Feminist Thinkers and the Demands of Femininity : The Lives and Work of Intellectual Women

Examining The Lives And Work Of Historical And Contemporary Feminist Intellectuals, Feminist Thinkers And The Demands Of Femininity Explores The Feminist Struggle To Have It All. This Fascinating Interdisciplinary Study Focuses On How Feminist Thinkers Throughout History Have Long Striven To Balance Politics, Intellectual Work, And The Material Conditions Of Femininity. Taking A Close Look At This Quest For An Integrated Life In The Autobiographical And Theoretical Writings Of Well-known Feminists Such As Mary Wollstonecraft, Emma Goldman, And Simone De Beauvoir, Alongside Contemporary Counterparts, Like Azar Nafisi, Audre Lorde, And Ana Castillo, Marso Moves Beyond Questions Of Who Women Are And What Women Want, Adding An Innovative Personal Dimension To Feminist Theory, Showing How Changing Conceptions Of Femininity Manifest Themselves Within All Women's Lives.--publisher's Website. Feminist Genealogies: Connecting Women's Lives -- Women's Situation, I: The Material Constraints Of Femininity -- Women's Situation, Ii: Existential Experiments With The Feminine -- Love In Exile: Reading The Memoirs Of Mary Wollstonecraft And Germaine De Stael -- A Feminist Search For Love: Emma Goldman On The Politics Of Marriage, Love, Sexuality, And The Feminine -- Maternal Genealogies And Feminist Consciousness: Simone De Beauvoir On Mothers, Daughters, And Political Coalitions -- Wanting It All: Contemporary Struggles For Freedom And Fulfillment. Lori Jo Marso. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 193-203) And Index. Feminist Thinkers and the Demands of Femininity explores the lives and theory of Mary Wollstonecraft, Germaine de Staël, Emma Goldman, and Simone de Beauvoir in light of and alongside contemporary feminist work, to examine the significance that being a woman and the material conditions of femininity thrust upon one based on the times in which one lives had on their lives and work. These historical women are often valorized as thinkers and intellectuals, whose private lives are deemed irrelevant at best, and degrading as worst, or are the subjects of biographies that ignore their political cont Front cover......Page 1 Table of Contents......Page 6 Preface......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 16 1. Feminist Genealogies......Page 22 2. Women’s Situation, I......Page 48 3. Women’s Situation, II......Page 80 4. Love in Exile......Page 104 5. A Feminist Search for Love......Page 130 6. Maternal Genealogies and Feminist Consciousness......Page 152 7. Wanting It All......Page 178 Conclusion......Page 208 Bibliography......Page 214 Endnotes......Page 226 Index......Page 232 Back cover......Page 240