How did woman come to be the underside and negation of modernity’s ideals of progress, reason, and enlightenment? This quick immersion searches back in time and forward into the present to explore the conundrum: which came first, women’s oppression or the metaphysical and debilitating notions of who and what women are, namely passive, emotional, weak, and irrational. Drawing on psychoanalysis and contemporary theory, this book explores how these notions can be overcome and how women can find and realize their own desire. ENDORSEMENTS
Noelle McAfee’s quick immersion is of tremendous service to both newly emerging and long- time feminists. Writing in clear, precise, and compelling language, McAfee draws us into the too often side-stepped political engagement and intellectual contributions of the many women who fought for and contributed to the creation of feminist ideas and social and political transformations. McAfee weaves into this story a profoundly valuable analysis of the metaphysical ideas about the nature of reality that justified the oppression of women from the ancient Greeks to the present, and which clarifies the limitations placed on women’s understanding of themselves as both desiring and ethical beings. Dorothea Olkowski, Professor of Philosophy and Director of Humanities, University of Colorado
Noelle McAfee provides an admirable and extremely useful mapping of the terrain of feminism and feminist theory, which does justice to the rich variety of styles and voices in feminism. Students will acquire a sense of the range and scope of feminism, while feminist scholars will be interested in McAfee’s psychoanalytic reading of feminism and its critique of structural oppression. This will be a very welcome text to anyone who regularly teaches feminism. Mary C. Rawlinson, Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature, Stony Brook University
This fast-dive into feminism is amazingly comprehensive, clear, and compelling. Readers will come away from the book well informed about sexism, the fraternal order, and women’s resistance against them. McAfee has done an excellent job of distilling feminism into its essentials. Shannon Sullivan, Chair of Philosophy and Professor of Philosophy and Health Psychology at the University of North Carolina Charlotte
