Martha McCaughey | |
---|---|
Born | October 25, 1966 |
Occupation | Academic writer |
Language | English |
Education | University of Michigan (B.A.) University of California (MA) University of California (PhD) [1] |
Period | Late 1990s–present |
Subject | Feminism, self-defense, film, cyberactivism, Evolution, movie violence |
Notable works | Real Knockouts |
Martha McCaughey (born October 25, 1966) is an American academic and author. She was the director of Women's Studies at Appalachian State University at, prior to that, at Virginia Tech. Her research and writings have dealt extensively with evolutionary psychology as applied to gender. She is the author of The Caveman Mystique: Pop-Darwinism and the Debates over Sex, Violence, and Science (2008, Routledge), which takes an original perspective on the "science wars" and also challenges both evolutionary psychologists and their feminist critics to think about masculinities as textual.
Among McCaughey's writings are two similarly titled books: Real Knockouts: the Physical Feminism of Women’s Self-Defense ( ISBN 0-8147-5577-1) in 1997 and Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies ( ISBN 0-292-75251-2), which she co-edited in 2001 with Neal King.
Real Knockouts made McCaughey's mark in feminist theory, as the first comprehensive attempt to bridge the gap between academia and mainstream women's self-defense. In it, she defines the self-defense movement serves as a form of feminist empowerment and consciousness raising that can be used to make feminist theory accessible to women who would otherwise be unreceptive. She also proposes the idea that by participating in self-defense, women change the definition of femininity and alter the gender roles, both male and female, that support existing rape culture. Although McCaughey takes a generally positive stance regarding self-defense, and dedicates a chapter to countering various criticisms of women's self-defense from within feminist theory, she does acknowledge and examine several practical and legal concerns with self-defense. As part of that, she analyzes the legal repercussions of violent self-defense, including consideration of the way that racism, classism, sexism, and stereotypes concerning battered wife syndrome affect the legal system's judgement on whether or not a woman's self-defense is legitimate.
Reel Knockouts (co-edited with Neal M. King) is a collection of essays that examine portrayals of violent women in film.
She is also the co-editor, with Michael D. Ayers, of Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice (2003, Routledge), and the editor of Cyberactivism on the Participatory Web (2014, Routledge).
Most recently, McCaughey has written a number of essays on feminism, academic freedom, and the purpose of the university.
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Gloria Jean Watkins, better known by her pen name bell hooks, was an American author, theorist, educator, and social critic who was a Distinguished Professor in Residence at Berea College. She was best known for her writings on race, feminism, and class. She used the lower-case spelling of her name to decenter herself and draw attention to her work instead. The focus of hooks' writing was to explore the intersectionality of race, capitalism, and gender, and what she described as their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and class domination. She published around 40 books, including works that ranged from essays, poetry, and children's books. She published numerous scholarly articles, appeared in documentary films, and participated in public lectures. Her work addressed love, race, social class, gender, art, history, sexuality, mass media, and feminism.
Postcolonial feminism is a form of feminism that developed as a response to feminism focusing solely on the experiences of women in Western cultures and former colonies. Postcolonial feminism seeks to account for the way that racism and the long-lasting political, economic, and cultural effects of colonialism affect non-white, non-Western women in the postcolonial world. Postcolonial feminism originated in the 1980s as a critique of feminist theorists in developed countries pointing out the universalizing tendencies of mainstream feminist ideas and argues that women living in non-Western countries are misrepresented.
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's social roles, experiences, interests, chores, and feminist politics in a variety of fields, such as anthropology and sociology, communication, media studies, psychoanalysis, political theory, home economics, literature, education, and philosophy.
Postmodern feminism is a mix of postmodernism and French feminism that rejects a universal female subject. The goal of postmodern feminism is to destabilize the patriarchal norms entrenched in society that have led to gender inequality. Postmodern feminists seek to accomplish this goal through opposing essentialism, philosophy, and universal truths in favor of embracing the differences that exist amongst women in order to demonstrate that not all women are the same. These ideologies are rejected by postmodern feminists because they believe if a universal truth is applied to all women of society, it minimizes individual experience, hence they warn women to be aware of ideas displayed as the norm in society since it may stem from masculine notions of how women should be portrayed.
Feminist sociology is an interdisciplinary exploration of gender and power throughout society. Here, it uses conflict theory and theoretical perspectives to observe gender in its relation to power, both at the level of face-to-face interaction and reflexivity within social structures at large. Focuses include sexual orientation, race, economic status, and nationality.
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw is an American civil rights advocate and a scholar of critical race theory. She is a professor at the UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, where she specializes in race and gender issues.
Barbara Creed is a professor of cinema studies in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of six books on gender, feminist film theory, and the horror genre. Creed is a graduate of Monash and La Trobe universities where she completed doctoral research using the framework of psychoanalysis and feminist theory to examine horror films. She is known for her cultural criticism.
Martha Albertson Fineman is an American jurist, legal theorist and political philosopher. She is Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law. Fineman was previously the first holder of the Dorothea S. Clarke Professor of Feminist Jurisprudence at Cornell Law School. She held the Maurice T. Moore Professorship at Columbia Law School.
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color is a feminist anthology edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa first published in 1981 by Persephone Press. The book centers on the experiences of women of color and emphasizes the points of what is now called intersectionality within their multiple identities, challenging white feminists who made claims to solidarity based on sisterhood. Writings in the anthology, along with works by other prominent feminists of color, call for a greater prominence within feminism for race-related subjectivities, and ultimately laid the foundation for third wave feminism. It is among the most cited books in feminist theory.
Angela McRobbie is a British cultural theorist, feminist, and commentator whose work combines the study of popular culture, contemporary media practices and feminism through conceptions of a third-person reflexive gaze. She is a professor of communications at Goldsmiths College, University of London.
A variety of movements of feminist ideology have developed over the years. They vary in goals, strategies, and affiliations. They often overlap, and some feminists identify themselves with several branches of feminist thought.
The personal is political, also termed The private is political, is a political argument used as a rallying slogan by student activist movements and second-wave feminism from the late 1960s. In the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, it was seen as a challenge to the nuclear family and family values. The phrase was popularized by the publication of feminist activist Carol Hanisch's 1969 essay, "The Personal Is Political." The phrase and idea have been repeatedly described as a defining characterization of second-wave feminism, radical feminism, women's studies, or feminism in general. It has also been used by some female artists as the underlying philosophy for their art practice.
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Diana Meyers is a philosopher working in the philosophy of action and in the philosophy of feminism. Meyers is professor emerita of philosophy at the University of Connecticut.
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Suzanna Danuta Walters is the director of the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and professor of sociology at Northeastern University, Boston. She is also the editor-in-chief of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society and the author of several books, including The Tolerance Trap: How God, Genes, and Good Intentions are Sabotaging Gay Equality. She is the author of the op-ed "Why can't we hate men?" in The Washington Post.
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All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave (1982) is a landmark feminist anthology in Black Women's Studies printed in numerous editions, co-edited by Akasha Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith.