this maelstrom?
We believe that our job as feminist scholars and teachers is to think big, to help
provide spaces where students can think clearly and face current challenges. The strong
tradition of organizing for social justice in the United States needs to be much better
known, as well as the many efforts underway today. They provide lessons, models,
and inspiration. We cannot afford to despair or to nurture despair in others. We must
remember the gains made in the past and continue to work for and hold out the pos-
sibility of progressive change even as past gains are being attacked and unraveled. A
silver lining in this turbulent time is that even as some political spaces are being closed
down, new social movements are opening up others.

WHAT WE WANT IN AN INTRODUCTORY WOMEN’S


AND GENDER STUDIES BOOK
As teachers, we want to present a broad range of gendered experiences to students in
terms of class, race, culture, national origin, dis/ability, age, sexuality, and gender iden-
tity and expression. We want teaching materials that do justice to the diversity of US
women’s lives—whether queer, femme, lesbian, gender nonconforming, or trans, as
well as heterosexual and cisgender women. We also want materials that address the lo-
cation of the United States in a globalizing world. We include some discussion of theory
because a basic understanding of theoretical frameworks is a powerful tool, not only
for WGS courses but also for other courses students take. We also emphasize activism.
There are many women’s and LGBTQI activist and advocacy projects across the United
States, but students may not know about them. Much of the information that students
learn in WGS may be discouraging, but knowing what people are doing to support each
other and to promote feminist values and concerns can be empowering, even in the
face of sometimes daunting realities. This knowledge reinforces the idea that current
inequalities and problems are not fixed but have the potential to be changed.

LINKING INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCES TO NATIONAL


AND TRANSNATIONAL TRENDS AND ISSUES
We are both trained in sociology, and we have noted that students coming into our
classes are much more familiar with psychological explanations for behaviors and ex-
periences than they are with structural explanations. People in the United States tend
xviii PR EFACE

to see inequality and injustice in terms of low self-esteem, poor identity development,
learned helplessness, or the work of a few “bad apples” that spoil the barrel. Students
invariably enjoy first-person accounts of life experiences, but a series of stories—even
wonderfully insightful stories—are not enough to understand the circumstances and
forces that shape people’s lives. Accordingly, we provide a broader context for the se-
lected readings in the overview essays that open each chapter.
We recognize that many women in the United States—especially white, cisgen-
dered women in higher socioeconomic groups—have greater opportunities for self-
expression, for earning a living, and for engagement in the wider world compared with
in the past. However, humankind faces serious challenges in the twenty-first century:
challenges regarding work and livelihood, personal and family relationships, violence
on many levels, and the mounting pressures on the fragile natural environment. These
issues raise major questions about personal and societal values and the distribution of
resources. How is our society going to provide for people in the years to come? What
are the effects of the increasing polarization between rich and poor in the United States
and between richer and poorer nations? These themes of security and sustainability
provide the wider framework for this book.
As teachers, we are concerned with students’ knowledge and understanding and,
beyond that, with their aspirations, hopes, and values, as well as their fears. One of our
goals for this book is to provide a series of lenses that will help students understand
their own lives and the lives of others. A second goal is that through this understand-
ing, students will be able to participate, in some way, in the creation of a genuinely
secure and sustainable future.

NEW TO THE SEVENTH EDITION


This seventh edition of what was formerly Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives, now
renamed Gendered Lives: Intersectional Perspectives, has undergone a major revision.
We rely on the analyses, principles, and style of earlier editions, but with substantial
changes to take account of recent scholarship and events. Specific changes include:
• A greater emphasis on gender identity and gender variance to show how trans
activists and scholars have challenged, unsettled, and transformed previous un-
derstandings of gender.
• An expanded chapter, “Creating Knowledge,” that includes greater discussion of
media representations and the role of mass media in the creation of knowledge.
In other chapters, we include several articles about media representations to
further this discussion.
• Greater emphasis on the insights of dis/ability activists and scholarship, follow-
ing new developments in this field in recent years.
• Inclusion of materials on Web-based information technologies, especially
their impacts on sexualized violence, transnational surrogacy, and feminist
organizing.
• Greater emphasis on the transnational and global levels of analysis, including
attention to the impact of extractivism in the Global South, barriers to immi-
gration in Europe and the United States, and effects of environmental destruc-
tion, war, and militarism worldwide.
Preface xix

• Updated statistics throughout, as well as updated information on activist


organizations.
• In our overview essays, reference clusters on particular topics, often spanning
years of feminist scholarship. As well as supporting the arguments we make,
these also serve as suggestions for further reading.
• A revised and updated, password-protected Instructor’s Manual—including al-
ternative Tables of Contents for flexible use of the book—available on our com-
panion website (www.oup.com/us/kirk-okazawa-rey).

A number of considerations, sometimes competing or contradictory, have influ-


enced the decisions we made to ensure this edition meets our goals. Since the be-
ginning, we have been committed to including the work of established scholars and
lesser-known writers from a range of backgrounds. As in previous editions, we have
looked for writers who integrate several levels of analysis (micro, meso, macro, and
global) in their work. Students we have talked with, including those in our own classes,
love first-person accounts, and such narratives help to draw them into more theoreti-
cal discussions. In our experience, teachers invariably want more theory, more history,
and more research-based pieces.
As we searched for materials, we found much more theoretical work by white
women in the US than by women of color. We assume this is because there are fewer
women of color in the academy, because white scholars and writers have greater access
to publishers, and because prevailing ideas about what theory is and what form it
should take tend to exclude cross-genre work by women of color. This can give the
misleading impression that aside from a few notable exceptions, women of color are
not theorists. We have tried not to reproduce this bias in our selection, but we note
this issue here to make this aspect of our process visible. We include personal essays
and narratives that make theoretical points, what scholar and writer Gloria Anzaldúa
(2002) called “autohistoriateoria”—a genre of writing about one’s personal and col-
lective history that may use fictive elements and that also theorizes. In a similar vein,
people living in the United States have limited access to writings by and about women
and gender nonconforming people from the Global South, whether personal accounts,
academic research, journalists’ reports, policy recommendations, or critiques of poli-
cies imposed by countries of the North. Relatively few scholars and fiction writers not
working in English are published widely. Again, structural limitations of the politics of
knowledge affect who has access to book publishers or websites and whose work may
be translated for English-language readers.
This new edition represents our best effort to balance these considerations as we
sought to provide information, analysis, and inspiration concerning the myriad daily
experiences, opportunities, limitations, oppressions and fears, hopes, joys, and satis-
factions that make up gendered lives.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

M any people—especially our students, teachers, colleagues, and friends—made it


possible for us to complete the first edition of this book over twenty years ago. We
acknowledge everyone at Mayfield Publishing who worked on our original manuscript:
Franklin Graham, our editor, whose confidence in our ideas never wavered and whose
light hand on the steering wheel and clear sense of direction got us into print; also
Julianna Scott Fein, production editor; the production team; and Jamie Fuller, copy-
editor extraordinaire. For the second edition, we were fortunate to have the support of
colleagues and librarians at Hamilton College as well as the Mayfield production team
led by editor Serina Beauparlant and assisted by Margaret Moore, another wonderful
copyeditor.
McGraw-Hill published editions two through six. We worked with several produc-
tion teams—too many to name here. Also, for the third edition we benefited from the
support of the Women’s Leadership Institute at Mills College and the Data Center, an
Oakland-based nonprofit that provided research and training to grassroots social jus-
tice organizations across the country.
For this seventh edition, we are deeply indebted to Sherith Pankratz of Oxford
University Press for the chance to revise and update this work. We are honored to
work with her and acknowledge her encouragement, enthusiasm, skills, and deep com-
mitment to publishing. Many thanks to Grace Li, Wesley Morrison, and Brad Rau for
their production and copyediting work and to Lynn Mayo, Hamilton College librarian.
Thanks also to those who reviewed the manuscript for this seventh edition: Padmini
Banerjee, Delaware State University; Laura Brunell, Gonzaga University; Sara Diaz,
Gonzaga University; Molly Ferguson, Ball State University; Meredith Heller, North-
ern Arizona University; Alison Kibler, Franklin and Marshall College; Rachel Lewis,
George Mason University; Stella Oh, Loyola Marymount University; Harleen Singh,
Brandeis University; Barbi Smyser-Fauble, Butler University; Katy Strzepek, St. Am-
brose University; Deborah Wickering, Aquinas College; Tessa Ong Winkelmann, Uni-
versity of Nevada, Las Vegas; and two anonymous reviewers. We greatly appreciate
their insights and suggestions.
As before, this new edition builds on the accumulated work, help, and support
of many people. Thank you to Leslie Campos, Jonathan Grove, Deborah Lee, Loan
Tran, and Mariko Uechi for writing new pieces for this edition. Thanks also to Judith

xx
Acknowledgment s xxi

Arcana, Joyce Barry, Sarah Bird, Anita Bowen, Charlene Carruthers, SuzyJane Edwards,
Aimee Germain, Priya Kandaswamy, Robin D. G. Kelley, Anne Lacsamana, Miyé Oka
Lamprière, Martha Matsuoka, Anuja Mendiratta, Albie Miles, Aurora Levins Morales,
Jose Plascencia, Catherine Pyun, Elizabeth Reis, Sonya Rifkin, Meredith Staples,
Louisa Stone, Sé Sullivan, Pavitra Sundar, Loan Tran, Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson,
and Kathleen Yep for providing new information and insights. We acknowledge the
feminist scholars, organizations, and activists whose work we have reprinted and all
those whose research and writing have informed our understandings of gendered lives
and shaped the field of WGS. We are grateful for the independent bookstores and small
presses that keep going thanks to dedicated staff and loyal readers. We also rely on
other feminist “institutions”: scholarly journals, the Women’s Review of Books, Ms., and
WMST-L. We have benefited enormously from discussions on the WMST-L list and
suggestions for readings and classroom activities generously shared by teachers. We
are grateful to the undergraduate WGS students in our courses at various institutions
across the country. Their experiences have shown us what has changed in this society
and what has not, what has been gained and what has been lost. Most of all, they have
taught us the importance of seeing them on their own terms as we engage them with
new ideas and encourage them to see beyond themselves and the current sociopolitical
moment.
The world continues to gain brilliant young feminist writers, teachers, organizers,
and artists—some of whose work is included here. We also acknowledge the ground-
breaking contributions made by an older generation of writers and scholars who have
passed on: especially Gloria Anzaldúa, Grace Lee Boggs, Lorraine Hansberry, June
Jordan, Melanie Kaye/Kantrovitz, Yuri Kochiyama, Audre Lorde, Grace Paley, Adri-
enne Rich, and Ntozake Shange.
Lastly, we acknowledge our friendship over twenty-five years, which has provided
a deep foundation for our work together. We continue to be inspired by national trea-
sures, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and the “sociological imagination”—C. Wright Mills’
touchstone concept—that draws on the need for complex social analysis in order to
make change.
To everyone, very many thanks.
— Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey
We have chosen each other
and the edge of each other’s battles
the war is the same
if we lose
someday women’s blood will congeal
upon a dead planet
if we win
there is no telling
we seek beyond history
for a new and more possible meeting.

—Audre Lorde
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The Harvesters.

In the parish of Ekshärad lies a mountain, Säljeberg, which was


formerly the dwelling place of Trolls and giants, now exterminated.

Near the mountain dwelt a farmer, on one of the best farms in the
parish. One summer evening he went over his fields admiring the
seas of golden grain and exulting at the abundant harvest promised
him.

“God be praised for this crop,” said he. “If I now could have all these
fields harvested by early morning I would give my best cow.”

Hereupon he returned to his home and went to bed. Through the


whole night the noise of reaping was heard in the fields and the
Trolls calling:

“Make bands and bind; let the farmer dry it himself.”

As soon as sunrise the farmer was upon his feet and out into the
fields, where, to his indescribable amazement, he saw them reaped
and the grain lying in bundles upon the ground. Guessing that the
Trolls had had a hand in the work, he sprang to the stable, there to
find a stall empty and his best cow gone. [150]
[Contents]
The Ulfgryt Stones.

In the peak of Mount Garphytte, one of the many mountain tops that
raise themselves over Kilseberger, dwelt, in former days, a giant
named Rise.

One morning, as he went from his grotto out into [151]the day, a
strange sound, which caused him to pause, greeted his ear. He
listened for some time, then returned into the mountain and called his
wife.

“Put the smallest of those stones that lie upon the peak into your
garter and sling it at that gray cow that goes tinkling along down there
by Hjelmaren!” said he, meaning the new church just completed at
Orebro, whose bells were that morning ringing for the first time in the
service of the Lord.

The giantess, as she was commanded, took a stone as large as a


house and threw it at the church, some eight or ten miles distant.

“That was a poor throw,” said the giant, when the stone fell down on
the plain of Rumbo. “Bring here the band; you shall see a throw that
will do its work,” whereupon he adjusted a monstrous stone in his
wife’s garter, and, swinging it a few times through the air, let it go with
all his power toward the new church.

“Great in command, but little in power,” said the giant woman, when
the stone fell upon the one she had thrown, and was broken into a
thousand pieces.

At the same time the bell rung out with wonderful clearness. Furious
with rage, he tore up two large stones, took one under each arm, and
set out for Orebro. Intelligence having reached the residents of
Orebro that the giant was coming, consternation was general and
good advice dear.

Finally, an old man undertook to save the church. In great haste he


gathered up all the worn-out shoes he could find, put them in a sack,
and set out to meet [152]the giant. At Ulfgryt, in Toby, he met the giant,
who was anything but gentle in appearance.

“How far is it to Orebro?” asked Rise.

“I can’t say exactly,” answered the old man, in an innocent manner,


“but it is long a way, you will find, for it is seven years since I left
there, and I have worn out all these shoes on the way.”

“Then let him who will, go there, but I will not,” said the giant, and
threw the stones from him to the ground with such force that they
rang as they struck it.

The stones lie there by the roadside even to-day, but the most
remarkable circumstance is that they turn over whenever the church
bells in Orebro are rung. [153]
[Contents]
Rugga Bridge. 1

In the last years of the fourteenth century there lived in Strengnäs,


the well-known bishop, Konrad Rugga, or Bishop Cort, as he was
called by the people. Holding his office at a time when the glory of
Papacy was at its height, it is natural that his power was great and
influence unusual. Yet tradition has not been content with this, but
has magnified his endowments to the almost supernatural.

In order to maintain discipline and order in his bishopric he was wont


to travel from place to place in his diocese, always visiting in these
journeys the convent of Riseberga.

During one of these official tours he purchased in Tangerosa, three


small farms, and made of them a large domain, which he improved
and called Trystorp—three farms—but from Riseberga to Trystorp it
is a long distance, and as the Bishop was not unskilled in
constructing underground ways—he having already completed one
such under the Mälar from Strengnäs to his residence, Tynnelsö—he
tunneled a passage from the monastery to Trystorp under Logsjö.
For the [154]public he built a road above ground, which is the same
that now leads to Trystorp around the north shore of Logsjö.

Over a stream, or at that time a little river, which, just below


Riseberga, runs from the south in a northerly course, he built a
substantial bridge of sandstone. The bridge is even to-day called
Rugga’s bridge or more commonly Ruggebro.

Not long after the death of Bishop Cort the Papal power was forced
to yield in Sweden to the doctrines of Luther and Riseberga to share
the fate of other convents in the land.
It was now determined to move one of the bells of the convent to
Edsberg, where it was to call the people together to hear the new
message of truth. But the Bishop’s powerful spirit seemed even now
to be present on earth, for when they who bore the bell reached the
middle of Ruggebro, the burden was overthrown by an unseen hand
into the creek, where it disappeared.

Many have since seen the bell, and one and another have even
succeeded in raising it half way out of the water, but it has always
escaped and sunk back into the creek bed, scoffing at the weakness
of the covetous laborers. [155]

1 Bishop Konrad Rugga, who plays a part in this story, belonged to the old Kyle
family and was born in Stockholm. After he had studied in foreign high schools,
he was, upon his return to Sweden, first canon, and later archdeacon in Uppsala
Cathedral. In the year 1480 he was chosen bishop of Strengnäs, which office he
entered upon on the 3d of April, 1501. In the Cathedral of Strengnäs, even now, a
small cell is shown, which is said to have been his treasure vault, and where his
prayer-book, shoes and other relics may still be seen. ↑
[Contents]
Kate of Ysätter.

The inhabitants of Närike have many stories to relate about an


apparition, called Kate of Ysätter, that [156]in olden times dwelt in
Öster Närike’s forests, but chiefly in the swamps of Ysätter, in the
parish of Asker.

According to the belief of the old people, she existed through many
generations, although she usually made her appearance as a young
girl beautifully clad, and possessing a head of hair of extraordinary
length. She was often seen by hunters sitting upon a stump,
combing her hair which reached to the ground. Those who went to
the swamps to wash their clothes sometimes saw her at a little
distance also washing garments which were of an unusual
whiteness. To ugly old women she was always a terror, and it
seemed to be a pleasure to her to mimic them by keeping time with
their motions, but whenever she showed herself it was for a few
seconds only, and should one turn his eyes from her, however little,
she was gone.

In Öster Närike, the routes she took were shown, and many
complaints were heard that she trampled the grain down in her
constant journeys back and forth. Often, especially in the night time,
her awful laugh was heard from her perch on a tree or top of a rock,
when she succeeded in alluring some one from his path, caused him
to fall with his load, or break his harness. Her laugh was like a
magpie’s, and caused the blood of one helpless against her pranks
to stand still.

Others who endeavored to stand well with her she assisted in many
instances. “She has gone, the lightning has killed her as the others,”
say the old people, not yet won over to the skepticism of the present
time. [157]

Among those who enjoyed her special favor was a hunter, Bottorpa
Lasse. He was such a skillful shot that if only he stepped out upon
the porch and called a bird, or drew the picture of an animal upon the
wall of the barn, the game he wished was brought within range of his
gun.

One time Lasse invited his neighbors to accompany him on a hunt,


and, expecting to bag an abundance of game, they were not slow to
accept the invitation. They betook themselves in the evening to the
woods, where they found shelter in a coal burner’s hut, and prepared
to begin the hunt early in the morning.

Along in the night Kate entered the hut, and requested the hunters to
show her their guns. She first examined those of the hunter’s
neighbors, but soon returned them, exclaiming, “Fie!” She then took
Lasse’s gun, blew down the barrel, examined the priming and
handed it back exclaiming, “Good, good, my boy!” What this signified
was soon manifested, when Lasse secured a fine lot of game and
the others did not so much as get a shot.

It is further related of Kate of Ysätter, that at the burning of the clock


tower of Asker, in the year 1750, when even the church was in
flames and in great danger of destruction, Kate was seen standing
on the roof, opposing their progress.

The last time she made her presence known was at a harvest
gathering in the fields of Ysätter. The harvesters had ceased labor to
eat their luncheon, and when they had eaten themselves into a good
humor, engaging in conversation, which turned upon Kate, a
[158]young man declared he would like nothing better than to catch
her and give her a good whipping for the vexations she had
produced in the world. Instantly a terrific crash was heard in an
enclosure near by, and the youth received a blow in the face that
caused the blood to gush from mouth and nose over the food of the
others, changing their butter to blood. It was after this thought wise
to say as little and to have as little as possible to do with Kate of
Ysätter. [159]
[Contents]
The Elves’ Dance.

Upon the marshy oak and linden covered island of Sör, when the
grass starts forth in the spring, are [160]to be seen, here and there,
circles of a deeper green than the surrounding grass, which the
people say mark the places where Elves have had their ring dances.

While the provost, Lille Strale, was pastor of the parish church, a
servant was sent out late one evening to bring a horse in from a
pasture. Plodding along as best he could in the darkness, he had not
gone far when it was discovered that he had lost his way, and, turn
which way he would, he could not find the sought for meadow.

Exhausted at last by constant walking, he sat down at the foot of an


oak to rest himself. Presently strains of lovely music reached his
ears, and he saw, quite near, a multitude of little people engaged in a
lively ring dance upon the sward. So light were their footsteps that
the tops of the grass blades were scarcely moved.

In the middle of the ring stood the Elf Queen herself, taller and more
beautiful than the others, with a golden crown upon her head and her
clothes sparkling in the moonlight with gold and precious stones.

Beckoning to him, she said: “Come, Anders, and tread a dance with
me!” and Anders, thinking it would be impolite not to comply with the
request of a woman so beautiful, rose and stepped bowing into the
ring.

Poor lad, he did not know what a fate awaited him who ventured to
participate in the sports of the Elves. How the dance terminated is
not known, but at its conclusion the young man found himself again
under the oak, and from that hour he was never again wholly
[161]himself. From being the most lively and cheerful young man in
the village, he became the dullest and most melancholy, and, before
the year had gone, his days were ended. [162]
[Contents]

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